Steve's Random Musings on Wargaming and other stuff...

Egyptians

2012-01-26T13:33:00.002Z

Back in August 2008 I painted enough figures for my first unit of Egyptian regulars in the Sudan project - this is they (looking far too shiny for my tastes)

With the rules I was using at the time (and may still return to to tinker with) these two bases represented a company which is the operation manoeuvre unit for the rules...

In the Good Dusting rules the manoeuvre unit is slightly higher (battalion/regiment), so I've taken to representing battalions with four bases - another two bases of Egyptians were therefore required to allow me to represent them on the table top. Happily I had enough figures in the painting pile to do the job - in order to give them some focus I also gave them an officer and piper... it is a curious thing that Egyptian regiments have a bagpiper but an interesting browse on Wikipedia tells me:

"The [highland bagpipes] also spread to parts of Africa and the Middle East where the British military's use of pipes made a favourable impression. Piping spread to Arabic countries such as Jordan, Egypt and Oman, some of whom had previously existing bagpipe traditions. In Oman, the instrument is called habban and is

From the excellent Savage and Solder site..

used in cities such as Muscat, Salalah, and Sohar. In Uganda president Idi Amin forbade the export of African blackwood, so as to encourage local bagpipe construction, during the 1970s."

Got to love Wiki - who would have known Idi had a domestic bagpipe industry in Uganda....???

Anyway - the Egyptian army had it's (re)birth following the battle of Tel el Kebir in 1883, it started off eight battalions of foot, but by the time of Omdurman was up to nineteen. These were comprised of separate Egyptian and Sudanese troops.

My copy of Asquith's "Wargaming the Sudan" tells me that each Egyptian infantry battalion comprised four companies of 200 men up until 1898.

In order of seniority they had regimental numbers of 1st through 8th, and 15th through 18th (the Sudanese would have been numbered 9th - 14th) and the general opinion at the time was that the Sudanese were the cream of the army, with the Egyptian regiments often being placed in the second line as they were seen to be lacking in fighting spirit, or what our French colleagues would call panache...

Either way - here's the first picture of the new recruits... the officer is typical (see bottom of this post for a cracking contemporary photograph), and for the Egyptian regiments were usually British - British officers seconded to the Egyptian any were given a commission of one or two ranks above their own.

The Egyptian (and Sudanese) infantry were armed with the classic colonial weapon, the Martini-Henry rifle and triangular socket bayonet.

Opinions on the fighting quality of the Egyptian regiments changed markedly after the battle of Ginnis, when the Egyptian regiments cleared part of the village in stiff hand-to-hand fighting and captured four Mahdist guns - clearly the training had paid off - from that point on the Egyptians were seen as "steady" while the Sudanese were seen as the shock troops....

...and here's the entire regiment deployed as one.... the two new bases in the middle with the originals on the wings.... I applied a layer of Dullcote to the original regiment which has matted them down nicely, but I think I'm also going to re-base them as the new MDF bases are considerably better....

So there you have it - either two company's of the 1st Egyptians, or the 1st Egyptians, depending on which rule set I use.... figures are 15mm and (I think) largely Peter Pig, not sure about the officer/piper, he may be Lancashire from the first big bag of figures I bought way back at the start of the project...

So 12 painting points, thank you very much - next on the painting table a regiment of Confederate infantry for the American Civil War project..

...as promised a contemporary photograph - if this doesn't show a certain insouciance I don't know what does!

Anglo Egyptian army officer - from the Soldiers of the Queen web site..

Other sources:

The Egyptian Army 1880 - 1900 the Savage and Soldier magazine article by Doug Johnson

Conquerer - a review..

2012-01-21T12:00:00.001Z

Cover courtesy of http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk

The fourth in the series and one of my favourites - this and the first one (about Genhis himself) are unputdownable...

Conqueror tells the story of Kublai Khan one of Genghis's many grandchildren and by far the most famous of the Mongolian khan's alongside Genghis himself..

His early life was a somewhat book'ish boy and at the end of the previous book his older brother (who is cast in the old school) sends him off to fight the Chinese, with his own army & advisors - a Mongol version of "sink or swim" if ever there was one..

At the end of the previous book Mongke is killed by assasins and this books deals with Kublai's rise to power, and the Mongol nations first civil war caused by Kublai's other brother, Ariq Böke, declaring himself Khan in Kublai's absence..

Kublai is campaigning against the Song Dynasty in South China when he finds out - he immediately gives up on his Chinese campaign and gathering his supporters declares himself the Great Khan in opposition. The book deals with the campaigns, treaties, bribes and politics and the eventaul final battle where for the first time Mongol fights Mongol, and Kublai wins..

Gripping from beginning to end... Steve the Wargamer rates this 9 out of 10 - read it!

Somewhat surprisingly (to me anyway) this turns out to be the last book in the series, I was expecting at least one more book with further detail on the life of Kublai, who was the fifth Great Khan of the Mongol Empire, reigned for 30+ years, founded the Yuan Dynasty in China, and who met Marco Polo... in the afterword Iggulden says that he decided not to, as just for once he wanted to end a series where the major player lived... can kind of understand that!

Bad luck comes in three's...

2012-01-19T15:41:00.000Z

..and can seriously bite into your available wargaming time...

Not my legs, or my wheel - same fault though..

..so this week I'm cycling to work on Monday and one of the spokes in the back wheel "pings" - when I get to work I check it out and I find that it's completely loose and has come free at the rim... that's completely free at the rim of the new back wheel I only bought nine months ago.... the back wheel that is double skinned, because British roads are so poor (and I'm such a fat bas**rd ) that I wanted the wheel to last.. the back wheel I paid a premium for.... gah...! Bike shop said (rightly I think - they're nice people) it's a 50:50 - either manufacturing fault or I hit a pot hole... I end up buying a new wheel, they gave me free labour on swapping over the chain block... that takes care of Monday/Tuesday and Wednesday (bought the wrong replacement wheel, had to go back and swap it, the whole story is too tedious to recount in full)... the good news is that the bike is now back on the road...

In the car on the way home from buying the (wrong..) wheel I notice road noise from the passenger side - "hah" I think, "I've forgotten to close the window fully" - buzz, click whirr, window disapears rapidly into door, smashing sound ensues..... double gah!!! Coldest night of the year & no passenger side window.. Car goes to garage - they've just rung me with the news.. you don't even want to know how much...

...and I get home and the current Mrs Steve the Wargamer says "don't get upset"... oh no I think, what else could be worse?? Only my favourite beer glass cracked in the dishwasher... I can take that.....

...so what has this got to do with wargaming...??

Only an excuse for not having completed the Egyptian Sudan infantry currently on the painting table..

I have enought for two bases so as to complete the unit to the right.. wearing the tan campaign jumpers (as opposed to the dark blue that the Sudanese regiments wore) and a pleasing extra variable to add to the Imperial forces...

Next, I want to see if I can find some infantry to represent the various Indian regiments present in the Suakin [click here] theatre of the war, there involvement was such that it would be a great shame not to see them on the table top...

15th Bengal Native Infantry in the Sudan 1885 (courtesy of Wikipedia)

...but not before I first paint some more American Civil War infantry....

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Separately, it's greatly pleasing to see how much use is being made of the Tabletop Teasers [click here]on my project blog - there's been a veritable splurge of acticity there recently...

When I first put them up 5 years ago I had no idea they would end up being as popular as they are - I liked them, I had no idea others thought the same; a true testimony to their entertainment value, and the skill of their author Charles Grant.... I should thank Charles again publicly for being willing to let me post them, so I will - thanks Charles!

Top 5 Teasers (in terms of downloads):

5. April 1979 - No. 8 - "The Hasty Defence and Relief of a Town"... 282 downloads
4. August 1978 - No. 4 - "Hold Up in the Badlands".. 292 downloads
3. July 1978 - Playtest of Teaser #3 - "The Advance Guard Action"... 297 downloads
2. April 1978 - No. 2 - "The Wagon Train"... 376 downloads

...and in the no. 1 position...

1. June 1978 - No. 3 - "The Advance Guard Action".. with 463 downloads!

First off the painting table in 2012.... Beja and Hadendowah

2012-01-13T08:35:00.000Z

As promised the first painting efforts for 2012... after my desultory efforts last year I decided I needed to be a little more productive this year so here you go... on the painting table we have some Sudan period Egyptian infantry ready to get the treatment...

First though a base of Arab camelry for the same project...

Figures are from Peter Pig.. in rules terms these represent a half unit using the "A Good Dusting" set - I already had one base so these were painted to allow me to represent a full unit on the table... the challenge was matching the colours to the other base!

Next some Beja, the famed Fuzzy Wuzzy of Kipling fame - a fierce enemy as the British found on a number of occasions....

I'm trying to focus the Sudan project around the Suakin campaign where the Beja of Osman Digna featured heavily so there'll be more of these guys this year... figures again are Peter Pig - I think - not so keen on the pose of these figures, but they look good en masse...

So we're off the starting block and I make that 16 for the Beja, and 12 for the Camelry, and a grand total of 28 points...

Playing Favourites

2012-01-10T13:49:00.000Z

... a cracking post at the Too Much Lead blog [click here] inspired me to take up his challenge to document my own favourites..

In summary, we all have favourite games, periods, inspirations and so on, the challenge then is to document what they are so that we can all see what drives each of us...

Wargames Period

Where it all began for Steve the Wargamer

Way back in the day I played Napoleonics (good old Airfix!) as it was about the time they were bringing out all those gorgeous boxes of new figures - British Hussars, Royal Horse Artillery, they were works of art. I also played WWII - 20mm, Airfix, Western Desert, with rules taken from "War Games" and modified to include those vehicles and AFV's that didn't feature..

Since then I must have played almost every period except the Russo-Japanese War (there's still time...), but if I'm forced to make a decision then my favourite period would be either the American Civil War, the War of Independence,the War of the Spanish Succession, WWII or Sudan Colonial.... and yes I know that's five - spooky that they should also turn out to be the same as my current projects though..

If I was forced to make one choice then, probably Marlburian - it has everything....

Scale

So difficult as to my mind certain scales fit certain periods... easier to say what I don't like (1/300 or 6mm, as it happens - gah..... why don't you just use cardboard counters and be done with it.. )

I have this twisted view that the lower the organisational level of the game then the bigger the figures should be... for brigade level games then 20mm or bigger is perfect - but Newline are my benchmark - if I was starting the AWI project again, then 20mm would be my scale of choice (if the range was available)... the bigger the battle, then the smaller I go... so 15mm is ideal for Marlborough ie. multi-brigade games just seem to need a smaller scale... WWII however is made for 10mm - it's a range & space thing that can't be met by 6mm (see previous comment!)

If I was forced to make one choice then probably 15mm - it is so ubiquitous...

Rules

This one's easy... Will McNally's American War of Independence and Seven Years War Rules... these two sets of rules have given me more fun games over the years than any other set I've used apart from perhaps the Don Featherstone WWII rules from War Games

An honourable mention goes to DBA... DG and I must have played it every other work day lunchtime for years at one time...

Boardgame

Chess - I love it and play every day on one of those correspondence chess web sites... absolutely rubbish at it but I still love it... I occasionally win, but as I never read those hideous strategy/famous chess openings books, the win is always a pleasant surprise!

Other than that I would put my vote on Scrabble which I like to play with the family (but we don't score so we never have a winner or a loser...)

Despite having a fascination with wargame based board games (I love the maps/boards) I've never found them to be a satisfactory alternative to seeing little metal men on a wargame table...

Figure manufacturer

Some of Front Rank's finest..

No plastics feature - sorry, been there, done that, moved on..

So in the metal ranges...

15mm Dixon Marlburian Cavalry
20mm Newline American Civil War
15mm Minifigs Marlburian Infantry
Front Rank American War of Independence range

Club

"I don't care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members". Groucho Marx

....'nuff said... I tend towards solitary endeavours - except when DG is down....!

Opponent

Easy... DG - but to be fair he's my only opponent unless you also put a vote in for.... errrrr... me....

Inspiration

"Last of the Mohicans"

Film

"Waterloo" was the defining wargame related film for me - as an 11 year old I remember going to the cinema three times to see that film in the same week (DG has a cracking print of the aerial shot of the French cavalry attacking the squares on his wargames room wall)

Other than that I would put "Last of the Mohicans" for it's fine flavour of what it must have been like to have fought with black powder musket and tomahawk in the French and Indian Wars - Daniel Day-Lewis, and Wes Studi as Magua, are superb...

Book

"War Games" started it all for me - and that's a hobby that's lasted almost 40 years now so I guess that can be classed as inspiring...! From "War Games" I moved on to "Battles with Model Soldiers", "Advanced Wargames", and all Don's other titles but the book I subsequantly pored over more than any of the others was "Solo Wargames" - there's not a duff page in it...

On the fiction front it's easy - Aubrey & Maturin, and Matthew Hervey have no competition - all other military fiction is mere fluff....

A very honourable mention however, goes to Ronald Welch - when I was a spud his series of books about the Carey family were read again and again (and again).....

Art

William Stobbs illustration..

Three artists seem to convey my view of military activity better than all the others.... in no order

Bob Marrion does fantastic depictions of the common soldier in uniform - I particulalry liked his work in the Marborough books Charles Grant did for Partizan
Don Troiani - just superb pictures of the American Wars and fighting men - makes you want to reach for a paint brush whenever you see them...
William Stobbs - a little known illustrator but he provided the pictures in some of the earliest Ronald Welch books...

The Interweb

If I ignore GoogleReader (which is where I keep track of an implausibly large number of blogs) then my favourite web sites are Red Hot Pawn (that's a chess site!) and Blue Max (for playing Blue Max and Wooden Ships & Iron Men) oh, and I couldn't live wothout Google.....

Miscelania

favourite table size: 8x6 feet (an despite mine being 6 x 4 I haven't changed my mind..)
favourite tank: Panzer IV with Grant as a close second
favourite colour to paint uniforms: deep blue, perfect colour for inks..
..can't think of anything else....

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As Aki said in his post if you like the idea, now poach it for your own blog, it'll be interesting to see what other peoples preference are too...

Fire and Fury dice woes...

2012-01-05T13:52:00.000Z

...I've just got my 2012 painting tally off the ground with a couple of units of Beja and a half unit of Dervish camelry for the Sudan project.... (trust me, no one was more surprised than me given the veritable painting drought until now)

So while I wait for the inestimable Tony at East Riding Miniatures (wholly recommended for fast service) to send me some bases so that I can finish them* off, I gave some thought to some issues that DG and I are batting back and forth at the moment....

We are now fairly comfortable with the Regimental Fire and Fury (RF&F hereafter...) rules for our ACW gaming; they are the better of the numerous sets we have used, and while over the last few months I have had moments where I seriously wanted to throw them at the wall, and then into the bin, we've put in enough time that we can start considering some "house mods"..

Number one on the list is the matter of dice... all RF&F random decision points are based on a single D10 - clearly this can lead to vast swings in fortune from one move to the next, and while I accept that the dice is there to introduce randomness & luck, I do have a bit of an issue with the degree of randomness... Both DG and I agree that something needs to be done so we've been passing ideas backwards and forwards with a view to making some kind of change...

first idea was to use the average of 2D10 but the primary concern was that this would make the extremes so unlikely that (in my eyes at least) the effect would be as unrealistic on the flow of the game as the issue we were trying to fix.
next option was to use 2D6 as this gives a bell curve of results that is known and quantifiable - the downside of course is that the range of results is greater, and we would have to make some changes to the outcomes list so as to mvoe ranges of results up or down....
DG has come up with an idea (he's far more mathematical than me) to use 2D6 where one is positive, and the other is negative... I understand the concept but need more time to think about it...
The latest idea, and perhaps most simple option, would be to throw 2D10 wherever you would normally throw 1, and then just take the best result... I think we're settled on this as an option for the next game...

The second issue is with terrain - RF&F treats buildings in a most obtuse manner for a set of rules that are theoretically regimental level - at Corps or Divisional level I can understand the way they treat them but my understanding is that any size of house at the level we are playing at are significant....whereas RF&F nly treats some of them that way - not a major beef but we'll change it for the next game...

My last issue (and this is not such a problem to DG) is the morale rules for artillery.... infantry/cavalry is basically good or disordered, for artillery they have separate descriptions (damaged/silenced etc) which I for one have problems equating wih the infantry equivalent (and that's after a year playing them!) - I'd like to change the rules so that all troop types have the same morale condition....

Be interested int he view of any Fire and Fury players out there....

* I'll post on them when they're done - I seem to have a thing about not doing work in progress shots - I must be a "completist" If you're in need of an immediate Sudan fix though, can I direct you to the brilliant One Man and His Brushes [click here] blog where he has just finished some lovely looking Dervish

That was the year that was... 2011

2012-01-01T19:49:00.002Z

Happy New Year!

...and so another year disappears down the pan...

It seems de rigeur among the wargaming bloggerati to put up some kind of view of how 2011 was, and what your plans are for 2012, so why on earth should I want to buck the trend...??

I've got to say it wasn't a stand out year... painting totals for the year turned out at 223 [click here], but most of that was the WWII re-basing project so the number of new units joining the ranks was low - I stand in awe of the output of some of my fellow bloggers (they know who they are) but my favourite new unit this year was the Tigers [click here]

Ninety three posts this year (c/w 81 in '10) so that was pretty good (in fact I'm a bit surprised I was so prolific - it didn't seem like it!)

Only four table top games all year (pitiful) - but two massive virtual games that DG and I have been playing all year (Rogersburg and Waynes Junction)

Sawmill Village [click here] - Marlburian - and a massive lose to DG..
Retreat to the Coast - Colonial - solo (so I won.. )
Action in the Plattville Valley the 1st John Corrigan Memorial game - AWI - a win to me in this one...
Holding Position - more Marlburian & a narrow win...

Three brilliant shows though - Salute, Colours and Warfare - some fantastic books read, got to see the Mechanics again (brilliant night - Dad-dancing to the fore!), a fine holiday, and some good sailing [click here] made 2011 an overall good'un...

I don't make New Years resolutions - what I'd like to do is a little more painting, and a few more table top games than last year...... I'd be happy with that!

All the best to you and yours for 2012....!

Praetorian - a review..

2011-12-29T13:56:00.000Z

Hard to believe that this is the 11th in the Macro and Cato series, and I look back with not a little fondness to those earlier books where the stories were firmly set in the Legions, and the adventures and dangers they faced were of the more "believable" kind....

These days however, Prefect Cato and his blunt sidekick Centurion Macro have caught the eye of one of the Emperor's special advisors, Narcissus, and as a result they tend to get involved in more high flown drama's... think that's been the case for a few of the books now... and this one is no different.

The Emperor (Claudius, as in the superb BBC drama series based on the Rober Graves Books "I, Claudius) is the subject of a plot to assasinate him by a shadowy Republican group. Implicated in the plot are members of his own personal guard, the Praetorian Guard, Macro and Cato are sent to Rome with new identities and placed undercover in the Guard to find out who the traitors are.

Set against the famines in Rome, with shortages of grain from Egypt, spectacular gladitorial games to distract the mob, riots, and a dangerous hunt to expose the traiters, Macro and Cato are now moving in exalted circles... we are introduced to Claudius's stepson Nero (and given he was the son of Claudius's niece who Claudius had married shouldn't that be step-nephew??) his own son Brittanicus (who I'd not heard of before)

All in all this is an enjoyable romp, the back story is splendid (good detail on the Praetorian's), there is a reasonable plot twist, the baddies are nasty, and the goodies are believable...

Steve the Wargamer gives this one 7 or 8 out of 10; 8 I think as there are signs at the end of the book that more normal ventures may about to be thrust upon them....

Sometimes you know..

2011-12-27T20:47:00.001Z

...that you got very lucky indeed on Christmas day..

...now that* should make blogging a little easier!

* A Hewlett Packard Mini 210-3025sa Netbook in Grey no less...and as an unalloyed geek... a thing of total beauty..

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-24T09:54:00.000Z

...and so another year is drawing to a close, and it falls to me to wish all those followers desperately hoping for something interesting here, a cracking Christmas (or "holiday" depending on your religious temperament)...

For those of you working (and there will be some) I hope it's not too onerous, but to the rest of you I can only wish, cool (as in temperature) ales (real of course), fine foods, and a film on the TV you haven't seen before.... oh, and loads of "soldier stuff" (as my spuds insist on calling my past time) under the tree..

The Hobbit..

2011-12-21T13:26:00.000Z

...the official trailer is out....

...but you're going to have to wait 12 whole months to see it!

Difficult to believe..

2011-12-20T21:03:00.000Z

..that the lost post was ten days ago, but the dates don't lie - I can only plead "Christmas" in mitigation...

Running around like a blue ars*d fly at the moment either getting ready for the big day or on aligned activities - social events, shopping, wrapping, add in eating, working and sleeping, and that's it... not time left for wargaming - asolutely worn out... the boat is being ignored as well....

In a particulalrly arid hobby patch I did have a good day in the loft on Sunday having a massive clear out.. three bin bags of various books, folders, papers, video's (that I can no longer play!) and assorted "stuff" have made their way to the garage where in the end they'll make their way to either tip or charity shop....

I'm continuing to play the Battle of Waynes Junction which winds it's way towards a close....I'll put a report up when it finishes but it's going to be a close finish...

Other than that, the perrenial wargamers standby is a good read and I'm currently well over half way through The Praetorian - no complaints - watch here for a full review when I've finished it....

In the meanwhile.......only 5 days to go!

Big update to the Marlburian project page..

2011-12-11T16:52:00.000Z

It must be one of those afternoons... warm and cosy in the loft is the definite place to be...

