Here you can see the Prussian centre (see radar map) fighting against my diversonary force. Notice that by this time, Bill couldn't see all the troops that are coming in the background (left). And I couldn't see that he had a second line behind his first! On the radar map, you can see that my force is concentrated on Bills left flank.
The flank attack is coming. Not in a very coordinated manner though. Originally, I was marching too far to the right, so once I detected Bills flank, I hurried my force back to the centre, which resulted in this "march" column which arrived on the battlefield bit by bit rather than as a line ready to strike. It was a bad flank attack, I have to admit...It was a kind of small scale "Leuthen gone wrong"
View from behind Bills right wing. I had a short glimpse on the second line here. To the left, my grenadier battalion is opening the flank attack.
Here the flank attack is in full swing. You can see how Bills second line moves to the left to counter my attack (two battalions on the left hand side). His army is split in two by the wood.
You know, you shouldn't advance your battalions in columns...
There might be a masked battery of 12pdrs around that sends your column flying with the first discharge...Happy enfilading! According to the scale, those 4 12pdr-balls took out 48 men.
Another view on the flank attack, Bills reserve battalions still keep arriving. In fact, I think my flank attack could have failed horribly because of Bill deploying deep in two lines. After reviewing the replay, it was not the flank attack that prooved to be successfull. In fact I never fully enveloped Bills reinforced flank. Rather, it was the mistake of deploying Jägers in the centre of Bills line that cost him this engagement. You can see the Jägers to the right, between the wood and Bills line.
Who would succeed and outflank his opponent? My flank attack force keeps trickling, just as Bills reserves. On both sides, the lines grow longer and longer...
Now here is the crucial moment. The Jägers give way under the impression of artillery fire, opening a wide gap in Bills centre. As he had shifted all his reserves to the left in order to counter the flank attack, I guess he didn't have anything left to fill the gap which was big enough for 2 battalions. Or at least he had nothing close enough while I was already there!
View from the Austrian backfield
Now apparently Bill had noticed the gap in his centre (and I was already pushing into the gap). Notice how my line develops into an arrow on the radar map.
It seems as if Bill did this strange manoeuvre in order to close the gap and reestablish a conistent line (bad memories of cavalry break-throughs?
). He started to shift his whole left-wing-line of three battalions to the right. This manoevre, carried out under enemy fire, was what actually did the job and break the Prussians. Maybe, if Bill had changed formation first (so that the line had kept its form - basically a column of three files), instead of pivoting all the battalions by 90°, it could have succeeded. It was risky either way. I assume that a lots of threatened-flank-morale mali set in here, and once the first battalion routed, panic spread.
The Prussian left wing is routing, the Austrians advance. Now, one important factor of the battle was that the Prussian left wing routed "away" from the right wing (in the picture: to the left), so that I had to decide which part of the army I wanted to follow. I chose the unbroken right wing, believing that I'd be able to destroy it with my stronger force before the left wing could rally and re-enter the fight. Well.....The disperse-rally-surround-phenomenon struck me again...the Grenzers I sent after them didn't stop the Prussians from rallying, whereas my attack was severely delayed by the stupid woods....You have to wait until your line is ready before you attack...if one battalion is missing in the centre, you can't advance!
Push through the centre, capture the gun! The Prussian battalion on the right hand side is not routing. Bill ordered it back, like the rest of his right wing. This turned out to be an excellent decision!
The captured guns and the flank after the flank attack ...
The hill of fate and defeat, where the still intact Prussian right wing was to rally around the 12pdrs...
The Prussian cavalry wins my left flank.
The Prussian sacrifice. These guys had formed square in order to delay my troops. As you can tell from the carnage, they did a great job!
The Austrians launch a desperate but uncoordinated attack on the hill. I had no chance to push through the gap between Bills lines. Notice how the centre of my line was delayed by the wood and therefore is lagging behind. You can also see the heap of dead where the Prussian square had made its stand to delay me. To the right of this szene (in the radar-map: south), the rallied Prussian left wing was already advancing.
The 12pdrs played on the disordered Austrians.
The final scene before a big part of the Austrians turned tail and General Kaunitz sounded the general retreat.
On the right hand side you can see the Prussian left wing closing in. On the left, you can see some Prussian horse that fell in on a routed battalion just a few moments later and took its colours.
The Austrians are disengaging. We played out the disengagement until I reached the end of the battle map, which was really nice. My Grenzers held the Prussian Jägers at bay, while my grenadiers escorted my 12pdr-artillery train and detered the Cuirassiers that were following and looking only a few hundred yards away...All in all, I think the whole engagement took us about 1,5 - 2 hours.
the Austrian command ----------------------^
Re: The "Kaunitz Project" for vanilla-ETW [test version already available!]
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From a historical perspective, siege battles in ETW are broken from scratch. Instead of proper sieges, including the digging of parallell circumvallation-trenches and small zig-zag approachment-trenches, skirmishing (here we would have needed the grenades!) around the covered way (which - like the ditch - is totally lacking in ETWs fortress), we get a fortress that resembles more a medieval city wall than a vauban-style or even a renaissance fortress, and spiderman-soldiers. If the best way to defend a fortress is to abandon the walls and dig in at the "town square", something has definitively gone very wrong...
