Russian Light Cavalry

After the failed invasion of Russia by Napoleon, the Russian army started the pursuit of the remnants of the Grande Armée towards the west. During that pursuit, the Russian Light Cavalry played a very important role. Hussars and Mounted Chasseurs were, along the omnipresent Cossacks, the forces driving the routed French and their Allies towards Poland and Germany.
I have painted the Alexandria (Aleksandriya) Hussar Regiment and the Livonian Mounted Jager Regiment. Both units formed part of the Parowoskyi Brigade in the Avant-Guard of the General-Major Lanskoi, headspearding the Winzigerode Russian force figthing in the Battle of Kalisz.
For these units I have used the Strelets-R sets nos. 019 and 018 corresponding to the 1813 Russian Hussars and Mounted Jagers, respectively.

See more details at the main website

A map for Kalisz

At last I found a source for a map for Kalisz.
3rd Military Mapping Survey of Austria-Hungary
Index sheet of the general map of Central Europe (1:200,000).
The maps were drawn around 1915 so the railroads are also shown.
The battle of Kalisz is already on the way, but I plan to use that site to find maps for other areas of the Campaign of Lepizig.

An update of the battle of Kalisz

The battle of Kalisz is going on. Until this moment, six turns have been elapsed. The first Russian brigades (one Light cavaly and one Cossack) have arrived as well as the Saxon rearguard so all the units of the Reynier's VII Corps are on the table. The Russian cavalry have been harassing the Saxon infantry although the Polish Krakus have routed an excessively daring Cossack pulk (below).

But it was a short life success, because two lucky attacks carried out by the Russian Hussars (Alexandria and White Russia Regiments) have fully breaked the Saxon Prinz Clemens regiment and have taken its divisonal battery, pursuing the routed men until the first houses of the Kalisz suburbia.

These daring Russians will be forced to retreat in the next turn, but the artillery pieces taken will be the first trophies taken in this battle.

To be continued

NEW WEB SITE ADDRESS!

Hi
After many troubles with Geocities (see previous posts) I have bought a domain name and a hosting space at HIS Communications. The addrees of the site is:

http://www.rafaelpardoalmudi.com/

I have transferred all the contents of the Geocities site.
Please update your links.

Thanks!

My geocities site is again down!

Hi
Again the main website is down. The thursday I received a message from Geocities

"Dear Rafael,
Thank you for writing to Yahoo! Geocities.
We have investigated the issue you've brought to our attention and your
account now appears to be functioning properly.
We apologize for any inconvenience you may have experienced.
Thank you again for contacting Yahoo! Geocities.
Regards,
Josephine Potter
Yahoo! Customer Care
46591950"

However, andafter upload the information about the Battle of Kalisz, the service has been again interrumped and I am not able to access neither my Geocities account nor the webpage.
I am totally tired and annoyed, so I am considered to change my hosting service. Any alternative will be welcome.

The battle of Kalisz

Poland, February 1813. Following the disastrous Russian Campaign, the Russian forces leaded by Winzigerode, have caught up the retiring Reynier's VII Corps trying to cross the river Prosna.
The VII Corps formed part of the French-Austrian right-flanking column under Schwarzenberg, and was a multinational force composed from Saxons, French and Wurzburgers formed in three divisions. At the time of the battle, it was reduced to around 9,000 infantrymen, 800 Saxon horse and 36 guns (not including some low-calibre regimental pieces). In addition, around Kalisz were 3,000 Polish infantry levies and 300 Krakus cavalry.
The pursuing Russians, under Winzigerode, included the 2nd Infantry Corps of Eugene of Wurtemberg, the ad-hoc Bachmetiev’s Infantry Reserve corps and a large cavalry force under Trubezskoi and Lanskoi. The total force amounted to 6,000 infantry and 6,500 cavalry (mainly Cossacks) with 70 guns. All units were under-strength after heavy campaigning.
The battle will be played using the 'divisional' Napoleon's Battles modification. Until the actual playing, you can watch the Scenario files and some additional information at The battle of Kalisz page in the main website.