Anyway - I took the opportunity while sat in comfort to have a big virtual 'sort out' on my Marlburian project page [click here]....

Done a major update to the layout so as to aid simpler navigation by moving all of the sections to their own pages (see list at top of page).
I've also added details of the "Raid on St Michel" campaign that DG and I played end 2009/beginning 2010 (see Game Reports page)
Game report added - "Sawmill Village" (ditto)
Game report added - "Holding Position"(ditto)

"Heartstone".. a review

2011-12-10T18:41:00.000Z

I've read one or two of Sansom's books and have never been disappointed - they invariably veer on the large side* and this book was no exception weighing in at 600+ pages.... (slightly amusingly, this was in the local library's borrow it for a week section - no chance!!)

So what do you get in your 600+ pages?? A story set in the summer of 1545, where England is threatened with invasion by the French (when are we not!).

Henry VIII's invasion of France to try and imitate his antecedents, has gone badly wrong, and a massive French fleet is preparing to sail across the Channel.

Conscription has been called, the currency has been debased to try and pay the massive costs of the war, and seemingly the whole of England is on a war footing.

In Portsmouth the royal fleet has gathered but is hideously outnumbered by the French.

Against this background Matthew Shardlake, a lawyer, is given a legal case by an old servant of Queen, Catherine Parr. He is tasked with investigating claims of 'monstrous wrongs' committed against a young ward of the court resident just north of Portsmouth.

Shardlake and his assistant Barak journey to Portsmouth to try and discover what the secret is, and at the same time try to find out why one of Shardlake's acquaintances is incarcerated at Bedlam...

The background detail is fantastic - at one point Shardlake goes aboard the Mary Rose - there is a clever plot twist, but it's not a frenetic book and I can't help thinking it would have been better for being a bit shorter....

Worth reading for the history - I had little or no knowledge of this period of my country's military history - not a bad story.. Steve the Wargamer rates this one six out of ten...

* as an aside what is it about the 21st Century that we focus so greatly on "large", "extra large", "go large"? There was a time when I was younger (oh no I hear you say... another Daily Mail diatribe about how things were better in the "old days") when coffee came in small mugs, music albums lasted no more than 45 minutes (two albums, or a double album, on one C90 tape cassette) and burgers (served only by Wimpy) were single slices of nothingness with no sign of extra cheese/bacon/sausage/vegetable matter/salad or anything else... at about the same time if you picked up a thriller they would invariably be 250-300 pages..... at some point in between someone said "more is good" and all of the previous examples have gained size/quantity, but not necessarily the quality to go with it (Wimpy excepted - they never had quality in the first place...
)

He's back...

2011-12-08T08:39:00.000Z

...rumours of my demise have been greatly exaggerated....

...but the current Mrs Steve the Wargamer and I are freshly returned from three nights in Bath for our traditional pre-Christmas trip....

...not bad for a view from the bedroom window.....

...quite astonishing quantities of carbohydrate were consumed, along with copious draughts of the landlord & vintners finest....

...and what can you say to a view like this outside your front door??

...and both of us have come back "larger" than when we went... and also tired out, never seen crowds like it - I won't believe anyone who tells me that we are currently in a recession - the good folk of Bath were certainly spending on Christmas fit to bust!

..no wargaming or military visits to report (I'd wanted to go to Landsdown which is just up the road but we simply didn't have time) but as a parent there is something very sybaritic about being able to sit in a pub (that's it just above - next door to the Firehouse.. both are thoroughly recommended) the whole afternoon on a Sunday and read the papers from back to front.....

...normal service should be resumed soon...

Fusilier Regiment Erbprinz joins the ranks..

2011-11-29T08:50:00.000Z

This unit has been awaiting completion since I got the figures through a private sale back in 2008.. (sorry for the delay, Jim! )

They were partially painted so in this case only required some touching up - some blue ink on the coats, flesh wash, re-painted the gun barrels, and I decided to colour the wigs a more natural colour as I assumed they would soon have "lost" the originals on campaign... that and a base makes all the difference...

I've taken a bit of a liberty as this regiment became a musketeer regiment in about 1780 (so just before the Yorktown campaign which is my "timestamp" for the AWI project) but as I had the fusilier figures, and the uniform colours were correct for Erbprinz, I decided to go with it anyway...

This regiment was one of four fusilier regiments (the others being von Ditfurth, von Knyphausen and von Lossburg) from the German state of Hesse-Kassel. They were also known as the Prince Hereditaire Regiment. I have not managed to find any difference in function, or equipment, between the fusiliers and more normal musketeer regiments other than the distinctive fusilier cap.. any difference would have been lost in time, traditionally the fusiliers would have been the men who guarded the artillery - I suspect like many regiments they would have guarded the outward signs of their difference jealously, and hence they were still wearing their caps in America..

Each Hesse-Kassel musketeer or fusilier regiment had five line infantry companies and a grenadier company of about 135 men each; the grenadier companies however, were detached before leaving Germany and were formed into four composite grenadier battalions.

The Regiment arrived in America in August 1776 and saw it's first action in the New York area. The regiment arrived in Virginia in March 1781 where it was under the command of British Major General William Phillips. When Phillips died, the unit was temporarily under the command of Brigadier General Benedict Arnold, who was commanding troops in the British army by then.

A week later the unit came under the command of Cornwallis during the Virginia and Yorktown Campaigns.

As above the field strength of the fusilier and musketeer regiments were supposed to be around 500-600 men, but during the Siege of Yorktown Erbprinz consisted of approximately 400 men - during the siege they lost an estimated 23 killed, 57 wounded and 16 missing. The regiment was commanded throughout by Lieutenant Colonel Mathew Fuchs.

My reading/research would indicate that by the time of Yorktown, the fusilier regiments Erbprinz and du Corp, and musketeer regiment Trumbach, were superior in quality to the other musketeer and fusilier regiments from Hesse-Kassel. They were better trained and had higher morale.

The figures are Minifigs 25mm - and splendid they are! Base no. 48 & 49.. and coincidentally the 60th unit in the American War of Independence project!

The fusilier regiment as they would have looked prior to being designated a musketeer regiment and painted by the inestimable Mr Troiani

NB. As per my previous post [click here] this regiment will replace the existing unit with the same august name - the old unit will become either Grenadier Regiment von Rall or one of the other Fusilier regiments; in the previous post I said I'd need to summon up enough nerve to have a go at the red stripes of the von Rall trousers - following the recent successful experiment with the Tiger Zouaves and a fine drawing pen however, and I think I may have the tools at hand...

Battle of Sawmill

2011-11-26T18:27:00.000Z

Time I think to let you know how the Battle of Sawmill Village turned out... this was a scenario from Charles Grant's "Scenarios for Wargamers" (scenario #41 titled "Chance Encounter")

In essence two roughly equal sized forces approached a village in the centre of the table from opposite diagonal edges - the mission was take and secure the village in order to win.

The following shows my interpretation of the map in the book:

Sawmill Village in the centre - a barn just to the right (that's south) of the village and the church wood west of the village. The entry points for each side are the corner nearest (bottom left), and the opposite diagonal corner...

In rules terms all slopes (including the flat surfaces on top) "were gentle slopes"; all woods (that's the trees on the extended bases, rather than the individual ones) were "open"; fields had no terrain impact/effects...

We diced for sides and I got the French, we then diced for entry point and I got the corner nearest the church...

Orders of Battle:

As mentioned above the two forces were roughly equal - I allowed 14 units each, plus one medium artillery piece - the 14 units could be anything from all the units painted to date, but no more artillery.

As the French, I would say that I was already at a disadvantage - the British and Dutch infantry get firing bonuses (simulating platoon firing), the British cavalry get melee bonuses (simulating their effectiveness as shock cavalry) - but knowing DG as I do, I decided to go for a force that included all the cavalry I had, as my plan was to get to the village first, occupy it, and then screen off either approach - I was guessing DG would go for a force heavy in infantry, and cavalry are real infantry killers (providing they close in the melee!)....

My force therefore comprised the following:

Seven squadrons of cavalry - two of them heavy (cuirassiers) - and seven of infantry... my entry order of march was as per the bottom..

DG, as I guessed, went for a force strong in infantry:

Each side was only allowed to enter in column of march up to two units wide - it would therefore take two or three moves to get all units on the table.. units could deploy on their second move...

Only question was whether my plan would work!

The Battle:

Started off much as I'd planned... French entered with all their horse...

A bucolic scene somewhere near the Rhine in 1704 - a merchant and herdsman heading for markets to the south of Sawmill Village spot the approaching troops and speed up...

I pushed forward as fast as I could, when the artillery arrived I sent it straight up the hill for maximum visibility and range....

First brigade (cavalry) deployed east, second brigade moves toward the village..my C-in-C oversees activities...

..meanwhile DG is bringing his troops on as fast as they can - he is slightly perturbed at this stage by the amount of French and Bavarian horse flesh on display..

He pushes his cavalry north - sweeping round the large hill between him and the village - at this stage my plan was looking good - three of my cavalry squadrons were holding all four of his squadrons.. meanwhile the second brigade was taking up position either side of the village while the foot advanced rapidly to occupy the village (which for this game is represented as a built up area the size of the tile the houses are standing on)

Merchants wagons continue speeding southwards!

...and it was at this point that my plan started to fall apart...

...spotting that DG was having a lot of problem manoeuvring in the limited space on top of the hill I decided to have a go at causing him some discombobulation by charging with a couple of squadrons of cavalry... in the first of the evenings devastating volleys his infantry just ripped me apart like a hot knife through butter... (DG had these 'devil dice' with him on the night - seemingly incapable of throwing anything but 5's and 6's!) in short order both squadrons were basically rendered irrelevant - and that was my cavalry advantage gone....


On top of the hill one squadron has routed (red pin) - the second squadron has taken it's place and received more of the same (shaken - yellow pin)

I had assumed this was such a good plan that I had also bought up the cuirassiers for a little more of the same - on the plus side I had occupied the village...

Cuirassiers stand ready at the bottom of the hill

The Cuirassiers charge.... and get the same treatment as the other cavalry (yellow pin - shaken again!) - I even had my infantry ready to take the top of the hill once the cavalry had done their job.... no such luck - with two further devastating volleys the cuirassiers were also sent packing...

There comes a time when you realise that the evening is not going to go your way - this was it!

DG was now free to bring his cavalry round the hill and take mine on - he now had the advantage in numbers - four fresh squadrons versus three plus a half strength one...

Massive cavalry melee which the French held their own in whilst knowing the writing was already on the wall

...and then he bough down those masses of infantry - gulp...

Grand assault - 1

..different shot of the same assault..

...and this was DG's own picture he was so proud! Awe inspiring shot though...

...and that was it - the French recognised that even though they held the village at the moment - they could not prevail - and the British would eventually have to take it....

DG's plan was to hold back the infantry while he finished off the French cavalry - he could then swing his cavalry round and just roll up the French line - leaving the village until last if required... couldn't argue with his plan.... or those devil dice.... so I conceded.

Post Match Analysis:

It was one of those nights where the dice just couldn't do any wrong for DG - hugely demoralising for yours truly - it's a game but you like to think that you may get some even breaks and I got few to none....

I think it's important not to over-react when deciding changes to a scenario based on a whupping as comprehensive as this... undoubtedly DG had some lucky dice throws (and I've had games like it in the past), but, ignoring the chance element, I would still recommend that the French get some kind of benefit, or bonus, to balance out the undoubted benefits the British/Dutch get in firing and melee. For the next time we play this scenario (and we will, as it is deceptively simple) either give the French another couple of units, or for that game only cancel out the British/Dutch bonuses...

I thought long and hard after the game about where my tactics had gone wrong and came to the conclusion it was with the commitment of the cuirassiers to the fight on the hill... up until that point in time, the use of two squadrons of cavalry to cause an untold amount of discombobulation was a good gamble - I failed in the face of those dice throws, but reinforcing the failure by throwing in the cuirassiers was not a good gamble... I should have pulled back and conserved my strength. DG played the long game and won a convincing victory....

Refreshments on the evening were down to DG who bought some beer from a local craft brewery... all I can say is that i9t was a very definite highlight of the evening - and I've had two or tree other beers to sample through the week as well - thanks very much DG!

Until the next time!

Warfare

2011-11-22T13:14:00.000Z

Fresh back from the yearly trip to "Warfare", and time I think to report on how the show/day went...

All in all I'd say that this year was very quiet - it's something I've notcied this year, as both the Reading & Newbury shows are slightly unusual in the UK in that they are two day affairs. Given the choice, DG and I will always pick the Sunday, in my case at least, that's the day the family are least likely to be doing something on so it's easiest for me to get away. In the case of Colours and this weekends Warfare though, it was noticeably less busy... still a buzz, but not grooving and a shaking like it normally is... economic effects?? Who knows - I do wonder about the economic viability of two day shows in the current climate... the traders are not going to turn up for two days if no-one is buying on the second day... it did seem to me, by the way, that not a lot of cash was changing hands - purely a perception....

So what did Steve the Wargamer buy??? Not a lot really - I have enough stuff to be going on with so I was there mostly for a good mooch around

I pre-ordered three unit bags from Newline Designs (who are having a rather awesome 25% off sale running up to Christmas!) so I picked those up and saved myself the postage, they will re-stock the lead piles nicely, and will eventually end up as three new regiments, four if there's enough figures lying around to make a scratch/"scruffy" Confederate regiment...

On almost the same subject I also picked up some Vallejo paint - a butternut & a better shade of grey for the Reb infantry, and I also cracked and bought a Yellow of quite outstanding custard propensities... I don't have much luck with yellow (in acrylics I understand it's a difficult colour to get to work) so I'm hoping Vallejo is better - I'll advise when I've had time to test....

Last of all I also picked up some more copies of "Practical Wargamer" - at only 10p a copy it would have been foolish not to... I've almost set in my mind to try and collect a complete print run of this much missed, wholly underestimated, periodical... just wish someone would do that on CD or DVD.

...and that was it.... so ignoring the figures, I spent exactly £5.65 - rubbish!

...and so the the games.... Warfare has never been what I would call a "demo show" - it's primarilly a competition weekend - but they do have the occasional jewel (remember Blenheim from a few years ago?? ...who can forget!), this year though was a little light, and I could only consider two of them as particular favourites.....

In second place was this little set-to by the guys from Tiny Terrain Models a 15mm Blitzkreig Commander Game based on the 101st Airborne drop on the Cotentin Peninsular at night on D-Day..

Deceptively simple terrain - loved the windmill...

..also loved the bocage - really claustrophobic effects...

Overview from the other end..

..lovely game - loads more details and pictures here [click here]

My winner was this game - a huge 20mm set-up based on a fighting withdrawal to a steamer, somewhere in the Far East, at the start of the Japanese invastions of WWII.

I leave you to guess what first caught my eye...

Loved the storage tank - guessing it was once a childs sand bucket...!

Lots and lots of detail everywhere you looked...

Little do those vehicles know that the Japanese are already ahead of them...

...and there you have it - another Warfare come and gone - next stop Christmas, and then Salute 2012!

Warfare on Sunday...

2011-11-18T08:38:00.000Z

...oh yes!

My favourite show of the year, DG is coming down, Sean at Newline Designs is having a 25% off sale - what's not to be happy about!

Suffice to say I pre-ordered three unit bags from Newline ("Infantry in Kepi, Shell jacket, Marching") to fill the currently empty "to paint" boxes for my ongoing American Civil War project.. they may also get me to pick up a paint brush again - not a good painting year... so far...

With DG coming down we will also take the opportunity to slip in a game on Saturday evening...

Once again the drums and fifes will ring out along the Rhine, as the forces of the Duke of Marlborough (DG) seek to stymie the dastardly French (me)... I've combed the "Scenario's for Wargamers" book and have decided on the "Battle of Sawmill Village" scenario.... I will of course post here once it's complete...

Looks to be a good weekend coming up.... !

Battle of Waynes Junction... Part 2

2011-11-17T12:00:00.000Z

Continuing the account of the battle which I left at move 11.

=====================================

Move 12: Last efforts - I need to defend what I've taken, and the objectives/features that are key to my plan - that's the left of the battlefield.

The Louisiana Regiments have done their work and it's time for them to rest, but not before I send the 6th Louisiana to attempt a little naughtiness on the exposed US artillery...

Move 13: ..which works! Go the 6th!

On the left of the battle I continue to make (small) gains...

Move 14: The 6th are on fire.... Battle honours are deserved by all the Louisiana regiments, but especially the 6th - who have now charged the flank of the US artillery and sent them packing!

On the right of the battlefield DG attempts a little of his own "shut the door" with the 126th New York - I move one of the two now rested Louisiana regiments to cover, with the 21st North Carolina as support

Move 15: That's it as far as I'm concerned - no immediate threats and it's time to dig in and wait for DG to retreat... Famous last words...

Two of my regiments are sent packing - not through any action by DG just casualties and poor dice throws results in them withdrawing... on the right that New York regiment is beginning to be a bit of a pain...

Turn 16: The 21st North Carolina have halted... the 57th have "retreated" themselves into a position where they are no longer a viable unit... time to "hunker down" as my US colleagues would say

Turn 17: The Confederates are a spent force - only the 6th North Carolina and the artillery are still a cohesive force, and as a campaign game there are a lot of hours until night time..

In the face of a slow advance by the Union 126th New York I cover with the 21st NC and 8th L - elsewhere I fall back on the supply sheds...

Throughout all of this the Confederate artillery maintain a healthy fire and cause some discomfort to the 7th West Virginia..

Turn 18: "Come and get it if you think you're hard enough".. those New York boys seem a little hesitant...

...end of this post - I hadn't realised when I said 'game over' that as a campaign game there were no victory conditions - I have another 7 turns to hold out - I leave it to you to imagine how I felt about that...!

Battlegames is saved!!

2011-11-16T07:54:00.000Z

In many ways I see "Battlegames" as the Steve the Wargamer Blog house magazine... the financial difficulties that Henry is experiencing with the magazine have been widely blogged and reported on, and as a subscriber from issue 1, like many I responded to Henry's poll.

My view was that anything, any format, any publication schedule would be better than "Battlegames" disappearing... imagine my joy to receive a communication from Henry this morning telling me that Battlegames is saved!!

In Henry's words...

"I'm delighted to announce that Battlegames is in the process of being acquired by Atlantic Publishers and will therefore become a stable-mate to Miniature Wargames. Deals of this kind obviously take time, but negotiations are proceeding extremely well and we are aiming to complete the handover by early December."

Such good news - what a way to start a day!

"Empire of Silver" - a review..

2011-11-13T12:00:00.005Z

I can't believe it has taken as long as it has, but I've just finished the latest instalment in Conn Iggulden's Genghis Khan "Conqueror" series... it's difficult to believe that I read the last one 3 years ago [click here] but there you go - time flies...

I think one of the reasons I wasn't in a rush was because in the last book Genghis died, and it just seemed like that was a natural break, and maybe the series should have ended there - in fact in many ways this book is very similar to the Bernard Cornwell "Uhtred" book [click here] I recently reviewed where Alfred had died ie. wasn't that the end of the story....??

Well in both cases the authors have shown that this is very much not the case, just as in Alfred's case where relations start jockeying for power the moment he passes, this book takes up from just after Genghis died and his family are doing the same - the family tree following may help whilst describing the various family machinations..

Genghis's son Ogedai is to be the Khan as per his dying wishes, but Ogedai is sick (some kind of heart disease) and in addition he is not the eldest. Jochi, who would have been eldest, was killed in the previous book (there were suspicions that he may not have been the son of Genghis, as Genhis's wife had been kidnapped for a while), which leaves Chagetai and Tolui..

Genghis Khan's family tree...

Chagatai is older than Ogedai, and clearly believes the rule should be his, Tolui supports Ogedai, as does Batu (the son of Jochi)... cue internecine warfare, plotting, and politicking between the various family members as either side seeks to be the next Khan... a constant undercurrent throughout the book... the advantage however lies with Ogedai as he was Genghis's chosen - more importantly he also has the support of Subotai, Genghis's master general, tactician, and strategist..

The Golden Horde

The book starts a couple of years after Genhis's death; Ogedai has spent the time building the Mongol city of Karakorum to be the capital of the new nation. All the united tribes of the Mongols are encamped on the plains roun th city waiting for the coronation of Ogedai, and tensions are running high.

Chagatai tries to wrest power by infiltrating the city with the aim of killing Ogedai, but his efforts are frustrated and Ogedai survives to be made Khan - he forgives Chagetai and gives him Central Asisa to rule and sends him away (hard life! )

The best part of the book however deals with the campaigns by Subotai in Russia, Poland and the west - Ogedai tells him simply to make his borders secure, Subotai is given free reign as to where the borders will be and over a period of the 5 to 10 years he unleashes warfare Mongol style on the forces of the west. Subotai is without doubt the military genius that few have heard of; in his lifetime he directed more than twenty campaigns in which he conquered thirty-two nations, and won sixty-five pitched battles. He conquered or overran more territory than any other commander in history.

My Mongol DBA army

In the book, Subotai comes up against Teutonic knights, various of the religious military orders (there were more than just Hospitallers and Templars), and the massed medieval might of Russia, Poland, Hungary and a host of other nations... choosing to make war in the winter, his campaigns in Russia were breath taking - while the Russians tried to stay warm his armies ran riot - and he did that over and over again... the only occasion I can think of where "General Winter" was an ally of a Russian invader, rather than a bitter opponent...

