[ETW AAR] 1st Battle for Tangier - Battle report - NO PICS

**♔GrinningManiac♔** · April 10, 2009, 05:32 PM

General Enrique de Leon was a man of great standing in the Spanish Republic, much to his own annoyance. He had served under the King in Gibraltar, whiling away those long, warm days firing the occasional cannon at Moroccan ships that strayed too near the coastline. Boredom, and hence drink, had taken hold long before the November Revolt, and he was frankly surprised to one day find out old Carlos was dead and now the “People” were in charge. The King was a fool, an inbred victim of class, but at least he was content with the way things were, at least he wasn’t ambitious. Suddenly some politician was at the other end of his pay check and de Leon didn’t know what was what anymore. Next thing he knew, “the people of Spain” were the rightful rulers of the heathen lands across the way, and de Leon was to be their hero, leading the Spanish People to the new dawn. His name, they said, would go down in history. Names, de Leon had thought bitterly, names like “de Leon’s last stand”. The fact that the Moroccans were outmoded desert people hadn’t occurred to the bigwigs. “You have muskets, my man! Strike down the heathens!” Yes, muskets were all well and good, but their effectiveness suffered when the ‘heathen masses’ had all but clogged up the barrels with bodies. De Leon had seen earlier attempts through Algiers, flanking manoeuvres that had failed horrendously ‘cus the hordes kept coming.
“Sir!” saluted his staff. De Leon came around from his daydream, slumped over the battle plans.
“Yrm?” he groaned, eyes bleary and bloodshot.
“…the men are ready, sir. The battle is coming underway”
“Oh…well, suppose we ought to put on a show…” said de Leon. Brigadier Rivera nodded solemnly. The man was like-minded to de Leon, and they both knew defeat and destruction was likely inevitable. Rising from his chair like an ancient corpse, General de Leon stepped into the sun. it was long and red, teasing long shadows out from underneath the smallest of objects. It was the kind of sky you only saw in paintings about losing.

The men were just as worried as de Leon, though they had the blind optimism in their eyes that suggested they knew de Leon would have some ace up his sleeve, some grand scheme to save the day. Well, that had worked in Flanders, but not today, friends.
“General marching out!” screamed a drilling voice. The men stood to attention, the furious clicking of a thousand heels dropped a weight into de Leon’s stomach. They really believed in me. Colours were unfurled, some of which de Leon recognised. The Regimiento de Noviembre, the Democrática de España, the Diablos de la 16th, even the Españo Cargo, bright white tunics gleaming in the blood-like sunlight. A mournful little tune played out on some bugle somewhere. De Leon hurt inside. He was used to sending men to their deaths, fully knowing they were a distraction or bait. But never before had he sent them into the maw of battle alongside them without him giving the order. If he made it out of here, the Emperador would pay.
“Sir!” screamed another voice. It followed along the line to his left, confusion breaking out behind it. A drummer-boy ran up, eyes wild and frightened.
“Speak, boy” rapped Rivera.
“The enemy has moved in the night, sir. They do not approach from the east!”
“What? Where?” broke out the rabble amongst eavesdropping soldiers.
“They come over the hills yonder, sir; they seek to flank the army!” he panted. De Leon whipped round to face the enemy. Robed assailants poured down the ridges of the mountain peaks, fearsome desert calls bouncing off the ancient rock. An anger stirred in the otherwise bleak depths of de Leon’s soul.
“What? Damn the devils, to hell with it all. Companies about face! Quick-step, face the enemy. Let them look in your eyes, men! They shall witness oblivion!”

The orderly line broke into chaos. Cannon was limbered where possible, men grabbed sacks of ball and shot, confused orders rang out from the various lieutenants. Rivera dashed down the line, forming a ad hoc line of integrated artillery. The men were stationed into two-deep companies, the second line ordered to hold fire until advanced. The first wave was almost upon them, and, like the sound of thunderbolts, the People’s Republic of Spain opened fire as one.

Desert people dropped like stones before the line. The second line passed through their fellows as they reloaded and unleashed the second volley. Canister shot flew down the hill like a small hailstorm of lead, almost lifting men off the ground with their force. De Leon’s voice took over from his brain and unleashed a constant barrage of orders without consent from his consciousness. This gave him enough time to think and survey, and he used it to check his flanks. White terror gripped him as he saw Corsairs from the Barbary coast charge his flank-side cannon. The screaming infidels clashed with the cannon. It was going to be Amsterdam all over again, but this time from the receiving end. His brain tried to do several things at once which clashed together and sent him into a lockdown of clear thought. He could only watch as the pirates would rip through the line, flanking at every turn and sowing the seeds of fear amongst the otherwise sturdy Spaniards. Only, they didn’t. something happened, and de Leon would spend the rest of his idle days pondering over what, but whatever it was, the Pirates gave the order to pull back and regroup. They turned, obediently and without want to rout, and left the cannons untouched, not a single man even grazed. De Leon was quite sure that, if he had looked the other way, he would have never known the contact had been made. Canister was fired on the pirates’ backs as they ran and sent a dozen sprawling. Just as the cannons began to reload, however, de Leon spotted cavalry making it’s way towards the left again. The lines could not take on such horse, and they threatened to ruin the line like the corsairs nearly did. With little time to think, he grabbed Rivera’s attention.
“Brigadier, rally the cavalry, with me!” he bellowed, and, sabre drawn, he charged at the Moroccan horse.

