Helmuth, Graf von Moltke, was Chief of the Prussian Grand General Staff in the late 19th century. Between 1858 and 1882, he created sixty-six tactical problems as training exercises for his officers. These were collected into a book that was published in English in 1894. A few years ago, I acquired a modern reprint of this book, but it contained none of the maps that are required for the exercises, which was a big disappointment. I had hoped to use some of the problems as a source for scenarios using our favorite miniatures rules for the period, Bloody Big Battles (BBB).
At Historicon I attended a demonstration game presented by the Kriegspiel Society where I was fortunate to meet “Umpire LaFondiose” (aka Paul) who had made some very nice maps for the game. I remarked that the maps and the situations that were given to the players reminded me of Moltke’s Tactical Problems. Paul replied that he is currently making the maps for each of the 66 problems in the book. That was great news! With his maps and my copy of Moltke’s Tactical Problems, we can create scenarios for BBB.
Paul is posting the maps for free on Substack. Here is a link to his work so far:
https://lafondiose.substack.com
Paul’s maps are sourced to Meyers Gazetteer, which is a free, searchable, on-line version of a 1912 map of Germany. These maps are very detailed, and Paul has done a nice job of simplifying them for each problem.
Here is a link to the gazette map for Problem Number 6 (which I received from Paul as a preview copy):
https://www.meyersgaz.org/place/10500069
For our first BBB game, I made a sketch map by tracing the gazetteer map, showing the area of operations for Problem 6. The sketch shows the terrain on our table as well as the terrain beyond the flanks of the table :
Paul also provides streamlined problem statements for every exercise. Using Moltke’s book, I embellished these a bit to provide these situation reports for both sides to read and respond to prior to our game:
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Prussian Situation, 7:00 PM
Your Corps consists of:
1st Infantry Division: 13 Battalions (one light), 4 Squadrons, 2 Batteries
2nd Infantry Division: 12 Battalion, 4 Squadrons, 2 Batteries
Cavalry Division: 32 Squadrons, 1 Horse Battery
Reserve Artillery: 6 Batteries
Your corps is concentrated at Frankfurt-am-Oder. 1st Division is east of the river. One brigade is occupying redoubts on the Laudons Berge and beyond the eastern suburbs. The second brigade is in support to the rear of the Laudons Berge. The remainder of the corps is encamped west of the river on the open heights above the city. Your units are well rested and at full strength.
Earlier today, patrols from 1st Division encountered enemy cavalry patrols on the roads to the east. Pressure from the enemy forced our patrols to return to our lines. In the hour before sunset, an enemy division of infantry and artillery was observed as it deployed around the town of Kunersdorf (2.5 miles to the east of Frankfurt). The onset of darkness prevents an attempt against this position tonight.
Intelligence reports two more enemy divisions have arrived in Drossen (12.5 miles to the east).
Your Corps has orders to bring on an engagement, to force the enemy from his line of retreat on Posen (located 100 miles to the east), thus clearing your intended line of advance on Posen.
Reconnaissance has shown that the marshland to the north of Kunersdorf is swampy and impassable except by bad roads. The extensive pine forest to the south is crossed by rides which are fit for wagons. Once past the woods and stream to the east of Kunersdorf, the terrain becomes much more open.
What are your orders to your Divisions and Brigades for tonight and tomorrow?
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Austrian Situation, 10:00 PM
Your Corps consists of:
1st Infantry Division: 12 Battalions, 8 Squadrons, 2 Batteries
2nd Infantry Division: 12 Battalions, 8 Squadrons, 2 Batteries
Cavalry Division: 24 Squadrons, 1 Horse Battery
Artillery Reserve: 6 Batteries
Your Corps is advancing from Posen towards Frankfurt on the Oder, under orders from the Army Commander to prevent the enemy from crossing the river or in any case to prevent his advance toward Posen. Today you reached the town of Drossen (12.5 miles east of Frankfurt), along with the 2nd Infantry Division, Cavalry Division, and Reserve Artillery. The 1st Infantry Division is 10 miles ahead of you, deployed around the town of Kunersdorf (2.5 miles east of Frankfurt).
At 8:00 PM, the 1st Infantry Division commander sent a dispatch reporting that an enemy brigade is occupying defensive redoubts on the high ground between Kunersdorf and Frankfurt. A second brigade is encamped on the flood plain east of the river. Across the river, many campfires are seen on the heights above the city. Enemy troops are defiling across the bridge.
The commander of the 1st Division advises that his division is in a good defensive position, with his northern flank protected by a swampy marsh, and his southern flank covered by an extensive pine forest. His corps is bivouacked under arms and taking the usual precautions in the presence of the enemy. He requests your orders for tomorrow. The theater map shows that the broken ground around Kunersdorf is indeed the most favorable as a defensive position. Further to the east, the terrain opens onto an open plain.
All of your formations are tired from marching all day, which prevents any major movements until sunrise at the earliest. What are your orders to your divisions for tomorrow?
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
The players in the roles of the corps commanders used these situation reports to determine their teams’ objectives for the game, and then drafted very brief orders for their divisions. The umpire used those orders to determine when the game would begin, and when and where off-table formations would appear.
The next step was to convert the units listed in the orders of battle into units for Bloody Big Battles. In BBB, one base is equivalent to 1000 infantry or cavalry, or 24-plus guns. In Moltke’s problems, a battalion is 1000 men, a squadron is 150 horse, and a battery is 6 guns. By dividing BBB’s standard scale by four, we came up with infantry and cavalry bases of roughly 250 men and artillery bases of 6 guns. Thus our infantry battalions were four bases, our cavalry bases represented two squadrons which were then grouped into regiments of 2-4 bases, and our artillery bases were one 6-gun battery. Our ground scale worked out to 100 meters per inch on the table.
We next had to determine which opposing forces to use (Moltke does not specify). Obviously the Prussians would be one side, and we chose an Austrian-Piedmontese coalition for the opposition (which was not at all historical for 1858 when the problem is set, but these problems can be used for any forces, and we have nice figures for those armies).
Both armies were rated as Trained. Prussian infantry was armed with needle guns, and the Coalition had muzzle-loading rifles. Only the Prussian light battalion was rated as Skirmish. Both sides had a mix of 6-pound and 12-pound smoothbore artillery. Since the artillery in our game only represents 6 guns, we diminished its effectiveness to 3 factors at close range (3″), 1 factor at effective range (12″) and 1 factor at long range (18″) (for 12-pdrs only). With both forces being fairly homogenous, we could dispense with making unit labels.
The last thing was to rate the unnamed commanders. BBB only puts effective commanders on the table. We modified this by making the Corps and Division commanders effective (providing a +1 bonus to rolls on the movement table for units within 6 inches) and Brigade commanders ineffective (no bonus, but units out of command would have a -1 penalty to their movement rolls). Cavalry and horse artillery were not penalized for being out of command as they were accustomed to operating independently. We also allowed units to make group moves as regiments (3 battalions) or brigades (6-7 battalions) (in standard BBB, every unit moves individually).
A battle report of the game will follow!
- TJ