Over the Hills?

OK, after a LONG involved debate, I am suggesting the following:

Guard at the bridge consisting of NPC's under a sergeant or junior officer. 20-30 men or so.

Spy knows they're on the alert for an attack: It's why they've been posted there, after all. So, spy goes alert the main body of French who are three miles or so away in the nearest town, who won't otherwise be prepared to rush out at once to reinforce the bridge guard. He hopes to get there soon enough to turn them out that the bridge guard will be able to hold off the British forces - it's a narrow bridge it should be easy enough to defend, after all.

The British reach the bridge and are able to take it so they can start laying charges, which they do when the main body of French turn up ready to defend it, or take it back.

The British have to hold them off long enough for the charges to be laid and the fuses lit, and then retreat across the bridge so that the bridge can be blown without anyone on the wrong side.

Hopefully this scenario would be A. realistic and B. fun for everyone playing a PC or NPC on either side.

Any questions, please post further in this thread.

While I would quibble with just a couple of things, I am not going to. I think it's a good plot, it should work and be a lot of fun. Nothing would satisfy everybody but this is a good compilation of a lot of hard discussing. Let's do it!

Sounds like a plan.

Josef would go to the person/s to whom the information is most valuable first, rather than respect authority and line of command and make a piece of information completely useless. He is an informer, not a soldier of either side.

In this case the information is most valuable to the people attacked rather than the random, too far away HQ. They (HQ) can be informed either by him as next in line, or by whoever the person at the bridge sends, to call for backup. I repeat, Josef is not and has never been part of the French army.

Also: A group that expects to be attacked reacts differently to a group that knows they will be attacked, when they will be attacked, by how many they will be attacked and from what direction. Josef is not dumb, he knows that. To believe that it is the same kind of 'preparedness' ...well...

I am not quite sure that it is evening out the odds by having 3xcompany (80 to 225 people per company) + ? artillery + whoever else face 20 to 30 surprised French soldiers.

Or, a simpler solution... The spy idea can simply be abandoned. The attacked can send for backup themselves. It will arrive at about the same time... Problem solved.

(A company in the British army would only bave 100 men plus 3 or 4 officers when at full strength. I don't know about the Guards, but Vickery's Company has between 80 and 90 men in it at the present time.)

I guess what I have been trying to get across is that - yes, the initial bridge guard is small and yes it will be overrun quite quickly when the Brits arrive especially if they are smart enough to not just march up the road but send light troops out ahead to utilize cover on the approach.

Fair odds, no, but that is war.

Where the fight becomes harder then is once the Brits have the bridge then the French will eventually begin arriving in strength. That is when the hard fighting begins. If the Brits really need 3 whole days to blow this bridge, by that time one hell of a lot of Frenchmen could have marched up to retake it, I would think the Brits can do it short of 3 days.

So to sum up, at first things will go swell for the Brits, but then as time passes it will get harder and harder and they will be hardpressed. Plenty of opportunities for heroism, derring do, chars being wounded (maybe even a few killed? it is war afterall), etc.

If it's too hard for the Brits right from the start, they'd have no real chance to succeed and I believe we all agree they should end up blowing this bridge.

Frankly, I think the setup is not realistic.

With something between 300 and 600 British on the bridge, the French can only cheer them on to blow it up and not cross over and attack their back. With that force, there is no need to demolish the bridge in the first place - the British will get cut off just as much as the French.

Secondly, I find the odds not really heroic. Unless you assume the French have artillery in place, which the very well might have, since the French always had more of it, and fortified the bridge, either the French guard will immediately retreat or it will be a blood-bath. 20-30 men without an officer stand no chance against cannons and rifles - they simply do not have the range. The best thing they could do is run immediately and get backup - best before the British realize that they were there.

Since part of the spyhattery was my idea, I'm also a bit disappointed that it was rendered so useless now. The suggestions that were made concerning this are not really worth the risk of being caught for a spy.

I also think that just blowing up that bridge is no motivation to move such a large body of men - especially since that leaves a hole somewhere else.
I am also not clear about how much the British expect to find there.

I would like to see the numbers more even - make it more of a close-run thing. And I really would like the spyhattery to come as a shock - they should really feel betrayed. With the current plan it's logical that more French come quickly.

Considering where we are, I'm also not sure how we should do it in less than three days - we have to get there, we have to drill and undermine this bridge (a task that takes up to ten days even today for such a bridge) and we have to get back again.

I was thinking that the French would send quite a large number of reinforcements.

But yes, 300+ men is a bit much, really. I don't know any more; can't think of any reason why they would send that many, plus artillery.

It would be logical if the French already held the bridge with a large force and it needed to be destroyed because even more French were coming and actively trying to get onto 'our' side of the river.

That would kill off the spyhattery plot, though - unless Josef now wants to sell his secrets to the British. Torrington would pay personally if that means he can get more information.