There was a boom of sound as horse collided with horse. They were close enough now that de Leon could recognise the cavalry as a General’s staff. So the Moroccan general had seen it fit to charge the lines himself. De Leon knew the trouble a dead general could cause to an army, so he wasn’t one to complain. He parried, swiped and blocked for some time, the combatants evenly matched. Eventually there was a whinny and a cry of despair in the distance, and suddenly the two most important men in the Moroccan army fell still. The cavalry retreated, minus two generals. The brief skirmishes were over, it appeared, and the Moroccans would probably go back to head-on drown-them-in-our-bodies tactics, but nevertheless, de Leon stationed the Caballeria del Pueblo as a flank guard before returning to his command post.

Camel raiders had been attempting to run around the back of the hill’s northwest corner, by the village, and had met sturdy resistance from the Divina de Dios Regimiento, the sturdy Irishmen standing true against the bizarre and frightening creatures. De Leon slumped in his saddle for an hour or so, listening to the repeated drills of “Prime, About, Present, Fire!” and “Company will advanced, damnit!”. Once he heard the Diablos give the enemy a taster of the new national anthem as they reloaded. It was strangely fitting, though the constant cannonfire drowned it out for the most part. Suddenly there was an almighty roar of flame and a few men and horse fell over from the shockwaves. De Leon’s horse faltered and he was forced to reign it back in. Rivera galloped over, followed by a few charred-looking cannon crew.
“Sir, it’s the second cannon!”
“What of it?” de Leon demanded. Things had been going so well…
“They’ve exploded sir!”
“Good god, how? Is anyone hurt?”
“No-one sir, they ran back when they saw it. They say they think it’s because the cannon was being fired quicker than the metal could cool. The newest batch of gunpowder ignited before they could prime it.”
“Very well. Company “Guardias de Barcelona” will fall back to camp, have the militia plug the gap.”
“Yessir”.

De Leon sank back into his seat once more. A playful little smile danced across his face. We fired faster than metal could cool, he thought, faster than fire, eh? Not accurate, but catchy enough for those slogan-spewing morons back home. He looked at the battlefield, and saw nought but the backs of fleeing enemy heads.

This war just got interesting.

…This was the initial battle for Tangier. The Moroccans, unable to get to Gibraltar due to my fleets hanging around the land bridge, had spammed stacks galore. Several earlier attempts to tackle the multi-stacks of Camel, Pirate and Nomads had ended terribly, so this time around I saved the battle beforehand and had a crack at it, fully expecting defeat and just looking to break up the campaign map occasionally.

Then this happened. I moved de Leon and his large army around the back of Tangier, not actually seiging it. I knew that if the multiple stacks were in reach of each other, I would have full armies reinforcing behind me or something. Instead, I had a small force attack me head-on, and the main army, with two generals, both attack from my northern map edge (if you assume, as I did in this battle, that the starting position faced east). I had to swivel my entire force around and take them. I knew they weren’t much danger alone, but if they reached my lines and stopped them firing, then more could reach me unhindered and that’s when it falls apart. This time around, I watched a replay, and found that some Barbary pirates really did attack my artillery then pull back without killing one of them. Had they continued, I would have had two unguarded flanks at the time, and then the above would have happened.

I played most of the battle in slow-motion to get the timings of the Fire by Company (courtesy of Coman) just right, slicing off the wasteful seconds of re-moving units.

The cannons really did all explode towards the end, through over-use. It was an epic battle not unlike Helms Deep from the book and film if you imagine that instead of whatshisface and Gandalf charging down the hill it was Moroccans and I was a slightly more noble Orc army.

I now have morocco, and have just taken Algiers today. Sadly, the brilliant Brigadier Nicholas Rivera was repositioned in Antigua later that year, where, after a horrible naval skirmish, he was left stranded on an army of bum-rushing pirates. It was sad to see him go, at the same time as a good admiral of mine who passed away in the south china sea from old age. Morocco has since rebelled because of my insistence that they accept Catholicism as the One True Faith.

No pics, I didn’t take any, they wouldn’t look that pretty (low-spec brown fields, brown-clothed enemys vs. dirty yellow Spain (WILL download retexture at some point)

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