Narrative OHW Campaign Battle 2: Battle of Lochmire

Campaign Briefing, Battle 02:

Following the success of the Dutch Army at Fernbrae, its leader, General de Ruyter ordered a somewhat leisurely pursuit of the Spanish force towards its Lochmire, where it was besieging that important town, its castle and its Scottish garrison. The Spanish commander, General Sarsfield, covering his retreat with his powerful cavalry arm, moved his main body back towards Lochmire to focus on the siege. However, De Ruyter, screening the Franco-Spanish cavalry with his own, conducted a surprise march to attack a portion of the Spanish lines outside Lochmire.  Sarsfield scribbled an order to an aide, telling him to present it to the commander of his brigade of Dragoons and to return to Lochmire post-haste. Meanwhile, his troops prepared to resist the Dutch attack.

Forces:

The Dutch Army:

C-in-C: General de Ruyter

1st Brigade (C. Murray): Colyear's, Lauder's, Murray's Foot Regts

2nd Brigade (D. Saxe-Weimar): Portmore's Foot Regt, Saxe-Weimar Dragoons, de Vries' Foot Battery,

Garrison: 42nd Foot

Murray's and Colyear's regiments are Veteran, Portmore's is Raw.

The Spanish Army:

C-in-C: General Sarsfield

HQ: Siege Battery, Clermont's Battery

1st Brigade (Reding): Limerick, Ultonia, Royal Eccosais, Light Artillery Battery

2nd Brigade (Meagher): Leon, Toledo

3rd Brigade (Cortes): Mahony's Dragoons, Crofton's Dragoons, Ferrari's Dragoons

The Toledo regiment is Veteran, everyone else is Trained

 

The Set-up:

The garrisoned town with castle to the SW; the advancing Dutch Forces to the West (left); the defending Franco-Spanish Forces to the East (right, centre, top)

A view of the garrison

Saxe-Weimar's Brigade

Murray's Brigade

The Limerick and Ultonia Regiments of Reding's Brigade

Two batteries and the Royal Eccossais garrison the entrenched camp.

Meagher's Brigade

Another view.

The Battle:

As de Ruyter has decided to attack with his Left (top-left), Reding's Brigade tries to redeploy under some irritating artillery fire

Murray's Brigade forms up for the assault

Numbers and skill tell - a couple of devastating volleys and the Spanish brigade is routed!

Reding's troops are making some heavy weather of the redeployment, partly due to the artillery fire but partly sheer incapacity and confusion. However, the French artillery is playing effectively on Saxe-Weimar's Dragoons (centre-left)

Cortes' Brigade of Spanish Dragoons (okay, Italo-Irish!) arrives, hopefully to stem the tide!

Another view. Two regiments are mounted, one on foot.

Reding has at least got his units deployed to protect against any river crossing

Things go from bad to worse for the Spanish: one of Reding's battalions guarding the bridge breaks under artillery fire

Desperate to restore the situation, Cortes' leads his dragoons in a desperate charge

Whilst Dutch (i.e. Scottish) infantry attempt to splash through the river, Reding reforms his troops

The musketry of Murray's brigade beats back the attacking Dragoons

Some success at last! Colyear's regiment breaks under the heavy French artillery fire; however the dismounted Spanish (okay, Italian) Dragoons are about to succumb to the effects of the Scots' musketry (top-right)

Cortes orders his surviving troopers into one more charge...

Which is no more successful than the last! Crofton's Dragoons are destroyed...

And Mahony's Dragoons ride for the rear!

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Spanish Army has had enough and its broken units flee, its unbroken units retreat

View at the end of the battle.

Game Notes:

 The Spanish Army will have to retreat and re-group after two defeats at the hands of the Dutch. The invasion of New Dalrydia is misfiring badly! Hopefully I will get to part 3 soon...

 

A fun game and a reasonably comprehensive victory for the Dutch: most things they tried worked, most things the Spanish tried did not! Ruse de Guerre gave a good, swift game although it is very generically 'horse & musket' - in particular the artillery is probably a little too powerful, although it isn't the biggest issue in the world. You wouldn't think it perhaps from the game but I did slightly change the firepower calibration to requiring a 7+ to shake an opponent (although I kept at 10+ to break, still wondering if I need to move that to 11). More specifically, the Spanish kept on getting awful tempo point allocations on key turns, mimicking quite well the 'shock' that armies can experience when attacked in surprising and impactful ways. So it worked quite well as part of this mini-campaign.

 

 

Very well done to anyone who twigged the scenario this was taken from: it as an NT-esque adaptation of the Castillon scenario from back in Miniature Wargames 02 - it seemed to take the treatment quite well and the broad scenario fitted quite easily into the campaign narrative.

Figures by Baccus 6mm, mostly the buildings are from Leven, and the fortifications are from Irregular.