A.C. Clarke is dead

Sir Arthur C. Clarke passed away yesterday in his Sri Lanka home (NY Times obituary). Arthur C. Clarke was a technological visionary, scientist and science fiction author, and an inspiration to me and the mine. We always will remember '2001. A space odissey' co-authored with S. Kubrik.
Requiescant In Pacem.

The OOB's for the battle of Kalisz (February 1813)

As I said in a previous post, I am preparaing my next wargame, the battle of Kalisz. At last I received the issues No. 196, 199 and 201 of the French magazine Tradition with the series of articles of Pierre Juhel about that battle. In general lines the articles coincide with the information given by George Nafziger and Digby Smith. However, this last author said me (in the Napoleon Series Forum) that his Data Book only shown the units really fighting in the battle, whereas Nafziger (and Juhel) show all the units present in the area.
My final decission is to use the Juhel data and the divisional Napoleon's Battles modification (1 figure/30 men and 1"/25 yds) in order to put on the table a decent number of figures. In a next post I'll present the final OOB's.
Incidentally, the main web site is again on-line but I have received an e-mail from Geocities saying that I was breaking the conditions of the hosting by using my site as a pasarel to other sites, a thing explicitely forbidden. I don't understand its statement because all websites are full of links!. However, I have written back to them because I don't know which are the ofending links. I am now waiting its answer.

The main website is down

The main website 'Wargaming with Napoleonic Miniatures' is down from yesterday. When someone try to access the page, a Geocities message is displayed indicating that 'This page is not available'.
All my attempts to enter through my Geocities account have been also unsucessful and several iniquires sent to Yahoo are, at thes moment, unanswered. I expect this was a temporary problem.
I am also getting some spam comments, so I am forced to enable the 'Comment moderation' feature on this blog.
My apologies for all these troubles.

Battle of Kalisz (February 1813)

Following an interlude caused by the end-of-semester academic duties, I return again to wargaming by re-fighting the battle of Kalisz (Kalisch).
That battle is considered to be the last of the ill-fated 1812 Russian Campaign or the start of the 1813 Spring Campaign. The pursuing Russian forces, leaded by Winzigerode, catched up the the Reynier's VII Corps. That Corps was almost intact after forming part of the French-Austrian right-flanking column under Schwarzenberg command, and was formed by two Saxons and one French division.
The involved forces were too samll for normal Napoleon's Battles, so again Iill use my 'one-half' Napoleon's Battles version : 1"/50 yds for terrain, 1/60 for men and 15 minutes per turn.
Kalisz is a somewhat obscure battle. The best references available were the Nafziger's (G. Nafziger, 'Lutzen & Bautzen. Napoleon's Spring Campaign of 1813’. The Emperor Press, Chicago, 1992) and Smith's books (D. Smith, 'The Greenhill Napoleonic Wars Data Book', Greenhill Books, London, 1998).
A search trough Google books produced some hits: Histoire de la Guerre de 1813 en Allemagne by J.B.A. Charras and Les Allemands sous les aigles françaises. Vol III by Sauzey . A query in the Napoleon-Series Forum, kindly answered by Digby Smith and Thomas Hemmann, also produced the existence of a series of 3 articles "Kalisch, la dernière bataille de la retraite de Russie" by Pierre Juhel in the issues Nos. 196, 199 and 201 of the French magazine Tradition. I have ordered these issues to make a definitive study bfore to play the battle.

Last but not least, I want to acknowlege the efforts of my Argentinian friend Armand d'Arc, which caught my attention on this battle and provided me with the necessary encouragement to further researching. This scenario is for him, sine qua non.

Gneisenau, call 112!

I am painting some lovely individual 1/72 figures from Art Miniaturen depicting Bluecher, Gneisenau and Yorck, and whereas making some pictures to illustrate the painting process, "Tigre" again shown his curiosity about these little men, so I don't can to resist the temptation to post the full scene!