Danish Order of Battle

Overall Commander: General Hedemann (AVERAGE):

Lieutenant Colonel Maguis (AVERAGE):

2 squadrons Guard Hussars
1st squadron 4th Dragoons
12th Line battalion
3rd Jagers
Medium Artillery battery

1st Brigade, Lieutenant Bulow (AVERAGE):

1st, 2nd and 11th line battalions

2nd Brigade, unknown leader (POOR):

4th and 7th line battalions

General Wedel (AVERAGE):

3th and 6th Dragoons
Medium Battery

Colonel Schleppergrell (AVERAGE):

1st Jagers
10th line battalion
Cavalry squadron
Medium artillery battery

Lieutenant Colonel Haxthaussen (AVERAGE):

5th Jagers
2 Medium Guns

Schleswig-Holstein Order of Battle

Overall Commander: Major Michelsen (AVERAGE):

Chausser Corps
3 infantry companies
Student company
5th Chaussers

Scenario Notes

The requirements for fighting a scenario are the rules, figures, special rules and victory conditions. The rules used are the easiest. Any American Civil War or Napoleonic rules will work. I use Principles of War (PoW) myself and reviewed them in issue number one of this journal.

From my sources, I could not find what types of arms the troops were carrying. The PoW army lists states that each side had SB weapons or smoothbore muskets. The artillery is smooth bore so that's what I used. A SB weapon in PoW only has a range of 4". I feel this range is too short so I give the SB weapon an additional factor of .5 at a range from 4" to 8" (a standard PoW range band). All of the cavalry is armed with a MW type of weapon or miscellaneous cavalry weapons.

As you can see, the Order of Battle is more complete for the Danes than the Schleswig-Holstein side. I couldn't find any more Duchy troops that were present from my sources. The Duchy troops seemed too outnumbered. To remedy this, I gave them two more leaders, each with four infantry units and a medium artillery battery. I prefer not to play lop sided games and would rather give the weaker side a better chance of winning.

The leadership rating by each leader in the OOB corresponds directly to PoW ratings. Better officers get more command points to spend on moving and rallying their troops. If you add extra Duchy troops, I would give their leaders POOR ratings. I base these leader ratings on an account I read on the later battle of Istedt written by Russell, the famous Crimean war correspondent. This was the first battle that Russell witnessed. He states several times that the Schleswig-Holstein officers were quite poor and had trouble rallying their troops.

As you might remember from my previous articles, I use the variable unit strength rule from PoW. If using this rule, all Danish infantry units start with D10 + 6 strength points. All Schleswig-Holstein infantry units start at D10 + 4 strength points. The Danish infantry seemed better trained and more resolute than their Schleswig-Holstein counterparts. All cavalry and artillery batteries start with D6 + 4 strength points.

For Schleswig-Holstein figures, Prussian figures will work fine. The actual troops wore mixtures of Danish uniforms but the later uniforms were more Prussian in style. The Danes began the war wearing a red tunic, blue pants and a shako but by 1850 switched over to their 1864 style uniform. This uniform was like a Union Civil War uniform complete with the blue kepi. I just used my 1864 Danish troops.

When I set up the scenario, I put buildings on my table to represent the villages of Bov, Krusau, Nyhus, Harreslev and Flensburg. The Schleswig-Holstein forces set up in Bov. I put the additional forces I used in the villages of Krusau and Nyhus. Another option would be to fight the assault on Bov and play it as a skirmish game. It's basically up to you with the framework I've provided.

Victory conditions are for the Danes to take Flensborg within twenty turns losing less than half of their units. If they lose more, it's a pyhric victory. I don't think there was any way that the Duchy forces could win regarding the strategic situation. You might want to experiment with giving the Duchy forces a bonus for every unit exited off the board once the Danes start assaulting Flensborg.

When I played this scenario, the Danes had a tough time taking Bov as they did historically. They did reach Flensborg but lost too many units. If you have better information on this battle or if I've misinterpreted the causes of the war, please write a letter to the editor of this journal. I plan on writing up more scenarios for this conflict.

More Battle of Bov-Flensburg Scenario

Historical Background
Order of Battle and Scenario Notes
Jumbo Map (extremely slow: 428K)

-Finis-