The Battle of Oldendorf

 

At the HK Society of Wargamers meeting on 14th December 2024 the Imperial armies once again clashed with the Protestant forces of German Princes and Swedes in a refight of the 1633 Battle of Oldendorf.

Following the death of Gustavus Adolphus at the Battle of Lutzen in November 1632, the campaign of 1633 was marked by the reluctance of Wallenstein, the main Imperial commander, to undertake offensive operations, rousing suspicions as to his loyalties that would eventually lead to his assassination in early 1634.  The main action during the year was in Lower Saxony as the Swedish army and their German allies, principally the Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel, sought to capture cities garrisoned by Imperial troops.  In March the town of Hamelin was invested.  The Imperial commander in the Weser region, Jobst Maximilian von Gronsfeld, marched to relieve the seige and on 8th July met the allied army about 10 miles north-west of Hamelin near to Oldendorf.  The Imperial army had nearly 15,000 men compared with 13,000 in the allied army but the latter had more than double the artillery that the Imperials could bring to the battle.  The historical battle was notable as one of the few occasions during the Thirty Years War when both armies went onto the offensive.  The allied right and centre were held by the Imperial army but the left outflanked and broke the Imperial right, capturing Gronsfeld and forcing the whole army to retire.  How would the refight go?

We used the scenario from 'Europe's Tragedy' - one of the two books of battle scenarios produced to go with the 'Twilight of Divine Right' rules that we used to play the action.  This gives  each side three wings.  Our deployment is shown in the picture below.

The Protestant right (Blue 1) is commanded by Torsten Stålhandske (a later Field Marshal in the Swedish army) and is made up of three Swedish style cavalry regiments, each with commanded shot attached, and a supporting regiment of dragoons.

The Protestant centre (Blue 2) commanded by Georg of Brunswick has three Swedish Infantry Brigades, each with regimental guns, supported by a musket heavy infantry regiment and a Cuirassier regiment.  Two artillery batteries are placed with the centre.  The Swedish Brigades all elect to start in musket heavy deployment.  Subject to a test they can alter their posture during play.

The Protestant left (Blue 3) has four Dutch style cavalry regiments, two Swedish style and a Finnish Galloper regiment, supported by a regiment of dragoons.  These are under the command of Marshal Dodo zu Innhausen und Knyphausen.

The Imperial right (Red 3) under von Gronsfeld has two Cuirassier regiments, both with commanded shot, two Dutch style regiments, one of which also has commanded shot, a Dragoon regiment and an infantry Tercio with a balance of pike and shot.

The Imperial centre (Red 2) is commanded by Lothar von Bonninghausen.  The front lines are a mix of two small musket heavy regiments and three raw Tercios which are also musket heavy.  Two of the latter are also rated as small (small units have the same starting morale points as standard units but have a -1 modifier on all morale tests).  A reserve line consists of three musket heavy regiments.  A single artillery battery is also with the centre (marked by a smoke puff on the picture).

The Imperial left (Red 1) under Gottfried Huyn von Geleen has a Cuirassier and two Dutch style cavalry regiments, all with commanded shot, and is supported by a dragoon regiment.

Both armies start on high ground.  The streams are all fordable along their length but require action tests to cross and give defensive advantage.  A long ridge runs between the stream immediately in front of the Protestant army and the stream running past the Imperial left and centre.  Another wooded ridge lies between the two streams at the top centre of the picture.  The only level ground is in the foreground, in front of the town of Oldendorf which is at the bottom right.  

Our deployment can be compared against that shown above in a contemporary engraving of the battle, viewed from behind the allied centre.  Clearly shown in this are four blocks of troops arrayed in Swedish Brigade formation - against the three allowed in the scenario - and the large allied artillery battery.  Most of the action shown is on the allied right / Imperial left rather than the decisive area on the other flank.

Note that all commanders have a rating of 1 except Geleen who is a 0.  A 1 rating allows one intervention per turn to re-roll a failed action test.  All units except those rated raw at the start can test for quality (Trained, Raw or Elite).  We opted to make these tests at the point when the unit first has to make a morale test, adding a little fog of war element to the game.  

The opening moves of the game saw the cavalry on the allied left crossing the stream to deploy into the open ground in front of Oldendorf and threaten the Imperial right, which responded by wheeling to face the threat while remaining on the high ground.   The allied deployment was disrupted by Imperial artillery fire forcing additional action tests on top of those required to cross the stream and it took some time to get the allied line sorted out.  In retrospect, our initial deployment behind the stream could have been better arranged so as to cross in column and simply turn into line, rather than crossing in line then having to wheel to face the enemy.

The allied left struggles into position near Oldendorf under harassing fire

In the foreground, the Imperial right is wheeling to face the threat of envelopment from the allied left.  The third line of infantry from the Imperial centre is also being moved across to the right to fill the gap that will open up if the right wing advances.

