A week ago Saturday (July 15th) Peter Lowitt invited me to take part in the
Second Battle of Neerwinden (18 March 1793) using Carnage and Glory. This report is late so it may not as clear as some of my others.
I had command of the skirmish line the troops in the village, to batteries and a secondary line of regular infantry.
I started off by organizing things up and the range was just a bit long so we held fire with the guns. A Battalion of French troops under Walter charged the Jagers in the vineyards to my right but Steve's troops drove them back with a very bloody noes.
Mark as Men movining aroudn the Austrian right flank looking to cut in behind us.
Cavalry comes up on the Austrian Right (under Pierce who also comands our rear area troops) I also move up my skirmishes hoping to provoke enemy fire at long range...
The french begin to move up in to the swamp lands driving out light infantry before them.
My Skirmishes do provoke the enemy and french light cavalry drive them away with barely a shot fired.
Those cavalry however break on the fire of the supporting infantry
French Hussars tumble to the rear and though they will reorganize briefly they are unwilling to charge again.
Columns of cavalry desperately clash in the rear are the french with this but the charge gives us time to get other troops into position.
My left flank battalion is hit by two cavalry units on of Huzzars and one of dragoons...
The presure is too much and these men are more or less out of the fight. (in fact they will hold together gut well enough to constantly get in the way no matter how Pierce and I maneuver our men to avoid them)
The french launch a main effort hitting my artillery and my remaining infantry
The french are also pushing on the right
The French cavary are breaking for the backfield with only a mall easily over run unit to slow them
My infantry hold by the hardest fighting. Quick moving gunners get two guns on target and break the charging french with double shotted canister at point blank range. causing them to Stop and shake out into line
A Squadron of Austrian Hussars catches a much larger force of French in column an blast through them keeping the french form reinforcing their attack on my left.
Austian troops hold the rear village and french cavalry finds it cannot crack the defense and that its infantry is unable to keep up and deploy after its long march and battle trough the swamps
A hard knot of Austrians hold the cent my tow infantry battalions have run one of them was overwhelmed by cavalry the other stood and exchanged blows with multiple french infantry formation until in cracked but it broke several of the enemy in the mean time. The French flanking attack on the rear was blunted as much by terrain as any thing else and though the French scored some success on my left it was the hard fighting troops in the vineyards along with my guns and their supporting troops that crack the French army. The Austrians won the day with what the the computer called an "overwhelming victory." The battle was however very hard fought a little more luck or coordination in the french attacks and the day could easily have been theirs.
