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| The 128.Grenadiers marching through the East Prussian town of Lotzen. |
To take up the story where we left off:
Pictured above is our 'focus unit' of the former students, marching with their 128th Grenadiers though East Prussia towards their forward positions (roads courtesy of Doug H.). Old-timers will note that I'm using Airfix 1/72 World War I German Infantry for this. It gives those figs that were sitting in a storage bin a purpose in life. Plus, 20mm is a useful scale.
Strategic Level
It's August 21st, and Rennenkampf's Russian 1st Army has pushed its way into East Prussia. Samsanov's 2nd Army has yet to move, and is still trying to sort itself out just north of Warsaw in the Polish salient.
The way I've dealt with this solo-style is to use the historic deployments and initial moves, and then revert to the old-fashiond left-hand versus right-hand method. I guess I could get fancier if I wished.
It occured to me that If I wanted to run this with multi-players, I could have one player each handling the Russian 1st and 2nd Armies, and a player running the German 8th Army. I would use hidden deployment, but I wouldn't tell the players who was who. So, the German player would obviously know that the other two were the Russians, but those other two wouldn't -- at least not initially. So who do you trust?
In any case, here are the initial Russian moves and resulting battles:
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| August 21st. Initial Russian moves and attacks. |
In the south the Russian II Corps (Scheidemann) and two divisions of Guard cavalry have moved on Lotzen, hitting the German XVII Corps (von Mackensen). Since the XVII contains our 'focus unit', this battle will have to be resolved on the tabletop!
Operational Level
As I menioned in my previous post, I'll fight out operational level, tabletop battles using a set of homebrew rules which I tentatively call, 1914: The Men Who Would Be Fodder 😉.
I won't get into a tedious description of the mechanics of those rules here, but it might be useful to provide their introduction, just so you can get a sense of where they're coming from. Also, I always like to provide a heading called 'What is Being Modeled' in my introduction in order to keep me on track with my rules writing (thanks to Peter M. for that!).
Introduction
1914: The Men Who Would Be Fodder is an operational level set of miniatures rules attempting to model the relatively fluid opening stages of the First World War. The rules may also be used to game related conflicts, such as the Russo-Japanese War and the Balkan Wars.
Most Great War sets of rules tend to deal with low-level tactical actions, focusing on the minutiae of positional warfare up to the battalion level at the most.
Not so here. 1914: The Men Who Would Be Fodder puts the players in the role of army level commanders. The focus is not on trench lines, machinegun positions, or moving platoons and sending them to ground, but on finding the holes or flanks in the enemy’s position and exploiting those at the operational level. Importantly, there is an emphasis on the difficulties of command and control, with combat largely abstracted.
What is Being Modeled
"As late as the Franco-Prussian War (1870-71) and the South African War (1899-1902), battlefield Commander HQs had visual oversight of the action they were controlling. This was no longer the case by 1914. The increase in the range and lethality of small arms and artillery, combined with the expansion in the size of armies, made visual oversight of the battlefield impossible."
So writes Brian N. Hall in his Communications and British Operations on the Western Front 1914-1918, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2017.
In order to best reflect the above, the game attempts to represent a 1914 battle as a kind of ‘wind-up toy’. Tabletop generals make their plans, place their Staff Officers in the best position to keep an attack moving or to steady a defence, and then hope for the best -- fully in the knowledge that once an attack goes in immediate control of the battle will be largely lost. Especially if they have guessed it wrong!
An attempt has also been made to inject some flavour into the game by introducing ‘national characteristics’ at the command level.
I do love 'flavour' in a miniatures game! IMHO, a game without it is like macaroni and cheese without the cheese.
In terms of this, I’ve got four different national characteristics, or ‘temperment’ ratings for commanders: ‘Professional’, ‘Experienced’, ‘Duffer’, and ‘Bungling Butcher’ (ah, bungling butchers -- what would the First World War be without bungling butchers?).
You can research the commanders themselves and assign them a rating, or roll for it, with the result based on the army that they’re in. You can also use a combination of these two methods.
As a part of trying to find appropriate ratings for corps commanders, I’ve been re-reading Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s 1970 novel August 1914 (an excellent book almost entirely concerned with the Tannenberg campaign, and perfect for wargamers).
In it, he has two Russian staff officers privately discussing the merits of the various corps commanders in Samsonov’s 2nd Army.
‘I’ve never met Artamonov’ said Vorotyntsev.
‘Who has? Samsonov hasn’t met him either' answered Krymov. 'He was made a general and got his gold-hilted sword for beating a crowd of starving Chinese. Just like Kondratovich …’
‘Have you met Kondratovich yet?’
‘Not likely! He’s way back in the rear collecting his corps together. And a good thing, too. Notorious coward.’
‘Whom have you met lately?’
‘Martos.’
‘Good general, I hear.’
‘Good? Him? Terrified of the higher-ups and keeps his own staff twitching like puppets. He’s ruined the staff of XV Corps, they’re all exhausted already.’
‘What do you think of Blagoveshchensky?’
‘Sack of shit. Dripping wet shit, too. As for Klyuev, he’s not an officer, he’s a doddering old woman.’
‘What’s the Chief of Staff like here at I Corps Headquarters?’
‘Complete blockhead. Waste of time talking to him.’
Unable to restrain himself any longer, Vorotyntsev burst out laughing.
Based on this, I would probably have to rate all of the corps commanders in 2nd Army as ‘Duffers’. Samsonov, too.
I may as well post the temperment ratings of all the corps commanders. Army commander ratings are ommited, since I figure the gamers' running them would have plenty of temperment all their own 😉.
