Tuesday 27 July 2010

The benefits of firepower

The French artillery arrived at last and opened fire on the militia occupying the corner of the wall; unsurprisingly they fell back leaving Colonel Pringle the only defender for a moment. However the 1st Line Battalion had reformed and marched forward to fill the gap.

“Excellent, that’s what I want to see” exclaimed General Bercollin as his artillery shredded the defenders of the wall. “Just keep that up for a while then we’ll send the infantry forward and the cavalry can mop up afterwards".

“But sir, Major Brioche said that he doesn’t have a lot of ammunition left so if we fail we will have no reserve to cover our retreat” said Twyth.
“We won’t need to retreat, Ah here come the reserve ammunition, there will be no excuse” he watched a heavily laden caisson move up close to the gun line.

The General looked in horror as he saw the Representative en Mission Laine nearby lighting his pipe, quickly moving towards him, he shouted out “Representative Laine, please put that pipe out at once”

Laine looked up and at that moment a gunner opened the caisson lid.

Twyth watched as the caisson exploded and all the men around it were tossed aside in the blast. Rushing forward, Twyth found the general was badly wounded but still breathing.
“How is he Twyth?” asked Colonel Claret.

“Alive but unconscious sir”

“Right get him to the surgeon. We are going to withdraw while we can”

Under the watchful eyes of the Frundsbergers the French carefully disengaged and withdrew back to the Gottberg where they had started that morning.

6 comments:

A J said...

Darwinism in action. One fewer idiot in the world who doesn't know how dangerous it is to smoke around black powder. On such things do battles turn.

Capt Bill said...

Ah, the fates of war...

Bluebear Jeff said...

Hopefully Representative Laine "lost his head" in the explosion.


-- Jeff

Jacko said...

An excellent scenario ! You have inspired me to get moving on my Imagination Army . Thanks

Fitz-Badger said...

Didn't see this coming!
Was this incident a random event or otherwise engendered by rules, or was it something you planned all along?

Archduke Piccolo said...

A close run thing, by the sound of it, the French plan rather spoiled by Representative Laine's spirited bid for the Darwin Awards for 1792... Quite a good position chosen by the Frundsbergers (reminds me a little of Delaborde's at Rolica in Portugal).
The question is: have the French developed their full offensive with this attack, or is there something more behind - or to the flanks...?