Dessau for Lasalle. The map

The combat of Dessau was fought in the same general area that the combat of Thiessen, i.e. near the Elbe River, but this time on the southern bank and near its confluence with the Mulde River and the twon of Dessau.
A visit to the GeoGREIF site, a map repository of the German Univesity of Greifswald, and a search for Dessau provided for several  maps, located on the MTBL sub-repositories (4140 4139-4239-4240). The subsequent downloading and assembling with Photoshop, provided a map, dated from ca. 1906:

Map of the area (ca. 1910)

The combat took place in the area around Polnitz and Jonitz, where was located the bridge over the Mulde River leading to the town of Dessau. The narrative found in Nafziger and Fabry, allows to locate the focal points of the combat, shown in the following map:

Zoom of the map with main points of the narrative

At last, the final tablemap was drawn with PowerPoint:

The Mulde R. is impassable except by the bridge at Dessau. Woods and streams are rough terrain for cavalry and infantry and impassable for artillery except by roads or bridges, respectively. Each built-up area may contain one infantry unit

Next, the troops. Watch this space!

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Thiessen for Lasalle. The definitive map

The battlefield for Thiessen has taken shape at last. As always, there are some small variations from the original map, because of the scenery ítems that are actually available (they call it the 'fog of war'!).
You can see the final scheme and some pictures of the table game.

Central-Eastern view

Western side

Eastern side

At last, you can see the forces being reviewed by their commanders.

French (really Italo-Wurttemberg) forces

Prussian forces

Watch this space!

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Thiessen for Lasalle. The map

The general area of the battle was found in the Nafziger's book “Napoleon at Dresden: The Battles of August 1813”. The Emperor Press, Chicago, 1991.
A visit to the GeoGREIF site, a map repository of the German Univesity of Greifswald, and a search for Wittenberg, provided a first 1/100,000 scale map

A search in the MTBL zone of the site, provided a series a of 1/25,000 scale maps, (090733 ;090734; 090743; 100711; 100712; 100721; 100713; 100714 and 100723) that were assembled with Photoshop, to make a map of the north of the Wittenberg área:

Zooming in the above map, the area of interest can be located, and the movements of the involved forces can be plotted, with the help of the bibliography (See the previous post)

Producing at last, the following game table map:

Woods and streams are rough terrain for cavalry and infantry and impassable for artillery except by roads and bridges, respectively. Each built-up area may contain one infantry unit

Next, the troops. Watch this space!

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Pitschenberg re-shapped

Many of the academic taks and duties have been done and finished, so I am returning to the hobby. See the final layout of the Pichtenberg battlefield, after using the available terrain pieces. At last, I have not placed any wooded area, so the Pitschenberg hill will be underbrush-covered with no movement costs.

Watch this space!

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Pitschenberg: the map

The general area of the battle was found in the Nafziger's book “Napoleon at Dresden: The Battles of August 1813”. The Emperor Press, Chicago, 1991.
A visit to the GeoGREIF site, a map repository of the German Univesity of Greifswald, and a search for Bautzen and Lobäu, provided several 1/25,000 scale maps, that were joined with Photoshop to make a map of the Breitenfeld- Pitschenberg área:

1/25,000 join map of the área

Zooming in the above map, the area of interest can be located:

The Pitschenberg area

Producing at last, the following game table map:

The stream is fordable for infantry and cavalry at rough terrain cost, but artillery must cross at the bridges. The only dominant feature is the Pitschenberg hill, used by Vassilchikov as a strong rally point of their advance guard units. The Allied line of communicatios runs from east to west, while the French one runs in the opposite direction.

Nextt, the troops. Watch this space!

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Bunzlau. The terrain

The actual shape of the terrain for Bunzlau has been slightly changed: the available elements, i.e. terrain tiles and river, stream and road sections, do not allow to follow exactly the initial design of the table (see this post). Is the fog of war in action!
See below the corrected map, as well as some pictures of the actual table

Watch this space!

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The Bunzlau map

The fight at Bunzlau (present day Bolesławiec in Poland) was centered around two wooden bridges connecting the banks of the Bober to a river island, surrounded at west by the main river branch and at east by a small channel or millrace (German Mühlengraben). This island and a small hill, dominating the town from the south and the west (left) bank of the river, were the most dominant geographical features of the battlefield (see a map in this post).
Below you can see the area to be depicted in the tablegame. The red square shows the area covered by my tablegame at the same scale (1:1,000) than the map, The black square covers a larger area, that is necessary to include in the table the features playing a significant role in the fight.