Prestwich as a commanding officer would not let him! *run by comment*

Prestwich as not present officer when the actual interchange happens would be informed only of the outcome. *comment running in other direction *

Perhaps Prestwich is in training with Wellington to be ALL-KNOWING. *run by reply*

In this case clearly no information Torrington can buy is needed, so that his lordship happily will refrain from spending money on a noble course. All spies are kindly asked not to disturb his nightrest. *reply running after the former*

After that reply, I feel like going: "Praise Prestwich, the almighty god of engineers," but it feels a tad narcissistic. XD *runs in a circle and disappears in a cloud of smoke*

*carefully waves smoke in a jar and seals it, then puts it on pedestal as relict*

The informant is willing to provide information to both Torrington and the French. He feels it is only fair that way...Of course, he prefers not to be mentioned as source of information, but shan't go against recieving monetary compensation for his 'sacrifice'.

Its a decent size force but even given a couple hundred infantry and 60 some artillerymen, that is not much compared to an army. Yet if the French are already sitting there with a similar or larger force and artillery, then the job becomes too hard for the Brits.

The Brits need to have the early advantage so they can get onto the bridge and take 3 days (that still seems long to me) to set the explosives.

What would be unrealistic to me is the Brits actually succeeding if the French are ready for them with even odds.

If the French come up and try to retake the bridge they could bring a lot of troops, then it's the Brits who have to hang on and muster up a good defense.

Good point. Because really, neither side is going to provide a force to match that already there: Whether they're wanting to hold it or blow it up, they're going to go in with a force bigger than the enemy (of whatever side) has, simply to attain their own objective.

In terms of manpower, Blackwood and his Lights can either only send half their number or absent themselves from the expedition entirely, as a Rifles company for light infantry and a Grenadier company for heavy infantry really should be sufficient.

I don't have time to argue the rest right now, but just for clarification:

Unless we are by some miracle right next to this bridge (in which case the discussion is irrelevant anyway), I can't see how we can cut the time shorter. If I have our current location correctly, we are actually more than a day's march from that bridge, but let's say we do it in one day: We need to get there, and we need to take that bridge. We need to put some effort into preparations, because demolishing a massive stone structure is not just a matter of putting a few pounds of powder somewhere. We have to actually blow it up and make sure it is destroyed thoroughly. And then we have to get back to our original position.

How should we do that in less than three days?

EDIT: Okay, on rereading I see that GFic seems to think that most of the chars were to sit next to the bridge for three days while the engineers and the workforce places the charges. While this timeframe certainly would be realistic, that was not what Torrington/I meant with the estimation. He meant the whole period of time they would be away from camp and not available for other duties. I thought I had made that clear in my subsequent critique post, but if I failed there, I apologize.

Ahhh, OK, now I get it. And no apologies needed.

I thought you meant it would take three days to apply the explosives for the demolition. But yes, now that I understand the expedition will take three days, it all makes sense to me!

This is exactly why OOC discussions like this are great for everybody in what is, after all, a cooperative writing activity.

Thanks for clarifying, I was confused. Not the first time

No problem.

Then are we agreed on that timetable:

Day 1: Get there, take possession of the bridge, look at it properly,
Day 2: Mine the whole thing up,
Day 3: Place the last charges, fight, and blow the thing to kingdom come, then hurry back home for dinner?

I would suggest they work through the nights as well, as far as this is possible.

Definitely agreed as far as I can see.

Once they arrive, it won't take them long at all to rapidly seize the bridge. But then that's when their real problems begin - like you said preparing this stone thing for demolition is a challenge and a lot of hard work.

Meanwhile the attached battery and troops need to hold off the oncoming French long enough for the big BOOM. Lots of fighting and drama.

The taking of the bridge, since the contigent of French will be informed of the arrival of the British, will not be easy as pie. But since their numbers are probably smaller compared to the English, the taking will happen after all, at the time of the first day. Perhaps even just before nightfall. Who knows.
The British on the other hand will be informed of the number of the French which might give them some 'drive' and 'confidence' thinking that they have an easy chance at the task.

They might probably have to continue facing resistance while working on the bridge/under the bridge, as the French will not take a day off if they can spare infrequent or more frequent fire at the enemy just because more casualties does mean less people to face another time. The British not occupied with the demolition can probably take care of their wounded and the usual 'cook, eat, go to the toilet' sort of thing.

On the third day, perhaps even due to working through the night, the bridge will be ready to be destroyed. It might be getting ready even still in the morning (whatever the one in charge of the demolition of the bridge decides), and then if everything goes as it should, it will collapse. If everything does not go as it should, bits and pieces of stone will fly and injure spectators alike. We do hope that won't happen.

Sharpie posted that the French would be 20-30 men and the Brits are coming with grenadiers and expert skirmisher rifles at about 200 or so in strength. Given we are talking muskets not machineguns, no way can the French do much to hold against those odds.
Troops like the riflemen are in their element in this kind of skirmisher battle, not so the French regulars.
If it takes a day to take that bridge, the Brits are totally incompetent.