The hell of it is that, in a very gamey sense, we won: we got both of our victory locations, and held them for a solid while. But we couldn't get back in time to rescue Munich being re-retaken (aside from whatever else happened.)
Strictly speaking, everyone did everything they could do at all points (among the Austrians), based on the information we had, and reasonable inferences from that information. The HindClawForce took Munich and kept French reinforcements at bay. The LowerJawForce had numerous options about how their role would end up, simply by probing across the river, and so happened (based on French positions and decisions) to fill the role of center feint, which could not have gone better under the circumstances and kept the bulk of the French both exhausted and tied up locationally as far away from our two victory points (AND our obvious supply source) as humanly possible on the map.
Of course the FrontClaws and the UpperJawForce easily took Rathbone (as I like to call it
) -- but we didn't know what was there, or rather what was no longer there, nor what might be coming to its rescue. The simplest French move to foil us would be to secure Rattisbonn, then strike off back down the road to Passau, so logically with our puny speed we had to be capable of force-taking the city, through waves of defense if necessary, and/or prevent French assaults down our line of supply.
The only problem is that meant tying up three strong corps, plus our weakest corps (where they could make the strongest impacts) on the main thrust. By the time we knew the LowerJawForce was in serious trouble, we were so close to Regensburg (which for all we knew was the enemy supply source, by the way) that the most logical move was to take it now and hope to force a win that way, while we still had Munich (which we did and with no evidence it would be retaken very soon, which it wasn't).
What else could we have feasibly done? Defeat the present French forces in detail and then the arriving French forces? -- following Tukhachevsky's eventual dictum of DESTROY THE ENEMY ARMIES AND THEN YOU CAN DO WHAT YOU WANT WITH YOUR VICTORY OBJECTIVES!
But we didn't know where they were to start with. And while we could have used our initial scouting information to destroy the holding division at Munich immediately (which we did) then collapse upon the blocking corps at Landshut, there was only one problem, which factored strongly into our eventual operational plan: THE FRENCH RUN TWICE AS FAST AS US! If they decided to run for it, they could keep away, tire us out trying ineffectually to chase after them, and then destroy us with their more rested and speedier reinforcements under the combat bonuses of Nappy.
Creep everyone up our right side to Rathbone for mutual protection on the roads, leaving Munich to its fate late in the game? No way to guarantee our glacial pace could get back there in time (without which we surely couldn't win), AND no way to protect our supply line without leaving players behind doing nothing but boring guard duty (hopefully!)
Considering our capabilities, and limitations, I still believe this was the best plan under the circumstances. And it very nearly worked -- all credit to my Austrian teammates!
One small change however that I might have done, given our initial starting information (once couriers arrived with startpos news), would have been to ask Cyrano if we could call back Barth with his corps, and send him along the north bank of the Isar to help out at Landshut. He might have arrived in time (even with our creepy rate, and even with the relevant bridges across the Danube blocked for a while by our passing) to make a winning difference. But I assumed by the time I heard of a corps starting at Landshut, that we couldn't bring Barth/Hohenzollern back anyway, and that his appearance behind Rathbone could easily be more decisively important (which it could have been, had the French focused there). I didn't think the French would basically take the bait at Landshut so hard as to ignore Rathbone (until near the end of the game).