Other people’s wargames: Gary Sheffield’s refight of the Battle of Wavre

Recently, my old friend Professor Gary Sheffield refought the Battle of Wavre using Martin Rapier’s hex version of Neil Thomas’s ONE HOUR WARGAMES.

The following is based on Gary’s description of the battle:

The French started aggressively by attacking at all the crossing points, Limale in the west, Bierges in centre right, and Wavre in the east. The French got into action quite quickly, and made good use of light infantry at Bierges and Wavre to attrit the defenders. The Prussians defended well, and held off the French at all three crossing points while relieving battered units from the front line and sending off units to Waterloo.

Wavre became a meat grinder, with both sides taking heavy losses and having to rally off them off. But on turn 8 the Prussian garrison at Limale routed, and since the other infantry unit had departed for Waterloo it was down to a heavy cavalry division to guard the crossing.

It got worse for the Prussians on turn 9, as the division defending Bierges was routed and the French finally crossed the River Dyle and threatened to outflank Wavre.

Turn 10 threatened to be a complete disaster for the Prussians. The Landwehr unit holding the Bridge of Christ at Wavre was attacked, failed a morale test and bolted, and so French infantry at last forced their way into Wavre. Then General Thielmann was killed while rallying a Prussian Regular unit. The only bright spot for the Prussians was that the Swiss unit finally routed because of the pummelling it had received.

On turn 11 French light cavalry crossed the Dyle at Bierges, and threatened to cut the Wavre-Brussels road, while the French heavy cavalry fought an inconclusive melee with Prussian heavies on the north bank of the River Dyle. At that point darkness came and the fighting ended.

The result was an honourable draw. The French had captured Wavre but failed to exit two units along the Brussels road (they had no chance of doing this by end of turn 12) while the Prussians had sent off 5 units to Waterloo at the appropriate times as per their victory conditions, but had lost Wavre. Had the French managed to force the crossing of the Dyle at Bierges only one or two turns earlier, things might have been very different.

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Please note that the photographs featured above are © Gary Sheffield.