Mollwitz 1741 – Twilight of the Soldier Kings

 

1st Silesian War

War of the Austrian Succession

 

The Battle of Mollwitz was fought by Prussia and Austria on 10 April 1741, during the First Silesian War (in the early stages of the War of the Austrian Succession). It was the first battle of the new Prussian King Frederick II.  Halfway through the battle following the defeat of the Prussian cavalry on the right wing, Frederick was advised to flee the field which he did.  However the Prussian infantry went on to win the battle under the command of Count Schwerin. 

 References

• Obscure Battles: http://obscurebattles.blogspot.com/2013/02/mollwitz-1741.html
• Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Mollwitz

 Rules

This was the first game I played with the Twilight of Soldier Kings rules which I have reviewed in an earlier Blog post Twilight of the Soldier Kings – Review https://weekendwargames.blogspot.com/2021/09/twilight-of-soldier-kings-review.html

Players

As this was my first outing with these rules I fought this as a solo game, which was handy as I was able to stop and ask the author some questions via the user group https://groups.io/g/TwilightSK

 Battlefield

I set up the battle on my 6’x4’ table and attempted to put in a few of the key terrain features,  mainly the Kleinerbach river, towns of Mollwitz, Grunningen and Hermsdof and the central woods between the two armies. 

The Battlefield

Austrian Right Wing

Austrian Centre

Austrian Left Wing

Prussian Army

 

The Austrian cavalry wings advance while the centre holds.  The Prussians advance their centre.

Unable to force the Austrian advanced guard of Hussars into a charge the Prussian cavalry get themselves in a bad position with heavy cavalry to both flanks.

As the Prussian Hussars retire behind their infantry centre the Prussians charge into the flanking Austrian cavalry and infantry line.  Unfortunately for the Prussians formed 18C infantry with support are capable of withstanding a cavalry charge and the Austrian cavalry have strength in depth which will give them a clear advantage in the melee.

At this stage the Prussian left wing cavalry were loosing badly.  Their right wing was just starting to engage with the superior quality Austrian cavalry.

With both Prussian cavalry wings in the process of being beaten the Prussian centre advanced.  The Prussian moral failed on both wings who retired from the field. The position seemed lost.  The Prussian army was forced to make as moral save or be defeated. Which they succeeded! 

At was at this point the Austrian General know he's made a mistake.  The Prussian infantry were greatly superior to the Austrians with a marked superiority in moral and rate of fire (iron ramrods v wooden ones) and more training.  The Prussian volleys destroyed or broke the first three Austrian brigades and the rest fled. 

Summary

A historically correct result and due to historically correct reasons, i.e. the superior rate of fire of the Prussian infantry.  In my mind this was a strong indication that the Twilight rules reflect the period vey well, based on a sample set of one battle 😃.