... and relax: November-December 1760
These 4 turns were pretty quiet, with little but finishing off marches and both armies moving to winter quarters.
Up at Bremen, the cavalry open a retreat route:
Note the brave Scotsmen in the snow with his klit ... we are either (a) tough or (b) insane
few losses as units finish their marches and I retake Bayreuth ... so we'll have Lully on the winter programme then ...
so I can fall back from Bremen and I'll abandon the siege at Hannover for now
these are the new Swiss units - 3 brigades are very welcome.
In general, this reflects the NM-EP dynamic. For most of 1760 I've been losing EP to shore up the NM. The result is I couldn't afford EP expensive options like the Swiss, & I can now speed up drawing down on general reinforcements
this was lost when I moved back to attack Prag in early Autumn (bit like Lippstadt), anyway that settles them for now
as you can see, I'm claiming more reinforcements (either for new units or to shore up the existing ones). Looks like the October Revolution is going to break out some 150 years early ... go comrades.
& really nothing happens in December (late December was even quieter)
but as a couple of overviews:
With the Swiss, I'll have 4 decent sized corps up here, so my plan is to start with Bremen, and then Hannover and then ?
It looks like the Prussians are drawing all their scattered units together around Prag and Leipzig. Cumberland is missing (I guess in a fortress for winter). I've cleared Bavaria and hold the passes into Bohemia.
Come the 1761 campaign season, I'll keep one French corps and a couple of independent brigades back in Bavaria to fend off any small scale incursions and send three into Bohemia. If I can link up with the Austrians, I can retake Prag and actually go looking for battle with that large Prussian army.
The Austrians are scattered between 2 small towns, if I need to, I think I can combine them if the Prussians try to take one out in a winter march.
Now given I played into 1760, in reality to test out the game with no idea of even surviving, that is rather surprising. I don't think its impossible that I'll end 1761 with Prag, Dresden and Hannover to add to my list of objectives.
The thing I've not worked out is how to get the Russians from Konigsberg (Kalingrad or whatever) to Colberg. When I'm finished this I may load up the 1761 scenario and see if I can work out that manouvre (I think thats a close match to what I tried in 1759), its the last thing that is really confusing me and their must be a solution.
On the Russian front, my army is down to a couple of brigades and they are all holed up in Konigsberg. A 2-star Prussian brigade is at Danzig but I think that'll be too weak to actually retake the city ... so its hopefully a stalemate up there.
One other general observation. Laying aside all the obvious mistakes, oversights etc etc, I reckon my biggest was trying to win the war in 1757-8. This is a long game and I now reckon with the Austrians, caution and taking your time with very limited operations is the way to do it. If for example, I still had the Swedes, or a portion of all those units I've lost to attrition, I think in 1761 I could just plan to swamp Prussian with lots of medium sized probes.