The only reason Subotai stopped (and he was within a 100 miles of Vienna, and the rest of West Europe, with nothing to stop him when he did...!) was the death of Ogedai - the Mongols simply stopped, turned round and went home to sort out the succession... astonishing...

Ogedai's successor was named as Guyuck, his son, who was on campaign with Subotai (along with Batu and a number of the other grandsons of Genghis) but was 5000 miles away from Karakorum - Chagatai is much closer and again launches his quest for power; the book ends with an interesting twist.....

Steve-the-Wargamer rated the trilogy 9.9 out of 10 and wholeheartedly recommended all three. I'd rate this one as an 8, maybe 8.5 - to me it felt a little like a (hugely readable) stop gap - after Genghis the next Khan everyone knows is Kublai and I got the feeling Iggulden didn't have much to go on with Ogedai - in book terms he didn't do anything other than build Karakorum, and be ill - the hero of the book for me is Subotai the completely ruthless military genius, but the books are about the Khan's so Iggulden's hands are tied..

Another outing for my DBA Mongol Army to provide some pictures - figures unknown but I think Essex 15mm. The army represents how the Mongol's would have been much later than Genghis and Ogedai hence the increase in foot troops though I note in the story that Subotai is making much more use of foot troops, and artillery already - he was an innovator to the core... The Chinese Rocket gun was scratch built by "Lofty C" [ckick here] to meet the DBA army option for artillery.... can't think how old these figures are - I reckon at least 15 years and they get played with far too infrequently....

Remembrance Day

2011-11-11T00:01:00.002Z

I think it pertinent to remember just how much we owe to the astonishingly brave servicemen in our armed services... because of the interests we have, the research, the reading, I think wargamers have a clear understanding of the sacrifices, the pain, and the misery of war... as it's Remembrance Day, wear your poppy with pride, and spare a thought for all those soldiers through the years...

I have been to.. Stirling Castle

2011-11-09T12:00:00.002Z

Unlike some of my more single minded fellow hobby'ists I've never quite managed to shake the underlying view that others see us as monumentally boring (), so when I dragged my Dad off to Bannockburn last year I was reasonably pleased that he seemed to find it interesting, but I wasn't off a view to push my luck with further suggested trips...

He seems however, to have got a mild dose of the bug and for my trip to Scotland this time - quite unprompted - he suggested we visit Stirling Castle... never one to look a gift horse in the mouth I immediately jumped at the opportunity!

So it was that on a dry but grey Tuesday we found ourselves standing outside the castle (following), which is built on a large hill in the town of the same name - three sides of the hill are almost cliff like, but the approach to the castle is via a road through the town and across a large'ish flat area (used to be a parade ground in earlier years)

The following provides a key to the pictures (click on any of them for a bigger view):

The following shows the "front" of the castle (1.) - like most military buildings the castle was subject to huge amounts of change throughout it's life, and this wall is one of the more modern parts of the castle having been built by Queen Anne in the early 1700's, and is basically just an 'add on' to the earlier, square, main section - fascinating how these buildings never stood still but were always being modified, and added to...

Either way, with near vertical walls on the other three sides, this was the "weak" point of this particular castle as the approach is via the town, this may explain the addition of these later additional breastworks...

Throughout its life the castle was besieged at least eight times, and maybe as many as sixteen (depending on your sources) ...it changed hands several times between English and Scottish during the Wars of Scottish Independence; between 1571 and 1585 it was besieged three times by Scots factions during the reign of James VI. In 1651, Oliver Cromwell captured the castle during his Scottish campaign (and it's possible to see the marks his canon balls have left in walls facing towards the town), and the final siege took place in 1746 during the final Jacobite Rising.

Robert the Bruce which you can see in the map right at the bottom of the map picture (2.)..

A view (3.) from the castle walls down to all that remains of the ornate, formal gardens - known as the Kings Knot - to get to the castle we drove past this on the road you can see in the distance, and from ground level I was thinking it was some kind of massive earthwork or redoubt... the truth is more mundane...

...and for this picture (following) I turned round and took a picture of the earlier castle (4.) - the gatehouse in the distance would have been the main entrance before the ravel-lined section was added by Queen Anne

The wall does however provide a fine view of a number of significant historical sites - in the following, just beyond the two small white cottages on the left is what is now a golf course, but back in the day was the site for the Battle of Sauchieburn ( June 11, 1488) a battle that I was hitherto totally unaware of, but involving almost 50,000 men, and which resulted in the death of Scottish King James III by his son who then became James IV... in the left middle distance (and you'll have to click on the picture for a bigger view) is what looks like a white two story building on top of a hill - just beyond that is Bannockburn... this gives you the hint of how important Stirling was in those days - it was the seat of power of the Scottish kings and guarded the sole, usable, route across the Forth, to travel between north and south Scotland you passed this castle.... no wonder so many battles were fought virtually in its shadow....

The Royal Palace of James V (5. in the map) has only just been opened following a massive renovation - it has been decorated as it would have looked in the 1540's - the roof is covered with two foot square carved, and then painted heads, giving this 3D effect that is startling to say the least..

Hugely colourful - I think we all assume that everything back then would have been shades of brown and grey when in truth, the opposite was very much the case for those who could afford it... also hugely impressive... the following is the Queens Waiting Room

...another shot (6.) of the original gatehouse, or Forework, which was erected by King James IV, probably completed around 1506.

A view looking towards the front of the castle (7.), and including two of the batteries - the nearer one is The Grand Battery the one in the distance is known as the French Spur (8.) - all the batteries in the "new" part of the castle date from the 18th century, but the French Spur may have first been developed in the 1550s and just modified later to allow more cannons to be mounted...

...another view of the Grand Battery - guns were fired for the first and last time from this battery in January 1746 at the forces of Bonny Prince Charlie who for lack of adequate siege artillery withdrew.... this battery looks towards the Wallace Monument...

Every way you look from this castle there are battlefields, and this wall is no different - the bridge in the middle distance is the newer Stirling bridge [click here], the site of the battle (First War of Scottish Independence - 11th September 1297; the forces of Andrew Moray and William ("Braveheart") Wallace defeated the combined English forces of John de Warenne, 6th Earl of Surrey and Hugh de Cressingham), is just to the left...

The Great Hall (below - 11.) was built by James IV and completed in about 1503. Absolutely huge! 42 by 14 metres (138 by 47 ft) across, and it was the largest such hall in Scotland. I especially like the roof which is made of a latticework of huge beams - known as a hammerbeam roof [click here]. The whole building has just been renovated, and the orangey colour on the walls is lime-wash, so is authentic for the time..

The Jacobite wars were the last time the castle ever saw real military service, & from 1800 onwards it was taken over by the War Office, and used primarily as the barracks, and recruiting station for the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders (formed in 1881 by the amalgamation of the 91st Princess Louise's Argyll-shire Regiment and the 93rd Sutherland Highlanders Regiment).

Their regimental museum (12.) is still in the castle, and I had a very interesting hour looking round the various exhibits, but have to say it wasn't one of the best regimental museums I've had the opportunity to visit... it was a little"tired" and seemed to me in need of a bit of an overhaul to bring the exhibits up to scratch... still recommended though.....

Brilliant day, and a beautiful castle - recommended!

============================================

By way of an addendum - how about this for a pub?? This is the "Guildford Arms" in Edinburgh [click here] and my oasis of choice when shopping with the current Mrs Steve the Wargamer in Princes Street... love the ceiling...

...but it's the ambience, and the choice of ten real ales that wins it... here's to the next pint there soon...

Cochrane

2011-11-06T12:00:00.000Z

Just before we departed for the trip to Edinburgh my Dad sent me a newspaper clipping reviewing a new exhibition at the National Museum of Scotland.. the exhibition features Admiral Cochrane, a British sailor of the Napoleonic Wars that many believe was the model for Jack Aubrey, Hornblower, Bolitho, Ramage and probably any other fictional Napoleonic sailor of the last 100 years!

Not surprisingly, while I was in Edinburgh one day, I took the opportunity to get away for a half day to check it out and was pleased I did...

I'll admit up front I'd never heard of Cochrane before this exhibition, so if anything the Museum has done it's job with at least me - but by a coincidence I was reading David Crooks blog and by strange serendipity he mentioned him as well when he had a lucky book find...

Either way, time to educate my readers I thought as the exhibition was very good, and the life they portrayed was just fascinating...

Thomas Cochrane, was the 10th Earl of Dundonald, and served as a sailor in various navies between 1778 and 1831, for Britain, Peru, Brazil and Greece. In addition to being a naval commander he was also a radical politician (ringing any Aubrey bells yet? )

During the Napoleonic Wars he was so successful the French nicknamed him Le Loup des Mers ('The Sea Wolf'). On 28 March 1800, Cochrane, having been promoted to commander, was given command of the brig sloop HMS Speedy, and in one of his most spectacular exploits the following May he captured the Spanish frigate "El Gamo" which carried 32 guns and 319 men, compared with Speedy's 14 guns and 54 men (errrrm... 'Cacafuego' in Master and Commander, anyone?? )

The Action and Capture of the Spanish Xebeque Frigate El Gamo, Clarkson Frederick Stanfield

"Cochrane flew an American flag to approach so closely to El Gamo that its guns could not depress to fire on the Speedy's hull. This left the Spanish with no option but to board. However, whenever the Spanish were about to board, Cochrane would pull away briefly, and fire on the concentrated boarding parties with his ship's guns. Eventually, Cochrane boarded the Gamo, despite still being outnumbered about five to one, and captured her".

In 13 months Cochrane captured, burned, or drove ashore 53 ships before three French ships of the line captured him...!

He was soon exchanged, but was dismissed from the Royal Navy in 1814, following a conviction for fraud on the Stock Exchange (more bells?? ), was stripped of his knighthood, and then served in the rebel navies of Chile (see the review of "Blue at the Mizzen" when I can find time to write it for Aubrey service with the Chilean Navy!), Brazil, and Greece during their respective wars of independence.

In 1832, he was pardoned, reinstated in the Royal Navy with the rank of Rear Admiral of the Blue. After several further promotions, he died in 1860 with the rank of Admiral of the Red, and the honorary title of Rear-Admiral of the United Kingdom.

The guy was by all accounts "mercurial" - he was undoubtedly brave, resourceful, clever, a master tactician, but he was no strategist, and by all accounts wound everyone up - he only fought one duel but he knew how to harbour grudges, make enemies, and was particularly bitter about the loss of his knighthood....

The exhibition was well worth an hour of my time, if you can go, I recommend it - if you can't, I would recommend a read of the Wikipedia article below, jaw dropping doesn't even begin to describe his life... but Aubrey seems the nicer fellow - I know who I'd prefer to have a beer with!

Links:

Museum exhibition web site
Wikipedia link

"Blue at the Mizzen" - a review..

2011-11-04T12:00:00.001Z

The penultimate (the last??) book in the Aubrey/Maturin series and I think you'll know by now that I'm a huge fan so no surprises that right out I give this one an 8 out of 10 ..

I have to say that I approached this book with a slight sense of sadness as this was the last full novel that O'Brien wrote before his far too untimely death... he did start the next book (but I have decided I won't buy it*) but unfortunately died before it was completed...
So what of this book???

Well the war has ended, and more than ever there is a sense that Aubrey and Maturin are getting older - the have both served for the whole of the war at sea, and I think it fair to say that they are "tired"...

Now that the war has ended however, they refit the Surprise and set out for South America and the Horn on their way to help the Chileans secure independence from Spain, their original mission before Bonaparte's 100 Days campaign so rudely interrupted them.. before they can leave however substantial work is required to repair Surprise after a collision at sea, and to recruit replacement crew as many of the original crew have left the ship following the end of the war...

On the way, they stop at Sierra Leone so that Maturin can propose, and although turned down in this instance, he is left with hopes that the lady may change her mind ... they are however, well suited, far more so than to Diana his previous wife...

After a hard slog round the Cape (Horn) they arrive in Chile where they find that the Chileans have split into two factions (northern and southern), with the southerners retaining the services of a British naval captain Sir David Lindsay to command the Chilean navy. Aubrey and he agree to serve together in order to advance the Chilean interests... after time spent training the embryo navy, they receive news of plans for a Peruvian invasion by the Spanish envoy and Aubrey hatches a plan to land troops at Valdivia while his ships bombard the forts, after a hard fight, the action is successful and they take the Surprise back to hand over a large amount of captured bullion to the junta.

Aubrey then comes up with a plan to reinforce the Chilean navy by cutting out a large Spanish frigate, the Esmerelda currently anchored in Callao harbour... O'Brien then describes one of those classic hard-fought broadside actions he does so well, and eventually the British-Chilean force takes the ship although Aubrey is heavily wounded ("thin gruel for you, my dear will not do - perhaps a light broth" ).

Having taken the Esmerelda back, it is clear that the factional fighting in Chile has escalated, but Aubrey insists on his sailors receiving their share of the prize-money and Esmeralda's value.

They receive the money's, and after a happy period doing further training,and as the book ends, Aubrey is overwhelmed to receive orders that the Admiralty requires him to take command of the South African squadron, hoisting his flag at the River Plate, blue at the mizzen, aboard HMS Implacable. Jack has finally made admiral!

Hugely recommended.....

* The last book - provisionally titled "The Final, Unfinished Voyage of Jack Aubrey" - was never completed as O'Brian died whilst writing it. The book comprises three short chapters, and the rest of the book is basically just his notes for the plot/construction of the rest of the story.... the reader reviews on Amazon are particularly poignant - there are some hardcore Aubrey/Maturin fans there who have regretted buying and reading the book as it leaves everything up in the air - far better I think to remember the pair of them as they are at the end of this book, with Aubrey promoted Admiral at last and Maturin set to marry his lady naturalist..... there's only one answer of course - time to read the series again!

Retreat to the coast.. Moves 12 to the end....

2011-11-02T12:00:00.003Z

Apologies for how long it's taken to get this post completed.... there were a ton of pictures to sort through, and with the trip to Scotland time got away from me. Either way, I'm not going to continue boring you with a move by move relation of the game... I hope that by now you have a fairly good'ish view of how the rules play..

So for Bluebear Jeff's benefit we'll start off with a close up of the action in move 12 (below)

The Dervish have contacted the British cavalry on the right of the picture and have inflicted significant casualties...

In the meanwhile the main Imperial firing line continues to blaze away - the red dices indicate casualties however, so they are not getting everything their own way...

A reminder that the green pin indicates a rifle armed Dervish unit - a black flag indicates that the stand (which comprise two bases in game terms) has already lost a base...

To all intents and purposes the Imperial force is locked in place - it cannot advance due to the constant wave of attacks..

Overview of the same move...

..and then catastrophe - the British cavalry are wiped out to a man - only the tiny screw gun remains to guard that open flank... the "good" news is that the Hadendowa and that half unit of Dervish have been wiped out and the threat to the front has eased, at least for the time being..

Catastrophe - British cavalry destroyed but the Dervish have paid dearly..

The British react by refusing one flank of the Sudanese so as to bring at least some rifles to bear on the rampaging Dervish... showing commendable restraint the screw gun continues to bang away throughout..

Given time, the entire Sudanese battalion swing round so as to bring their fire to bear - they are helped in that the hitherto successful Dervish fail a pluck test to close on the line..

The dervish unit on the right has failed a "pluck" (ie. morale) test - yellow pin - they've also taken heavy casualties - over 50%

An overview of the same move (below).. further Dervish reinforcements have arrived - move cavalry and another unit of foot..

...and in the next move (below) another Dervish foot unit arrives while in the distance the Imperial force has almost been contacted by the first of the rifle armed Dervish units and a desperate struggle ensues...

A close up view - from behind the British lines for a change - the North Middlesex are down a base and firing for all they are worth..

...but are still contacted (below) by the Dervish - brave boys...

So 'ere's to you, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, at your 'ome in the Soudan;
You're a pore benighted 'eathen but a first-class fightin' man;
We gives you your certificate, an' if you want it signed
We'll come an' 'ave a romp with you whenever you're inclined.

..but the North Middlesex are triumphant and drive them off - with only time for a quick sip of water they stand to for the next onslaught - this is the third or fourth they have managed to fight off!

The Sudanese swing back in line with their colleagues and await the inevitable..

Dervish cavalry are closing - and there's Hadendowa on the prowl...

A rag tag of short torn, and shell damaged Dervish continue to race towards the Imperial lines... the screw gun has withdrawn to the top of the dune so as to gain the height advantage.. not surprisingly the Dervish are failing pluck tests and in two instances slow almost to a halt before they reach the Imperial lines..

...and are destroyed in their tracks (below) leaving the cavalry and just one part Dervish unit... one of the other dervish units has been forced to flee...

...but not for long (below) they stop and rally.. happily the Imperial force sends the cavalry and the other Dervish unit reeling to join them...

...even so, is it me, or does that concentration of Dervish in the bottom right look worrying?

Must be about move 17 or so by now, and the Dervish block is approaching the dune - it's a good move as they are partially sheltered from some of the Imperial fire...

...next move and they start to climb the dune - this is the last Dervish effort - there are no more units on the table, and no more reinforcements...

...crash!! The Imperial force manages to destroy half one Dervish unit but the other unit and a half close to contact... the Sudanese in the meanwhile have lost a stand..

Hurrah! The Imperials see them off - they might yet make it (and trust me I have had my doubts on several occasions!)

The screw gun crew has take it's first casualties from the remains of the Arab rifle unit on the hill..

..and so the Imperial force mops up the remnants of the opposition, and moves wearily towards the coast, pausing only to split their force so as to divide the fire of the venerable 12 pounder that the Dervish have deployed close to the village before destroying it in short order...

...they Imperial force has triumphed, and as the sirens on board HMS Turbulent sound out triumphantly, Major the Honourable St John Wade-Smith parades his troops on the beach - they have suffered badly but have made it through... His Majesty Leopold II's observing officer Captain Lucien Verbeek (with his horse Teufel.. ) will have much to report on in his next dispatch..

We've fought with many men acrost the seas,

An' some of 'em was brave an' some was not:

The Paythan an' the Zulu an' Burmese;

But the Fuzzy was the finest o' the lot.

Post Match Analysis:

A long game - I stopped counting, but I would suggest somewhere in the region of about 20 moves...
The rules still work fairly well - I had to make a few decisions on the fly where rulings were not clear cut, but I have indicated what those are throughout the narrative...
Despite this, for the next game I'm thinking of rolling out my own home grown rules again to see how they compare... what I will do is lift the Dervish reaction table in it's entirety from these rules to replace the more complex one that I have - though I may tweak the "Enemy not in sight" options slightly to add some other actions (at the moment they're just stand or move)
Casualties were heavy for the Imperials - the heaviest they have suffered in all the games that I've played - this was very definitely no walk in the park, and the Imperial troops had to work hard for their victory..

the North Middlesex lost 11 men (from a total of 24) almost 50% casualties!
the Rutlandshire Yeomanry (the British cavalry) were destroyed in their entirety
the Sudanese Battalion lost 9 (also from a total of 24)

Casualties were heavier for the Dervish, of course - in all twelve "rubs" (or units) were destroyed, three Hadendowa, two cavalry, and the rest were Arab sword and spear men with the exception of the two rifle armed units (who were quire effective - if there had been just one more of them then the Imperial casualties would have been even heavier)

"Death of Kings" - review...

2011-10-30T11:44:00.000Z

In a word just fantastic...

A lot of people have mentioned that they didn't like Cornwell's last book ("The Fort") I differed, but didn't think it was one of his classic books - it seemed clear to me that his mind was not fully engaged on the story, and was to a certain extent going through (the very enjoyable, to me) motions - this book marks a return to form... difficult to believe, but this is the sixth book in the "Uhtred" series.

Largely fictional, though based on outlines that Cornwell has researched from the chronicles published at the time, the book is set round the death of Alfred (The Great) and the power struggle that developed following his death...

Alfred wants his son, Edward, to succeed him but there are other Saxon claimants to the throne (way too many names beginning 'Aeth' to remember! ) and as always the Danes to the north are also keen to defeat the Saxon's in order to settle Wessex and Mercia...

In the book Uhtred‘s loyalty was to Alfred rather than Edward, and he is still largely Dane in outlook despite having battled for Alfred for years - he is a pagan in a largely Christian kingdom, and the thing I like about him is that despite the vows, he is still not 100% committed to Wessex - you feel he could up-sticks and leave at any time.. especially as his continued aim is to regain his old family lands in the north based on Bamburgh Castle..

The book deals with his involuntary vow to support Edward, the mission to build a united England, but in the short term the struggle for survival in the face of a massive Danish invasion, coupled with the conspiracy and double dealing by Saxons and other kingdoms to come out on the winning side..

Brilliant book - Cornwell does the shield wall, and the description of the close quarter fighting, better than any other author I know... Steve the Wargamer gives this one a solid 8 out of 10.

He's back...

2011-10-29T08:16:00.001Z

...just had a break, chez famille, at my Dad's place in Edinburgh so apologies for the break in service but I come back chock full of posts - all I need to do is find time to write them...

So... standby for:

the completion of the write up for the "Retreat to the Coast" game..
a review of my visit to Stirling Castle which I enjoyed while in the 'auld country'
a review of "Blue at the Mizzen" which I finished whilst on the same break
a write up on my trip to the Museum of Scotland to see the Cochrane exhibition
...anything else I can think of, and that I have time to complete..

....and at some time this weekend "Papillon" will be coming out of the water for her winter break ashore, and I have to take the mast down... it's going to be a busy one...!

..those who doubted....

2011-10-23T10:08:00.000Z

...have had their expectations reset...

...teams don't get to the Rugby World Cup by luck, but the French have had more criticism and doubt thrown at them than most teams in the competition, anyone would think that they didn't deserve to be in the final they were expected to give so little opposition....

