The largest battle of the 1860 campaign in China was the attack on the bridge at Palikao on the 21st September. Here the British and French forces met the might of the Qing Empire, with Mongols, Manchus, Green Standard and Bannermen in abundance. It was a stunning success for the Europeans, and the French commander, General Montauban, was created the Count of Palikao by Napoleon III afterwards.
The documentation for the battle is a bit all over the place, but I reckoned I had enough to give it a go. I had two issues. I probably didn't have enough in the way of Mongol Cavalry, and I probably needed the entire length of my table, plus a bit more, and I was alas using the far end to store Battlefield Society literature.
Even so, I think I made a decent fist of it. The Allies are marching along the length of a canal, leading up to Palikao Bridge, with the French closest to the canal. The British are off to their left. The French are to engage the centre and left of the Chinese position whilst the British turn their right flank, being in possession of the only battlefield cavalry the expedition has. The frontage of the battle was about 3 miles, with the Chinese holding three villages. The area was also wooded. In the end I was unable to find a good map of the area, so I made a number of guesses.
My Bellona bridge stood in for the eponymous bridge of the battle. It needs some repair work. It is occupied by some Imperial Guard Banner troops.
This is the French corps advancing onto the table. In the actual battle the French commander sent forward half his Chasseurs, together with the voltiguer companies from his line battalions, and merged the rest of the Chasseurs into the line regiments to bring them up to strength. I just deployed the Chasseurs in open order to get the same effect.
Over on the left you can see the British, with Probyn's Horse in the centre, and Fane's on the right of the picture.
As the French advanced, the Chinese commander diverted some of his horse to support the centre.
Although heavily outnumbered, the Indian "Irregular" cavalry advanced. I put irregular in inverted commas, as they seem to fight like line cavalry in this engagement.
As I'm soloing this I some times forget to take pictures. Fane's horse have managed to charge some Manchu cavalry in the flank. Probyn's have been charged by the Mongol horse, but one of their units refuses to charge home (I've left the dice they rolled to pass their "Moral Vigour" (MV) test next to them as a reminder they can't be moved).
In fact it is a bit of a bust for the Mongols on this flank, as the other two units refuse to charge the British infantry advancing in line towards them.
The Manchu horse facing the French were also a bit leery of charging. Things weren't going well with the Chinese.
The British foot opened fire on the Mongol horse that initially wouldn't charge. As I was losing track of who'd done what I deployed some of my smoke markers from my WSS game.
Firing had broken out all along the frontage. The Europeans were getting the better of the duel.
Fane's inflict a lot of damage on the Manchu cavalry. They now need to recoil away from the direction of charge. Their recoil path is blocked by the village, so they need to test again to stand. They fail, which means they need to test again.
A cascade of disastrous MV tests means they break and flee, but their colleagues pass their test and stand.
Probyn's are finding the Mongols a tougher prospect. Although they lose the close combat, they are braced in position by the supporting unit.
More firing. More smoke markers.
More volleys from the French infantry repel their mounted opponents. Historically the French were forced to form square, although some troops survived by lining the ditch at the side of the road. The French also did considerable damage with their artillery firing canister or grape shot. This is one of the places where I may not have got things completely right, in that it was too easy, both here and on the left flank, to deploy in line with flanks secured. Then, with rifles, develop sufficiently heavy fire to repel the cavalry. I don't have a problem with rifles shooting off cavalry, even pre breach loaders, but the inability of the cavalry to flank the position is a problem with the layout.
With their cavalry driving back their opponents, the British infantry closed on the infantry and guns defending the village. The 60th Rifles performed excellent service as a skirmisher screen.
On the right, the French infantry cross the road, and the Mongols charge home again. In the centre you can see French infantry preparing to storm the village.
"C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre" one might say, as the Mongols take a lot of damage charging home against formed infantry with modern rifles.
In Attack Column the French infantry press home their charge on the village in the face of artillery fire and musketry.
The Chinese right is crumbling, as Fane's horse continue to press home their advantage, and Probyn's drive their opponents back.
The French capture the village in the centre. Many cheers of "Vive l'Empereur" and "Vive la France".
The Mongol cavalry is driven off by the French on the right.
The documentation for the battle is a bit all over the place, but I reckoned I had enough to give it a go. I had two issues. I probably didn't have enough in the way of Mongol Cavalry, and I probably needed the entire length of my table, plus a bit more, and I was alas using the far end to store Battlefield Society literature.
Even so, I think I made a decent fist of it. The Allies are marching along the length of a canal, leading up to Palikao Bridge, with the French closest to the canal. The British are off to their left. The French are to engage the centre and left of the Chinese position whilst the British turn their right flank, being in possession of the only battlefield cavalry the expedition has. The frontage of the battle was about 3 miles, with the Chinese holding three villages. The area was also wooded. In the end I was unable to find a good map of the area, so I made a number of guesses.
My Bellona bridge stood in for the eponymous bridge of the battle. It needs some repair work. It is occupied by some Imperial Guard Banner troops.
