The Wars of the Two Churfursts
(Hohenzollern versus Wittelsbach)
Chapter 5 The Battle
of Rosstal
Field Marshall Lottum with additional allies from the
Franconian Circle had the numerical superiority he deemed necessary to
recapture the Duchy from the Bavarians.
He therefore advanced resolutely south and south west from Nurnberg until
he found the position that the Count de Maffei had fortified and planned to
defend the Duchy from. The photo below
shows the initial placement of the Bavarian forces:
As can be seen Maffei kept the balance of his good infantry
in the center of the valley, posted behind a row of boar spears embedded into
posts to serve as an obstacle to the larger Brandenburg cavalry
contingent. These were stored in nearby
Ingolgstadt in any case when the troops had returned from the Turkenkreig
campaigns. The artillery was behind some
quickly dug out positions while the cavalry covered the left flank (the easiest
to approach) and some new infantry were posted on the hill to his right.
As Lottum surveyed the scene from his advanced location in
the spire of the Vierzehnheiligen Kirche he would have seen the following:
Determined to take the bull by the horns he deployed his
Brandenburg troops to assault the center with his much stronger cavalry massed
to his right, and the Franconian forces covering his left.
The straight ahead advance was only interrupted by the
Bavarian heavy artillery which irritated the Brandenburg foot but then went on
to destroy the advancing Brandenburg artillery in short order. (We
were surprised by this but the DBAHXT QRS clearly shows that artillery when
out-piped, even when not doubled, is Destroyed. Here is another case where
various DBX versions differ in some ways).
The Franconians due to their perhaps less than enthusiastic
interest, promptly rolled a 1 on three of their first five pip dice so were
slower to advance than their Brandenburg allies.
The first major crossing of fire over the row of boar spears
was about a wash, both sides seeing some units rebuffed backwards, but the
Bavarians were able to recover and man the line more quickly and soon the
Brandenburg forces were halted by losses of four stands to one. The image below shows the Brandenburg
contingent as it closed to effective range.
Note that Maffei is already having his reserve force move
towards his right flank as the approaching, but delayed Franconians come
forward on the far side of the ridgeline.
With the halting of the Brandenburg forces the issue would
be decided by the efforts between the Bavarians and the Franconians on the
right. Both sides had units fall back
but come forward again into the firefight.
The skill level on either side was not very high but eventually the
Bavarians found Fortuna and they stopped the Franconian advance late in the
afternoon.
Although a minor action and a minor victory Maffei realized
that at any time his forces would have been defeated if only the Franconians
would have been able to seize a 6 from the dice instead of the several rolls of
1 that seemed to roll out of their musketry volleys…
We agreed to continue
this irregular series of battles between these two less than super powers of
the period and our next effort will be when the Brandenburgers switch the scene
of their assault and come at the Duchy from the west and under a new Field
Marshall. De Maffei also was glad to
retire to his properties on the Stammerklammer lake and will be replaced by
another grizzled veteran of the Turkenkreig period.
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