Friday
World war two naval game that I don't know anything about, hopefully Richard H (who ran the game) will give me some details.
Saturday
Players - Kravak (Cliff, Simon, Richard L) Humans (Margaret, Richard H)
The conclusion of Chris's Full Thrust campaign. The Kravak pushed further into human space and attacked one of the main human worlds. In the meantime the humans attacked one of the Kravak jump gates with a pair of heavy cruisers (plus a scout) against the light defences.
The Human attack was resolved first with two Vandenburg heavy cruisers against a Kotek strike cruiser and two Dakak heavy frigates. The Kravak advanced towards the humans in a wide spread formation with the two frigates attempting to outflank the humans. In response to this the two Vandenburg's turned outwards in an attempt to take out the lighter ships before the heavier Kotek could engage fully. The human commander was probably surprised at how successful this tactic turned out to be!
The Dakak on the right side of the Kravak formation was the first to be attacked. The human cruiser opened up at just over 1 foot range and scored four points of damage from six dice. This took the Kravak through two thresholds and the subsequent system checks disabled its fire control before it even got off a shot. A further point of damage inflicted the next turn as the Dakak zoomed past the Vandenburg, with its weapons officer desparately trying to discharge his almost intact weapons at the point blank target. The threshold check took out most of the remaining systems including the command systems which left the Kravak ship screaming away from the fight.
The Dakak on the Kravak left flank the suffered almost as much damage from the first volley, but at least managed to get a shot off before being destroyed by the second or third attack. The two heavy cruisers which were untouched were then able to close in on the hopelessly outmatched Kravak cruiser which got some hits in, but not enough to threaten either cruiser seriously, before being destroyed. This left the human forces free to destroy the jump gate as the only remaining Kravak ship was the Dakak (with a single hull box) which was thousands of kilometers away from the action.
The main engagement was something of a turkey shoot with the humans having one dreadnought and eleven battleships (plus escorts) against the Kravak's with two superdreadnoughts, two dreadnoughts and two battleships each of which was much bigger than the equivalent human class.
The human fleet broken down into two wings which split apart and tried to work around the Kravak flanks. The right and centre of the Kravak fleet concentrated on the human left flank, leaving the other third of their force to engage the human right flank. The human left flank was overwhelmed by sheer weight of firepower, with the Kravaks disabling or destroying the equivalent of one battleship a turn when they got into range. They did manage to get off a reasonable amount of damage and reduced one of the Kravak superdreadnoughts to below half strength. Although the other flank engagement was more even, the hitting power of the Kravak weapons was again telling.
Sunday
Players - French (Chris [Reynier], Ian [Oudinot] and Richard L[Bertrand & Arrighi]) Allies (Margaret [Swedes & Russians], Richard H [Prussians])
September 1813 - an strong allied force of Russians, Prussians and Swedes attacked a poor quality French force. The French main advantage lay in the fact that they were concentrated at the start whereas the allies only had one (very large) corps deployed with two others in the process of entering the field. The allies began to attack at 4:00 pm and the French aim was to hold out until nightfall.
The French commanders conferred and when they had agreed that there was no way they could possibly win due to the appalling quality of their troops, decided that their only chance lay in a decisive attack on the already deployed Prussian corps, before the Russians and Swedes could bring their forces to bear. To do this they determined to advance agressively with Betrand's corps which was their centre and right flank. Supporting this was Arrighi's cavalry corps whose orders were to sweep through the infantry lines and fall apon the Prussian infantry. Oudinot's corps was to follow up and exploit the hoped for breakthrough. On the left flank the French and Saxon's of Reynier's corps were ordered to hold the Russian corps advancing on them for as long as possible, but at minimum for two hours.
Betrand's corps advanced boldly and moved to within a few hundred yards of the Prussian position straddling a low hill, closely followed by the cavalry of Arrighi's corps. The Prussians countered by bringing up the cavalry from their and placing it in support of the threatened part of their line. The French cavalry rode through the lines of their infantry as ordered and must have surprised the Prussian infantry as they caught them before they were able to form squares except for a few isolated cases. The cavalry, supported by Betrand's infantry swamped the Prussians routing numerous units and creating a huge gap in the Prussian line. Even the French commanders were dumb-struck at their success and Oudinot's troops hurried forward to try and capitalise before the even increasing Russian and Swedish forces could engage their flanks.
Betrand and Arrighi's troops fought vicious back and forth battles over the next two hours trying to widen the gap in the Prussian line enough for Oudinot's approaching infantry to pass through and threaten the Allied rear, but the Prussian troops on either sides of the gap fought valiantly, gradually reinforced with troops pulled from other parts of the line. As this battle raged, the lead Russian troops began to apply pressure to Reynier's corps causing casualties and slowly forcing them back - the pressure increased as more and more troops, most of them cavalry closed on the French forcing them to fall back on a small group of farm buildings. The Russian advantage in cavalry was telling and increased dramatically when artillery fire from Bulow's Prussians scattered the only cavalry regiments on the French left flank.
As the French were being driven back on their left, the fight in the centre began to go in their favour. The arrival of Oudinot's corps to support them (particularly the batteries of heavy guns which began to play on the Prussian centre) encouraged Betrand and Arrighi's corps and they were eventually able begin to force the Prussians out of their position and after more heavy fighting the Prussians corps began to crumble - just as the casualties they had inflicted on the corps opposing them were mounting to dangerous numbers and the French were beginning to plan a retreat.
As night fell the Prussians were retiring in fairly good order in the centre under pressure from the bulk of the French forces, while the Russians were steadily driving in the French left flank. Throughout the battle very little needs to be said about the role of the Swedes on the Allied left flank - they were very tired from a long approach march and only very slowly pushed back the two divisions of Betrand's corps which were holding the flank - the only significant casualties suffered by these divisions were a brigade of cavalry and another of infantry both mauled by well aimed long range artillery and (British) rocket fire.
The French were able to claim a significant victory, in that they drove back and broke the Prussian corps and forestalled a co-ordinated Allied attack on their own positions. Their victory owes itself two to main factors, first the successful cavalry attack that opened the battle and the very slow advance of the Swedes, who would have at the very least stabilised the Prussian position if not actually turned the tables on the French.