General Colbert and General Sandman met for a rematch 1 vs. 1.
First it had been setup a sandbox-battle in corps size. General Sandman commanded a prussian and Genral Colbert commanded a french corps. This time Sandman spawned close to the Objective situated in the SE of the area and could seize it very early gaining VPs from it. He deployed one with Arty reinforced Inf Divison at the Objective, while the other formations spread out NW-N to work as advance guard blocking enemy approachings.
The advancing prussian Inf Division directly commanded by its AI officer has been surprised by Colbert´s move hard E and suffered remarkable losses by french combined arms interceptions, until a consolidation could be achieved and the meanwhile alarmed prussian Cavalry was on its way.
Unfortunately this very interesting battle had to be broken up, because one of the players dropped due technical issues.
But how great it was, that we started the session in time (the 2 protagonists joined the server at 19.30 GMT or sooner), so we could easily setup a new battle which should be not less interesting.
This time General Sandman commanded the french Corps of D´Erlon while General Colbert was in charge of von Thieleman´s Prussians. The Objective was in the E. Colbert who started in the NE could get there a bit sooner than Sandman coming from the W. So the Objective had been occupied by the Prussians who held it till the end of the battle.
It took a while for the french to build up a deployment, because one after the other division reached the battlefield in successivly incoming road-columns. Also some prussian elements joined their main body with some delay.
Batteries were placed on high grounds along a small valley and the battle heated up. While Sandman was thinking about how to conduct the attack on the Objective, General Colbert himself unexpectly started to probe the french lines supported by intervals of Cavalry penetrations also against the french batteries on the lifts. The french prevailed the positions by fiercly defending Infantry and Cavalry counters. But sometimes the cannons had to been drawn back and redeployed after a parade. Nevertheless the prussians could destroy or occupy a couple of pieces.
General Colbert kept pushing until his offensive formations got exhausted or routed. Then finally Sandman´s French were free to counter. The offence started at the flanks, especially on the prussian´s left, where the french could keep up the pressure, initiated before while countering the prussian advance. On the other hand there was a difficult terrain (small river and wood), which made an attack hard to perform. At the end the french brought all reserves and approached over the complete front. But there wasnt anymore remaining time to seriously threaten the Objective.
Although controling the Objective, General Colbert, according his brave agressive doctrine, decided to defend it with the means of an offence. But this offence, against a well organized enemy and strong uphill positions cost him many troops. In the end his Prussians suffered about 7500 casualities, while the french had to sacrifice "only" 5700 troops and therefore still being effective for possible further actions.
So finally the battle resulted a hard fought french tactical victory, but without ever seizing or threatening the local target always held by General Colbert.