...as a life long French rugby fan, it is with great pleasure, and not a little relief, that I say - 'think on', you doubters... brilliant game, the Kiwi's won it, but the French played magnificently...

Allez le Bleu!!!

2011-10-23T09:02:00.000Z

Well white actually...

"The Hundred Days" - a review..

2011-10-22T12:00:00.007Z

"It is true that in the community of mariners the "not quite exactly" opinion was widely held; for although Stephen could now tell the difference between starboard and larboard, it still called for some reflection: and it marked the limit of his powers. This general view, however, in no way affected their deep respect for him as a medical man: his work with a trephine or a saw, sometimes carried out on open deck for the sake of the light, excited universal admiration, and it was said that if he chose, and if the tide were still making, he could save you although you were already three parts dead and mouldy. Furthermore, a small half of one of his boluses would blow the backside off a bullock."

This book is something of a joy, as the Mediterranean has always been Jack's lucky hunting ground - even from the beginning of his career - and in this book with Napoleon escaped from St Helena, and Europe again descended into war, Aubrey is dispatched as commodore of a small flotilla into that very sea...

The book starts with his mission to defend a convoy of East Indiamen from a Moorish fleet of corsairs. He is successful in this and on his return to Gibraltar, Aubrey is then instructed to proceed to the Adriatic to seek and destroy any French forces, and then to proceed to Algiers.

Stopping off in Mahon (Menorca) along the way Aubrey and the crew of the Surprise encounter a French Royalist ship that gives him valuable intelligence on the French situation in the Adriatic

The flotilla then take on and defeat two further French frigates - one by battle, the other by "agreement" (the captain was a Royalist); after this second battle Matruin comes up with a scheme to lay out a considerable amount of gold to have a large number of French ships currently being built destroyed by the already disgruntled dockworkers who had not been paid for their work - the scheme is an unmitigated success....

Aubrey then departs for the second part of his mission which is to go to Algiers with the intention of defeating a scheme by a Muslim confederacy to prevent or delay the junction of the Russian and Prussian armies. They intend to do this with a largely mercenary force, and Aubrey mission is to stop the (large) payment required to buy them.After many adventures in the Atlas mountains hunting and shooting a lion who is about to attack the new Dey (sultan) - Maturin is given a promise that no assistance will be given to the Muslim plot. Maturin's colleague however discovers that the Dey's Vizier (a Bonapartiste) is conspiring to have the money sent by a fast-sailing xebec.

While waiting to be picked up and returned to the flotilla with this news, and in a priceless part of the story, Maturin ends up buying two Irish children in the slave market - they then rejoin Aubrey and take the flotilla back to Gibraltar to report.

I think it fair to say that Aubrey is not on the best of terms with the new admiral in charge (Lord Keith has retired), and he is worried that he will not be given the mission to capture the treasure ship but in the end all works out well as Maturin's influence with the admirals intelligence advisor, and Jacks relationship to the admiral's new wife, cause a thaw in their relations.

Armed with new intelligence on the enemies plans, Jack lays in wait for the treasure ship and when it opens fire on them, he chases it and finally corners it at Cranc (Crab) island where they manage to force it's surrender by hauling a nine-pounder gun to the top of a cliff so that they can fire down on it...

After returning victorious to Gibraltar, it looks like they will lose out on the prize money as the Vizier (who has in the meanwhile assassinated the Dey, and taken the crown) requests the return of the ship and treasure; happily he too is deposed and the prize money is confirmed...

The end of the book coincides with Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo, and Aubrey and Maturin set sail for Chile in the Surprise to complete the mission they started in the Yellow Admiral...

Steve the Wargamer rates this one as a definite nine out of ten - the battle scenes are stunning, the technical references are so readable, there is comedy (you have to laugh at the scene in the slave market when Stephen buys the children out of slavery ), pathos (at the very beginning of the book Stephen's wife Diana dies, as does Aubrey's mother-in-law, in a crash when Diana's rash driving overturns their coach) , and downright sadness (Jack's coxswain, Bonden, is killed in this book).... read it at once!

Retreat to the coast.. Moves 9 to 12

2011-10-20T12:07:00.001Z

So when we left it at the end move 8 the Dervish units all over the table were now beginning to converge on the small Imperial force..

At the top of the table in the following, one Dervish force is almost within charge reach - the cavalry and Hadendowa are within sight so heading straight at them... happily for the Imperial force, the two dervish rifle armed units are throwing some particularly poor dice and their progress towards the coming battle is very slow..

The Imperial square has stopped and the North Middlesex deploy in line to bring maximum fire power to bear on the Hadendowa who were hurtling over the dune to their front - in a truly massive volley (close range, entire regiment plus elements of the Sudanese) the Hadendowa are completely obliterated - strike one to the Imperial force..

Move 9 - the Hadendowa have been obliterated but all is not yet over by a long shot..

Happily the Imperial fire power also finally makes itself felt on the charging unit tot he right and enough casualties are inflicted to cause the Dervish unit to throw a succession of "pluck" tests that slow down their advance considerably...

At the beginning of the move another Dervish unit arrives - what is scarily spooky is that they enter just by the point where the previous "rub" of Hadendowa have been destroyed.... ground hog day for the Imperial force, and Wade Smith can be forgiven for rubbing his eyes in disbelief..

Move 10 - further reinforcements arrive - more Hadendowa (on the left) - and spookily close to where there brethren were recently obliterated - on the right the charging Dervish unit is reduced to just half strength...

One feels that by this turn the Imperial force might have been a little worried - the Dervish cavalry is clearly within charge reach, he Hadendowa are taering down on them like howling wolves, and on the other flank those pesky Dervish will not go away...

Wade Smith orders his infantry to continue extending their line (not without some misgivings - not for nothing was the square the formation of choice in the desert - just because there are no Dervish behind them at the moment, doesn't mean that they won't appear behind their line at some point in time..), and directs them to split their fire between the Hadendowa and the cavalry - yet again the Martini Henry's ring out across the desert, and more followers of the Mahdi fall...

Move 11 - can't help thinking this is crunch point - the Imperial force has made very little progress but they clearly aren't going to with that lot heading their way!

A somewhat closer view of the centre of the action - starting top right - just eleven left of the original 24 in that Dervish unit and they've failed a "pluck" test (yellow pin) so half move next turn... the cavalry have lost one stand (black flag - all my Dervish bases count as two stands) and there are only five figures remaining in the other stand, so 7 casualties all told and in rules terms these guys will now need to start testing their pluck. The Hadendowa are in a better condition - only 4 casualties so far...

A close up of the action in Move 11

...and so it continued into move 12 with the Imperial force continuing to spew brass cartidges over the ground like confetti... another devastating volley from the North Middlesex and their Sudanese comrades in arms severely depletes the cavalry and the Hadendowa - on the other flank the British cavalry and the screw gun have halted the Dervish in their tracks - I'm not so worried about this flank but note how the cunning Dervish unit behind are using their depleted comrades as "cover" - they are within charge reach and no damage....

End Move 12 - when will those rifle armed Dervish units get moving! You'll also note the infeasibly large numbers of dice at the top of the picture - clearly the Imperial force have just fired!

..stay tuned - the game nears completion, the current Mrs Steve the Wargamer is on a night shift tonight, and I sense a long session in the loft is coming; the next post will document to the end of the game - whichever way it goes....!

1st Portsea Island Beer festival..

2011-10-18T16:14:00.002Z

The "Retreat to the Coast" game continues and I have a massive update as soon as I can get my act together to tidy it up and put some lucid thoughts round it...

Life has been a tad more busy than I expected just recently, in a good way I hasten to add, and has delayed the completion of the game - to be honest I'm gagging to get back "at it" but the ability to leave a game up in situ is a huge benefit...

So what's taking up the time? Well since the last update a couple of things - all of Sunday was taken up with family duty's and sailing - the end of the sailing season is fast approaching so I'm getting in as much time on the water as I can to tide me through the long winter months...

All of Saturday though was taken up with a visit to the 1st Portsea Beer festival [click here] which my brother-in-law-in-law (we're married to sisters..) and I cycled to on what must have been one of the most glorious October days I can remember... 35 miles, but well worth it to partake of a large number of local ales - over 50 in fact from a variety of local breweries - some absolute crackers but the venue for the event was particularly impressive - it was held in the Groundlings Theatre which is located in a Grade 2 listed schoolhouse built originally in 1784, so dating back to the Georgian period...

So the story goes, in 1754 a Beneficial Society was created by local man John Shakespear and five colleagues with the aim of supporting each other in times of need. Each member contributed one shilling per month and it was agreed that any spare money collected would be donated to pay for the education of poor children from the local area. The society membership was extended the next year, which in turn allowed the building of the school in 1784.
Downstairs was the class room and upstairs was used by the Society for meetings, concerts and theatrical events.

Apparently the school applied a very disciplinarian attitude to education and there is still a hook in the building, to which originally children were tied to receive punishment by the birch!

Girls were allowed to enrol in 1837, a junior (primary) school was also formed in 1873, but the school had to be closed during WWII (presumably because it's only a couple of hundred yards away from the dockyard) - in fact rumour has it that a Nazi sympathiser used the roof to signal German bombers attacking the dockyard.

The school finally closed in 1962, and re-opened as the theatre in 2010 - and very lively it is as well. A brilliant venue - the festival was in the old meeting room upstairs, a lovely airy room...

Two interesting facts about the building, in 1812, whilst attending a dance in the building, Elizabeth Dickens went into labour and shortly afterwards gave birth to her son ....Charles - you may know him.... also, the man who became the Premier of South Australia 7 times and after whom Ayres Rock was named, Henry Ayres, was a pupil at this school.... oh, and apparently it's haunted by at least 15 ghosts, and a friendly poltergeist..

Not a bad venue for a beer - will definitely be going again next year!

Retreat to the coast.. Moves 5 to 8

2011-10-13T15:25:00.001Z

So you may remember that in the last thrilling instalment, Wade-Smith and his trusty companion, the Belgian Observing Officer Captain Lucien Verbeek (with his horse Teufel.. ) are making their way back to the coast following the completion of a reconnaissance mission north of the Suez port of Suakin.. they have have nearly reached the coast where they will be picked up by gunboat, when the sound of Dervish drums alerts them to the presence of a Dervish force in the immediate area...

...back to the battle....

Move 5:

The Imperial infantry continue the formation of their square... In order to give as much frontage as possible, Wade-Smth leaves the "back" of the square open - time will tell if this is a mistake, but he works on the assumption that he needs to provide shelter in the centre for the artillery and crew...

Cover from the Penguin addition of "The Four Feathers" if I'm not mistaken

His cavalry and artillery continue to pour an extraordinarily ineffective fire into the closest of the two Dervish units charging them..

For the Dervish, another unit appears, this time they are Hadendowa, the feared and renowned fuzzy-wuzzy of Kipling fame, alerted by the sound of gun fire and the drums...

Move 6:

The Imperial square completes, but the firing by their dismounted cavalry, and the screw gun, is atrocious and the Dervish continue to close on the Imperial line (on a rules note - and that's all the text in purple - I've never seen so many 1's and 2's on an infeasibly large number of D6' in my life... as an example, at close range the artillery are throwing two D6/crew so that's eight dice hitting on a 4 or more - in the throw this move every dice was a 1 or 2 except one solitary 4, and when I threw again to kill I missed.. clearly they are suffering from some kind of heat exhaustion..)

Elsewhere, the other Dervish units appear to be suffering the same ennui as the Imperial firing parties - they are out of sight of the Imperial force and in several instances remain in their original position only making slow progress towards the centre of the attack... just as well really, or Wade-Smith's "promising" career could be over almost before it started!

Move 7:

Position at the End of Move 7 - Dervish cavalry have arrived - the assault (right) is gathering pace but has been fragmented by the rocky outcrop that has caused one of the Dervish units to slow so as to manoeuvre round it...

..and more Dervish reinforcements arrive, this time in the form of some cavalry who deploy on the hill just to the side of the farm (NB. In scenario terms that's all the first wave of Dervish units now deployed)

The assault on the Imperial line is going well, albeit the Dervish have still only managed to concentrate one unit - the Dervish attack has now entered close range and the Imperial fire picks up additional vigour but remains ineffective - just three casualties so far from 3 rounds of fire!

Move 8:

At last after working like demons the crew of the little screw gun load, fire and reload, and cause massive casualties on the charging dervish - just yards away they falter (the black flag indicates that that one of the bases, which represents two stands of six figures, is down to one stand. The red dice indicates only four left on the second stand. Imperial force has therefore inflicted eight casualties on the unit - the Dervish "pluck" rating is 7, one less, so they have to test their pluck which they then fail.... next move they'll only advance half, and will have to test again... for pluck think "morale"... a simple process but remarkably effective)

Elsewhere:

the Imperial square continues to advance on the coast - wade Smith's view is that the cavalry and the gun will be able to take care of the Dervish charging them... he may be right...... to his from however, he has just seen a howling mob of fuzzy-wuzzy breasting the dune, and coming straight at him....

The Dervish cavalry is swinging round as they have also spotted the Imperial units... the two Dervish units with green pins - bottom left, and bottom centre - are rifle armed....

Position at the End of Move 8 - Dervish units all over the table are now beginning to converge on the small Imperial force.. at the top of the table one Dervish force is almost within charge reach - the cavalry and Hadendowa are within sight so heading straight at them...

Stay tuned for further instalments - getting exciting - certainly gives me something to dwell on whilst cycling to work after having done a few moves!

Retreat to the coast.. Moves 1 to 4

2011-10-10T16:52:00.002Z

It was a bit windy and blowy on Sunday for comfortable sailing [click here] and as I was also recovering from a trip Round the Island [click here] (the Isle of Wight that is - 75 miles on a yacht in just over 13 hours ... stupendous!), and as the current Mrs Steve the Wargamer and oldest Steve the Wargamer spud were at work, I decided that the omens were indeed good for a morning in the loft....

Having cleared away a few work items, tidied up some of the paper storm that is the loft state, made a sausage baguette [click here for the sausage details], brewed a cup of filter coffee, and then switched on the rugby, I was finally in a position to decide what the activity of the morning was to be, and it basically came down to a choice of three...

hit the painting table where I have an American war of Independence regiment of Hessian Fusiliers awaiting touch up and basing - they're already painted so just need some tidying up - these will eventually grace the table as Infantry Regiment Erbprinz
Kick off the first American Civil War ironclad game - table was set - just a matter of picking one of the trial rule sets and having a play through...
I've been reading a lot of back issues of "Practical Wargamer", a number of which feature Sudan scenario's. Definitely a scratch to be itched there...

...had to be the Sudan, so I hoiked out my copy of the "A Good Dusting" [click here] rules (in preference at the moment to my own rules), and set up the table for another outing of Major the Honourable St John Wade-Smith and His Majesty Leopold II's observing officer Captain Lucien Verbeek (with his horse Teufel.. )

So without further ado - let us again to the sands of the desert...

Orders of battle: As with the previous game [click here] as advised in the rules I again went for a ratio of 3:1 (that's Dervish : Imperial) for a close game; it worked last time and no reason it won't this game. This time however, I plan to 'recycle' the Dervish units so that I can use a bigger Imperial force...

British/Imperial:

All the following are under the overall command of Major the Honourable St John Wade-Smith (that paragon of Victorian gentlemanly valour..) - all British regiments are of course fictional...

1st Battalion - North Middlesex Regiment of Foot
10th Sudanese Infantry
1 "Screw" gun - carried by camel
1st Squadron - Rutlandshire Yeomanry (carbine armed British cavalry)

Dervish:

Starting force..

3 units of Arab sword/spear men
2 units of Arab rifles
1 unit of Arab horse
1 unit of Beja sword/spear men
One smooth-bore cannon with Egyptian prisoner crew

The first four "deceased" units will be returned to the table as Dervish reinforcements..

Mission: The Imperial force has been on an extended reconnaissance in an area to the north of Suakin as there have been isolated rumours of Dervish activity. They have now completed the reconnaissance and are making their way back to the coast, where they will be picked up by gun boat and returned to Suakin for some much needed rest and recuperation... but as they approach an isolated farm on the coast that marks their embarkation point, the sound of Dervish drums [click here] rends the air...

The following shows the immediate area - the Imperial force enters from the top of the table directly opposite the water - all textured tiles & hills are classed as rough going, the rocky outcrops are impassable - British mission is to make it to the coast (bottom of the table) with the majority of their force intact...

Move 1:

...and the Imperial force enters the table - in hindsight far too closely deployed but that was remedied on subsequent moves. The infantry in column on either side, screened by the Rutlandshire's, and with the artillery in the centre with Wade-Smith...

No Dervish units arrived on this turn so the British move towards the coast was unopposed...

Move 2:

The Rutlandshire's report signs of Dervish activity to their right, and dust clouds towards the coast where the farm can only just be seen through the heat haze...

I had rolled for a Dervish appearance, was successful, and the subsequent roll showed 3 Dervish units as having arrived - position of entry and how far they moved were decided by dice roll. Two of the units were deployed on the coast and I decided they were out of visibility range of the British (an arbitrary decision that spotting would be clear line of sight and a maximum of 36") so their movement was diced for on the relevant chart..

At the end of the position was as follows:

Move 3:

...and two of the Dervish units are now on the move - the one to the right can see the British cavalry and has orders to close on them at maximum speed - on the coast one of the units is staying put, the other has gone looking for trouble...

..the Imperial force spreads out to give themselves some room - the artillery and the cavalry have drawn forward to cover the rest of the column - my intention is to dismount the cavalry and deploy/assemble the gun...

..no further Dervish units appear..

Move 4:

..and another two Dervish units appear - one in support of the Dervish charging the British, and another on the coast..

The Imperial infantry prepares to form square - the cavalry has dismounted and the gun deployed. These latter two both fire causing two casualties to the left'most Dervish unit..

=============================================

..and that's it for this instalment - but stay tuned for more thrilling adventures in the Sudan as I play the game through in a leisurely way, a couple of moves at a time, as and when I have a moment - happily I usually get to play a couple of turns in the morning before I leave for work...

Short update...

2011-10-04T12:32:00.001Z

Just a short update to let you know what's currently going on....

At the weekend I made a visit to my local DIY emporium and bought myself six carpet tiles in a blue mottled effect - that's the playing surface for the ironclad game sorted! I may still get myself a few more as they are only 50cm square, and it leaves a fair amount of my 6' x 4' table without covering... the playing area for the game is probably big enough because in reality the two ironclads are going to close as soon as they can to either batter each other into submission, or ram.... subtlety is not a major part of the scenario!

Separately I continue to investigate rules suitable for the game - have continued to read the Phil Dunn rules but was slightly unhappy with the time scale and unit recording aspects for the game.... in his rules turns represent one minute at the tactical level, reducing to 30 seconds at micro level (when a ramming attack is being launched for example) but this means guns are firing only every 3 turns.. even with two ships that's a little onerous to track.....

I now have some further sets to check -all of these are free by the way...

"Flotilla" was a set published on the web here
"Smoke on the Water" available from here (image above from their excellent site by the way)
"A Hotter Fire" available from here

...truly the web is an amazing place!

===========================================

Separately, "The Hundred Days", and "Blue at the Mizzen" have arrived in the post from Amazon - a total bargain by the way - two hardbacks for only a fiver delivered.... astonishing!

Second hand of course, but one good copy and one average, but at a penny each plus postage not to be sniffed at.

Should I ever buy a Kindle, the entire series will be high on my list....

Battle of Hampton Roads and a rule conundrum..

2011-10-01T08:52:00.000Z

As I mentioned previously, the source of my original interest all those years ago was the chapter in Donald Featherstone's "Naval War Games" book that dealt with the action between "Monitor and Merrimac" (sic) at the Battle of Hampton Roads..

So the cassus belli of my little sub-project is that same battle, using those same ships I used all those years ago...

The cause of the battle was the Confederate attempt to break the Union naval blockade of Norfolk and Richmond, and was fought over two days, March 8th and 9th 1862, in Hampton Roads which was the spot where the Elizabeth, Nansemond and James Rivers meet just near the Chesapeake Bay.

The following from the excellent Wikipedia article shows the area well...

Perhaps more importantly (in history terms anyway) this was also to be the first naval battle between ironclad warships.

Orders of Battle:The Confederate fleet consisted of "Virginia" of course, supported by the tender gunboats (think small, iron hulled, ships) "Raleigh" and "Beaufort", and ships from the James River Squadron - comprising the gunboats "Patrick Henry" (left), "Jamestown" and "Teaser".

The Union fleet, known as the North Atlantic Blocking Squadron, was on paper at least considerably larger and comprised the "Monitor" (who didn't arrive until the 9th); the 50-gun screw frigates "Minnesota" and "Roanoke"; the 44-gun sailing frigates "St. Lawrence", "Purviance" & "Congress", plus a 24-gun sailing sloop-of-war the "Cumberland", and several other smaller gunboats and support boats (tugs). The problem was that the majority of these were wooden ships...and Virginia was about to be unleashed like a wolf among sheep....

8th

On the first day of the battle the Confederate force was opposed by only those conventional, wooden-hulled ships - in fairly short order Virginia destroyed Cumberland by ramming (but broke her ram in the process, and almost sank when she couldn't disengage), and Congress by gun fire (including use of red hot shot) and was about to attack Minnesota (which had run aground a half mile below Newport News during an attempt to escape) when the attack was called off due to a falling tide, and oncoming darkness...

