salamanca (july 22, 1812)
the scenario for napoleon's battles
INTRODUCTION
The battle was fought in July 22, 1812. After a series of
marches and counter-marches between the Tormes and Douro rivers,,
Wellington and Marmont were anxious to try a contest so finally both
armies crossed to south of the Tormes occupying the two more prominent
features, los Hermanitos o Arapiles (the lesser Arapil by the British
and the Great Arapil by the French). Marmont tried to cut the supposed
retreat of Wellington towards Ciudad Rodrigo, but the manoeuvre was
badly carried out by his subordinates and the British general suddenly
attacked the overextended French.
The Order Of Battle is based on:
"Los Arapiles 1812. La campaña de Salamanca" M.A. Martín Mas, Almena
Ediciones , Madrid 2005
"Salamanca 1812. Wellington Crushes Marmont" . I. Fletcher (Campaign
48),Osprey Publishing , 1997
"A History of the Peninsular War", Volume V, C. Oman, Green Hill Books,
2005
HOUSE RULES
The second edition of Napoleon's Battles edited by Five Forks has been used (including all the
optional rules) with some slight modifications fully explained in the
Albuera pdf file and in the Home-Rules
section:
1) The cavalry scale
is also 1/120. To avoid distortions, 2 figures were removed for each 3
casualties.
2) Units of cavalry from 480 men upwards are
allowed and units of infantry with less than four elements are also
allowed to display under-strength infantry units.
3) Routed
units can try to rally without an attached general with an additional
'-3' modifier.
4) Divisional batteries are used (with a -1
modifier). The infantry fire is carried out as usual, but the resulting losses are not
marked on the target unit, but are only used to cause disorder.
5) C-i-C ratings. Do not use
“10” as Response number of the C-i-C’s but use the values assigned to them
as Corps Commanders.
TABLE-TOP ADAPTATION
| Salamanca pdf file |
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| Old map | Aerial view | Table-top map | |
| The battlefield | |||
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| The 'Little Brothers' o Hermanitos´' and the road to Alba de Tormes | Calvarrasa de Arriba and the Chapel of Our Lady of 'La Peña' | Aldeatejada and the roads to Salamanca and Ciudad Rodrigo | The 'Montes de Azan' and the 'Teso de San Miguel' heights |
INITIAL DEPLOYMENT
The French left
The French right overextending
The two Arapiles
The Light Division
Packenham waiting
The Allied reserves
SPECIFIC RULES OF THE SCENARIO
French deployment
The Sceanrio map shows the situation after Marmont initiated his
westwards movement in order to cut the supposed British retreat towards
Ciudad-Rodrigo. To simulate the unsupported westwards advance of the
French 5th and 7th divisions, place them in the dotted positions and
consider them always out-of-command. In the necessary command control
tests for the French 7th division, a half-move result is converted into
a compulsory westwards half-move and a no-move result into a compulsory
westwards full move (the extreme left of the Montes de Azán could not be
surpassed anyway). In the case of the French 5th division, a half-move
and a no-move results are respectively converted into a compulsory
artillery/skirmish attack or a compulsory artillery attack on the
Arapiles village. Marmont could halt these movements by attaching
himself to these divisions.
Marmont is wounded
Additionally to the rule for eliminating Generals attached to routed or
dispersed units, each time that Marmont is within 3” of a French unit
fired upon by British artillery, carry out an elimination test likewise
he was attached to a routed or dispersed unit.
British (and French) independent brigade commanders
The commanders of British cavalry and Portuguese independent
brigades were used in a semi-independent tactical way so they are
sonsidered and shown in the tabletop.
The French also deploy four brigade generals to carry out semi-independent
missions beyond the control radius of their Division commanders. All
these Brigade generals must remain continuously attached to their
brigades, so their command radius is notprinted in the labels (nor
counted in the points value of the Army). The labels can be glued on an
individual General figure or on the command base of the affected unit,
as preferred.
French cavalry
Marmont was short of cavalry and requisitioned several hundreds
of horses from the officials of the Armée de Portugal to increase his
mounted arm. To show their lesser efficiency, the statistics for the
French Light Cavalry units are taken from the years 1813-1815 but the
dispersal letter is maintained as ‘C’.
In Spain, French dragoons played the role of Heavy Cavalry. A new
category has been added to the French unit roster.
VICTORY POINTS
The village of Arapiles (C3) is worth 10%, the village of Miranda (C1)
10%, the Lesser Arapil (B4) 20%, the Great Arapil (C4) 20%, the El
Sierro heights(D4) or the road leading to Alba de Tormes 20% and the
Aldeatejada (A1) road end leading to Ciudad Rodrigo 20% victory points
each. The village of Arapiles, the Lesser Arapil and the A1 road end are
British controlled at the start. The Great Arapil and the El Sierro
heights are French controlled.
THE BATTLE IN PICTURES