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Saturday, April 6, 2019

11 September – Southern Spain – Day 4


Suchet orders 7th corps to attack Hellin
15th and 16th corps will hold and resupply

Giron orders 2nd corps to retreat and abandon Hellin
1st corps will also redeploy
His army is now concentrated just north of Molina
He also orders his main depot at Molina to redistribute supplies
His depots at Calasparra, Molina and Orihuela are now ready to support his army

The garrison of Hellin abandons the town and becomes a guerrilla band
There are now seven guerrilla bands operational
They are now ready to attack the French lines of supply

3 comments:

  1. I'm not completely sure how this works in your campaign rules, but the French lines of communication are obviously under a lot of threat from the guerillas now, although they have yet to actually block any vital roads. I guess the capture of the Spanish depots helps keep the French corps in fighting shape for a while. But what are the French options here of securing their back area? Could they consolidate the Manzanares and Almansa depots at Albacete so they'd have only one road (to Hellin) to worry about? Or order the garrisson brigades to sweep south and drive the guerillas out of the area?

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  2. Hi Yuri

    Thanks for your comments

    To benefit from the capture of a new French town/depot the French have to detach an infantry brigade to form the garrison. This reduces the fighting capacity of the French field army.

    As they advance they leave a chain of isolated garrisons, which are then open to attack by the guerrilla bands. If there is a French corps in an adjacent square, the guerrilla can not attack. But of course this is not possible if the French continue to advance.

    They can ignore the threat, but if the guerrilla capture a French depot they also capture all of the supplies there. The same applies to any supply convoy moving south to the field army.

    Hope this explains the rule system?

    regards

    Paul

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  3. Thanks Paul, the rule about guerillas not being able to attack adjacent to a French corps explains a lot!

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