Virginia (above) was not completely undamaged - gun fire on her smokestack had reduced her already low speed. Two of her guns were disabled and several armour plates had been loosened. Two of her crew were killed, and more were wounded one of whom was her Captain.

Clearly round one to the Confederates...

On the night of the 8th, the Confederate squadron remained at anchor off Sewell's point.

9th

After hurried repairs overnight, Virginia steamed into action the next day to finish off Minnesota.

During the night, however, Monitor had arrived in the Roads and had taken a position to defend Minnesota.The two ships opened fire on each other helped by an occasional (ineffective) broadside from Minnesota...

"After fighting for hours, mostly at close range, neither could overcome the other. The armour of both ships proved adequate. In part, this was because each was handicapped in her offensive capabilities. .... Virginia, had not expected to fight another armoured vessel, so ... guns were supplied only with shell rather than armour-piercing shot.

Monitor's guns were used with the standard service charge of only 15 lb of powder, which did not give the projectile sufficient momentum to penetrate her opponent's armor. Tests conducted after the battle showed that the Dahlgren guns could be operated safely and efficiently with charges of as much as 30 lb ...

The battle finally ceased when a chance shell from Virginia struck the pilot house of Monitor and exploded, driving fragments through the viewing slits into [her captains] eyes and temporarily blinding him. As no one else could see to conn the ship, Monitor was forced to draw off. The executive officer took over, and Monitor returned to the fight.

In the period of command confusion, however, the crew of Virginia believed that their opponent had withdrawn. Although Minnesota was still aground, the falling tide meant that she was out of reach. Furthermore, Virginia had suffered enough damage to require extensive repair. Convinced that his ship had won the day ... ordered her back to Norfolk. At about this time, Monitor returned, only to discover her opponent apparently giving up the fight. Convinced that Virginia was quitting, with orders only to protect Minnesota and not to risk his ship unnecessarily ... did not pursue. Thus, each side misinterpreted the moves of the other, and as a result each claimed victory.".

..and there you have it.... if you consider the original Confederate aim, then in reality this was a Union victory as irrespective of the engagement on the day, the Union blockade was not broken, and in fact the Union reinforced the blockade over the next months...

...the scenario I plan to game is the events of the 9th...in effect Minnesota played little or no part in the engagement so I don't feel a burning need to represent her on the table top, Virginia was accompanied by the James River Squadron but they played no part (that I can find) so no need to represent them...

I hoiked the Featherstone book off the shelf again the other day to refresh my memory on what rules I had used all those years ago, and can confirm that they are very simple, but times move on, and while I don't want to count rivets, or include modifiers for what type of cordite they were using in their shells, I need something a little more detailed for my little sub project...

So next I reached for that other staple of the old school wargamers library "Sea Battle Games" by Phil Dunn and I think that these are the rules that I will try for my game...

Just to conclude - it's worth noting how earth shattering this battle was - once the news reached out Britain and France stopped all further building of wooden hulled ships.. full stop.... the new warship design introduced with the Monitor soon became the standard for all war ships, and the ram also made it's re-appearance albeit not for as long....

Further Reading:

"The Yellow Admiral" - a review..

2011-09-29T12:00:00.002Z

“Once he had been made a post captain, promotion to admiral was automatic. This was done by seniority, but it didn't mean he would necessarily fly his flag at sea. Admirals could be appointed to an unspecified squadron, commonly known as ‘the yellow squadron’, if the Admiralty had no confidence in a captain’s ability to command a fleet.” (from http://www.nelsonsnavy.co.uk/patronage.html)

The novel opens with Jack Aubrey at home, ashore after the sea battle at the end of "The Commodore" but with his financial fortunes at something of a low ebb (he's been there before!)

Despite all the slavers he had taken as prizes in "The Commodore", he is being dragged through the courts by several of the owners who are disputing his claims.. things are so bad he may have to sell the house... he is also worried that despite his recent temporary promotion to Commodore (not a formal rank, but an appointment for a specific mission) he is destined to not make admiral but may end up being "yellowed" as the end of the war is clearly in sight...

In the meanwhile he immerses himself in local politics and campaigns against enclosing the local common, while Maturin - also penniless as a result of political problems in Spain - moves his entire family into Jack's house..

Things look up when he receives orders to return to his ship the "Bellona" currently in the squadron blockading Brest, only to find that the Admiral in charge stood to gain financially from the enclosure Jack has successfully fought.... Jack is punished by being sent to the inshore squadron (the harder assignment due to the conditions) but not before Maturin receives orders for a mission that involves a covert landing in France..

Maturin is successfully landed, but on the same night, under cover of fog and dark two French ships slip past Jack's ship unseen. He is further reprimanded by the admiral for missing them, and just when things can get no worse (finances and career in ruins) he gets a letter from Sophie telling him she has now found out about a previous adultery and wants a divorce...

Happily for Jack things then start to look up - he captures a hugely rich French privateer (which goes some way to restoring his financial fortunes) but in the subsequent storm "Bellona" is battered badly and returns to England for repairs where Sophie confirms she wants a divorce... by the time he gets back to the blockade he finds that Maturin has been recovered from France, but has gone straight to London to report on his mission.

Maturin delivers reports of a Spaniard acting as a spy (who is caught), but also of a Chilean plan for independence.Maturin presents a proposal for an expedition to help Chilean independence with Jack in command, the proposal receives approval. Maturin's fortune is returned to him - he is rich again...

In the meanwhile Sophie has been given a good talking to by Diana and Clarissa Oaks who suggest that she might also want to consider an affair to "even things up" (this bit made me laugh!), and she writes to Jack asking for forgiveness.

In the following months the "Bellona" remains on the Brest blockade, Maturin tells Jack of his plan for Chilean Independence and Jack agrees to lead the expedition. With the end of the war, "Bellona" returns to England.

With the peace, Stephen finances the fitting-out of the "Surprise" and they prepare for the expedition to Chile. Jack and Stephen set off with their families for Madeira, where after a short holiday they will part company; Jack and Maturin to Chile, and the family's back home - but as the novel ends, word reaches them of Bonaparte's escape from Elba and orders from Lord Keith (that's him to the left), commander-in-chief in the Mediterranean, appointing Jack a commodore in command of all Royal Navy ships in the harbour of Madeira, with orders to blockade the Straits of Gibraltar.

Steve the Wargamer gives this a solid eight out of ten - yet another cracker despite the down beat nature of the first part of the book - the succession of blows, financial and emotional, are only offset by the conversations between Jack and Stephen which are brilliant... Next stop, the "100 Days"....!

CSS Virginia

2011-09-27T12:00:00.062Z

..part 2 of my, not so secret any more, purchase at Colours was this.. the CSS Virginia......

Sometimes (incorrectly) known as the "Merrimack" (for reasons I'll explain later) like the USS Monitor, the CSS Virginia was also a "first" as she was the first steam-powered ironclad warship of the Confederate States Navy.

Virginia was a casemate ironclad which was a new term to me, but means that rather than have its cannons in a gun deck (armoured or otherwise, but think HMS Warrior, HMS Victory etc.) it has an armoured structure (the casemate) on the deck with the guns inside that. These ironclads were seen as the intermediate step between traditional, Napoleonic style, ships (albeit ironclad) and the battleships of later years with their guns in turrets (of which Monitor was the precursor).

Why casemate?? To a very great extent this design decision was driven by what basic building blocks the Confederates had to use at the start of the war.

When Virginia seceded from the Union in 1861, one of the main military establishments that fell into Confederate hands was the Union Naval Base at Gosport (that's the Gosport in Virginia as opposed to my local one here in the UK ). The Union forces planned to destroy everything before it fell into Confederate hands, but for one reason or another this was bungled with the USS Merrimack (that's her to the left), and although burned to the waterline, she was found to be salvageable - not much of a basic building block but when it's all you have, ingenuity will find a way...

The Confederate ship builders cut out all the burned timber, and on top of this built a new deck with the casemate for the guns.

The deck comprised 4-inch thick iron, the casemate was built up of 24 inches of oak and pine in several layers, topped with two 2-inch layers of iron plating oriented perpendicular to each other, and angled to deflect hits (yee gods - can you imagine how heavy she must have been?!). I thought that was massive overkill, but actually HMS Victory had the same thickness at the waterline, but less the 4" of iron...

Unusually she was also equipped with a ram as the designers were well aware that the Union Navy had not stood still while they were designing Virginia, they were designing their own ironclads and that it was unlikely that Virginia's guns would be able to sink another ironclad. The problem was that whereas the old triremes would have relied on speed to drive their ram home the engines in Virginia, inherited from Merrimack, although working were not good (that was the reason Merrimack had been in the yard in the first place!) - after first sea trials Virginia was found to have a turning radius of a mile (!) and a top speed of only 5 to 6 knots. The not inconsiderable draft, a consequence of the choice of hull, was also a shortcoming and would inhibit her operations in what was mostly a fairly shallow river..

So what about armament? The casemate had 14 gun-ports, three each in the bow and stern, and four on each side. The battery consisted of :

Four muzzle-loading single-banded Brooke rifles:

Two of the rifles were 7-inch calibre firing a 104-pound shell, these were on a pivot and could fire out of any of the three ports in the the bow and stern..
The other two rifles were 6.4-inch, one in each broadside.

Six smooth-bore 9-inch Dahlgren guns, mounted three on each side, and firing a 72.5-pound shell up to a range of 3,357 yards; the gun on each side nearest the furnaces was also fitted for firing heated shot
She also had two 12-pdr howitzers

Vital Statistics:

Displacement:	about 4,000 long tons
Length:	275 ft
Beam:	51 ft 2 in
Draft:	21 ft (23ft after further work later in her life)
Speed:	5–6 knots
Complement:	about 320 officers and men
Armament:	2 × 7-inch Brooke rifles 2 × 6.4-inch Brooke rifles 6 × 9-inch Dahlgren smoothbores 2 × 12-pounder howitzers
Armor:	Belt: 1–3 inches Deck: 1 inches Casemate: 4 inches

Like the USS Monitor unfortunately CSS Virginia was not destined to make 'old bones'.

In May 1862 advancing Union troops occupied Norfolk and since she was not an ocean going vessel, and was unable to retreat further up the James River due to that deep 22-foot draft - her commander decided to blow her up after running her aground and removing all her guns. Early on the morning of May 11, 1862, fire reached her magazine and she was destroyed by a great explosion.

Ignominious ends for two ships that had served so well, but rich fodder indeed for a wargamer looking for his first scenario - stay tuned for a post on the Battle of Hampton Roads, which in turn should precede my first table top action... all I need to figure out is what rules to you use!

Further Reading:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CSS_Virginia

http://cssvirginia.org/

Why?????????

2011-09-25T07:48:00.000Z

Spotted yesterday in Tesco's (local supermarket for my non-UK readers)

Why on earth would you want to re-issue it??? Along with Watney's Red Barrel these were the most singularly tasteless beers to ever (dis)grace the face of the planet, and almost single-handedly the reason for the foundation of CAMRA (the Campaign for Real Ale)...

Words fail me....

I'm hoping of course that it's just some left over 'set design' from the recent Goodwood Revival!

USS Monitor..

2011-09-24T12:00:00.004Z

"...a cheesebox on a raft"

...and so the secret is out....

Meet the USS Monitor, steaming across your screen from right to left (bow on the left of the picture)....

So there I was wandering around Colours when I happened to spot a demonstration game by the side of the Peter Pig stand - they were demonstrating "Hammerin' Iron" their American Civil War riverine naval rules using their own models, and I was immediately consumed by the need to recreate some American Civil War naval gaming that I did as a child.

Back then I used home cast scratch built models; I made the models from plasticine, made a plaster of paris mould, and then cast the ships in lead - perilous, but hugely enjoyable, fun. Those little ships (from memory) were about an inch long as I think I used a tray from a matchbox as the base of the mould, this however is 1/600th scale, and is about 3" long... perfect for a little American Civil War side project...

So first a short history, USS Monitor was the first ironclad warship commissioned by the Union Navy during the American Civil War. She is most famous for her participation in the Battle of Hampton Roads on March 9, 1862, the first-ever battle fought between two ironclads (and that's a major clue as to the other element of this side project..)

Monitor was designed and built as a direct consequence of the Confederate navy building their first ironclads. A board of three naval officers reviewed designs and three ships were accepted, Monitor was one of them.

She was designed by Swedish-born engineer and inventor John Ericsson (to whom the quote above is attributed - clearly there was no love lost!) and among a number of "firsts", she was not only the first monitor class, but she also had the first ever 360 degree rotating armoured gun turret, the hull was completely underwater, and she was protected by an overhanging armoured deck and armoured "belt".

Monitor had a heavy round revolving iron gun turret on the deck, housing two 11 in (280 mm) Dahlgren guns side by side, the turret walls were made up of eight layers of 1 in plate, bolted together, with a ninth plate inside to act as a sound shield. Originally the guns were protected by metal shutters when reloading, but the crews resorted just rotating the turret opening away as it was quicker and easier. Despite it's size the turret moved so quickly & easily (it was separately powered by it's own steam engine), that Monitor's gunners used to fire while the turret rotated past the target (!) Apparently it was accepted that accuracy suffered, but the ranges she was expected to engage at were so close it wasn't expected to be a problem... (they fixed this issue on later monitors by the way)

Other than the turret, the only things that stood proud of the deck was a small box pilothouse (in the picture above it's the small square feature near the bow - that's the point nearest the top of the picture for the non-sailors.. ); the chimney was detachable (as is the case on this model, that's the pair of box items closest to the turret in the picture above) so the bulk of the ship was below the waterline - perfect protection. Armour was 4" on the hull, and 1" on the deck.

Vital Statistics:

       Length: 172 feet
       Beam: 41.4 feet
       Draft: 9.5 feet
       Displacement: 1,038 tons
       Speed: 8 knots (9.2 mph; 15 km/h)
       Complement: 59 officers and men
       Armament: Two eleven-inch Dahlgren guns

Her keel was laid on October 25, 1861, and she was launched in just 118 days later (hmmm.. maybe BAE could learn a little from this... our latest aircraft carrier is going to take 11 years from start to commission!), though she was not destined to make old bones. After the battle she was only engaged one more time (as part of McClellan's campaign against Richmond) where she was unable to assist due to the fact that her guns would not elevate enough.... later that same year, she sank whilst under tow - clearly the low freeboard whilst effective in defence, did not make for a very seaworthy vessel.

Stay tuned for part 2 of the now semi-secret project..

Further Reading:

www.cityofart.net/bship/monitor.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Monitor

ACW game

2011-09-21T12:00:00.001Z

Given that DG had come down for the Warfare show [click here for review] it seemed churlish not to also take the opportunity to slip in a quick game, so I contacted him a few days before he came down to see what he fancied playing... I was thinking along the lines of some War of the Spanish Succession action, or perhaps even a return to the sands of the desert in either the 19th or 20th Centuries, but in the end we decided we wanted to play some real, as opposed to virtual, American Civil War; this would be an excellent opportunity for me also to lead the Tigers to almost certain ruin (it is an indelible wargaming truth that the unit you have most recently painted and lavished so much attention on will disgrace itself on it's first outing!!)

So period was agreed and I went away to work on the scenario... this would be easy, I wanted to use all my troops so an encounter battle would be fairest - there'll be time for unequal encounters, and fascinating tactical challenges later in the project...

So - first off the order of battle.. these are organised as per Regimental Fire and Fury (RF&F hereafter)..

Click on any of the following pictures to embiggen (as a certain Conrad Kinch would say )

Confederate:

...and then the other guys...

Union:

In addition we also deployed an ammunition supply wagon per side to allow for recovery from "low on ammunition" results..

The Deployment:

As above the scenario was an encounter so a simple set up - whoever "beats up on" the other guy more wins - the table was set up as much as possible with equal terrain and scenery .. as is usual with RF&F the buildings only block line of sight, they count as broken ground, but can't be occupied - in effect they represent a built up area of non-specific buildings, in this case a small village somewhere in the Shenandoah Valley in summer 1862..

We then diced for sides - DG chose the Union, and we then diced for table edge, and in the pictures following DG chose the far side...

Without further ado we deployed (within 6" of the edge) and kicked off... the following shows my troops nearest

I deployed the cavalry in the centre as the ground was most open there, the artillery was easy - both DG and I had a useful hill that gave a good view of the battlefield and we both deployed on these. I had the majority of my infantry on the left flank with only one regiment on the right flank (not visible but to the right of the artillery) as I had a vague plan of a great sweeping outflanking manoeuvre..... the wagon is my ammunition re-supply.

DG's set-up - funnily enough, it almost mirrored mine except that he had his cavalry on the far left (opposite my infantry), and an infantry regiment opposite my cavalry... clearly the bridge and town has turned out to be the usual wargame magnet!

The Game:

The dice finally landed in my favour and I move first...

I push my infantry forward aggressively towards the barn/village - I intend (and did) have the Tigers move behind the barn as an outflanking force.. DG in his turn came forward in fine style - he has one of his regiments in column to cross the bridge - they've clearly taken musket fire as they are disordered (blue pin), but the river was passable throughout... (as an aside doesn't that picture just sum up all the vital food groups for a wargamer?? )

Next picture (below): the level in the glass is going down and in the village things are getting bloody - can they be related?? I can honestly say this was a fantastic tussle as it went both ways more than once - first I would come on, then DG would come back - it was a real see-saw battle, but as you can see the Tigers have now transited the back of the village, crossed the stream and have wheeled and charged.... blimey, a plan that survived the first contact!

In the village however, the 2nd Virginia (light grey Confederate regiment in the centre) have clearly taken a hammering - they're down to 50% strength (2 bases representing 4 stands as I base my troops in two stand blocks), and are shaken to boot... happily both DG's regiments are also shaken and I have a fresh regiment coming up...

...and so the tussle continued until in the end I managed to force all of DG troops back across the river. In one case by rout (that ended mere millimetres from the table edge!)

Meanwhile...

In the centre DG's artillery had seen off my cavalry who were subsequently reduced to dismounting and merely maintaining the centre of my deployment from incursion... I would say that my artillery fire in the game was largely, and spectacularly, ineffective - poor dice throws, though along with the cavalry I did manage to keep DG's Zouave's in check - they spent most of the battle up to their knee's in the stream!

After his initial success DG's artillery did then seem to spend a lot of time switching targets slowly (poor command rolls) but when he did fire it was effective....

On my right flank, other than a first burst of activity by my infantry, it soon slowed down - my infantry cleared away DG's cavalry pretty quickly (short sharp melee), but by the time they had wheeled to take the Zouave's on in the flank in the centre, DG's artillery were finally on target and slowed them down significantly...

In the end, DG hit the "heavy casualty" threshold (army breakpoint) one stand before I did.... so we agreed a draw since it really had been that close....

Post Match Analysis:

I must learn not to use cavalry in an American Civil war game like I would in a Napoleonic or Spanish Succession game - they are just too fragile, almost akin to using them in WWI or WWII with the weapon ranges - DG had the right idea - he'd dismounted them straight away while my guys were sitting there in the open with sabres drawn looking for a target to charge!
I'll confess to beginning to find the continual working out of plus and minus modifiers in RF&F somewhat irksome - I will be casting around in the near future for ways and means of speeding up this aspect of the game - I've mentioned this before (probably the last time we played), but with weapon type, troop class, morale state, and terrain to feature in each shooting calculation the activity is reptitive, and any more units than we had tonight would seem to bog down exponentially. When I browse the web however, other people happily use twice as many units - I need to find their secrets... any other RF&F players, feel free to leave comments...
Did I mention that my dice throwing was rubbish?
Did I also mention that the Tigers excelled themselves, and on their first outing as well - unheard of...!!
The beer was Hall and Woodhouse "Hopping Hare" - described in the tasting notes as "Light and crisp with a wonderful hoppy aroma and bite.... uses Super Styrian hops (added twice to the Copper) and Styrian Goldings Dry Hop added to cask for extra aroma". Spot on I would say - just lovely as it was a humid old evening in the loft and this was refreshing...

====================================

Work now switches to the to secret project kicked off at Colours... more anon....

I have been to... Cheriton (again)

2011-09-18T12:00:00.001Z

Last Thursday was supposed to have been a days holiday to allow me to finish off the "Round the Island*" race that we had tried to do in my mates yacht a month ago... for the official race we'd had to call the whole thing off as we were met by force 7's on the start line, and true to form the same thing happened this time as well! Kiss of death trying to organise a sailing trip - all pleasant weather goes out of the window...

* (as in the Isle of Wight)

Having booked the holiday though I was loathe to cancel, and given it wasn't raining, just breezy, and so as not to waste a day off in idle activity, I grabbed the current Mrs Steve the Wargamer and headed off to the site of the Battle of Cheriton [click here]... "we'll have a nice walk I said"...

The following will help orientate the pictures following - and the post can be read in conjunction with the much larger post I made previously [clicky here] which should hopefully help make things clearer.... I've superimposed our route, and the location and direction of the photo's I took - the red and black dotted line shows the walk we made - in effect 360 odd years ago, and if you aspire to the "southern view"* of where the battle was we would have been, we walked up and down behind the Royalist lines..

* Opinion is divided on where the main battlefield was, those who follow the "souther view" believe that it was largely either side of the main road; the "northern" proponents believe the battle was to the north of the central ridge. I note that the on-site plaque (see above) hedges it's bets by having the Royalists deploy on the northern site, but advance to the southern site...!

Either way the trip was prompted by my reading Adair's book [click here for the review] while on holiday - he is a keen proponent of the southern "version" of the battle and I wanted a look myself.

