Retreat from Moscow - 25mm Baden Hussars

 

Back in May I painted up the Hessian Chevau Leger for my and Lee's Retreat from Moscow madness and I asked the question, "Do I paint up the Baden Hussars as well????" Both understrength regiments fought together to help defend the Crossing of the Berezina.....and of course the answer was yes to painting them up!!!

My Baden Hussars are made up from 3 packs of Perry Miniatures, Pack FN178, Cavalry Skirmishing, Pack FN189 French Light Cavalry and FN190 Hessian Chevau Legers, I painted the figures at least a 6 weeks ago, but with the move I just haven't had the time to post the pics.

These first proper set of photos, using my and Lee's snowy mat. I think the mat and the bases match in quite well.

Now for the history bit....

When Napoleon began his invasion of Russia he demanded around 6,700 men from Baden to fight. Apart from a battalion assigned to the imperial headquarters, the contingent under Major General William of Hochberg formed a brigade in Marshal Victor's IX Corps. The corps was assembled in Tilst and spent August 1812 there. Illnesses and the unusual weather with its rapid changes affected the soldiers and reduced the strength of the corps by around a sixth before they even left. The corps finally marched off on 30 August, via Wilna (8 September) and Minsk (15 September) reaching Smolensk on 28 September. On 31 October, the Baden Brigade fought in the Battle of Chashniki and lost 20 men killed and wounded. In the following days there were further skirmishes between the IX and II Corps of the French Army and the Russian Army under Wittgenstein, which tried to attack the rear of the main French army retreating from Moscow.

The corps then also retreated under rearguard action, and on 26 November it met the remnants of the army coming from Moscow near Borisov. The strength of the Baden Brigade at this time was still 2,240 men and thus around a third of the original force. On 28 November the Battle of Berezina took place, in which the IX Corps, east of the river, faced Wittgenstein's army. The Baden Brigade was west of the river at this point, but was ordered back to the corps early in the morning, great confusion occurring at the river crossings. The Baden Brigade then formed the right wing of the IX Corps, their position ran from the Berezina to Studyanka. In fierce fighting, the infantry succeeded in repelling the Russian attacks. Losses were very high, more than 1,100 men were killed or wounded, leaving the brigade with a strength of only 900 after fighting ended. The Baden Hussars, reinforced by Hessian Chevau-legers, broke up a column of Russian infantry and took 500 prisoners, but was then wiped out by Russian cuirassiers. It lost the majority of its officers and around 150 soldiers and was then only a few men strong. After this bloody rearguard action, the IX Corps crossed the Berezina on the morning of 29 November and destroyed the bridge behind it

In the years that followed, the Baden Brigade continued to function as the rear guard of the army. Further battles and above all the extreme cold claimed more and more lives. William of Hochberg later wrote:

7th December was the worst day of my life. At 3 o'clock in the morning the marshal ordered the march; the cold had sunk to its lowest point - when the signal was to be given, the last drum had frozen solid. So I now went round the individual soldiers and encouraged them to get up and collect themselves, but all efforts were in vain, I could hardly gather 50 men, the rest of 200-300 men lay dead or half-frozen on the ground.

William of Hochberg, Memoranda of General of Infantry, Margrave William of Baden

Indeed a sad fate.

Wagons Ho!!!! A small purchase

 

A few weeks ago, I purchased these wagons form Teemu, my eldest daughter told me off, as I shouldn't be ordering from these horrid people, (her words not mine)

But all these for £4.50, I couldn't say no?

Not sure, I'll use this one as it looks Medieval??

But all the others look like they'll make great cover for either the French or Russians in my and Lee's Retreat from Moscow project.

They are a tad big though, I guess they're not 25/28mm, but I'm still going to use them.

You can see the size difference better by the size of the horses! They're either a bigger size or just very well fed, I doubt its the later!!

So all in all a bargain purchase me thinks......just gotta dig them out from Posties shed when I can and give them a lick of paint. I've no idea when that's gonna happen though????

Literally "Setting the Scene"

 

As followers of this blog you will already know about my and Lee's Retreat from Moscow project. 

With all the figures nearly complete it was time to turn to terrain, we already bought the rivers and tree bases and mat, as seen in our previous posts. But ideas have been buzzing around my head since we started painting the figures, I've done my research online and found loads ideas, notably from Mark's blog, 1866 and all that.

Then I found Pat Smith blog again, that's been inactive since 2020, Wargaming with Silver Whistle, I used to follow Pat's building prowess religiously, as I'm sure some of you did. Not sure where or what Pat's up to knowadays??? Anyway I remembered I bought his first book, Setting the Scene Winter Wargaming,  so I scanned my wargaming library and couldn't find the book anywhere???? Panic set in.......so I out a message out on Facebook if anyone had one they wanted to sell. I had an answer in a couple of days a chap called Ian, was willing to part with his copy, only problem was he lives in Melbourne, Australia!!! There's me thinking the postage is gonna cost as much as the book itself, but Ian had other plans. His cousin was over visiting from Wales and was going back home the next week. So Ian's cousin packed up the book and also Pat's next book vol 2, the Mediterrain, (it would have been rude not to!), and took them home to Swansea, where they then posted them to me!!!

