Programmed Broken Ground

This afternoon I thought I'd run my Russians and Swedes through another of Charles S Grant's programmed Wargames scenarios, so went for the second on - Broken Ground. Once again I opted to play the attackers, and ended up attacking nine Swedish units with twelve Russians.

Because I failed to reconnoiter I had to deploy and decide my plan before I saw the Swedish dispositions. They went for strong flanks and a weak centre, which was not a bad random section for them given that the centre was dominated by a marsh. My job was to clear an area of scattered hills and woods of Swedish units in order to secure a road.

Here's the initial deployment, although the cavalry on my right flank isn't visible. I had a strong infantry force on my left, tasked with clearing the wooded hills opposite them. The infantry on the road was to either attack the centre, with artillery support, or swing over to attack the Swedish left. On my right a few infantry, and my cavalry, were given what I assumed would be the simple task of securing the scattered hills there.

I launched the attack on the right first, sending in cavalry against their Swedish counterparts deployed on the hills.

The Swedes fell back, but I couldn't inflict casualties; they retreated, but kept coming back.

My guns opened up on the Swedish centre, battering the infantry there. My infantry moved up to take the small hill in advance of the main Swedish line.

However despite generally adopting a static defence - their programmed orders - the Swedes counter-attacked with their cavalry, and very much inconvenienced me.

On my left the Russian infantry finally started to move.

A unit finally pushed through to the Swedish centre, but the road junction was covered by infantry and artillery and I couldn't make any headway against them.

Another Swedish cavalry charge broke one of my infantry units.

The left flank continued to move forwards, now supported by some Russian cavalry which had switched flanks owing to an unfortunate series of retreat results.

The Swedes had deployed an infantry unit in reserve, and as the Russian's attack on their left had started to grind down their defences there, had committed it early in the game. It now arrived to support the cavalry, leaving my chances on that flank very slim.

With the attack on the right running out of steam, my only chance of ending the game with any credit rested on my left, so I threw my infantry into the attack.

Fierce fighting saw the Swedes pushed back.

But mounting casualties saw the Russians fall back to regroup.

And a further advance was stymied by yet another Swedish cavalry charge.

At that point I ran out of daylight. On the right I had just about secured the hills there, although the Swedes were still resisting. But in the centre the Swedes still had a strong line, and my attack on their right was still ongoing.

So, on the whole, this was a fairly convincing win for the programmed Swedes.I was stopped by fierce cavalry attacks on both flanks that just wouldn't go away, forcing me to spend more time and effort than I had holding them off.

However it was another win for the CSG scenarios, as the game was great fun to play.