Battle of Gadebusch 1712
Posted: Sun Dec 09, 2012 9:24 pm
It's been a long time since I visited this forum, but thought I would share this. Today me and some friends recreated the Battle of Gadebusch in 1712, almost exactly 300 years ago.
The battle would be the last big battle and Swedish victory during the Great Northern War. I wont go too much into detail of the scenario, all I can say is that it was an exact recreation of the battle, more of a what-if, but still pretty close to the real thing.
We used the Beneath the Lily Banners rules and reached a conclusion in about 8 hours. Anyway, on to the pictures!
The table layout looking south, swedes to the left, danes and saxons to the right.
The danish right flank collapsed early in the battle after a surpisingly successfull swedish cavalry charge, sending several danish battalions running through the forest only to be cut down by the pursuing cavalry.
On the opposite flank saxon and swedish cavalry clashed back and forth for a while until the saxon cavalry eventually won the day.
The swedish guns, a game-winner in the real battle, were surprisingly unsuccessful in our battle and only caused marginal casualties and no headaches for the danish commanders.
The infantry lines are closing on each other. Unfortunately there are no good pictures of the battle in the centre as I was too busy shouting orders, rolling dice and, erm, making a tactical retreat....
Eventually the danish centre collapsed after a brigadier got killed in closed combat. The remaining units, mainly guard battalions, simply lost their courage and fled, many of them getting killed by the pursuing swedes. Up until then it was a pretty close battle, on the danish left flank the remaining cavalry were organizing a large assault on the opposing swedish infantry. But once the centre broke they decided it was better to live to fight another day. This is how the centre looked as we called it a day.
The battle would be the last big battle and Swedish victory during the Great Northern War. I wont go too much into detail of the scenario, all I can say is that it was an exact recreation of the battle, more of a what-if, but still pretty close to the real thing.
We used the Beneath the Lily Banners rules and reached a conclusion in about 8 hours. Anyway, on to the pictures!
The table layout looking south, swedes to the left, danes and saxons to the right.
The danish right flank collapsed early in the battle after a surpisingly successfull swedish cavalry charge, sending several danish battalions running through the forest only to be cut down by the pursuing cavalry.
On the opposite flank saxon and swedish cavalry clashed back and forth for a while until the saxon cavalry eventually won the day.
The swedish guns, a game-winner in the real battle, were surprisingly unsuccessful in our battle and only caused marginal casualties and no headaches for the danish commanders.
The infantry lines are closing on each other. Unfortunately there are no good pictures of the battle in the centre as I was too busy shouting orders, rolling dice and, erm, making a tactical retreat....
Eventually the danish centre collapsed after a brigadier got killed in closed combat. The remaining units, mainly guard battalions, simply lost their courage and fled, many of them getting killed by the pursuing swedes. Up until then it was a pretty close battle, on the danish left flank the remaining cavalry were organizing a large assault on the opposing swedish infantry. But once the centre broke they decided it was better to live to fight another day. This is how the centre looked as we called it a day.
and keep the Swedes moving 
in this battle as the Infantry could'nt make it in time to meet the Danes for doing this battle.