敒›佛嵔䜠뛃牨敤

This isn't really OT, you know. OK, so it's military trivia. But
incidents in military history, from Thermopylae to Rourke's Drift,
the Cameron to Minden, provide many good ideas for scenarios in
any game, including FT, DSII and SG.

From: "K.H.Ranitzsch" <KH.Ranitzsch@t-online.de>

> > Contrast this incident with Gohrde, 16 September 1813, where
> > a force of Hanoverians in British "Redcoats" were against
> > the Saxons

> Pardon me being pedantic: There must be a slight confusion here. The
fight
> at the Göhrde was between French troops and an allied force including
> Hanoverians and the 73rd foot (as well as a Congreve rocket troop).
The
> Osprey MAA 192 on Prussian Reserve troops has a quite detailed account
and
> OOB. No Saxons in sight,

Danke Schön Karl!

This really made me chuckle - my source was a book by Sgt Thomas Morris
of the 2/73rd, and one of the reasons why they were so confident
assaulting
a
position holding 2 cannon, and uphill, was that they thought at the time
-
and
Sgt Morris writes - that their opposition were Saxons in French
uniforms,
not
French Regulars! Thanks for correcting me.

> Anyway, being outnumbered 4-1 certainly didn't help the French

Walmoden's troops were nowhere near the quality of their opposition
though.
And the French position was well suited for defence.

The Hanoverians were moderately enthusiastic, but poorly-trained and
worse
equipped. The Saxon army of 1813 had lost much of their enthusiasm, but
not
their professionalism - overall, they were probably the best of the
French
allies, but they knew the war was lost.

The KGL Hussars were good, but charging an unbroken square like that...
they had all the vices of British Cavalry as well as the virtues.

And as far as I've been able to tell, this was the one occasion when the
famous Rocket Battery (half-battery IIRC) actually operated alone, not
as
part of a normal artillery battery, and actually accomplished something.
"The first rocket fired fell into the centre of the square, throwing
them
into great confusion." as Morris states. After which the survivors of
the
KGL Hussars hit them with Revenge in mind, and took no quarter.

I'm sure there's even more meat for a DSII scenario here than I'd
thought.
On one side outnumbered FSE regulars in IC mercenary uniforms, on the
other
a large bunch of NAC-equipped local militia with one solitary NAC
regular
unit and an unreliable Secret Weapon. The referee would have great fun
leading both sides astray...

Any more sources you know of about Göhrde, BTW? I tried to find some
more
primary sources when I was in Bremen, but all the archives had been lost
in 43-45 due to that little European contretemps.