We started however, with a visit to the Church in Hinton Ampner

All Saints church is situated within the grounds of Hinton Ampner House and is a grade 2 listed building going back to Saxon times. For the purposes of my visit today I thought that I'd read that one of the senior royalist commanders who had died in the battle was buried there, so I was looking to pay my respects - as it turns out I may be wrong (I need to do some more reading), but irrespective of that it's a lovely church and I lit a candle for the fallen of both sides anyway...

Having spent some time there, we then walked up to the ridge via Broad Lane - see the picture later for how close the terrain is...

After having walked up to the ridge we turned left (still going along the Wayfarers Walk) and walked all the way along to the far eft of the Royalist position - I didn't get any photo's as the hedges were a bit thick - next time I'll walk alongside the field inside the hedge... in the southern view of the battle, this was the flank and location of Sir Henry Bard's ill fated charge that lead his regiment of foot, unsupported, to be very roughly handled by Hesselrige's "Lobsters" who charged them in the flank.. " Sir Henry Bard's regiment of foot advanced to occupy a position between Hinton Ampner and East Down... However, Bard advanced too far and became caught up in the fighting near the burning houses (in Hinton Ampner). Sir Arthur Heselrige took advantage of the situation by sending out a detachment of cavalry to block the Royalist retreat. The Parliamentarian horse then wheeled around to charge Bard's regiment from the rear. The Royalists were quickly overwhelmed and routed with heavy losses." Bard lost an arm but survived...

Having turned around we then walked back past the top of the lane and over to the Royalist left flank as I wanted to see how close the wood was to the edge of the deployment....

Some pictures (see the map above).....

1/.

Most of my pictures were taken on what would have been the Royalist left flank, looking down the slope towards the Parliamentarian positions just outside Hinton Ampner (in the middle of those woods in the distance - click for a bigger view) ..

2/.

from the same position looking across the field south west.. Broad Lane is that line of bushes leading to the right of the picture

3/.

For this one I moved the other side of the hedge and took the same views... looking south

4/.

...and this time looking south east - the road runs behind the bushes in the distance.

5/.

Behind me was Cheriton Wood - largely replanted I suspect since the battle as it was full of modern soft woods, but still present, and covering much of the side of the battlefield...

"The first stage of the battle involved attempts to secure Cheriton Wood, which potentially provided a covered approach to the enemy's lines without having to descend into the hollow and then attack uphill. At dawn, under cover of mist, Waller sent an advance guard drawn from his London regiments under Colonel Walter Leighton to occupy the wood and threaten the Royalist left flank. Lord Hopton also realised the importance of the wood and positioned artillery to cover its edges and fire on the Parliamentarians as they emerged, which forced them back under cover of the trees. As the rising sun burned off the mist, Hopton sent Colonel Matthew Appleyard with 1,000 musketeers to clear the woods. In fierce fighting, confused by the fact that both sides had coincidentally chosen the same field sign, Lieutenant-Colonel Edward Hopton led a column of Royalist musketeers in a flanking manoeuvre that succeeded in driving the Parliamentarians out of Cheriton Wood."

6/.

..and this was a view up Broad Lane, a covered lane of quite startling narrowness - there were a number of these on the battlefield and were the location of some of the bloodiest fighting... imagine trailing your pike or musket up there, crammed in on all sides by your fellow soldiers, frightened, high hedges on either side (impassable, whole of the bottom of the hedge is solid earth bank - think Normandy bocage) and waiting at any minute for someone to shoot at you from sides or ahead.... unimaginable...

Un-doctored map:

After a more than pleasant lunch at the Flowerpots Inn, where an infeasibly large roll full of Coronation Chicken, and two pints of Gooden's Gold soon restored the inner man ("a modern style strong bitter, quite hoppy, with a rich golden colour" it says, and Steve the Wargamer says "damn right, very nice indeed"...) , we then departed for home and family responsibilities.. a good day!

Further Reading:

http://www.british-civil-wars.co.uk/military/1644-cheriton.htm

Colours 2011

2011-09-16T11:38:00.002Z

Last weekend was one of the highlights of the wargaming year for me, as it was "Colours" at Newbury race course.. bright and sunny day, but blustery, with occasional sharp showers - all in all a perfect show day (any hotter and some of my wargaming brethren can become slightly...... errrmmm.... "aromatic" )

Somewhat worryingly I had nothing of any note on my shopping list this year (and neither did DG), an unusual state of affairs. Why worryingly you may ask?? That's because I find I always come back with more than when I do have a list!

A good show (again) though I thought much quieter than last year - overhearing some of the trader conversations they seemed quite happy, one of them even reporting queues to hand over money.. amen to that, but nonetheless I do wonder how long Colours can last as a 2 day show. I'm not sure but my perception is that it is very much a shadow of it's former Hexagon days on the trader front at least, the competition side of the show is much greater (there was a huge Flames of War competition going on )...

The usual trader "culprits" were there however, although I had to hunt down Caliver (the book people). I walked straight past them first time, as they were directly opposite where you paid your entrance money so I had my back to them - it was only as I was going out I spotted them; not a good location, and a much smaller stand than usual.

Newline were also a noticeable absence (I had a yen to restock my ACW "to paint" piles - ah well, I note that they will be at Warfare in November)...

A most pleasant day - a good natter with DG there and on the way back (we had our traditional pre show game on the Friday evening, so we 're-fought' most of that on the way to the show!), and a few moderate purchases whilst there...

... so what did I buy???

Smallest purchase was a pot of brown ink/stain from Vallejo (looking for something with a bit more pigment than the Windsor & Newton Chestnut ink I use).
I also got a brand new copy of Stuart Reid's "All the Kings Armies" (pictured) for only £4 (!) probably my bargain of the day - I've been after a copy of this (and also Peter Young's history of the same war) for ages.. supposedly second hand but it looks pristine to me.
I got 6 copies of the out of print (regrettably) "Practical Wargamer" for 50p a throw (bargain!) - I always try to get old issues when I see them, in my view, with the exceptions of "Wargamers Newsletter" and "Battlegames" it was one of the finest wargaming magazines about (as opposed to those publications we get these days that are basically just extended advertorials, full of regurgitated gobbets of history with pictures of models and miniatures, sold by the publisher, and painted to a level that no run of the mill wargamer with average skills will ever be able to recreate...you know who you are... ) What I liked about PW was that it was always full of scenario's, rules idea's, hints and tips, practical stuff.. either way, recommended if you see some for sale...
Last of all was an impulse buy... top secret for the moment but DG knows what they are! I'll post separately once I've had time to work on the aforesaid items - suffice to say I'm quite excited about them, and they are already on the painting table....

...and that was largely it on the buying front... so what about the games?? A quiet'ish year I think would be my summation - Colours has always been more of a competition weekend than a display weekend, but usually they have a few good games scattered about the place to wet the appetite - this year there were fewer that wetted than normal but from amongst the many many games (...and DG's choices were different to mine, as he has a distressing inclination towards hex based games of which there were some examples.. ) I did find three that I particularly liked.... so in the time honoured way, in reverse order, we have:

Third:

Isandlwana in 1:1 scale... this seemed to be some kind of a commercial tie in with Ian Knight in support of this book [click here] and was an absolutely massive game dominated by the bluff/cliff at the end... click on any of the following pictures to get a bigger view...

I love this next picture that shows the Zulu attacking in a curved formation..

Information boards..

Natal Native Contingent..

"Zulus....thasands of them......."... British colonial contingent scarpers

So why only third?? Just a couple of things, one it was purely a presentation game rather than an actual game which was a shame as it cried out to be played... second, the figures, although very nice en masse were not so good close up - never been a fan of bits of cotton wool stuck permanently to the end of muskets/rifles.. a trifling thing, but enough to knock the game down a position...

Second:

Really not my period (I'll admit to playing a bit of DBA, but it's been 30+ years since I played WRG 3rd Edition Ancients) but this game really caught my eye... a simple but effective terrain, shed loads of well painted figures...

...and elephants... I'm a sucker for elephants!

The game was 28mm, and used "Hail Caeser" rules...

This game was called "Elephanti Habent!" ("They have elephants" if my Google translator isn't lying) put on by Uxbridge Wargamers...

..and depicting a fictional engagement between the Roman army under fictional general Tempus and a Persian army under fictional general Tamsaport near the town of Dara in Northern Mesopotamia in 349AD.

A lovely game, and the guys playing it were clearly enjoying themselves...

First:

Roll of drums etc.First an apology - I have no idea who was presenting this game, and despite stopping and talking to them for a while I neglected to ask!

Suffice to say that what caught my eye first was this scene - I'm a sucker for large model flying boats!

Just fantastic modelling - the observer int he back had a map on his knee's...

...and what period you ask... this is set during the inter-war years as this was an "A Very British Civil War" scenario... quite stunning looking game - so much going on! The planes are "Customs and Excise"... and then there were very early British tanks supported by a platoon of Lee Enfield armed schoolboys in caps....

...the guys running the game said that there were some representatives of the local girl school on the table as well elsewhere! They were accompanied by regulars, Dad's Army types, British Union of Fascists members, Italian biplanes, French tanks (Somua's as I recall) and all sorts - a totally glorious medley....

..beautiful terrain and scenery...

A very nice bunch of blokes who were more than happy to have a chat - they were as mad as a bucket of frogs but were clearly enjoying the game... !

...and that was largely it except for one thing.... have a look at these which are painted examples of a new line of miniatures being sold by Front Rank - American War of Independence in 40mm - just stunning....

Hessian musketeer regiment (von Trumbach) and a battalion of converged grenadiers - what paint work....

Sebastian - hope you are reading this - check the flag... 2nd New York

Royal Welch Fusiliers - accoutred rather more historically correctly than my unit who have the bearskin..

..another regiment of Continentals...

How good are they....???!

The Commodore

2011-09-14T12:17:00.010Z

"Thick weather in the chops of the Channel and a dirty night, with the strong north-east wind bringing rain from the low sky and racing cloud: Ushant somewhere away on the star-board bow, the Scillies to larboard, but never a light, never a star to be seen; and no observation for the last four days".

This is book 17 in the Aubrey & Maturin series of novels (and I'm already looking forward to starting the series again) and deals with Aubrey's long overdue promotion to a Commodore's broad pennant...

Given command of a relatively small squadron of ships comprising a couple of two deckers and some weak frigates, Aubrey is given a two pronged set of orders - his first task is to make a demonstration along the west coast of Africa in order to suppress slavery, once he has completed that however, his real task (and the slavery mission is a bit of smoke and mirrors intended to deceive the enemy) is to intercept a French naval force who are transporting soldiers for an invasion of Ireland.

Yet again the book was a joy - packed full of period colour, and the minutiae of life in one of His Majesty's ships during the Napoleonic Wars. O'Brian continues to write in that unique style he has that more than anything helps bring the period alive... there were moments in the book, usually when Aubrey and Maturin are in conversation, that just made me laugh out loud...

Steve the Wargamer rates this one as one of the better in the series (wish he'd spent a little more time on the final engagement with the French!) and gives it a solid nine out of ten....

Airfix a series of thoughts, and a new discovery (to me)...

2011-09-12T12:17:00.000Z

I was at the Colours Wargames show in Newbury yesterday and happened to spot the following out of the corner of my eye...

First thought was what brilliant news it was that Airfix were putting out new stuff again following their "issues"... second thought was "wow, those are damned useful", then I spotted that there are a whole range of buildings in the series... this one is good:

Third thought was, "crikey, these are made of resin" - a real departure for us Airfix traditional'ists, but welcomed as a sign that Airfix are clearly thinking of the future, and not standing still...

Fourth thought was, "very clever", clearly Airfix are exhibiting some 'joined up thinking' with their Hornby model train colleagues....

..much more information here [click here] be interested to know if anyone who passes through here has bought one yet and how they scale - big 20mm or small 20mm??

Battle of the Clouds...

2011-09-10T12:00:00.005Z

Those of you with long (long!) memories may remember that I was much taken by the one of the games at Salute & Warfare in 2008 that depicted a little known "what if" scenario from the American War of Independence based on the Battle of the Clouds.

I've posted pictures I took of the game again throughout this post (click on them for a considerably bigger view) but I was interested enough to go away and do some further investigation as I'd not heard of the battle before... I've been meaning to post this for ages and have finally got round to it after having my interests re-piqued by the previous jaeger post!

THE BATTLE OF THE CLOUDS - 1777

Overview

The Battle of the Clouds was an engagement set during the Philadelphia Campaign and was almost fought on September 16, 1777.....

After their victory at Brandywine, the British Army had remained encamped near Chadds Ford when news reached the British commander William Howe that the defeated and weakened American force was less than ten miles away. He decided to finish the job off and struck camp immediately to engage the Americans. When Washington learned of Howe's plans, he prepared for battle...

So - what happened???

Washington re-grouped his forces of about 10,000 men on a defensive position in the South Valley Hills, with his right flank resting on Boot Tavern & his left flank on Three Tuns Tavern... Now if I was in the infantry at the time, that sounds like an ideal defensive position - between two pubs! The position was three miles long and was strong, especially in the center.

Howe's army numbered about 18,000 and advanced in two columns. The largest commanded by himself & Cornwallis numbered about 13,000. The other was lead by Lieutenant General Knyphausen (I'll leave you to do the maths ).

Cornwallis lead one column toward White Horse Tavern, while Knyphausen's column set out at dawn accompanied by General Howe up the Wilmington Pike toward the Boot Tavern. Knyphausen advanced against the right flank of the American position. His advance was lead by the Hessian brigade commanded by Colonel Carl Emil Kurt von Donop. This brigade included all the Jaeger's and Hessian Grenadiers...

At Turk's Head, Howe set another column consisting of the Guards Brigade under Captain Matthew along the Pottstown Pike toward the Indian King Tavern.

Washington sent an advance force under General Anthony Wayne to slow the British progress on the Chester-Dilworth Road. At about 2:00 pm, his men encountered the advance jäger units of the Hessian column under Count Von Donop near the Boot Tavern. These forces began skirmishing, and the Americans very nearly captured von Donop when he became separated from his main column with a small company of jägers.

Grenadiers were sent to reinforce the jägers. These units formed an advance line against Wayne, who had taken a position "on high ground among some cornfields." The jägers, were skilled in "irregular fighting." They fought from behind fences and in fields and woods. At the White Horse Tavern, they "had an opportunity to demonstrate to the enemy their superior marksmanship and their skill with the amusettes [click here for a fascinating read on these very light field pieces used by the jägers, and a first hand account of this specific action in the battle!]." (Does that description of the jägers performance/role sound familiar though?!) After an exchange of fire, the Americans fell back into to a dense forest, "leaving behind a number of killed and wounded."

The main British column met with Wayne's Pennsylvania militia on another road at around 3:00; the militia gave way in a panicked retreat, suffering 10 killed or wounded.

On a high ground just west of the White Horse Tavern, the British formed a line of battle. Washington was forced to withdraw to "a valley of soft wet ground, impassable for artillery." About this time, Matthew's troops pulled up on Knyphausen's left. They were unopposed and had a clear path into the exposed American flank. Washington attempted to withdraw the army north of the tavern.

This withdrawal was just getting under way when it began raining and the Heavens opened.. a Hessian jäger captain Johann Ewald described it as "an extraordinary thunderstorm, [...] combined with the heaviest downpour in this world." "It came down so hard that in a few moments we were drenched and sank in mud up to our calves" (Major Bauermeister - Hessian Officer)

The British army halted its advance, although Knyphausen ordered the jägers to engage the enemy. They rushed forward, swords drawn since their muskets were inoperable due to wet powder, and capture 34 men. The jägers reported losing 5 killed, 7 wounded, and 3 captured in this action.

The storm continued well into the next day.

The British were forced to construct a make-shift camp (having left their tents behind that day), and Washington, significantly outnumbered and with tens of thousands of cartridges ruined by the rain, opted for a tactical retreat leaving Wayne's Pennsylvania division of 1,500 men and four guns with orders to harass the British rear*.

Howe's army found it nearly impossible to follow Washington over the rutted, muddy roads. The decision was made to wait out the storm, then move toward their objective (Philadelphia).

The game at Salute and Warfare considered what might have happened if the rain had held off - could Washington get his army away to fight another day??

Further reading:

http://johnsmilitaryhistory.com/clouds.html
http://www.ushistory.org/march/phila/clouds_1.htm
* Wayne's force was surprised and defeated at the Battle of Paoli, and the British were free to occupy Philadelphia.

Brunswick Jaeger Companys

2011-09-08T07:05:00.001Z

Triggered by the awesome plate in the Osprey book on the British Army in North America (that's it to the left - painted by the inestimable Gerry Embleton) I decided that for my next mini-project I'd tidy up and base some Jaeger that I bought ready painted a long time ago (in 2007 I think) from a fellow member of the Old School Wargame forum (Hi Jim - sorry about how long it took! )

The more I read about the Jaeger's, the more I realise that my original basing (see below...) which was based on my very poor knowledge of the war at the time, was incorrect - you can see that I've based them as close order troops, when in reality they were light infantry, so this time I'd base them as lights, to be used in that role for skirmishing against the flanks of formed troops.

Brunswick (or more properly Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel) was the first of the German state-lets (it was actually a Duchy) to agree to provide George III with soldiers to send to the colonies. Karl I (the Duke) agreed to send 4,000 soldiers: four infantry regiments, one grenadier battalion, one dragoon regiment and one light infantry battalion all to be commanded by General Friedrich Adolf Riedesel.

These soldiers comprised most of the German regulars under Burgoyne in the Saratoga campaign of 1777, the Brunswick troops were known for being especially well-trained. At Hubbardton they made a notable presence, singing a Lutheran hymn while making a bayonet charge against the American right flank, which may have saved the collapsing British line!.

After Burgoyne's surrender, 2,431 Brunswick'ers were detained until the end of the war. In total 5,723 troops went to North America, 3,015 did not return in the autumn of 1783 (but many of those would have been deserters choosing to stay and live in America).

Among the troops being sent was one company of Jaeger's (under the command of Captain Carl von Geyso) - probably four platoons [total 4 officers and 120 combatants]; the company was part of the Light Battalion, nominally its 2nd Company, but often operated separately.

Jaeger's were typically recruited from amongst the huntsmen and foresters, they were often "middle class" in background or even lesser nobility. As professionals or semi-professionals they were skilled in weapons and horses, and were primarily used for reconnaissance, skirmishing or screening bodies of heavier troops.

"Jäger were not just skilled riflemen, they were also able to handle and maintain delicate, accurate rifles in an age when very few people had any mechanical skill.

Jäger were excellent snipers able to inflict heavy casualties among enemy officers. Their ability to lay exceptionally accurate rifle fire also made them good for providing covering fire for other more vulnerable troop types such as sappers or engineers constructing forward trenches. For fights in close quarters the Jäger carried a straight-bladed hunting dagger (Hirschfänger), a short sabre or a falchion" (from the Perry website which is just a mine of information)

These are (of course) Minifigs 25mm and are base no's 46 & 47 (and the start of box no. 3 of AWI British and Allied troops!)

The First Louisiana Special Battalion: Wheat's Tigers.

2011-09-04T12:00:00.007Z

..“the lowest scum of the lower Mississippi...adventurous wharf rats, thieves, and outcasts...and bad characters generally”...
It has been, without a shadow of a doubt, a very poor year for painting. I'm not sure why - clearly a "painting funk" - but part of the problem has been to much other stuff to do.. I have a family, I have a job, I have a boat, and there's only so much free time to be had before people start making "observations"...

Happily though, I sat myself down and bashed out these in fairly short term - I reckon no more than 4 or 5 hours tops? So OK, they're my usual standard (ie. painted while drunk and wearing boxing gloves), but I'm happy - I particularly like the trousers*! As usual with this project these are 20mm, by Newline Designs [click here]

So where did they get their name? Unit histories indicate that it originated from the "Tiger Rifles," a volunteer company raised in the New Orleans area as part of Major Chatham Roberdeau Wheat's 1st Special Battalion, Louisiana Volunteer Infantry (2nd Louisiana Battalion) - that's Wheat to the right.

The Battalion as a whole had it's origins with a recruiting poster Wheat published in a New Orleans newspaper on April 18, 1861 - Wheat's company was to be called the "Old Dominion Guards" and soon numbered 50 men. Wheat (apparently a fairly charismatic man) was then able to talk the captains of four other recruiting companies to his unit, these were Harris’s "Walker Guards", White’s "Tiger Rifles" (that's them), Gardner’s "Delta Rangers", and Chaffin’s "Rough and Ready Rangers" (brilliant names one and all!). As a Mexican War veteran, a Southern partisan, a former assemblyman, and a general officer in two foreign armies there was also no doubt a belief that Wheat would get the choice assignments and equipment.

The battalion were an "interesting" and "select" bunch of people - largely foreign-born, particularly Irish Americans, many from the city's wharves and docks. They must have known how to fight as many men had previous military experience in local militia units or as filibusters [click here - an interesting term that I'd heard of but didn't know the definition of before I read this.... I thought they were something to do with pirates!]. One observer is reported as saying that many of Wheat’s recruits were “the lowest scum of the lower Mississippi...adventurous wharf rats, thieves, and outcasts...and bad characters generally.” Lovely!

Originally, only Wheat's Tigers (who were company B) wore the zouave uniform - they wore straw hats or red cloth fez's, blue-striped chasseur-style pantaloons, and short dark blue jackets with red lacing (apparently they wore the fez in camp and the straw hat while in the field... oh well... )

At the beginning of May 1861 Wheat moved his volunteers to Camp Walker in the centre of the city. On May 10, Wheat was elected major by his fellow company commanders, and state officials officially recognized his battalion.