The Wargaming world is a luvvly thing, isn't it!!

Ian then told me he also has a blog, but its not been updated for a while, This 28mm Life, which I'd visited and commented on many many time. What a small world we all live in!!

So I thought I'd take a few photos of the books and let them to the talking, both books are a must and well worth the cost and miles!!

Thanks Ian!!

WWII Batrep - The Putot Counter Attack 1944 - The Canadians in Normandy

 

Five Rejects got together at Reject Dan's house over the weekend, (we can't meet up in Posties Shed at the moment, coz its full of all my wargaming crap!) Reject Richard posted his version of events here, yesterday around 2 hours after the game, think he's trying to outblog Lee, even though Lee wasn't even there!!!

Dan had been giving Rapid Fire Reloaded a try, as he used to play these back in the day with his late Dad, Malcolm.

He was using a scenario from this fab book above.

And here's the map and scenario......

myself and Postie played the part of the Canadians, while Richard and Steve were the Germans. We had to set up in the red area, the Germans in the blue, all we had to do was take the town!!

From the OOB, it looks like it should be easy, doesn't it?

Well for a start we didn't know what the Germans had or where they set up, so we had to go searching for them.

The battlefield

And with our deployment.......this was my first ever game of Rapid Fire and Posties second, now I must admit I've not played much WWII, so am a tad out of touch with all the terms, weapons and style of play. But that's not gonna stop us!

As we didn't know where they were, my 3 Sherman's began to trundle forward to the centre of the table. Followed by A & B companies infantry.

Our HQ, sitting looking very pretty.

Postie set up on the road on our right.

We planned to move our front Carrier as far and as quickly forward as we could, to see if we could uncover the enemy.

In the first turn we threw down some smoke, to obscure our movement, on the road above the first tank is a blank base. The German's had placed I think 8 of theses bases down, if we got within 12 inches they would be uncovered as either troops or a blank???

Forward!!!

Posties C Company Carrier surged forward and dismounted the vehicle, they're in 12 inches of the base on the road beyond???

Posties other troops moved forward, while the mortar team got ready to shoot, if we could find anything to shoot at, that is?

My infantry crossing the field.

The card wasn't a blank? It turned out to be 2 PAK 40's and a 150mm Infantry Gun!

Oh dear, Ricard's newly uncovered artillery tales a shine to one of my Sherman's!

On our left I'm moving our artillery observer into the house, to see if we an bomb something and our HQ head the same way, we need to get their mortar firing.

We're still none the wiser as to where the German's are hiding, but surly they must be in the town?

We both advance....

We don't seem to be having a lot of luck shooting?

Aha! He's a bit obscured, but Postie moves up our carrier, centre right behind the tree, to try and spot the enemy.

And gets blown up for his trouble, but at least we now know where they are. Like we thought, there's a horde hiding in the building in front of the burning carrier.

A view from the German right. Steve's Infantry and ATT gun are waiting in the orchard.

In for what for us, was a lucky shot Postie destroyed one of the German guns, so the other 2 limbered up and looked for a btter place to fire from.

I waited a turn for my infantry to catch up.

I need to keep 6 inches away from the building on the tanks right, to keep out of Panzerschreck range. 

A view of the whole table

Where do I head for?

Fire!!!!

Ricard moves his artillery into the orchard.

While his other gun is still on fire.

Hmm? I'm not liking the position of that gun. But try as we could neither me or Postie could do any damage to it.

Time to take a chance and move forward.

Postie moves his infantry up to try and shoot at the gun, but misses.

I fired as well, I couldn't hit a barn door if it was a inch from my face!!

But the German's can do no wrong.....my second Sherman goes up in flames.

oh crap, the third Sherman is destroyed the same turn. 

What we gonna do now?

The attack stalls....

I said to Dan, if my tanks was blown up and on fire in the cornfield, would the cornfield go up in flames as well.

Yes, was the answer.

It was quite clear that we were not gonna make our objective, so we beat a retreat, to live and fight again another day.

Conclusion

What an absolute disaster!!!

The Canadians lost - 8 infantry, 1 Piat team, 1 Carrier but the bitter pill, 3 Shermans!

The Germans lost - 1 PAK 40, so it was a bit of a drubbing.......

I didn't hit a thing for the whole game, my dice throwing was the worst its ever been, Posties wasn't that much better, but at least he destroyed a PAK 40 . We had plenty of opportunities to shoot but failed nearly every time, it was very frustrating I can tell you!!!. 

But what can I say about the game and the rules......well I must admit I really enjoyed both, the rules, were fairly easy to pick up, I will need a few games under my belt to understand them better and to work out how tactics work in the rules. The scenario was pretty cool too, but unachievable, because of our crap dice. If we'd have thrown average dice, it would have been a completely different game. Its crazy that the Rejects have never really got into WWII, we dabbled in micro scale 30 years ago, Lee has his 6mm Desert War and What a Tanker, but I'm looking forward to giving Rapid Fire another go soon. 

So well done Dan on a great days gaming, Please burn those god awful yellow dice though!