Can frontally assaulting redoubts make a good game? Düppel (1864)

How many games have we all seen or endured that are just a boring line-out, wall to wall troops from table edge to table edge, with few tactical options beyond grinding forward and hoping to roll high?

How much more painful is it when one side is entrenched and has virtually nothing to do except keep rolling fistfuls of firing dice?

OK, I know it is possible to revel in such games simply because of the occasion and the spectacle. People will refight Pickett's Charge, or the Charge of the Light Brigade, and it will be awesome just because the original was so epically disastrous and because recreating it with your buddies in glorious 28mm has to be fun, right?

But for those of us for whom a game should be about making interesting and challenging decisions every turn - no thank you. (No disparagement of any beautiful Pickett's Charge game intended, it's just not for me.) I want options, choices, the chance to make an actual plan and see it succeed or fail. I don't want everything straitjacketed and railroaded and all the important decisions already made for me in how the game is set up.

It's a cracker! Specifically - the Rolf Krake.

1/600 model of Denmark's 1864 ironclad, scratchbuilt by Crispin for his Dybbøl/Als game.

Therefore, when I was creating the scenarios for the "Bloody Big European Battles!" companion volume to the BBB rules, I was confronted by a conundrum. The major action in the Second Schleswig-Holstein War of 1864 was the Prussian storming of the Danish redoubts at Dybbøl, aka Düppel. This war had to be covered in the book, so this battle had to be there. Not counting the preliminary bombardment, it lasted three and a half hours, costing thousands of casualties, but can essentially be boiled down to this: Prussians storm the line of redoubts; Danish reserve brigade counterattacks; Prussians commit reserves in return; Danes surrender.

That really didn't appeal to me as a game. Perhaps there could be some tactical decisions for the Danes about whether/when/how individual battalions should fall back from the redoubts, or where/when/how to move the individual battalions of the reserve brigade. For the Prussians, perhaps some nuance about which battalion attacks which redoubt, or how to exploit success, and where/when/how to commit reserve battalions. But for a big battle game that should be about manoeuvring entire brigades or divisions and that should generate some ebb and flow ... there just wasn't enough there.

So what to do? I found salvation in the battle's prelude and aftermath: the minor outpost skirmishes in the two months before it, then the amphibious invasion of the island of Als two months later. These were not worth a BBB scenario in themselves - Als cost the Prussians fewer than 400 casualties - but they offered an opportunity to shape the actual assault on Dybbøl, to give it context and consequences, and (most importantly) to give the players on both sides more scope for decisions and manoeuvre.

It was feasible to fit all these actions on a single 6'x4' table at the modest scale of 1700m per foot. I therefore decided to treat them as three linked phases of the same scenario: Outposts Stage; Redoubts Stage; and Als Invasion Stage. Prussian numbers make Danish military defeat virtually inevitable. The trick to making it a challenge was to put the Prussians under time pressure with a turn limit. The idea is that the Danes are trying to buy time for the other great powers to intervene and lean on Prussia and Austria to call their dogs off. Thus, for each stage I set certain objectives the Prussians have to take before moving on to the next: e.g., if they overrun the outposts swiftly, they gain time for a more methodical assault on the redoubts, etc. Ultimately, they have to take all the objectives within 10 turns to win or 11 to draw; otherwise, they lose.

Crispin made a custom battlemat and rolled it out for us at OWS last week. Luke, Ben and John fancied defending the Danish cause, so Mark, Dave W and I took the Prussians. AAR in three captioned photos below, followed by some reflections.

Looking southeast across the battlefield. Top left is the island of Als, separated from the mainland by the Alssund. Pontoon bridge top centre links it to the high ground defended by the Dybbøl redoubts (the light green strips with gun embrasures). White counters mark the objectives. Prussians are marching on from bottom left and bottom right. One lone Danish brigade is forward in the lowest wood on the right; two more in the villages behind it; the other Danish division in the redoubts.

Mark commanded our left. As time was critical, his sensible advice was that we should ignore and bypass the forward brigade initially, press ahead as fast as possible, and let it be tackled by our follow-on forces arriving on Turns 2 & 3. However, I could not resist getting my jaegers into action , so I let two of my brigades get involved in a fight in the woods immediately. I did bypass with the other two, but carelessly failed to bring them on as far east as I could have.

My carelessness was compounded by a spate of dismal movement rolls across the Prussian army. One turn I rolled 2, 2 and 3 for three of my brigades, which therefore failed to move at all, while Mark did little better. Consequently, I think it took us 5 turns to take all the Outposts and be able to move on to the Redoubts Stage.

First Prussian assault on the redoubts. Our massed siege guns line the hill in the foreground. We outnumber the Danes about 4:1. The pic isn't big enough to fit all the Prussians in. The good news for the Danes is that the tardy Rolf Krake has finally got up steam and is raking the German attackers. That plus kind dice meant it took two goes before we could break into the redoubts. Turns 6 and 7 gone - we really needed to clear the remaining Danish brigade off the hill in Turn 8.