On May 14th, the battalion was moved eighty miles north by rail to Camp Moore near the town of Tangipahoa and the Mississippi border. The encampment was the central depot for organizing, training, and mustering Louisiana volunteer units for Confederate service.

Upon arrival, the battalion were issued belts, cartridge boxes, cap boxes, knapsacks and weapons - either M1842 muskets, or old M1816 conversion muskets with socket bayonets. The Tiger Rifles company were Wheat’s chosen skirmishers, & they were issued with the M1841 “Mississippi” Rifle.

On or about June 8th, and as a result of various political wrangling and promotion disappointments, Captain Jonathan W. Buhoup’s company (the splendidly named "Catahoula Guerrillas") voted to throw in its lot with the Tiger Battalion which must have been quite interesting as the histories show that this company were men of more refinement - "sons of native-born planters or were doctors, lawyers, farmers, overseers, or artisans". I'd love to have seen what happened in camp the first night they joined!

The battalion was now up to 6 company's - but Wheat was still a major (he was working hard for a colonelcy!) and the Tigers were still not recognised formally as a regiment - they were under strength and the poor discipline record wouldn't have helped. In the meanwhile Louisiana had sent 6 other regiments to the war.. I think Wheat knew that time was a wasting....

On June 13, 1861, Wheat loaded the battalion aboard a freight train to Manassas Junction (the major staging area for the Confederate army in Virginia) abandoning becoming a colonel on the hope that he could win the chance on the battlefield. The unit was officially recognised by the state of Louisiana, but only as the “2nd Battalion, Louisiana Volunteers” - unofficially they were known as the Tigers..

The battalion saw it's first action at First Manassas, where Wheat was injured badly but the regiment distinguished itself in a number of attacks. During the weeks after the battle the battalion did picket duty "it was during this time that the Tiger Rifles, upset that they had borne the brunt of friendly fire not only on Matthews’ Hill (their position during First Manassas), but also while on dangerous picket duty, decided to bleach out the indigo blue dye from their jackets, making them take on the colour of a “rotten peach”" - interesting, eh?

During the same period all of the Louisiana infantry regiments were assembled into one brigade, the “Louisiana Brigade,” and put under the command of Brigadier General William H.T. Walker. The Louisiana Brigade was assigned to Major General Richard Ewell’s division (apparently he was known as “Old Baldy”!).

Probably not helped by the boredom of being in camp, and the fact that Wheat was not present (he was off convalescing from the wound he got at Manassas) the poor discipline that had dogged their existence practically from day one continued.. to compound issues, fed up at not being promoted, and disappointed that the battalion had still not been recognised formally as a regular regiment, Buhoup took his company off to the 7th Louisiana. Eventually two men from the battalion were executed following court martial and things started to calm down.

At the end of the year (early 1862) they received a uniform issue, and for the first time the entire regiment was dressed the same, except the Tiger Rifle company who kept their zouave uniform.

Shortly after the battalion was assigned to Brigadier General Richard Taylor's First Louisiana Brigade in the army of Stonewall Jackson. They participated in his 1862 Valley Campaign, too late for Kernstown but at the battles of Front Royal (May 23rd - with the 1st Maryland they lead the successful attack on the town), Winchester (two days later and part of the assault uphill on Bowers Hill), and Port Republic (June 9th - down to 150 men, and the centre of Jacksons line again with the 1st Marylanders). All my reading of the events in the campaign indicate that Jackson recognised the battalion as a hard fighting one, he invariably used them when he needed shock troops...

In late spring, Jackson's force was sent eastward to participate in the Peninsula Campaign where Wheat was killed leading the Louisiana brigade at the Battle of Gaines' Mill.

"..Ewell began his attack immediately, around 3:30 p.m., without waiting for his entire division to come on line.... He sent in his lead brigade, Louisianans under Colonel Isaac Seymour, commanding in Major General Richard Taylor's absence for medical reasons. Seymour was relatively inexperienced and his troops became confused in the woods and bogs of Boatswain's Swamp. Their confusion increased when Col. Seymour was killed by a Union rifle volley. Major Roberdeau Wheat, the colorful leader of the Louisiana Tigers Battalion, moved to the front to lead the brigade, but he was also killed with a bullet through his head. The Louisiana Brigade withdrew from the battle."

With only 60 officers or men left (under Captain Harris), the battalion was merged with Coppens' Zouaves (the only full regiment of Zouaves in the Confederate army) within the Army of Northern Virginia.

The combined unit took heavy casualties during the Northern Virginia and Maryland Campaigns, and Coppens was killed.

The amalgamated battalion was disbanded shortly after the Battle of Antietam and the men dispersed among other units - and there ended a short, messy, but glorious and illustrious career.....

...and for the nay sayers....

I am well aware that there is controversy over whether these guys actually wore a brown jacket - there is speculation that the blue dye in their jackets was poor and ended up a brown colour, as you've read above there's a possibility that they actually bleached the jackets following some friendly fire instances, but there is also speculation that that is not the case and they wore blue jackets (as did Coppens) - I went with brown (rotten peach!), as in my minds eye these guys wouldn't look right in anything but brown - I used the guy centre front in the uniform reference above, as my model
I am also aware that the Louisiana Tiger Zouaves were probably only company strength and that the rest of the battalion would have been more normally accoutred - I don't care - they're my wargames unit, and I'm making them regimental strength!
Rant mode off...

* Painting tip - Steve the Wargamer says don't try to paint stripes - unless you're as ridiculously skilled as some of my fellow bloggers you'll only come a cropper... for the trousers on these guys I used one of these:

Cost me £3 from the local art shop - Royal Blue, permanent ink, and most importantly fibre tipped - a roller ball would scratch the paint... mine was a 0.1mm one - Steve the Wargamer rates it as damn near perfect, but barring further testing it clearly works best only on a very light background, and being almost completely opaque, I'm guessing results will be best on whites and creams....

Back to school days...

2011-09-03T14:46:00.000Z

So there I am... two hours of unaccustomed isolation thrust upon me, some time in the loft to look forwards to (family all either working or doing other stuff), just settling down to the painting table to finish off the Tigers and on the TV comes "Death on the Nile", and almost lost among the (stellar) cast we spot....

...and I am instantly transported back to a hot sunny afternoon, in the school hall with the curtains pulled, aged just less than 16, & watching a film of my O Level English Literature course book... sigh.....

...virtual prizes, but actual kudos to the first to identify who she is, and what the course book was...

Wow!

2011-09-02T15:42:00.001Z

Spotted this in the paper today - stunning!

More information here... http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2032697/Trip-Zhou-Remains-horses-chariots-unearthed-3-000-year-old-Chinese-Dynastys-tomb.html

Separately

Wheat's Tigers are finished - just a coat of varnish and some basing to do before I release them to the world....
The Battle of Waynes Junction limps on to a conclusion - basically both sides have fought themselves to exhaustion and now it's just a matter of the Rebs (me) digging in and waiting for nightfall - I'll post the second half of the battle once this completes..

Battle of Waynes Junction.. Part 1

2011-08-30T11:44:00.004Z

So here we go as promised, the first part of a run through of the most recent battle that DG and I have been fighting in our ongoing American Civil War campaign [click here].. we started this battle on February 22nd - further evidence if any were needed of how slow virtual games across the ether can be.... don't get me wrong, any game is better than no game, but they aren't quick...! The game is not yet finished...

As per the last battle [click here] we also used Battle Chronicler for handling the movement on this game. There's been several upgrades and new releases of this brilliant (and free!) tool and I'd recommend it to anyone for either recording their own games, or using it as we do as a means to play a real game across email.

The rules were Regimental Fire and Fury, and the Battle Chronicler set up is "real" so that we can use movement rates direct from the rule book.

DG and I tend to exchange files once per day, but with three, possibly four phases per move, that's potentially 8 move files to complete a turn...

Terrain was as above (click on any of the pictures in the post for a bigger and hopefully clearer view), and as DG was already present he was allowed field works - hence the breastworks and redoubts on the hill! This was clearly going to be a tough nut to crack..

The objective of the game for me was to push DG out of the town whilst not taking too many casualties... (there were other tactical and strategic imperatives, but DG reads this blog so I'll not expound on them here!)

My forces were as follows:

Basically, a couple of brigades of infantry (all good, but small regiments with very little gap between good condition and spent) and this time some artillery. DG also had a couple of brigades of infantry but although they were more numerical his infantry tended to be poorer ('green' or 'trained' c/w my 'crack' and 'veteran' guys) my he was heavy on artillery though!

Deployment was as follows - me in grey - DG as Union largely in blue:

Only one of my brigades present at the beginning - the second brigade will enter from the top of the screen.. DG had his guys behind the breastworks on top of the hill - but look at that artillery dominating the battlefield...

As a campaign game the outcomes from this battle were more important for me than the more usual stand alone game - for those who haven't checked the campaign page (link at top left) I am playing the Confederates with the goal of entering Waynes Junction so as to gain the vital war supplies stored there - I then have to get those supplies back to my own territory but that's somewhere in the future...

You should also be aware that in campaign terms I have a clever plan (so clever that if you put a tail on it you could call it Reynard etc etc ) to get me and the supplies away before DG knows what's up - full details on the campaign page, but it involves trains, and the station in Waynes Junction is key...

Move 1 (and I'm only showing the Confederate moves) - I need to find the supplies, the majority of the buildings are to the left of the hill, there's no way I can just wander up to them so I decide to repeat my previous tactics and attack from the right (my left) and roll him off the hill unit by unit, right to left... or that's the idea. Meanwhile I have the artillery providing enfilade fire..

Move 2: Give him the old "one two" - pin with my right, flank with my left - the flank attack starts. Second brigade (and you can just see 6th NC arriving top right of the picture) will be the reinforcement for the flank attack... 6th, 7th and 8th Louisiana have the honour of leading the attack. Was surprised how quickly I managed to close the hill...

Move 3: BANG! In goes the assault - all of the Louisiana regiments charge, and successfully push back their respective targets - gratifyingly the US artillery is gone! On the left of the battle DG has not stood still and has pushed forward two regiments to clear off the Confederate artillery...

Move 4: Union fightback on the hill, but the 7th and 8th Louisiana complete the 'swinging door' and ready themselves to take the 8th Ohio in the flank. To the north I've stopped the big flank move by the North Carolina brigade and directed them toward the main battle - doesn't look like I'm going to need them for the outflanking exercise, so decided to get them into the main battle as soon as possible...

You'll note that I've also secured the left of the battlefield and sent DG's 4th Ohio back where the came from..

Move 5: Consolidation and preparation for further advance

Move 6: BIG BANG - "at my signal unleash hell" [click here] - the door swings shut on top of the hill, and sends the 8th Ohio & 7th West Virginia reeling... at the same time the pinning regiments let out the rebel yell and surge forward.

You'll note that as I breasted the ridge of the hill further Union troops have appeared.. by this time I was so confidant I was just thinking "bring them on"!

Move 7: Keep on pushing - I have the momentum, time to keep up the pressure though DG is bringing up the New York regiments fast to stem the rushing tide of grey...

Move 8: Next big push (I don't remember it at the time but I'm clearly riding my luck) and the class of the Confederate regiments is driving all before them..

Move 9: There go the new York regiments - although I didn't know it the supplies are in those two blue roofed buildings between the road and the hill.

The 57th North Carolina are about to occupy the station - the plan seems to be working!

Move 10 & 11: All stop - the Confederate regiments are drained - time for more rest and consolidation but I have the objective.

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Stay tuned for part 2....

British & Hessian Regiments - part the third..

2011-08-28T12:00:00.004Z

....next and final part of the second box of units - you're in for a treat, the "Royal Irish" might be the best fighting wargaming unit, but we start with my favourite wargames unit... probably of all the periods I play.....

==================================================
23rd Foot (Royal Welsh Fusileers)

..a notable exception to the vast majority of the collection in that these comprise Front Rank figures. I saw them at a Salute (when it was still at Olympia so that must have been years ago!) and completely fell for the quality of the castings, and the sheer brilliance of the sculpts... they're bigger than the Minifgs, but not noticeably so when in a separate unit..

It was this guy following that sold me - of all the figures I've owned and painted over the years he is my absolute favourite, bar none - he sums up everything I have read and learnt about the British officers of these regiments, proud, haughty sometimes, incredibly brave most of the time, but ultimately commanding and demanding obedience...

The light infantry and grenadier companies of the Fusiliers saw action at Bunker Hill (losses to the Grenadier and Light Infantry companies were extremely heavy, the former only having five men left who were not killed or wounded. It is reliably reported by several sources that the regimental goat also took part in the attack, although whether or not he survived is unknown!)

The following year they were engaged in the Battles of Long Island, Brooklyn Heights, Harlem Heights, White Plains, and Fort Washington, they then took part in the Danbury, Connecticut raids in which as the rearguard, they distinguished themselves once more by holding off several determined attacks of overwhelming American forces commanded by Benedict Arnold. In 1777 the regiment took part in the battles of Brandywine, Germantown, and the capture of Philadelphia and the river forts protecting it. In 1778 at Monmouth Courthouse the Grenadier Company lost a third of its strength, but received the thanks of Brigadier General Sir William Meadows. In 1779 they were part of the force that captured several of the small Hudson river forts and joined a punitive expedition against the Connecticut ports of New Haven, Norfolk, Greenfield, and Fairfield. They moved south and took part in the siege of Charleston in early 1780. At Camden the "Royal Welch Fusiliers and the 33rd Regiment of Foot were able to turn the American flank resulting in a precipitous American retreat after forty five minutes of stubborn resistance. Pursued by the British cavalry, the retreat soon became a rout, with about 1,000 prisoners taken and about 900 casualties inflicted upon the hapless Americans". At Guilford Courthouse the Royal Welch Fusiliers had been in the forefront of the charges that broke through two successive American lines. The regiment lost a third of its officers in this battle..

During the siege of Yorktown, the Royal Welch Fusiliers held their redoubt against overwhelming odds, before surrendering with the rest of the British force.

I particularly recommend "Fusiliers" by Mark Urban for anyone with even the remotest interest in the war, or the regiment - a real nine out of tenner...

..by the way - don't give me any nonsense about them not wearing the bearskin in America, and that they'd left them in storage - we'll have none of that defeatist talk in my ranks..

Base no's 38 and 39.

71st (Frasers) Foot
First Highland regiment I painted, my reading indicated that they had decided to leave their plaids behind (no protection to the legs, and the heavy wool would not dry out in the wet environment), so I painted them in troo's.. back to Minifigs for this regiment - the sculpts have such charm, I especially like the faces...

The 71st was raised in 1775 specifically to fight in the American War of Independence. They served in both the Northern and Southern Campaigns, and at many major battles including Long Island (1776), Brandywine (1777), Savannah (1778), Briar Creek (1779), the Siege of Savannah (1779), the Siege of Charleston (1780), Camden (1780), Guildford Courthouse (1781) and the Battle of Yorktown (1781).

At Yorktown the regiment served with the 33rd and the 17th in the same brigade - as was common their light company was amalgamated into a combined light infantry regiment. The regiment was disbanded at the end of hostilities in 1783.

Base no's 40 and 41.

Hessian Grenadier Von Donop

See here.. http://steve-the-wargamer.blogspot.com/2007/07/fruits-of-my-weekend-labours-part-1.html

Base no's 42 and 43.

British 35th Foot (Royal Sussex Regiment)

See here.. http://steve-the-wargamer.blogspot.com/2007/08/updates-and-orange-lillies.html

Base no's 44 and 45

================================

...and that brings the indexing of the British forces to completion - the rest can be seen on the project page [click here]

On a separate subject, I've just finished making some massive updates to the American Civil War Campaign Diary blog [click here] over the last few days, if you haven't been recently I've added click-able headers to help navigation within the diary - I've added the Battle of Rogersburg, plus the rest of Day 2 and the first half of Day 3.

Stay tuned for Battle of Wayne's Junction which DG and I have been playing across the ether for months now... hopefully (as it's almost over) this will be a rebel victory pour moi..

British & Hessian Regiments - part the second..

2011-08-26T12:00:00.002Z

Just a final push to conclude my indexing of the hitherto un-photo'd American War of Independence regiments - this time the second box of British and Hessian units...

There's a lot of information on the units in this box so I've split it in two...

I can't tell you how much I enjoyed this particular post - researching the history of some of the units in this box is what wargaming is all about.... inspiring

===================================

British New York Loyalist Artillery

As per the previous artillery entries, a fictional unit.

The gun is also one of the only plastic pieces to survive the first awakenings of the project - I have no idea what kit it came from though I think it might have been Revell - perhaps an ECW or 30 Years War set, as the gun is slightly old fashioned, but ideal in size for a smaller calibre artillery piece, and this unit is fielded as light artillery. Base no. 23.

British 16th Light Dragoons

John has passed me a significant quantity of British cavalry, I used 12 of them to represent 3 squadrons of the 16th Light Dragoons, far too many and I've never used them all at the same time... in hindsight and with experience, a little judicious painting could have meant making one of the units the 17th Light Dragoons (the "Death or Glory Boys") & I may still do that.

The American War of Independence did not feature cavalry heavily, it was an infantry man's war, so usually I have no more than one, occasionally two, squadrons per side.

I still have a dozen of these guys un-based - I used some for the American's (repainted as a Continental dragoon regiment) and I used some of them for British officers...

Plate no. 90 in Mollo.

Base no's 24 to 29.

British Light Infantry

I was reaching the bottom of the box of figures John gave me by the time I got to these guys... they represent one of the composite battalions the British put together comprising the light company's of multiple line regiments. The British army didn't really have dedicated light infantry regiments until the Napoleonic Wars, but in the meanwhile, these, and also the similar composite regiments composed of Grenadiers, provided the British with a source of elite units for special missions (there were two such light regiments at Yorktown).

I've noticed that all these guys have the same coloured facings, so they were clearly the light company's only from regiments with those coloured facings!

Base no's 30 & 31.

British Royal Irish Regiment (18th Regiment of Foot)

...and by the time I'd got to these guys I reached the very bottom of the box, which is why it looks like this regiment is comprised of figures from two entirely different regiments!

A quick paint job gave both bases the same facings (dark blue), at a stretch the base on the left might be representing the grenadier company (ahem... ) but what is going on with those blanket rolls, and the utterly bizarre pose?? Not one of Minifigs' finest moments....

The 18th seem to have had a short and very inglorious war as despite their seniority, and although the regiment was present in Boston, where the grenadier company participated in the Battle of Lexington, Concord and Bunker Hill (its first formal combat in more than 50 years) the regiment was drafted into other regiments in Boston in December 1775 and at Detroit in July 1776.

So what we seem to have (in wargaming terms) is a real odds and sods combination of figures joined together for wargaming purposes - what we actually have is the hardest fighting wargame regiment in the British collection; whenever these guys have turned up on the table top they always seem to win! So much so I'm loath to paint any more figures to give them a little more uniformity....it might break the spell.... for those of you with long memories, and who read the Wargamers' Newsletter in the old days, these are my "Inniskillings [click here]"!

Base no's 32 & 33

33rd Foot

...and so with a bang and a crash we arrive in the "new" era - these were the first regiment I painted for the British collection - red coats of course because I was so short of them, and I continued to use Minifigs. By this point in time I had also settled on Yorktown as the source of my collection so I just painted the first unit on the order of battle that weren't present in my collection, and for which there was a flag on the Warflag site!

The 33rd were a veteran regiment - their history indicates they had a level of professionalism that was unequalled by any other regiment of the British Army for some time. It was because of this professionalism in the field during the American War of Independence, that the regiment was given the nickname 'The Pattern'; the regiment had the standard of soldiering which all other regiments should attain.

They had a long and very arduous war being present at the First Siege of Charleston, the Battle of Long Island, the Battle of Harlem Heights, the Battle of Fort Washington, Brandywine, Germantown, Whitemarsh (where they fought the Americans who had retreated from the fighting at Germantown), Monmouth, the defence of Newport and Quaker Hill, the Battle of Old Tappan, the second siege of Charleston, Camden and Guilford Court House (where they lost 11 killed and 63 wounded out of a force of 300 all ranks, having already lost 28 men in preceding actions - over 25% casualties). The 33rd also fought at the Battle of Green Spring.

At the Siege of Yorktown (their last engagement of the war) they served in the 1st Brigade under Lt. Col. John Yorke (of the 22nd Foot); their light company was detached to form a composite regiment in the Light Infantry Brigade under Lt. Col. Robert Abercromby (of the 38th Foot)...

Base no's 34 and 35.

17th Foot

"“His Majesty has been pleased to take very particular notice of the bravery of Lieut.-Colonel Mawhood, and approves the behaviour of the regiments under his command, especially the 17th, so highly commended by Lord Cornwallis.”

- Letter from Lord George Germaine, Whitehall, March 3, 1777"

..these were the second regiment I painted, also Minifigs. The 17th were in the same brigade as the 33rd at Yorktown (and their light company was detached to the same regiment as well)

The 17th landed in Boston on New Year's Day 1776 (though not all at once as a storm scattered some of their transports).

The 17th fought in all of the battles for New York City. After the island was secured, the 17th, as part of the 4th Brigade, was held in reserve during the Battle of White Plains and remained at the White Plains camp through the taking of Forts Washington and Lee and Cornwallis’s excursion through New Jersey. Their performance at the Battle of Princeton [click here] was commemorated in the addition of an unbroken laurel wreath to its insignia (and the message above from Germain). After Monmouth, they were on the New Bedford Raid, and Kings Ferry but were part of the british force that was surrounded and taken prisoner at Stony Point.

