I have just scraped through by the skin of my teeth in the said scenario.
My strategy worked out as follows.
After an initial study of the map I decided an oblique manoeuvre against the Russian left of the town was best. This would allow me to bring the guard cavalry up in a concealed manner on my right.
I also planned to keep the Old Guard hidden behind my screen of forces so that as he reacted to my turning movement I could employ them with at least one of Bernadotte's infantry divisions for a direct attack on the central and key town. The timing of said attack would be once the turning movement had made the town into a hinge like shape.
However this plan soon went wrong when my flank attack lacked anything like enough force to complete it's assigned role.
So I settled on massing everything in the centre drawing my forces in from the flank and employing central position. I then bullied my way forward. Tactically this was made possible as we were not employing embedded melee so I was able to launch a series of massed infantry attacks against the vast Russian artillery forces including the somewhat gamey use of blitz attacks. (but hey it's a tourney)
I suffered heavily as a result in men and officers but the quality of the French infantry allowed me to destroy a considerable amount of the Russian artillery.
In the meantime my opponent soon cottoned onto this somewhat blunt method of operations and begun a full double envelopment that evolved into a concentric attack.
The net result prevented my centre attack capturing the town. I then had to exploit interior lines and send troops back and forth within my increasingly encircled forces putting out a fire here or there etc.
I was able to surround and destroy some key units as they tried to penetrate my line. This combined with the 110 guns I had destroyed helped me build up good vp point advantage. As a result at move 24 when time was called we were at draw but I had sneaked the vp advantage. A lucky result for me indeed.
Some quite classical lessons learned around the use central position in this as stated by Chandler. He said its difficult to achieve decisive results with central position as it prevents the full pursuit of the defeated foe as you must turn elsewhere to fight. This was exactly my experience.
However the numerical inferiority of the French and the dispersed nature of my forces forced me to employ this approach just as N did for the same reasons at various times in his campaigns
General de Brigade Knox
Baron de l'Empire
2e Regiment Gardes d'Honneur (the regaled pheasants)
La Jeune Garde
CO. 1er Brigade, III Division Cavalerie Legere, III Corps Armee du Nord
http://www.aspire.co.nz/colinknoxnwc.htm
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