Keeping the red flag flying! That blue counter and Dannebrog flag belong to the last unit of the Redoubts garrison, a Spent 2-base Danish brigade, being assaulted by four Prussian brigades. It was swept aside, of course. However, the clock die reveals that it had survived the crucial Turn 8 the turn before, as most of our troops failed to get the movement they needed to reach it, and Danish fire stalled those that did.

We moved on to the Als Invasion Stage. We knew we needed at least two turns of movement to reach the Als objectives, so with nine turns gone it was impossible for us to take them on Turn 10 to win. A draw was still possible if fortune favoured us a little. But Lady Luck was against us - one more turn and we would have done it, but we had failed, and victory went to the gallant Danes.

Reflections:

It's a micro-campaign! I'm rather proud of the scenario structure. My Reflections on Wargaming essay on "Changing Situations Mid-Game" didn't mention this scenario, but probably should have. The three stages give two opportunities to reset and they create repeated peaks of excitement in between, as the Prussians try desperately to complete each stage and the Danes try to fend them off. The Danes also have important decisions about how many troops to commit and where during the first two stages. All told, it definitely has more options and more replay value than a straight assault would have.

Mistakes in Deployment are not Easily Rectified. Isn't that a von Moltke saying? Maybe Moltke the Younger in 1914? Anyway, I managed to prove it right this time. By letting myself be distracted by one irrelevant outpost brigade, I cost our advance precious time that we could never recoup.

The Maritime Dimension. Having a naval element in the game - in this case, the Rolf Krake (loved it) and then the crossing of the Alssund (albeit that is basically abstracted) - enhances both the aesthetic and the game interest. 

Right and Wrong Ways to Divide Command. On the German side, we didn't divide very sensibly: Mark on the left had a clear sector to himself, but on the right, I had the leading forces while Dave took the ones arriving on Turns 2 & 3 in the same sector. I'm sure that contributed to my carelessness. By contrast, the three Danish players decided they didn't have enough troops to divide up, so they made the interesting decision to divide command by time instead, each of them commanding in a different stage of the game (except Luke got the Rolf Krake throughout as his stage was going to be the shortest). This meant they always had unified command and therefore a clearer, more focused approach, vindicated by victory.

Yes, Assaulting Redoubts Can Make a Good Game! (To answer my own question in the headline.) It was a rocking good time, complete with whoops of success, cries of woe and wails of dismay. Even though the Danish force was largely wiped out, the Danish players greeted each turn that they survived with jubilation. Happy days!

Schleswig-Holstein shall be German! Isted (1850) photo-AAR

As I had the rare luxury of being a player rather than an umpire for once, and as I know some readers like full AARs, I am deviating from my usual summary AAR format to treat you all to a blow-by-blow battle report with plenty of photos and detail, albeit limited to what the webcam showed me.

This was a remote game hosted by Mark S in his newly extended study. To christen his new war room he ran Isted (1850), the major battle of the First Schleswig War. (We played this back in 2015, as recorded on TMP and as also fought by Steve ‘Wargaming Addict’ – see his AAR here.) 

The situation is that diplomatic pressure has forced Prussia to pull out of the war, enabling Denmark to go on the offensive against the remaining Schleswig-Holstein forces. The asymmetric armies make for an interesting tactical challenge. The Schleswig-Holstein forces – let’s call them ‘Germans’ for convenience – have only one General (their C-in-C) and are Passive. This makes them much less agile than the Danes, whose C-in-C gets three subordinate Generals. Fortunately for the Germans, they are on the defensive so have less need to move, and they have a larger proportion of rifle-armed troops than the predominantly musket-toting Danes. Furthermore, a quarter of the Danes are raw conscripts.

Map from Mark's BBB scenario for the battle

I took charge of the Danish 1^st Division alongside Mark J commanding our 2^nd Division. Crispin took the part of the German C-in-C, LtGen Karl Wilhelm von Willisen. (Incidentally, Willisen was a serious military theorist, writing four volumes on ‘Die Theorie des grossen Krieges’. He is little known nowadays. This may be because his writings are less incisive than Clausewitz’s; or it may be because he lost the First Schleswig-Holstein War.)

As the scenario already stipulated dispersed arrival times and destinations for the Danish forces, Mark and I did not put as much effort into our plan as we might have, beyond agreeing we would try to exploit our superior agility by moving into gaps between enemy formations, avoiding his artillery, and seeking opportunities for converging assaults. In retrospect we should perhaps have paid more attention to prioritising objectives.

Still, it all seemed to go OK initially. This first photo, German Turn 1, shows the German vanguard from the Danish point of view. The first Dannebrog flag is just visible waving at bottom of picture as my 4^th and 5^th Brigades avoid frontal assault, preferring to march around the German left towards the Claypit objective. Willisen has committed his reserve artillery which is straggling up the road to guard Isted.

 

German T1, looking from Danish 1 Div’s point of view. Buildings handcrafted by Colin. Figures are FPW Prussians proxying for Schleswig-Holstein Germans.