This is the French corps advancing onto the table. In the actual battle the French commander sent forward half his Chasseurs, together with the voltiguer companies from his line battalions, and merged the rest of the Chasseurs into the line regiments to bring them up to strength. I just deployed the Chasseurs in open order to get the same effect.
Over on the left you can see the British, with Probyn's Horse in the centre, and Fane's on the right of the picture.
As the French advanced, the Chinese commander diverted some of his horse to support the centre.
Although heavily outnumbered, the Indian "Irregular" cavalry advanced. I put irregular in inverted commas, as they seem to fight like line cavalry in this engagement.
As I'm soloing this I some times forget to take pictures. Fane's horse have managed to charge some Manchu cavalry in the flank. Probyn's have been charged by the Mongol horse, but one of their units refuses to charge home (I've left the dice they rolled to pass their "Moral Vigour" (MV) test next to them as a reminder they can't be moved).
In fact it is a bit of a bust for the Mongols on this flank, as the other two units refuse to charge the British infantry advancing in line towards them.
The Manchu horse facing the French were also a bit leery of charging. Things weren't going well with the Chinese.
The British foot opened fire on the Mongol horse that initially wouldn't charge. As I was losing track of who'd done what I deployed some of my smoke markers from my WSS game.
Firing had broken out all along the frontage. The Europeans were getting the better of the duel.
Fane's inflict a lot of damage on the Manchu cavalry. They now need to recoil away from the direction of charge. Their recoil path is blocked by the village, so they need to test again to stand. They fail, which means they need to test again.
A cascade of disastrous MV tests means they break and flee, but their colleagues pass their test and stand.
Probyn's are finding the Mongols a tougher prospect. Although they lose the close combat, they are braced in position by the supporting unit.
More firing. More smoke markers.
More volleys from the French infantry repel their mounted opponents. Historically the French were forced to form square, although some troops survived by lining the ditch at the side of the road. The French also did considerable damage with their artillery firing canister or grape shot. This is one of the places where I may not have got things completely right, in that it was too easy, both here and on the left flank, to deploy in line with flanks secured. Then, with rifles, develop sufficiently heavy fire to repel the cavalry. I don't have a problem with rifles shooting off cavalry, even pre breach loaders, but the inability of the cavalry to flank the position is a problem with the layout.
With their cavalry driving back their opponents, the British infantry closed on the infantry and guns defending the village. The 60th Rifles performed excellent service as a skirmisher screen.
On the right, the French infantry cross the road, and the Mongols charge home again. In the centre you can see French infantry preparing to storm the village.
"C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la guerre" one might say, as the Mongols take a lot of damage charging home against formed infantry with modern rifles.
In Attack Column the French infantry press home their charge on the village in the face of artillery fire and musketry.
The Chinese right is crumbling, as Fane's horse continue to press home their advantage, and Probyn's drive their opponents back.
The French capture the village in the centre. Many cheers of "Vive l'Empereur" and "Vive la France".
The Mongol cavalry is driven off by the French on the right.
Whilst over on the left more and more of the Mongol horse starts to leave the field.
I hasn't finished by the time I wanted to stop for the evening. I'd been at it for 2 hours, excluding set up time, and that's more than enough of my own company for me to endure. I'm really pleased at how much has happened in two hours, with me moving all the bits and with lots of figures and terrain on the table. I will hopefully find time to go back and finish off the game.
The issues with the game were in the set up, the rules performing admirably. It is hard to see how the Chinese can win. Their defensive position is deep, but it is not tremendously strong. They really need good strong walls and ditches, and massed artillery. Either that or a lot of space to develop the use of their cavalry. In any event, the technical advantage that the Europeans have with the modern (for the time) rifle - the British are using the Enfield - means that they can engage the enemy at range and cause a lot of damage before closing. They didn't even need to deploy the Armstrong guns. Or at least, not so far.
For those of you who don't own them yet, the rules are available from Amazon and Wargame Vault, for the very reasonable £14.99. Go on, treat yourself.
There will always be table problems allowing for the infamous 'safe edge of the board' flank etc. but otherwise I'd say the battle turned out about like it should have. Let's face it the Imps have enough trouble with the Taipings let alone being able to defeat European armies.
ReplyDeleteIm looking forward to trying my first scenario using your rules next week with a buddy of mine on Wednesday.
It wasn't that bad, I suppose. Let me know how the game goes. The rules aren't setting the world on fire at the moment.
DeleteWill do. In all fairness to you and the rules, I think they could be the greatest rules ever and you probably still won't get a lot of sales - it is such a niche subject. I only know of a couple people besides me who even have Taiping collections here in the states.
ReplyDeleteI realise it is a niche, but the Perry's did a range so.... What has surprised me is I didn't think the niche was as small as the 1879 Pacific War, and sales are behind them by quite a bit. I'm working on an Indian Mutiny supplement to give them a bit of a wider appeal.
