A repost with an update.
I now do indeed own DG’s Wellingtons Victory. I also reacquired the SPI original.
Now below is a series of detailed comments from a viewer with time stamps, that will allow you to have an amazingly more detailed look at the situation on the ground!
I was very thankful to see these notes. Hence my reposting.
The 1st edition SPI Wellington’s victory battlemap is the best in terms of accuracy relating to the battlefield at the time. It was very well researched by the game team. The best maps of the period – with some changes over those years were Ferraris, Siborne, and Craan Maps you can find online. The area around Papelotte and La Haye had the defensive benefits of the Smohain Brook which is shown on the SPI battle map – as on period maps.
9:39 – The Grand Battery was 600 yards north of that road position; Siborne and Craan confirm that on their maps of the period. The only way French artillery fire could hit Wellington’s army as deep as it did at Waterloo was from that advanced ‘intermediary’ low ridge. La Haye Sainte was not a main target at the battle start; The French cannons were used for softening the Allied line prior to the big infantry assault. The map you show is inaccurate as it does not show how the intermediary ridge actually extended 200 yards west ot the Brussels highway. La Haye Sainte was in a natural valley too.
11:00 – That Ohain ridge on the next map is inaccurate as it didn’t extend beyond where the first map accurately cuts if off at Papelotte. It’s there that the ground was very very sticky clay – sucking off the shoes of one of the Hanoverian infantry Brigades stationed there overnight on the rainy night of the 17th. It also doesn’t name the hamlet of La Haye next to Smohain which is itself too far north. Frischermont is too close towards Papelotte.
13:00– Yes, the track from La belle Alliance did exist in the campaign. On the intermediary ridge, the 80 gun battery extended along it – as per the SPI map version.
15:30 – Picton’s battalions, like much of the Allied infantry battalions, started the battle deployed in columns – they formed 4 rank lines, and were back in the Second line with the 2 British brigades on either side of Bijlandt’s brigade in the first line lined up just behind the Ohain road. They advanced upon seeing Bijlandt’s Brigade starting to crumble against the French columns. That’s when the firefight started.
16:00 – The British cavalry attack was not shot up by the French artillery – during the charge they were mingled with the French infantry fleeing and the support columns. Those sections of cavalry that charged the guns did so unscathed up onto the intermediary ridge where the Grand Battery was located. French 6ldr guns long range was around 1200 yards maximum. 12 pounder guns could reach around a mile. The French gunners were using their skills in lobbing shots blindly just over the higher Mont St.Jean Hill ‘ area target fire ‘method…… they could not see targets directly. The SPI map with its 100yard hex scale and better accuracy is the most valid game map you can use for determining ranges. The deepest sunken roads were at the crossroads and on the Brussels road just north of La Belle Alliance. The other portions were easily crossable,
17:23 – “Pluhn -suh – nwah’ in French pronunciation.
18:00 – The Paris Woods on that map is inaccurately tiny – it extended to the Lasne valley in the north east.
18:56 – That map has Hougoumont designed badly – the woods should be directly south of the chateau – to its east was a big lighter orchard and open fields on its property. It inaccurately gives the French a clear line of artillery fire and indefensible line of attack to the chateau. No cannonballs could hit the Hougoumont wall because the woods blocked any line of fire to them. Only from the west side could French cannons fire clearly at the chateau – which they did and set fire to it. This makes this map disadvantageous to the Allies because those woods saved the chateau from an easy French capture. The Hougoumont side path to the Nivelles highway at the tume was treelined and joined it like a T-junction.
21:20 – The French cavalry charges went straight up the middle between Hougoumont and La Haye Sainte. In fact, historically, Wellington had a lot of artillery covering the West side of Hogoumont. The French could not easily set up from that sector. And that map has spelled Nivelles wrong south of Hougoumont map edge- they spelled it ‘Nivelle’.
24:30 – Several column variations existed; road march columns; 2 companies side by side battalion columns; companies all behind each other columns, and at varied distances. There were two division sized columns involved in D’Erlon’s attack – using battalions in line formations behind each other. I think SPI’s Wellington’s Victory showed that the micro-management of battalion formations was too tedious for a huge scale battle. For smaller quicker battles that would be ok.
25:30 – Long dispensed myth > Bijlandt’s Dutch-Belgians were never on the front slope fighting D’Erlon. They were behind the road lining it with one battalion in reserve. That mini-map idea would take away from the flavour of fighting history differently than it was fought. Waterloo is a huge area with many strategic options besides charging up the middle in columns.
ps. You sold the wrong Waterloo Game! 😀 – but I imagine you got a nice price for that popular oldie.
Nice video!