On Turn 2 I was able to get 5^th Brigade onto the flank of the vanguard, while 4^th Brigade got in range of the Claypit and the Bogmose marshes. However, the defenders’ fire took a toll of my gunners, so my artillery support was delayed in deploying.

 

Danish Turn 2. 1 Div battle line deploys along the stream. Danish rocket battery in the foreground. Danes are mostly ACW Union proxies but with Danish flag stands added.

The Danish Guards also arrived on Turn 2. By Turn 3 they had pushed forward to get into a firefight with the other end of the German vanguard. Unfortunately their supporting conscripts were rather tardier leaving the start line.

 

Danish T3: Guards and Jaegers advance in the centre against a solid German line in front of Isted. Formidable German reserve artillery deployed astride the road in grand battery. Yellow 'cheeses' indicate units disrupted in the firefight. The dreaded 'Danish Blue' cube means a Spent unit.

On Turn 3 the Danish 2^nd Division marched onto the table on the left wing. A couple of German units had begun moving forward from behind the Langsø lake. Our 2 Div had a chance to jump on either or both of these with superior numbers, but the movement rolls let us down.

I had no time to take photos of Turn 4 as the action hotted up all along the line. On our left, 2 Div lined up against German 2^nd and 3^rd Brigades who were able to deploy in front of Veddelspang and Upper Stollik in time and keep our valiant Danes at bay with their longer-ranged rifles. The fabled Danish espingol machineguns did some damage but barrel changes and German counter-battery fire limited their impact.

In the centre, the convergent attacks from our 5 and 6 Bdes combined with the newly arrived reserve artillery to blow large holes in the German vanguard and 4^th Brigade. However, they were able to fall back on Isted and on their own freshly deployed gun line and reply in kind.

On our right, Colonel Thestrup nimbly pre-empted the German 1^st Brigade and seized the Claypit.

I moved our tiny cavalry force up the extreme righthand table edge but was guilty of indecision, letting it loiter there for several moves before dashing round into the enemy rear, and then choosing the wrong target in the end … of which more later.

The next shot shows the situation at the end of Turn 5 from behind the Danish centre, where the Guards’ assault has stalled in front of Isted (which would become a theme of the remaining moves). Black and yellow cubes show they are Low on Ammo and Disrupted. They are enfilading a Spent German unit (blue cube). Further to the right another such faces a similarly Spent Danish conscript unit. The deadly German gun line can be seen astride the road where it can defend Isted and command the Bogmose. Our gun line is out of shot astride the road to the right, a little too far away to bombard Isted itself. In the distance on the right is what became a protracted struggle for the Claypit. Beyond that the Danish cavalry are silhouetted against a murky grey foggy Danish sky.

 Situation at end of T5, view from Danish centre.

By Turn 6 things had got messy and bloody on our left. Mark was endeavouring to manoeuvre his 2 Div into gaps in the German line, per our plan. The German defenders of Veddelspang responded by sallying to beat up one of his regiments, which enabled another Danish unit to seize the village behind them. Our situation in front of Upper Stollik was less rosy as German rifles inflicted steady attrition.

 

German T6 on the Danish left. Upper Stollik in centre of photo; Veddelspang behind it in the distance.

During Turns 7 and 8, fortune turned against us on our right. Some sorry dice meant my attempt to press Col Thestrup’s advantage in the Bogmose failed. However, I did manage to race our cavalry around into the German rear. Our 3^rd Brigade had also arrived from its flank march on T6 and was now astride the German line of communications.

 

Danish T7 – our assault in the bog bounces off. Our own grand battery in the foreground. Black cubes = Low on Ammo, having just blasted a German regiment into inconsequentiality.

The Germans then exploited our repulse in the Bogmose to storm the Claypit. Thestrup’s best regiment was now spent and had no prospect of retaking that precious objective.

 German T8 – Danes ejected from the Claypit! Sadly depleted, disrupted and spent, there's no way we're getting back in there.

The climactic Turn 9 saw us attempting to assault the central objectives, Isted and Upper Stollik, needing to take both for victory. Poor movement rolls saw the effort against Upper Stollik peter out, so our only chance now was to storm Isted for a draw. Unfortunately, I had wasted our cavalry by sending them to wipe out the small German battery by the Claypit, a pointless exercise as we could not realistically expect to recapture that. Far better would have been to attack the grand battery by Isted, which would then have been distracted from defending that objective. As it was, the valiant Danes went in once more, and German defensive fire repulsed them once more.

 End of  T9 – the Danes’ last hurrah repulsed. Our collection of blue, yellow, black and red cubes tells the sad story of defeat.

This was a terrific see-saw game. We played it over two evenings. The first session finished at the end of Turn 5. At that point, Crispin was ready to throw in the towel, thinking it was all over for his Germans. Far from it! In the second session, the German edge in firepower and troop quality gradually evened things up. In classic BBB fashion, all three results were possible on the last turn. Congratulations to Crispin on a hard-earned victory!

For anyone wanting to fight this battle themselves, the scenario is freely available from the BBB group files. (It's an earlier draft but I think essentially the same as the one we fought this month.)