DeleteWe do seem to be a small band. Eric Burgess, Joseph above, you and me and two other chaps are all I'm aware of.
ReplyDeleteThings do change though. I think of what Barry Hilton did for the popularity of the League of Augsburg period and I take heart.
Sales have picked up recently, with Amazon getting their act together. We're now comfortably into double figures, and there's been some chat picked up on some of the forums. I got a decent number of blog hits from the TMP posting. Word is spreading. It needs a nice looking game and favourable review from a top quality figure painter.
DeleteGot my copy today.
ReplyDeleteWell done Trebian. You clearly put a lot of work in and it looks to me as though it has paid off.
I've only had time for a quick read through so far. My first thought was if you were newly interested in the period this is where to start.
I'll be looking at Taiping Era more closely this week with a review in mind. I'll let you know when it's done.
Excellent value for money too. The flags and uniform details are a nice touch.
Phew! Thanks for your kind words. If you wouldn't mind posting a review on Amazon, that would be much appreciated!
DeleteI'm rather taken with the padoga. Where did that come from? Opium wars are screaming out for a pony wars variant like the Sudan. I modified Age of Eagles.
ReplyDeleteThe pagoda came from a souvenir stall half way up a mountain in China.
DeleteI must disagree on the Pony Wars suggestion. Chinese armies were led, organised and fought completely differently to the forces of the natives of the plains of North America and the Sudan. When Europeans are involved the warfare is not colonial warfare as you would recognise it elsewhere. That's why I wrote "Taiping Era" (you can get it from Amazon or Wargame Vault), as it requires special treatment.
ok Graham, I have bought the rules and await their arrival. Could be fun to game from the posts I have read over last few weeks. I may adapt my 6mm British / Sikh wars to add TaiPing and others or my 20mm Colonial French / Brits etc to create TaiPing army. I bought some Orion plastic figures with this in mind.
ReplyDeleteTrying to find buildings is difficult as most are aimed at 28mm (Boxer Rebellion). Do you know a source for the card buildings you built? Carl
I just answered the building question on the other post you commented on, didn't I??? Yes, buildings generally are a problem. Towns are walled and walls are painted white, so do a lot of that. You can get pagodas in per shops, I'm told for aquariums. As figures, the Boxer Rebellion figures on the PSR site all look usable.
DeleteBit late in the day for this, but I've been researching Palikao a bit for my own Arrow War/Taiping project, and I think there are two elements here that may have led to the issues around excessively secure flanks.
ReplyDeleteThe first is that the British and French brigades were considerably below establishment strength in terms of infantry, because many were detached as garrisons earlier on. For instance, according to Wolseley's account (I think it was Wolseley at least), the 60th Rifles were called up *after* the battle. The French seem to have been very reduced: Jamin had a Chasseur battalion, two line battalions, and a grenadier company, while Collineau had just one Chasseur battalion and several companies of engineers!
The second is that the battle was fought perpendicular to the canal rather than parallel to it. This also took me a while to work out, and the textual descriptions of the battle are supremely unhelpful, but there's a French map of the battlefield (unfortunately I can't now find where my higher-quality scan came from, but a rather pixelly one can be found here: https://picx.zhimg.com/80/v2-544aa781bc5773aacea27bc58e71a510_1440w.webp?source=1940ef5c) which shows that battle was joined rather further south, giving the Qing horse on their left much more room to manoeuvre.
I suspect that a refight along the historical (or at least, French-claimed) axis of advance, plus reducing the Europeans' infantry complement, might give the Qing a bit more of a chance.
No worries about the timing. good to see people are reading the posts! I agree that the unit sizes were reduced due to troops being detached. I kept to units at the full number of bases, as I thinks that represents to relative fighting power of the opposing units. I agree that the battles is fought perpendicular to the canal. It's not so obvious from the pictures, but that's what is happening as I, too, found that excellent French map, and also some rather nifty sketches of the French attacking the bridge, supported by Congreve rockets. I think I needed more space. as I said in the blog post the far end of the table, which you can see in one the pictures is screened off with a blue panel and white board, gives me about another metre of table room when it isn't being used for storage. Have you read part two of the report?
DeleteI have indeed – looks to have been a fun one!
DeleteJust in case there was some misunderstanding, I wasn't suggesting that the units would have been undersized, but rather that there were fewer units in total – thus each unit would be at the same fighting strength, but the overall frontage of the Allied force would be smaller.
Right. I understand re the frontages. But I've bought and paid for all the figures, so I'm reluctant to leave them in the box! BTW Have you invested in a copy of "Taiping Era"? The hardback version which includes the Indian Mutiny supplement ("The Era Compendium") is a particularly fine looking volume.
DeleteAh, ever the salesman! Tragically I got my copy as a PDF not long after it was released, but my figures were in storage at the time and Covid prevented me from getting at them for a while. Some day, I will get a game in!
DeleteYou can't blame me for trying. Never been a great salesman. Let me know when you get a game in.
Delete