Russian 1st Army (Rennenkampf)
- II Corps (Scheidemann - BUNGLING BUTCHER)
- III Corps (Epanchin - DUFFER)
- IV Corps (Aliyev - DUFFER)
- XX Corps (Smirnov - DUFFER)
- 1st Guards Cavalry Division (Kaznakov - DUFFER)
- 2nd Guards Cavalry Division (Rauch - BUNGLING BUTCHER)
- 1st Cavalry Division (Gurko - EXPERIENCED)
- 2nd Cavalry Division (Nakhchivanski - BUNGLING BUTCHER)
- 3rd Cavalry Division (Belgard - BUNGLING BUTCHER)
Russian 2nd Army (Samsonov)
- I Corps (Artamanov - DUFFER)
- VI Corps (Blagovenchensky - DUFFER)
- XIII Corps (Klyuev - DUFFER)
- XV Corps (Martos - EXPERIENCED)
- XXIII Corps (Kandratovich - DUFFER)
- 4th Cavalry Division (Tolpygo - BUNGLING BUTCHER)
- 6th Cavalry Division (Roop - DUFFER)
- 15th Cavalry Division (Lyubomirov - DUFFER)
German 8th Army (von Prittwitz, then Hindenburg/Ludendorff (but in reality, CoS von Hoffmann was pretty much running things))
- I Active Corps (von Francois - BUNGLING BUTCHER)
- I Reserve Corps (von Below - EXPERIENCED)
- XVII Active Corps (von Mackensen - PROFESSIONAL)
- XX Active Corps (von Scholtz - DUFFER)
- 3rd Reserve Division (von Morgan - BUNGLING BUTCHER)
- Glotz Landwehr Division (von der Glotz - PROFESSIONAL)
- 1st Cavalry Division (Brecht - EXPERIENCED)
The Battle of Lotzen
So now that things have been mapped out, we can proceed with the first miniatures action of the campaign, the Battle of Lotzen.
The Russian II Corps and the 1st Guard Cavalry Division are attempting to force their way around the southern flank of the German 8th Army, with the German XVII Corps holding their ground. The terrain is flat, but broken up with some lakes and forested areas.
If the 6mm scale pictures below looks crowded, note that each 4" x 4" 'box' on the tabletop grid is 2 km by 2 km, with one inch equalling 500m. Artillery fire is ranged, but infantry and cavalry units contest boxes. (I'll switch to 5" x 5" boxes for some additional elbow room. Thanks to Doug H. for that idea.)
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| Battle of Lotzen is underway -- view looking east from behind the German position. Russians are advancing. 128th Grenadiers are in reserve behind the field on the right. |
The Russians have tried to send their Guard Cavalry around to their right, and the 101st Perm Regiment to the left. Both were held up by German Uhlans and Jaegers, so there's nothing for it but for Russian General Scheidemann to try and bash his way through!
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| View from behind the German lines. |
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| The former students of Marienwerder Gymnasium Oberschul sit in reserve behind a wheat field, along with the rest of the 128th Grenadiers. |
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| The 43rd Russian division advances on the German left, while a brigade from the 26th hits the centre ... |
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| and the Russian attack on the German centre collapses in bloody heaps ... |
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| but the 43rd presses on, and on, undeterred! |
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| The Grenadiers wait ... |
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| While it actually looks like the Russians are going to make a breakthrough! "Urra!" |
The battle has reached a crisis point. If the Germans withdraw the Russians will probably break through. The German batteries on the left have become unmasked and could be overrun. If von Mackensen elects to conduct a costly counterattack a failure could result in disaster. But nothing ventured, nothing gained, and he elects to hurl the German infantry -- including the 128th Grenadiers -- into the advancing Russians!
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| The Germans hurl themselves into the advancing Russians, who are also being hit by every German gun on the table! |
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| The brutal assault continues. |
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| The moment of glory for our students in the 128th has arrived, as they prepare to fling themselves upon the hoards of Muscovy! ... |
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| only to be met with volleys of Russian rifle fire. |
What I did was randomly mix up the 20 figures of Active Army student alumni with 44 other figures of Reservists making up the platoon. The former students (they have all graduated by now, after all) have ID numbers on the bottom of their bases. My Falling Leaves mini-rules converts hits by artillery, rifle, machinegun & close assaults generated on the larger table into random hits on the 20mm platoon. If a figure is hit, I knock him over to get his ID. Bad luck for some!
But it's all to the good. The Germans have thown back the already badly chewed up Russian 43rd division!
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| End of day, and the German line holds. |
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| "Miserable cowards! On your feet!" The Russian General-of-Infantry Scheidemann trys his hand at motivating the shattered 102nd Viatsk Regiment. |
So, at the end of day the German XVII Corps has taken substantial losses, while the Russian II Corps has suffered heavily and is in disarray. Von Mackensen can easily break contact and slip away, if need be.
But what of our boys in the128th Grenadiers?
Of our 20 brave lads: all surived the day, with the exception of the following:
- 05 BAUER -- Head blown to bits.
- 11 BRINKMANN -- Left leg shattered by rifle fire. Died on the field.
- 33 KOCH -- Head blown to bits.
- 37 KUHN -- Faked a wound. Return to duty.
- 38 LANG -- Left leg shattered by rifle fire. Survived amputation.
- 44 PFEIFFER -- Flesh wound. Return to duty.
Of the 44 other Reservists in the platoon, 5 were KIA, 5 seriously wounded, and 3 slightly wounded and returned to duty.
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| Poor Lang is headed for the Dressing Station. |
The above photo is probably a good candidate for admission to the catagory of 'Truly Tasteless Wargames' but, hey, I already had the figures. The padded bases may look a bit odd but in practice they're OK. They encourage lifting the figure by its base and not the body, and the foam helps stick the figure to the tablecloth on hills, common bases, etc.
So, what happens when the all 20 of them are out of the fight? The campaign ends, of course!
But for now, it goes on ...
