Field of Battle3 - Refighting the "Battle of Kunersdorf 1759" - Frederick´s greatest defeat

Manufacturers:  WargamesFoundry, CrusaderMiniatures, FrontRankMiniatures, DreispitzMiniatures

Scale:  28mm

Hi,

after having done a lot of posts about toysoldiers and AI  I recognized that it has been a long time since doing a report on topics concerning wargaming. Sad, but true.

So this post is dedicated to a game we are planning by using the rules of "Field of Battle 3". There will be another post about the game itself. This post is about some background.

I do have a really good collection of SYW Austrians. There are also SYW Russians on my shelves though the number of units is less compared to the Austrians. From the last games there are still a lot of SYW Prussians in my hobby bunker that belong to my friend Walter. Combine those armies and you could play the "Battle of Kunersdorf 1759".

Frederick the Great decided to fight a combined army of Russians lead by Salykov and Austrians under Loudon who had joined near Frankfurt Oder at Kunersdorf. The united forces of Russians and Austrians had been a great danger of marching against Berlin. The number of troops of this combined force was about 76.000 men and round about 430 guns. Furthermore the Russian position on the Mühlberg had entranchments. 

The Prussian force was about 49.900 men and 286 pieces of artillery. Though being outnumbered Frederick decided to fight this battle. Due to a march in the night he managed to place his force on the right wing of his enemies. After a good start for the Prussians the terrain had been a big problem for Frederick´s army. After six hours of fighting he Prussians force had been defeated. Two horses carrying Frederick during the battle had been shot. The Prussians lso 569 officers an 18.400 men dead or wounded, 26 colours, 2 standards, 172 artillery pieces and 110 ammunition wagons. This battle was one of Frederick´s worst defeat.  See further information at Kronoskaf.com or on YouTube.

But how to play this battle? Ok, there are already some scenarios in certain books, but I only have one version of a scenario in a book and this one did not seem to be suitable. So I wanted to try something different.

I asked google gemini to create a scenario for this battle. I have to point out that I didn´t ask for units, a certain dimension of the table nor did I tell the AI that we want to use the rules of "Field of Battle 3". The result was an AI created scenario based on the dimensions 6´x4´. The program also gave a recommendation about the number of units to use per side. It even told me somethng about the  history of this battle.

Thinking of the number of units we had at disposal I played a bit with the dimensions. I asked for a         12´x4´sized scenario. That could have been feasible for there are two gaming tables in my gaming room that can be connected, so you could play games of at least 5m wide and 1,60m deep. But this plan was soon discarded, The battelefield would have been to widespread and there also would have been to many manouvres done before first action and fighting started.

So another trial with 8´x4´. The program adapted the scenario and the units to the new dimensions and asked for the rulesystem we were going to play. After that google gemini gave an "Order of battle" to me for both sides devided into three brigades on each side and the units within each brigade. It also added the values of dice (D4 to D12) for every unit and gave advice for the ArmyMoralePoints.

I asked for a battlemap showing the terrain and also got a good proposal.

AI is a very good help for creating scenarios, but to be honest, it is also very tricky. You can´t really rely on all results. The lettering of the battlemap was not accurate, we also had to rethink about the values of dice per unit and sized the AMP´s down. It also had been a very difficult thing to place the terrain of the created battlemap in reality. While doing this I realized that it almost would be impossible to place all the units on the battlefield. Though we already reduced the UI´s from 4 to 3 (we had a problem concerning the number of figures) there probably would be not enough space for manouvre. So my layout of terrain now has the dimensions 8´x5,3´ (2,4m by 1,6m).

So now we will have to try if scenarios created by AI will work. Are the units well balanced, is the terrain playable, how about the dimensions combined with the number of units? We will see and I will keep you informed.

Thanks to my comrade Franz, who gave me advices in matters of "Field of battle" and who also has done the revision of the unit stads and AMP´s.

Here are some pictures about the preparation of the game. The AI created battlemap, the terrain I tried to lay out as near as possible to the map, the compilation of the adversarial forces, the revised Order of Battle for both sides and of course an overview on my wargaming room.

Hope you like it. :)

Cheers

Mike

Painting of Prussian Grenadiers storming the Mühlenberg (AI created).

Two battlemaps of Kunersdorf that can be found in Battlebooks.

The AI created battlemap as a template for the layout of the terrain.

My implementation of the layout as near as possible to the battlemap.

Kunersdorf is already burning an the Mühlenberg is heavily fortified with entranchments.

The order of battle for the Russian/Austrian force.

The figures for the Russian/Austrian force.

The order of battle for the Prussians.

Frederick the Great and his tiny soldiers.

Both forces next to each other.

A view into my complete wargaming room.

Another view onto the battlefield, I will need a Russian flag of the SYW aswell.

Refighting "The Battle of Kunersdorf" - I will be there.