Actual old map with the gametable at a correct (red) and an decreased (blac) scale

However, a further distortion was made to reduce the northern area where no fight took place, by the simple expedient of enlarging the map in the vertical dimension. The resulting and distorted (both in scale and shape) map is the following:

Actual map after enlarging the vertical dimension to reduce the non-significant northern zone

At last, the below picture shows a diagram of the table map, before to laid the actual scenery features (the fog of war can modify slightly the shape and position of some features). Some "possible fords" have been included, to add more spice to the game

Next, the rules for the Scenario

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A new map repository

At least for me... By means of Will McNally and his Will's Wargames Blog, I have found a new repository of old maps for my Leipzig Campaign: GeoGREIF from the University of Greifswald (Germany).
Because of my nonexistent German language skills, I can not profit from the full potential of the site, but I was able (by following the Will's instructions) to download old maps from the Saxony area at 1:25,000 scale and with all topographical features, including elevation lines.
The system is easy: enter in the 'Suchen' (Search) box MTBL NNEE where NN is the northing and EE the easting, and presto! For example, MTBL 4740 produces the following map for Lieberwolkwitz (see below).

For areas southwards, you must to increase the NN digits, and so. The maps are from ca. 1915 so you can ignore the railroad lines. I have not still explored all the possibilities, but I believe that with some research, you will find maps for all Saxony and maybe for other zones of Germany.

Many thanks to Will!

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The terrain for Sellerhausen

The town of Leipzig has grown with the years and some of the nearest villages have been incorporated into the city itself. However, many old places can be still easily located in a modern map or in Google Earth.
To draw the terrain for this combat, I have used two main sources. The first, 'Leipzig - Situation at 1630 Hours: October 18, 1813' is accessible at Napoleon-Series, and shows the military situation at that date and hour. The map is very schematic and mainly good for showing the disposition of the different troops on the terrain.

The other source is the Leipzig Karte of 1891. I have found it at Academic dictionaries and encyclopedias by using a Google Search of images for Sellerhausen. The Karte is downloadable in many different pieces (until 8!), that were then collated into a new map with a graphics program. The final map has many blanks left and shows the railroad network, the roads, the streams and the villages.

From all this information I drawn at last the terrain map for Sellerhausen with Powerpoint, by following the same technique used for Connewitz (and forn the rest of my battlemaps). The map is rotated at will and the terrain scale changed until the villages, Sellerhausen, Stunz and Molkau were located in the middle of the table. The final result is:
The more significant features of the actual battle, villages and the stream, are present. However, the final shape would include some low hills and ondulating terrain: the fog of war in action!

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Maps of Westfalia

A new (german) resource, found in the Napoleon-Series Forum by courtesy of Steven H. Smith (a.k.a the 'urbique' boy).
To use the maps
1) Go towards the end of the page and find the General index Map
2) Click on one of the sheets on the index sheet
3) You'll see three little icons beside the thumbnail. Click on the middle one that looks like a big "Z"
4) Now double click on the map sheet where you want to zoom in

Enjoy!

Napoleon’s Leipzig Campaign. A boardgame

Napoleon’s Leipzig Campaign (NLC) is an old boardgame, designed by Don Alexander and published by OMEGA GAMES in 1994. In the words of the publishers:

"Napoleon’s Leipzig Campaign simulates the great confrontation in 1813 pitting Napoleon’s empire against all the other continental great powers. Napoleon’s Leipzig Campaign puts the players in the position of Napoleon or the allied triumvirate of Tsar Alexander I of Russia, Emperor Francis I of Austria, end King Frederick William III0 of Prussia. The players are required to provide the strategic leader ship for their forces against the background of frictions to military operations in this period: limited command and control; unpredictable subordinates leading large forces of unevenly trained soldiers; unwieldy logistical support and tatical engagements that could shortly produces a bloodbath. The stakes are for nothing less than the fate of the Old Order against the forces of change unleashed by the French Revolution.
The manoeuvre map is centred on the German Kingdom of Saxony. The map is divided into territorial districts, connected by lines of communications. The distance between the districts varies, as the lines of communication represent daily march distances for the military formations of the period. The army and corps combat units are headquarters to which strength points are assigned. Each strength point represents about 1000 men, although this figure varies based upon specific units’ quality of soldiers and number of artillery pieces."

