The Most Terrible of all My Battles: Wargaming Borodino 2012 (10)

Borodino 200 what a weekend!

Regular readers of this blog may have been wondering what happened in the bicentennial Borodino game that we held on 7th–9th September. Having been occupied with the preparation for the game for much of the two weeks beforehand, I have since been catching up on work. I am slowly making a bit of time for wargaming stuff again now, so here are a few photos from our game to whet your appetites.

Borodino village, the calm before the storm

N's command post on Shevardino (sadly this was one of the many 'units' that I did not quite finish in time for the game)

Initial positions, from the south-west and (below) south and north-east

Below, initial French-Allied attacks. Delzons crosses the Kolocha to assault the Grand Redoubt, Poniatowski's Poles work through the woods south of Utitisa and Compans and Dessaix's divisions of Davout's I Corps head towards the flêches (seen from the Russian viewpoint).

Still plenty of Russians—defense in depth (above and below)

Broussier's division captures Borodino (above and below)

Initial attacks on Grand Redoubt (above and below)

Ornano awaits approach of Platov's cossakcs

Napoleon from the flêches

Kaminiski's cavalry having broken Karpov II's cossack 'division'

Poniatowski's attack on Utitsa (above and below)

Compans' division gets drawn into the woods around Utitsa

Dessaix's attack on the flêches

Ney's division advances to the attack

Platov and Uvarov's 'raid' makes progress—aided by Eugène's seven 1s in a row!

Ney's Württembergers broken by Sievers' cavalry

Gap left by Ney's decimated corps

Chaos caused by retreat of Compans' division

Massed French-Allied heavy cavalry

Capture of Uitisa mound

Russian re-capture of Borodino

Grand Redoubt holds strong

Final wash-up

Geographic:

French held the flêches, Russians held Grand Redoubt and Borodino, Utitisa in doubt (Russians had the village, Poles the mound)

Losses:

French lost 11 'divisions', Russian lost 1!!!!

Result

French 50 points, Russians 279, so a Russian tactical victory.

It truly was, "the most terrible of all my battles"!

Kutuzov toasts the Russian victory

Thanks to Stephen, Rod and Peter who came up from Perth to help/join us in fulfilling a wargaming dream. We really enjoyed ourselves (except for the result, ha ha!). Despite the bad outcome for 'my' side, I still had a sense of 'loss' on the Monday at the completion and passing of something that we had been planning for so long.

As with all the best of wargaming, we all have a greater appreciation of Borodino now that we have "been there". The immensity of the struggle, the problems of command and control, the waste of good men, the amazing feats of arms on both sides, the importance of Platov and Uvarov's 'raid' and what an achievement it was for the French-Allies to have won the battle; pyrrhic victory though it was.

We are already planning our alternative versions of Borodino!

1. Run the game as a "re-enactment".
2. Play again with different players as Napoleon and Kutusov.
3. Play a version with Davout's plan.
4. Play a version without restrictions on Guard and Russian reserve artillery.

I am working on a couple of more detailed posts that will incorporate more of the 449 photos that Stephen and I took over the weekend, so keep an eye out!