Battle Vila De Ponte 11^th January 1811 – Historical setup

Setup

Part of the French 9^th Corps entered Portugal to open communications with Messena. Claparede remained behind, choosing to pursue Silveira’s militia to Vila de Ponte. Game length 10 turns – represents battle 1pm to 4.20pm.

The terrain map was put together with brown wrapping paper – 80gsm 750mm x 50m Kraft Wrapping paper. Overlapping in the middle set to size 6’ by 4’with side edge extra for strength of a few inches – glued with PVA / glue stick. Terrain map basic layout courtesy of Michael Hopper’s - Rise of Albion scenario book. So I sketched out to scale and painted on with Acrylic paints to designate the hills (gentle), roads, impassable river / passable stream, light woods (an adaption I chose from the lovely maps created by Colin in our 20mm campaigns – see Simon’s blog on http://www.servicerationdistributionhobby.blogspot.com ). Found with 15mm figures the 2D maps are the easiest and Michael’s maps and positions of terrain make all the difference in the battle. So cheap, easy to store, and if you are finished with it then environmentally easy to dispose of.

In this map the hills are gentle, and main river Tavora impassable except at bridges with passable tributary stream, There are light woods on the top of the hills. With roads and the built up area of Vila de Ponte in the centre. Orange dotted line – Portuguese deployment zone, Blue dotted line French deployment zone (on above setup picture). The redoubts give cover and +1 in melee.

I am playing the Portuguese CinC F. Silveira who has 2 foot artillery (crerw classed as new and melee and fire with a -1). With A. Silveira as General who has 5 Poor Infantry and one skirmisher. Mouzinho the next General with 3 Poor Infantry. Alan is the French CinC Claparede with one LFA. A General Langeron (2^nd Brigade) who has 3 Poor Light Infantry plus 1 skirmisher. Thevenet (5^th Brigade) has 3 poor. Prevost St Cyr (6^th Brigade) has 3 poor. Bonnaire (7^th Brigade) has 3 poor plus 1 skirmisher. Finally Dommanget who has 1 poor cavalry (combined Dragoons). The Portuguese setup first, all on defend orders. The French are second to set up, on attack orders. You would get the full scenario details in Michael’s book - Rise of Albion. We played this at the Irvine club on the 16th of February 2025.

The Portuguese just sat back and waited, they had consistently good dice with artillery. Even with the -1 on firing the foot artillery were in canister range for most of the battle. The French moved up the LFA in canister and made good use of it. But with only one battalion attacking with only rear support against the Portuguese with flank, rear, and a redoubt the attack at Vila de Ponte was easily repulsed. The three French Brigades were taking too long to attack the other bridge. Getting these French forces a couple of turns earlier could well have seen the historical route. There is another setup with this map as a “what if”, hope to play that out in the future.

Historical Outcome:

The French stormed across the Freixinho bridge (on the bottom left), routing the Portuguese. Other Portuguese militia  moved to encircle the French. Claparede retired to Trancoso and was later accused of looking for plunder.