Stitched up at Salamanca

After last week's pride at Kliszów comes the fall ...

Mark has pretty much done a whole set of BBB scenarios for the Peninsular War. See, e.g., Colin's report of our Vitoria game in February. This week Mark treated us to another biggie and a battle I know reasonably well: Salamanca.

'Geometry' is a word I seem to use increasingly often in describing the shape of a battle. For all their undoubted subtleties, the one-dimensional straight-line battles so beloved by our ancients tournament-playing comrades at OWS do not excite me. I want angles, salients, open flanks, divided forces, depth, and the resulting complexity and variety of tactical decisions and manoeuvre ...

Salamanca gives us all these things, and that's what makes it such an interesting battle. You could characterise it as an 'L' facing a 'V' that turns into a 'W'. The plan view below helps to explain.

The historical situation saw Marmont's French trying to march past Wellington's right flank to threaten his line of communications. Wellington responded and caught the French extended. In the pic above, the French have come from the top left; their lead divisions (Maucune and Thomières, top right, plus Curto's cavalry) are trying to press on to the Pico de Miranda and the village of Miranda de Azan (just out of shot). Other French divisions have occupied high ground to confront the arriving allies: Foy and Ferey on the heights around Calvarassa; Bonnet on the pivotal Greater Arapil, backed up by Taupin. Together, these form an L-shaped line spread across a large distance.

Wellington's army has arrived in the middle of the L and formed its own V, with its point on the Lesser Arapil and cavalry on each flank. This gives Wellington the advantage of interior lines: it is much easier for him to concentrate his forces against the widely separated French.

The stars indicate objectives: red for British-held, blue for French, white for no initial control. Miranda de Azan is unique in that if French infantry ever hold it, it becomes a kind of high-water mark for them - the objective cannot be taken away from them even if they are expelled. This is Mark's clever game device to represent the fact that the French wanted to advance in that direction and gives the French players an incentive to do so. We French needed three objectives to draw and four to win. 

I commanded the French centre with Luke taking our left and Matt our right. We were facing (allied L-to-R) Phil, Crispin, Dave and Ben. Our initial plan was to hold the three objectives we'd got, plus try to take the Lesser Arapil, but this sort of went out of the window straight away. Just four photos below capture the critical elements of the battle. Reflections follow as usual.

The village of Arapiles, facing our centre-left, the junction of Luke's force and mine. This was immediately occupied by a small Portuguese brigade. Luke decided to send a division to eject this, which it did, but was ejected in turn by an allied counterattack. I found myself obliged to commit two divisions to support Luke. More allied troops were likewise sucked in. Assault and counter-assault raged here for most of the game, until Ben's allied right wing arrived in the French rear to doom us to destruction.

(6mm Baccus figures from Mark's collection, on suitably arid bases for Spain.)

Here we see Ben's and Luke's forces heavily engaged on the French left. Ben had first occupied Miranda and the Pico, then swung left. (Phil and Crispin were doing something similar on the opposite flank, turning the allied V into a W.) Luke's attempt at driving the allies back went awry when his cavalry failed to back up his infantry. It was downhill from there - as in, the French were driven off the ridge, lost all their cavalry and artillery and were seriously battered ... 

Things went a little better for us on the right - but only a little. Matt responded to an allied advance by coming off his ridge and hurling the foe back across the stream. However, he then had to send some troops back to recover Calvarassa from sneaky outflanking Brits. The unit in left foreground is my last division, which I had to send off the Greater Arapil to protect Matt's flank - which unfortunately left the hill unguarded when Crispin was able to march up it.

Last rites: Marmont on the Greater Arapil in the centre, flanked by the remnants of two French divisions, about to be crushed by overwhelming numbers of allies. Another allied brigade is out of shot below the bottom of the pic - it has taken the Greater Arapil and is about to take El Sierro as well. All we have left is Matt hanging on to Calvarassa on our right. Result: emphatic French defeat.

Reflections:

It's a Stitch-Up! Their extended initial deployment inevitably makes the French vulnerable to having their left rolled up, as happened in our game and historically. We couldn't have won anyway!

Make a Plan and Stick to It. Actually maybe we could have won, or drawn at least, if we'd planned and executed better. We didn't need Miranda, the Pico, or Arapiles - we could win without them - but we let ourselves be tempted to chase them anyway, despite our initial discussion about the four objectives we wanted. In retrospect, jumping into Arapiles may have been ill-advised; so may sending troops further left to try to delay Ben's advance; moving off the Greater Arapil didn't work out great either. By contrast, our opponents seemed to have a clear and effective plan. Perhaps it could go better for the French next time. (It couldn't go much worse.)

Upping the Ante. From where I sat, things clearly went from bad to worse in distinct stages. We would attempt something; it would go a bit wrong; we would then have to make a bigger gamble to try to restore the situation; that would go wrong in turn; and so the vicious spiral went down and down. I suppose games (and battles) often go that way, but it has rarely struck me so starkly.