When I bought the game some years ago (in 2004), I started a CyberBoard gamebox but after several computer crashes I lost the files. However, the last week-end I suddenly found my old efforts in a forgotten back-up CD under a mountain of photocopies!. The following is a reduced version of the CyberBoard map with a superimposed real size area.

Whereas I don't like the NLC's combat system, the map and the movement and command rules could be more adequate to simulate the Leipzig Campaign, than the more complex map and rules from Napoleon at the Crossroads or any other of the boardgames of the Operational Study Group.
I must to continue my research to find the best system to play the Leipzig Campaign... the main goal behind this blog!

See the NLC information at the BoardGameGeek site.

Map and special rule for Peterdohna

The above map is the first version for the battle of Peterdohna. Following the classification of Napoleon's Battles, is an 'encounter battle' with both sides occupying initially similar terrain objectives, and having both the same goal, to break through the enemy.
The Allied commanders (Barclay de Tolly, Wittgenstein and Kleist) supposed that Saint-Cyr, defending the approachs to Dresden, was isolated and attacked him. The French marshall did know that Napoleon was running to his help, and also attacked the Allied.
However, this battle 'occurs' during the Campaign of Leipzig, so the Trachenberg Plan marking the Allied strategy, will be of application: direct confrontation with Napoleon himself would be avoided, whereas isolated French marshalls and generals would be attacked.
In order to simulate the effect of the Trachenberg Plan, the following special rule will be used to see the time that Allied staff takes in realizing the Napoleon's arrival:
Every turn after the arrival of Napoleon, Barclay de Tolly, if present in the battlefield, will throw 1D10. In order to pass the test, the first turn a ‘1’ must be thrown; the second turn '2' or less ; third time '3' or less.... When succesful, Barclay de Tolly must to order immediately a general retreat, leaving only a rearguard.

See the Scenario and the map at the main web-site Peterdohna (september 26, 1813)

A table-top map for Göhrde

The above map is the first version of the table-top map for the Battle of Göhrde. I'll use my divisional version of Napoleon's Battles with a terrain scale 1"/25 yds and 1 figure: 30 men. The basis is the map of the previous post, but the terrain scale has been slightly modified to accommodate the three villages.
The position of the French units is marked with blue symbols, whereas the general entry area of the four Allied columns is shown with green dotted lines.

The maps for Goldberg

The next battle will be the battle of Goldberg (August 22, 1813). This combat was the prelude to the battle of Katzbach (fought August, 24) and involved to the V and XI French Corps under Lauriston and Macdonald respectively, and the left wing and center of the Bluecher Army of Silesia, under Langeron and Yorck respectively. Bluecher was still under the false impression that Napoleon himself was at his front (in fact he was hurrying back towards Dresden) so, in accordance with the Plan of Trachtenberg, he retired to east.
The battle will be fought using true Napoleon's Battles (not my 'divisional' or 'one-half' versions). The map will be extracted from the same source that the Kalisz map, i.e. the magnificient 3rd Military Mapping Survey of Austria-Hungary (1:200,000). The Goldberg zone lies in the junction of sheets 33.51 and 34.51 aronud the 51º 10' latitude.

This information was completed with the derived from Google Maps. However, the Goldberg area lies today in Poland but until 1945 it was in Germany territory, so the names of the places in the contemporary narratives and maps are in German language, but these same places appear now in Polish in Google Maps or Google Earth.
A Google search produced the Polish translation of Goldberg, Zlotoryja, but the rest of the places were more harder to find.
A request to Napoleon Series Forum produced the correct answer by Oliver Schmidt: Topografia, a Polish web site containing the German-Polish equivalence of many geographical places from which I can to trace the contemporary names of the old german map.

So watch this space for the new battle.

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.

Near contemporary maps

I have found, through the Forum of Napoleon Series, a very useful site:

Collection "Wilhelmshöher Kriegskarten" presented by the Digital Archiv of Marburg (DigAM) in Hessen
44 volumes with nearly 3000 digital war maps, plans and drawings from the 16th century to the Napoleonic epoche.
The vol. 33 has some interesting maps for the Leipzig campaign down-loable as pdf documents

Enjoy!