By early 1781, the regiment had been entirely exchanged and was on duty again in New York - records show 12 officers and 209 other ranks (always enlightening to compare actual numbers with the theoretical establishment..)

They were part of the last reinforcement to reach Cornwallis at Yorktown (the reinforcements comprised the 17th & 43rd Regiments of Foot, the 1st and 2nd Anspach Regiments, and detachments of light infantry, the 76th, 80th, Queen’s Rangers, Loyal American, and Prince Hereditaire Regiments, along with the Anspach Artillery).

Following the Battle of Green Spring, the 17th joined Cornwallis when he retired to Portsmouth and moved the army to Yorktown. On October 16, 1781, the 17th Regiment once again marched into captivity with Cornwallis’s army.

The only regiment I know with such a proud fighting record who were taken prisoner twice in the same war..

Loads more here (recommended!): http://www.hm17thregiment.org/History.htm

Base no's 36 and 37.

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Stay tuned for part two....

"Featherstone's Lost Tales" - Donald Featherstone

2011-08-24T12:00:00.001Z

First in an occasional series where I review what I believe should be the 'must have' books in any wargamers library - we'll start off with quite possibly the newest one "Donald Featherstone's Lost Tales including Wargaming Rules 300BC to 1945"

This is published by the inestimable John Curry as part of his "History of Wargaming" project and is the first new material we've had from Don in some considerable time (and according to John there's more to come!)

So what do we get?? A selection of content, but by far the greatest is the rules which were those given out free to "Wargamer's Newsletter" subscribers. These are all written by Don except for a couple that were written by Tony Bath (Medieval & 1750 Europe) - for those of you who were bought up on "War Games", these are different rules to the one's included there, though the WWII one's do originate there. The Ancients rules, and a set for fighting the Gallic and Punic Wars are previously unpublished.

Reading these takes you right back - or it did me anyway - and if you have read any of Don's rules before then there are no enormous surprises. Firing/melee by groups etc etc. Having been playing a long American Civil War game with DG since January using "Regimental Fire and Fury" I can say that I spent more than a little time perusing the ACW rules in the book and still intend playing a small game just as soon as possible to see if they offer any possibilities.

The full set of rules are:

Ancient Wargames 300BC-500AD
Medieval Rules (Tony Bath)
God for Harry, England and St. George! (also Medieval)
English Civil War
1750 Period in Europe (Tony Bath)
Napoleonic
American Civil War
Late 19th Century including colonial wars against natives
1917 German West Africa (including rules for early tanks and armoured cars)
Simplified WWII Rules
Realistic rules for the Peninsula War
Realistic rules for the Gallic and Punic Wars

In addition to the rules (which, by the way, I may have had a part in, as I scanned all the Wargamers Newsletter rules for John Curry some time ago - this book was a freeby in return - thanks John!), we also have a couple of chapters on Don's wartime experiences - Don served with the 51st Battalion of the Royal Tank Regiment (who had Churchill's) through North Africa and Italy - one of the chapters is a short history of the battalion.

A short chapter (& fascinating - I hadn't realised how much of an influence HG Wells had had on Don's early hobby) on how Don came to the wargaming hobby completes the book.. .

Overall Steve the Wargamer rates this as a good eight out of ten - as the first new published material from Don in years, it deserves to be read!

Bargain!!

2011-08-22T12:00:00.001Z

Only £10 in my local Tesco at the moment - practically tore the shelf down I was in such a hurry!!

A slight diversion... Maunsell Navy Sea Forts

2011-08-21T11:58:00.004Z

While doing the research on the last post about the Nab Tower I was interested to see that the unique "floating concrete base and sink it" technology for creating fortifications at sea was re-used in the Second World war... I think most people may have seen these (and to coin a phrase from Mr Kinch on the previous post, they are seriously batty - straight out of "War of the Worlds"):

...lovely photograph, but they are the Army version, and I was more interested in these:

...which are the Navy version.

So the story goes, Maunsell was an architect and went to the MoD at the beginning of WW2 with designs for various forts. The naval fort design was the latest of several that Maunsell had devised in response to Admiralty inquiries. Early ideas had considered forts in the English Channel able to take on enemy vessels.

The forts, built in the Thames estuary and operated by the Royal Navy, were to deter and report German air raids following the Thames as a landmark, and attempts to lay mines by aircraft in this important shipping channel.

There were four naval forts:

Rough Sands (HM Fort Roughs) (U1)
Sunk Head (U2)
Tongue Sands (U3)
Knock John (U4)

The design was a concrete construction; a pontoon barge on which stood two cylindrical towers standing 18 metres in height, 7 metres in diameter. Each tower had 7 floors of which 4 of these floors were used for crews quarters (the wall thickness of the reinforced concrete towers was 9 centimetres) on top of which was the gun platform mounting two 3.75-inch guns. In the centre of the deck was the officers quarters, medical room & kitchen. Mounted on the roof of this living area were two 40 mm Bofors anti-aircraft guns and the operations control room on the roof of which was 2 forms of radar.

So basically a double Nab Tower with a single concrete float, but a lot more armament - but fundamentally the same design. Makes you wonder if Maunsell had studied Menzies original design...

Everything was done in a rush - clearly invasion fever was at it's height - the towers were fitted out at the same time their crews went on board (about 100 men who lived in the legs). Like the Nab they were towed into position (with crews on board) and then sunk to rest on the seabed (with crews on board!)

There were concerns that the same might happen as to the Nab (a list of 3 or 4 degrees) but this didn't happen. Rough Sands was the first fort and was sunk 11th Feb 1942 in 37' water.

Following shows how they were placed...
Interesting... but no more than a diversion!

I have been to... the Nab Tower

2011-08-18T12:00:00.000Z

In my alter ego as a yachtsman I had cause to visit the Nab Tower last week on my boat [click here]... in light of the recent post by Bob Cordery [click here] (jealous? moi? ) where he also mentioned it, I thought I'd put a little post up with a more wargaming slant... always a pleasure when the two hobbies coincide, and this was one of those occasions......

The Nab Tower is located about 5 miles east of foreland (the easternmost point of the Isle of Wight) and although it is now primarily a navigation mark and lighthouse (it marks the start of the deep water channel into the Solent used by large ships going to the ports of Southampton and Portsmouth) it was originally designed as part of a First World War submarine defence.

In 1917 the British Admiralty, alarmed by the losses of allies shipping to German U-boats, planned a series of twelve giant fort towers, codenamed M_N, that would support steel anti submarine nets. They would be deployed from Dungeness to Cap Gris Nez, protecting the Dover straights. Guns mounted on the towers and surrounding mines would protect the constructions from enemy intervention and destroy enemy submarines (other accounts say only 8 towers were planned). The towers were to be 90ft high and 40ft across standing on an 80ft hollow concrete base that could be flooded to put it down into position. The design was by civilian designer, Mr G. Menzies (bit of a shame, I can't find out anything about him).

The towers were to be armed with two 4-inch guns with the idea of closing the English Channel to enemy ships. They accommodated 100 men & all their equipment

By the end of the war in 1918 only one had been completed, at a fantastic cost (at the time) of over two million pounds, and was located at Shoreham Harbour, awaiting deployment. Another part-built tower was eventually dismantled in 1924.

The picture shows the first two being constructed in Shoreham Harbour (just down the coast from me)

In 1920 The Admiralty offered the completed tower to be used as a lighthouse, to replace the Nab lightship which had reached end of life.

The completed tower was towed by two paddle wheel tugs to the Nab rock (see left!), buoyancy was provided by the honeycomb construction of the concrete base, creating 18 water-tight compartments. While dignitaries stood atop the tower (hah - no health and safety in those days! ), valves were opened to allow sea water to flood the vast tanks. As the tower slowly sunk to its resting place it began to list, leaving it with a 3 or 4 degree list that it still has today.

The Tower was manned as a lighthouse, and during World War II it also provided some defence to the Solent approach, and shot down several aircraft. The lighthouse is still functional but since 1983 it has been unmanned.

Links:

http://www.bobleroi.co.uk/ScrapBook/Solent/Solent.html (two whom I need to acknowledge the photo of the tower being constructed - please contact me if you'd rather I removed it)
http://www.trinityhouse.co.uk/lighthouses/lighthouse_list/nab_tower.html

"On His Majesty's Secret Service" Allan Mallinson

2011-08-15T12:00:00.004Z

The long wait is over (3 years!) and the latest Matthew Hervey novel, the eleventh, is set in the Eastern Balkans...

With no war on the horizon, Hervey's ambition's to finally command his beloved Light dragoon regiment are kicked into touch as the government of the day announces budget cuts that impact deeply on the army (sound familiar?? ) and in particular his light dragoon regiment, who are to be reduced considerably, to the point where a colonel would be wholly inappropriate... as a sop, Hervey is offered command of a regiment of foot currently based at Gibraltar but while he makes his mind up is seconded as an observer to the Russian forces currently at war (Russo–Turkish War of 1828–1829) with the "sublime porte" (Turkey) in the Balkans.

Not surprisingly, Hervey and his compatriots are soon in the thick of it and despite being an impartial observer and a neutral, is more active than perhaps he should be.. directly leading to other possibilities for Hervey, and the offer of promotion and a command within the Russian forces. I get the distinct impression Mallinson would very much have liked to serve with a Cossack regiment himself as the parts of the book dealing with them are particularly good.

End to end excellent, and some very good news to finish - but I do wish I could give him a good slap and bring him to his senses with regard to the current Mrs Hervey!!

Steve the Wargamer rates this 9 out of 10 - if only because it allows for the possibility of improving on perfection!

=======================================
Separately, the WWII re-basing project is complete, and has provided a welcome filip to the painting totals for the year - I thought long and hard about it but given the amount of effort that has gone into the activity (158 bases!) I felt it only right to give some token value to the activity - one point per base seems "right"...

I've also cleaned up and prepared the next American Civil War regiment - just need to undercoat them and get on with applying the brush... this regiment will represent Wheat's "Tiger" Zouaves, and I give due warning that I'm really not interested in comments and posts that the Tiger Zouaves were only ever company strength, not regimental, and that they didn't really have brown coathttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifs, etc etc etc. I'm a hopeless romantic, and no American Civil War project of mine would be complete without the little brown jacketed fellows.. besides, unlike the Union army, from what I can tell the Confederacy only had one regimental strength unit of Zouaves (Coppen's), and their uniform is just too similar to the Union regiment I've just completed, case closed... I only hope that when they are finished they look even half as good as these...

Newline figures (same as mine will be), painted by napoleonminiatures and very nicely too - I especially like the conversion on the straw hat...

Cheriton 1644 by John Adair

2011-08-13T07:19:00.004Z

Longer term readers of the blog will know that the English Civil War battlefield of Cheriton is one of my "local" battlefields - I've visited the site many times, and in fact posted a blog on it [click here] in 2008.

As background reading for the battle (and I continue to have a slightly alarming fascination for the period that needs to remain in check before I start yet another period!) I have long wanted a copy of John Adair's "Cheriton 1644" - it's been on various "wish lists" for almost 15 years as far as I know - so you can imagine how chuffed I was to get a copy on eBay earlier this year for a very reasonable £7 ... every copy of it I ever saw was in the £40 - £50 bracket as it's long out of print.

I've been waiting for the perfect opportunity to read it and this holiday proved to be it (though it was slightly surreal to be laying on a sun bed whilst doing it! )

What we have is a chunky book (about 230 pages in my edition which is believe is the most common (only?) one) - the first section of which (90 odd pages) deals with the campaign that Cheriton formed a part of, so we have some general detail on the actions at Alton, Basing House and Arundel in the lead up to the battle. I enjoyed this section (partly because there were a number of mentions of locations very close to where I live) but undoubtedly other books cover it in more detail.

The second section (about 70 pages) covers the battle, but the bigger part of this section details the make up of the armies, with only 25 pages for the actual battle, though there is a very spiffy aerial photograph with a plastic overlay showing the positions of the armies.

The third section (about 60 pages) is a selection of primary sources, casualty returns, letters, articles from the newspapers of the day etc. The best chapter is a a detailed view of the regiments in the Parliamentarian army.

Adair came to this book after a detail biography of Waller (the Parliamentarian commander) and he admits himself that with all that background detail the book is biased towards the Parliamentarian view, he simply didn't have as much detail on Hopton - which shows... I'd have loved a similar chapter on Hopton's regiments for example.

As I mentioned in my first blog on Cheriton, there are a number of views as to where the battlefield actually was - when I did my first post I did a lot of research, and the Battlefields trust website, and the information boards at the battlefield itself tended towards the "northern position", Adair argues (very well I have to say) for the "southern position" - I'd love to visit the battlefield again to review the ground but from memory a number of the actions in the battle make more sense if you adopt his view on the initial deployments...

So was it worth it?? Broadly, yes.... well written, very easy to read, good detail, and about a particular favourite battlefield that I've walked several times - Steve the Wargamer gives this one a solid 8 out of 10.

...and he returns...

2011-08-07T07:16:00.002Z

...sun kissed, from the shores of the Ionian where he lay for two solid weeks on various laying down apparatuses (aparatii??) in close proximity to all fluid types (sea water, pool, and Mythos) at all times, and on the island of Kefalonia.. and no, not once did I hear a mandolin but I did eat a lot of feta cheese and tzatziki....

Many books read, but with daytime temperatures of about 34', sun every day, and not a cloud in the sky, although the spirit was willing the flesh was weak, and not much actual wargaming activity was undertaken (I took my trusty travelling kit with me), but I did read some good books... reviews anon, once I've waded through two weeks of emails.....

American Regiments - part the second..

2011-07-15T09:03:00.010Z

..my apologies for the lack of posts recently – I think it fair to say that there have been other temptations taking up my time – not surprising given the time of the year. When the weather closes in, and so do the nights, I would be amazed if my wargaming activities don’t also ramp up by way of replacement...

...as part of the ongoing cataloguing then, herewith the second box of American troops....

The Artillery - Rhode Island, New York & Connecticut Artillery

Like the British/Hessian forces I have three artillery pieces for the American’s - Rhode Island on the left, a medium piece, and then two light guns representing the New York and Connecticut Artillery. The medium is a Minifigs piece (and it’s lovely), the lights came from the same (long forgotten) plastic source that the British guns came from. In the background is one of the limbers (again Minifigs) – I have enough to provide one per gun, along with spare guns (to act as abandoned guns during games) – on the far left is a Minifigs wagon – I bought several of these for the Charles Grant “Wagon Train” teaser – they’re absolutely lovely. Base no's. 26, 27 & 28.

Massachusetts Militia - 4th Battalion

Longer term readers of this blog will recognise this regiment as the one that won their battle honours at the Battle of Carnine and which were subsequently subject to an on-line poll to decide which colours they were to have. Nice to know that they will forever be associated with that long-ago battle no matter how badly they subsequently perform!

Either way, by the time I got to these guys I was beginning to get to the bottom of the box of figures that John had provided – so I based these as Light troops for skirmishing – and even then we were clearly a little heavy on fife players...! The clothing style was the same as the first three battalions (base numbers 5 & 6, 13 & 14 and 15 & 22) so these guys became the 4th Battalion. Plain vanilla American Militia of the type most would recognise - plates 4, 5 & 6 in the Mollo book... Base no's. 29 & 30.

Bourbonnais Regiment – 1st and 2nd Battalion

These are the first figures I painted for the project – by this time I had decided to focus on Yorktown as the OOB to base the project round, and given the preponderance of Militia and non-Continental units the French were an obvious choice as a “stiffening” unit in the American forces.

French regiments were absolutely huge so to get round the scaling issue in the McNally rules, I just made them two units strong this allowed me to field one unit with the white colonels colour, and the other with the regimental colour. Plate no 201 in the Mollo book, plus the relevant Osprey gave me the uniform details... Base no's. 31 & 32 and 45 & 46.

Militia

These guys came to me in a supplementary parcel I think (I kept getting these odd little parcels of figures from John as he discovered various stashes of figures he had “put safely away” – quite exciting...) There is further evidence here that what John had been collecting for (I think) was a Seven Years War North America set up, but by this time I didn’t care – they fitted very nicely into the War of Independence thank you very much.... I suspect these were meant to be couriers de bois – they all had red stocking caps – all I did was colour some of the caps differently, and based them up as militia from the northern states – where clearly it is winter... Either way, plate 10 in the Mollo book supports my contention. Base no. 33, 34, 35 & 36.

4th Continental Light Dragoons

I was also well aware that the Americans were light on cavalry - the American War of Independence was not a "cavalry war", but up until now they had none at all. John had passed me a fair few figures to represent the British 16th and 17th Light Dragoons - far more than I needed - so the quick and dirty approach to remedy this was to take four of these figures and do a paint conversion to an American Dragoon unit - the Mollo plates 176 (and 177) are two of the best in the book in my eyes, so I went with the 4th Regiment as they were present at Yorktown. Base no's 37 & 38.

1st New York Regiment

Additional stiffening was to be provided by the arrival of the first Continental foot regiments... these guys represent the 1st New York Regiment (Brigadier General James Clinton's Brigade of Major General Benjamin Lincoln's Division at Yorktown).

"The 1st New York Regiment was authorized on 25 May 1775 and organized at New York City from 28 June to 4 August, for service with the Continental Army under the command of Colonel Alexander McDougall. The enlistments of the first establishment ended on 31 December 1775. The second establishment of the regiment (ie. this one) was authorized on 19 January 1776. The regiment was involved in the Invasion of Canada, the Battle of Valcour Island, the Battle of Saratoga, the Battle of Monmouth, the Sullivan Expedition, and the Battle of Yorktown.

The regiment was furloughed 2 June 1783 at Newburgh, New York and disbanded 15 November 1783."

I think it EXTREMELY unlikely that the regiment presented this smart an appearance by this stage of their service - constant campaigning, the heat of the southern states, shortage of supply etc etc would have resulted in them looking considerably different but I took my reference from the Mollo plate 168, and I love the parade ground look for a Continental regiment as it helps to convey the regularity and discipline of the regiment - please don't tell me they "look wrong" as I will ignore you... Base no's 39 & 40.

2nd New York Regiment

The sister regiment to the 1st New York, same brigade at Yorktown, and same comments apply with regard to appearance..

"The 2nd New York Regiment was authorized on May 25, 1775, and formed at Albany from June 28 to August 4 for service with the Continental Army under the command of Colonel Goose Van Schaick (good name!). The enlistments of the first establishment ended on December 31, 1775.The second establishment of the regiment (ie., the one these figures represent) was authorized on January 19, 1776.

The regiment would see action in the Invasion of Canada, Battle of Valcour Island, Battle of Saratoga, Battle of Monmouth, the Sullivan Expedition and the Battle of Yorktown. The regiment would be furloughed, June 2, 1783, at Newburgh, New York and disbanded November 15, 1783." Base no's 41 & 42.

Lauzun's Legion Hussars

Some more cavalry for the American side - I have a couple of units of British cavalry so this unit was intended to "even things up", as they are classed as European regulars.

From the Osprey book "American War of Independence Commanders" (Elite 93): "‘Duc de Lauzun.’

The flamboyant young duke was a scion (wouldn't you just love to be called a scion? ) of France's wealthy, high-nobility. He was colonel by the age of 20 and saw his first action in 1768 campaigning with light troops in the hills of Corsica. He was also a handsome, quick-witted and noted courtier, and, in 1778 he was made colonel-in-chief of the Volontaires étrangers de la Marine (Foreign Volunteers of the Navy). This brigade-like new unit was to have up to eight legions of mostly German soldiers, comprising infantry, hussars and artillery, and intended for service overseas. The Volontaires étrangers de la Marine raised only three legions, the 1st going to the West Indies, and the 3rd to Mauritius and later India. Lauzun was more interested in managing a corps at home and, in 1780, the 2nd Legion that had remained as a depot in France was transformed into Lauzun's Legion (see Men-at-Arms 244: The French Army in the American War of Independence 1778-83)

Eager for action, Lauzun commanded the troops sent with Adm. de Vaudreuil's fleet to capture Senegal from the British: it fell on January 30, 1779. His new corps, the Volontaires étrangers de Lauzun (known to Americans as Lauzun's Legion) and comprising 300 hussars and 300 infantry, sailed for North America with Rochambeau's army in June 1780. Once on Rhode Island, there was little action and it was not until a night skirmish on July 17/18, 1781 that a detachment saw action against some British light dragoons. The French army was now marching south past New York and Philadelphia and the hussars of Lauzun's Legion proved to be valuable scouts as it neared and then invested Yorktown."

This regiment represents another failed attempt on my part to find a decent yellow! Base no's 43 & 44.

Saintonge Regiment

Another French regiment - this time Saintonge. Just one unit of this regiment so far - like Bourbonnais I will add another at some time.

The regiment served in Brigade Soissonois, along with the regiment of the same name, and also the Touraine Regiment.

"The Saintonge Regiment, also known as the 85e Regiment of the Line, was raised in the year 1684 in the province of Saintonge, France. From 1763 to 1768 the regiment served in the West Indies and French Guiana. In 1780 the regiment was sent with Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau to help the United States during the American Revolutionary War. The regiment took part in the Siege of Yorktown in 1781. In 1782 the regiment returned to the West Indies and then back to France in 1783. Following the French Revolution the regiment became the 82e Regiment of Infantry."

Base no's 47 & 48.

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...and that's it for the moment.. more anon!

'Nuff said..

2011-06-21T07:14:00.004Z

Positively the last post on the subject, but I thought you might appreciate a quick view of the New York regiment parading their new colours (which have only recently recently been found, lovingly folded and preserved in a blanket box belonging to the widow of the last commanding officer of the regiment)...

It's all good fun...