The allied guns concentrate their fire on the infantry in the Imperial centre.  This forces the target to take a morale test in their turn.  Over the course of the battle, the allied artillery was very successful in wearing down the strength of the Imperial front line.

The allied artillery had plenty of time for its bombardment as the Imperial centre did not move and the allied centre failed action tests to cross the stream twice in a row - the general's re-roll also failing! - and the Swedish Brigades were in any case moving very slowly as they tried to keep the Regimental guns attached to the Brigades.

In the foreground, the allied left is now in position.  The Imperial right is strongly arrayed to face them but risks exposing its flank to the reserve line of allied cavalry that have advanced between the  two streams in the centre of the picture.

Rather than wait for the allies to attack, the Imperials sweep down from the hill and launch a furious assault on the assorted cavalry of the allied right.  The allied front line of Dutch style cavalry stand up to this very well, winning exchanges of fire with an Imperial Tercio even!  However, the Imperials have found space to insinuate a column of their own Dutch style cavalry down the flank in the foreground

The massive Swedish Brigades are still lumbering slowly towards the immobile Imperial Tercios, but the supporting cavalry on the allied right have become impatient and are moving ahead through the difficult ground on that side.  This emulated a feat by their historical counter-parts but was it well advised in the circumstances of the game?

No it wasn't.  As the allied right cross the stream they are forced to take morale tests by enemy defensive fire.  They fail all three tests, the right and centre units losing a morale point and the left hand unit routing.  No repeat of the historical stalemate here.

The tumultuous fight on the allied left continues.  Imperial cavalry has caught an infantry regiment in the flank after it failed a test to turn back into line from column.  However, the Imperial infantry is still making no headway against the allied cavalry and the latter have countered the Imperial attempt to outflank their position by catching the outflankers in their own flank.

Another turn and another unit routs on the allied right, triggering a test of morale for that wing, which it fails.  The remnants of the wing head for the rear in ignominy, Stalhanske doing nothing in this game to warrant his later promotion to Marshal, while his opponent, Geleen, certainly burnishes his reputation.

The Swedish Brigades finally make it into action but fail to make any immediate impression on the Imperial centre

The Imperial left sweeps through the wood and threatens to turn the flank of the Swedish line in the centre

Amid a flurry of routs and wild pursuits in the combat on the allied left, the allies have managed to get a regiment of cavalry into the rear of the Imperial force and look to have the upper hand.  However, no quick victory is likely, so the prospect of this wing being able to exert an influence on events in the centre is low.

Having got through 24 turns of play - 12 for each side under the rules being used - the prospect of supper was more enticing than continuing the fight.  The allies conceded the field to the Imperials.

Reflecting on the battle, the allies could have done much better with their initial deployment and should never have allowed impatience to get the better of good sense in their precipitate advance on the right.  The main question was whether they were right to advance the Swedish Brigades so slowly so as to ensure that the regimental guns were not left behind.  The advantages of this were two-fold.  It ensured that these units would have firepower advantage when combat was joined.  More important, it allowed the allied artillery plenty of time to do damage, which, thanks to poor Imperial morale rolls, it did.  However, they would still have faced a grinding uphill fight, the outcome of which would have been uncertain even if they had not lost the support of their right wing and were far away from supporting the left wing or being supported by it.  Might the allied generals have been better abandoning the regimental guns to allow their infantry much swifter movement, possibly shifting their centre to the left where the less flexible Imperial Tercios might have found it hard to follow them?  Ideas for a refight, perhaps.

The advantage given to the Protestants by their weight of artillery was commented on but proved not to be a decisive factor.  At most it offset the significant advantage the Imperial side held at the start in total morale points - 50 vs 42 on the Protestant side.

The practice of dicing for unit quality on first morale test is a nice fog of war element - though whether commanders would be ignorant of the quality of their own men, rather than those of the enemy - is a moot point.  The rolls did not produce wildly unbalanced outcomes but it would have speeded things up a lot if each unit had a marking to indicate the test scale to use, rather than having to look up the scenario sheet every time we needed to test.

In this game we again did away with the individual unit record cards, made redundant by the information labels on the back row of each unit sabot.  However, as combats multiplied we began to think it would be useful to have to hand quick reference sheets for morale tests.  Unfortunately, while setting up the table I had found that the four small tables available for use were, while long enough, not quite deep enough for the scenario.  So, I left a gap between each pair of tables and filled this in with a mixture of the cardboard hill formers and, in the level ground, the laminated quick reference sheets, over which the gaming mat was then laid.  Recovering the sheets when wanted was thus not possible without an ahistorical earthquake and opening up of the ground beneath the hooves of our cavalry.

My thanks to Chris, George and Jeremy for an enjoyable game.