Napoleonic River Crossing

Jim's Austrians defending a bridge v. Mike's French

A quiet night at Camp Cromwell this week with only 2 punters available.  We decided to test how easy it is to defend a bridge across an un-crossable river.

Initial deployment.  The French (on the right) outnumber the Austrians by about 50%.

The French move infantry up to fire across the river on both sides of the road while they bombard the defenders of the bridge.  Columns are formed up ready to charge the bridge when the time is right.

As it happened, the Austrians threw bad dice on every break test under the French fire and their firce melted away.  The French didn't even have to charge the bridge.

This little exercise wasn't very exciting, but it was instructive.   It showed that deploying right up at the river is not the way to defend a crossing.  A superior enemy can then force the crossing by fire power alone.  Last week the Austrian deployed back from the river and counterattacked after some of the French had crossed.  They did much better, but arguably deployed too far back, allowing too many French over before they attacked.