Polish War 1626 AAR: Supply Column under Attack

Last week Riccardo, Franscesco and Fabio from Verona in Italy visited Stockholm and the Wargaming exebition at the Swedish Army museum, so I thought we should throw them a game of The Pikeman´s Lament and invited them to participate in a game in our Polish War 1626 club campaign, commanding a company of Polish cavalry each.

First a short re-cap of the campaign setting:

The Campaign revolves around the war between the Swedes and the Poles in 1625-1629 and we have started of during the autum of 1625.

The Polish–Swedish Wars were a series of wars between the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and Sweden. Broadly construed, the term refers to a series of wars between 1563 and 1721. More narrowly, it refers to particular wars between 1600 and 1629.

The Polish–Swedish War of 1625–1629 was the fourth stage (after 1600–1611, 1617–1618, and 1620–1625) in a series of conflicts between Sweden and Poland fought in the 17th century. It began in June 1625 and ended four years later with the Truce of Altmark and later at Stuhmsdorf with the Treaty of Stuhmsdorf.

In 1621, the Swedes besiege and conquered Riga, which attracted attention, as it was the first time a Protestant leaders defeated a Catholic power. The Swedish army was worn and the Poles could regain the initiative at Dorpat. Truce was signed in November 1622 and was extended until March 1625. Any acceptable terms for peace with Poland, could not be reached, so Gustav II Adolf planned a new campaign against Poland, which began in June 1625. Kokenhusen, Birze and Mitau was captured and Dorpat was taken after six days of siege. During the autumn of 1625 two Polish armies appeared against the Swedish forces and Gustav II Adolf decided to get into a clash before the Polish forces managed to unite.

So this is the starting point for my Polish War club campaign.

By now the campaign have moved on to the early spring of  1626. The Swedish army have after the victory at Wallhof in January 1626 been on the offensive and moving further south forward the Polish mainland.

The Swedish advance are slowed down by poor and muddy roads making the soldiers exhausted and the supply wagons get stuck at several occations.

The Scenario we was seting up revolvs around a Polish Attack of a a part of the Swedish supply column. The Polish objective is to destroy the 4 wagons and the swedes to stop that and protect the civilian camp followers.

Swedish OOB
1st Company (protecting the Supply column)
1 unit of Pikes
1 unit of Commanded Shot
2 units of Forlorn Hope

2nd Company (half protecting the supply column and half enter as reinforcements)
1 unit of Veteran Pikes
1 unit of Pikes
2 units of Shot

3rd Company (enter as reinforcements)
1 Unit of Gallopers
1 Unit of Trotters
2 Units of Dragoons

Polish OOB
1st Company
1 unit of Elite Gallopers
1 unit of Agressive Elite Gallopers
1 unit of Veteran Dragoons

2nd Company
3 units of Veteran Dragoons

3rd Company
3 units of Dragoons

The game in short, The Polish attacker had divided their companies on both sides of the road and aiming for an all-out attack before the Swedish reinforcements arrives. This proved to nbe a good plan as wery early on the Polish attacker had managed to destroy the two wagons closest to the Swedish reinforcements.

The Swedes main problem was that they in the first turn got one of their officers killed, badly depleate that companys chanses to activate and  that they decided to let all reinforcements arrive from the same table edge, despite the option to split them.

So now the Polish attacke let their swift Veteran Dragoones Skirmish down the lenthg of the Swedish supply column dealing death...

After about two hours of gaming it all ended in a Decisive Victory for the Polish attacker.