MacKenzie's Heights 1854 Crimean Batrep......

....or the poor bloody ill equipped Russians!

The Rejects gathered for the first time this year last Saturday for a fictional Crimean wargame, John, Surjit and Ray playing the Allies, myself, BigLee and Ian playing the Russians, the teams were picked beforehand.

Most of my pictures will be the Russian point of view as Ray and BigLee have batreps on their blogs (Ray is turning his into a version of War and Peace).

The Russians were in defence building siege lines and redoubts and the Allies were scouting to find and destroy them........let shenanigans commence!

Some of the intial Russian deployment on the heights.......

........and the rest, you can see that the redoubts are not complete......

The Allies initial deployment that I could have screwed up if I had rolled a 2 or better, fickle dice gods......

Contractual Postie shot, up close and personal......

BigLee's cossacks, never to attack unless the other units routing or showing it's flank or rear and you're really close!

Russian sappers giving it the big one filling in large gaps in our defences.....

Ray putting on a brave drug enhanced face due to back pain (he had bent down to pick up his wallet and pulled something), there was not a lot of sympathy from the Russians or his allies......

A Russian heavy gun prepares to unleash hell......

Sappers are still at it, the number on the paper is what had been thrown on an average dice, this was done every turn until 20 was reached and another piece was completed....the rocks denote impassable terrain.

The Russians deploy and change formation to counter the cowardly but sensible Allied tactics....

Ian's troops turn to my right and deploy for battle.....

The thin red well armed line....

The Russian left flank.....

The Russian right flank.....

The rest of BigLee's cavalry and horse artillery arrive on the Allied right flank.....

The cossacks sneaking through the woods......

The Allies deployed and never moved further than this, they had rifled muskets with a range of 15" while the Russians had muskets with a range of 9".

Ian's knee heals well after surgery even with my attempts to put him back into rehab with pokes and kicks.....

One of the highlights from the game for the Russians, giving the allies heavy horse a slapping.....

The cossacks were lured out of the woods by the Coldstream guards showing their flank, the cossacks couldn't resist and took out a quarter of the guards out in the action and then pursued and hit a cavalry regiment but died to a man....

The other cossacks took out this artillery and then....

...took on a guards regiment in square and died to a man.....

By this stage Postie was shattered physically and mentally, mostly Ray's fault as he whined so much (lunch had been pasties, oven fries and garlic bread) and a draw/minor victory for the Russians was declared and accepted by both sides!

The difficulty with the rules was the range of the allied weapons, they stayed at 10" and whittled the Russians down (moving back and forward to keep the 10" range while the Russians 9" range counted for feck all, this is historically accurate and the Russians never really won any engagements during the war but it's hard to deal with in a wargame that's hard to win but it was a good fun day with the usual banter, laughter among the Rejects and racism(Ian, it's why he was in pain for a lot of the game).......it's why we play mainly.

Posties Rejects:15mm Crimean Wargame Report(Picture and word heavy)

BATTLE OF CHOULIOU RIVER,27TH NOVEMBER 1854.

Posties rejects turned up for a game last saturday of an action in the crimea between french and britsh forces facing a russian attack at the chouliou river in the crimea(battle is fictional but river existed at the time and there was fighting near the area).There were 4 players and Postie as umpire(commands were picked out of a hat at beginning of game,
Surjit: French forces (Allied Commander)
John: British forces
Smithy: Russian Commander (1st brigade)
Me: Russian second in command (2nd brigade)
FORCES:
French: 2nd infantry division(part),1st brigade:7th line, 3rd zouaves(elite), 1st chasseurs a pied(elite), a battery each of heavy and medium guns and an attached cavalry brigade of the 1st/4th chasseurs d'Afrique(elite).
British: 3rd infantry division,1st brigade:1st,38th and 50th line,2nd brigade:4th, 28th and 44th line, 2 batteries of medium guns plus an attached cavalry brigade of the 17th lancers, 4th light dragoons and 8th hussars(elite) and a battery of light horse artillery.

Russian:16th infantry division, 1st brigade, Vladimir and Susdal line regiments plus 2 batteries each of heavy and light guns and an attached cavalry brigade of the 11th/12th Hussars plus 53rd Don Cossacks(conscript).
2nd brigade, Uglutz and Kazan line regiments, 6th schutzen battalion(elite) and 2 reserve batteries of heavy and light guns.

The rules we use are a variation of General De Brigade with house rule changes,the ammo on all artillery is limited(especially shell), the russian units were larger(20 figures to 16 of the allies) but all had muskets(9" range) compared to british and french rifled muskets(15" range).
A brief description of the battle, the russian commander in chief did not come off the hill until it was too late, I got bogged down at the bridge and only got over with my schutzen battalion(skirmishers with rifled muskets) my reserve artillery arrived too late to influence anything.The russian cavalry(huge units of 24 figures) got hammered by britsh and french cavalry and left the game/board(all 3 of them).The russian infantry got outdistanced by the range of the french muskets(the british infantry only arrived at the end turn to deliver 1 devastating volley), the french would move out of our effective range and fire back in theirs.The battle ended when we called a halt to the misery and on points they won 10-4, good game but frustrating on a period I quite like.

Initial set up with the russians on the left.

 

My brigade approaches the bridge of death and despair.

Russian 1st brigade initial set up.

The british forces with cavalry out front(part of the light brigade)

My Uglutz boys crossing the bridge with the schutzen in front,the bridge was the furthest my formed units got.

The first unit took 50% casualties failed its morale went straight back through everything else and disordered them aswell(the yellow markers).

Massed russian cavalry heading off to engage the british and french cavalry.

The disaster at the bridge(the green markers signify march column and white signifies first fire)

Before the first round of combat.

After the first round of combat(something is missing).

My reserve artillery pushing forward but too late.

The russian first brigade engaging the french and british but with horrendous losses.

French and british cavalry finishing off the 12th hussars(3 to 1).

A picture at the end of my schutzen behind the french redoubt(far smaller unit by then) but its my only positive for the russians the whole game.The dice rolling was horrendous on our part but we won iniative nearly every turn but a game is a game and all thanks to Postie(I hope you enjoy the report and apologise for any mistakes I may have written).