"One Hour Wargames" - Scenario 23 - "Defence in Depth" - Set Up and Game

Slight (well massive, actually!) deviation from the usual format this week... 

DG and I are currently playing this scenario (albeit virtually via Battle Chronicler [clicky] and with an extended hiatus currently so DG can replace an ailing PC) but there's no comparison with getting some actual metal men on the table, and for a quick solo game there's no beating One Hour Wargames, and as I was au fait with the scenario, I decided to play it in parallel...... (and if that wasn't enough "ands" I also wanted an opportunity to play this years John Corrigan Memorial Game [clicky]) 

Decision made, the little metal men of the American War of Independence project would march again..

This is an interesting scenario; in essence/summary, a slightly smaller defending force seeks to stop a numerically superior attacking force from exiting the defenders end of the table. Things are complicated for the attacker in that there are only three access methods (bridges) to the defenders end of the table, and of these three bridges one is accessed only via a farm/built up area, one is effectively blocked as it opens into a wood (that for scenario reasons the attacker doesn't have access to), and the third is the furthest away from the exit point - interesting conundrum!

Forces for each side were diced for on the relevant table in the book, the only change being to ignore the skirmisher column and substitute regular foot. As I was playing on a 6' x 4' table, I also doubled the number of units for each side by just throwing twice on each table. 

• The British/attacker threw a 3 and a 4 giving them 8 Foot, 3 Cavalry and 1 piece of Artillery (which was decided to be of the Light type) - 12 units

...the sharper eyed among you will have noticed that the fog of war has already struck, and I am missing a unit of cavalry - suffice to say I never noticed until.. errrr... about now..  😂

• The American/defender threw a 5 and a 6 giving them 7 Foot and 1 Cavalry - 8 units..  specific scenario requirements are that the defender needs to swap half of there troops for irregulars, so they chose to  swap 3 Foot and the 1 Cavalry - the replacement troop type were Indians, so they ended up with 4 regiments of Foot, and 4 warbands of Indians.

Rules were my go-to Will McNally ones (details as ever in the AWI Project page in the side bar) - fifteen moves (50% more than the book, due to the size of the table)

Table set up as follows:

Attacker enters from top left table edge..  exit point for attacker is the road on the bottom right edge.. The only significant terrain features (ie. everything else is just table dressing) are:

1. the road which crosses …
2. the river, just behind - not crossable anywhere except at ...
3. the three separate bridges
4. the built up area/farm
5. Woods - classed as light - bottom left of the picture, and then two woods top centre, either side of one of ...

The farm dominates the bridge behind it - the only access to that bridge is via the farm - a hard fight, if the defender does what you expect him to. Similarly the woods dominate both entrances to the middle bridge and given there is a specific scenario rule denying the attacker access to any of the woods (due to "lack of local knowledge"), that bridge is of assistance only to the defender; you can understand why the third bridge becomes more and more attractive.😏

American/defenders set up first:

No surprises really:

1. One regiment of regulars in the farm, with another behind ready to either reinforce them, or defend the road, as required
2. One regiment of regulars in shelter dead centre - ready to reinforce either flank
3. One regiment of regulars  in shelter behind the 'middle bridge woods' to give assistance to their gallant Indian allies, or to cover the third bridge
4. The Indians are placed, one each, in the woods either side of the middle bridge and the other two warbands are covering the third bridge..

On to the game...  following is about move 2 or 3

Ave, John...  Lofty C. overlooks his little metal men still striving away after his passing..

The British "plan" (plan... 😂) was to:

1. put a holding force in place to stop any incursion from the farm - that job fell to von Donop's (yellow flag bottom left in the picture above) - in effect they were a sacrifice to protect the rear of the army.. it would be unlikely that they could get to the exit point in time
2. get the cavalry across the third bridge as quickly as possible with a view to discombobulating the enemy by manoeuvring in their rear - this they've done at this stage - you can just see them beyond the wood top right
3. two regiments and the artillery to drive off the Indians north of the river
4. the rest to rush the third bridge

Couple of moves later:

The British cavalry are fulfilling their job, but as a result of some quite astonishing American dice throws, the plan to rush the bridge with the rest is not going as well as I had hoped..  in the right conditions, and with the right dice, Indians can be a tough proposition... here, their musketry was effective, and the British morale throws were rubbish. The first two British regiments across the bridge have been sent packing and are reforming behind the next two regiments into the meat grinder. In the meanwhile the Americans are bringing up reinforcements and the war whoops of the Indians are ringing out across the battlefield..

Couple of moves later, and as John looks on in interest (he always did enjoy watching a game rather than  playing in it.. 😊) we see the British disaster unfolding..  von Donop's have been left to their own devices as everyone else streams west to the third bridge - even at this stage of the game I had a pretty good idea the British had already lost..

British morale throws were catastrophic, and my Brigadiers and the CiC are busy helping where they can (see following - yellow dice means shaken, red dice means they're routing)..  thinking back I am fairly sure the Americans didn't do much physical damage - all the main damage was as a result of the British then failing to recover morale..

Next - apologies for the interesting yellow tinge, clearly not enough light..  anyway, three British regiments are across - two still in column of march and one of which is still on the bridge.. they are looking to drive the Indians away so they can turn right with safe flanks...  in the meanwhile the American tactic is to slowly drop back, always keeping themselves between the British and their exit point, but always just out of musket range..  the British cavalry have exited the table

Same move, but further east:

Finally across (following)! All far too late, and in too small numbers, unable to concentrate - one regiment routing (middle left) and one shaken (centre right)

Damn sightseers on the river! 😀

Last throw of the dice (next), as things are desperate - von Donop's try to force the bridge and fail (repeatedly) - brave mensch!!

End game - next - frontally attacked and flanked, the Brunswicker's have been sent packing (top right - red dice = routing)

At least two moves away from the exit point, and on the final turn, the British concede a game that in all truth they had already lost half a dozen moves before - they needed to get six units of the table but had only managed two.

Once again the Neil Thomas book delivers in spades..  best ten'ner I ever spent.. 😀

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Lastly - by way of a bit of fun - what do the following have in common??

Answer next week... 😏

"Firing into the Brown" #40 - Schomberg's, Mary Rose and stuff..

"So Carnehan weeds out the pick of his men, and sets the two of the Army to show them drill and at the end of two weeks the men can manoeuvre about as well as Volunteers. So he marches with the Chief to a great big plain on the top of a mountain, and the Chiefs men rushes into a village and takes it; we three Martinis firing into the brown of the enemy".

Kipling "The Man Who Would Be King"

Time for another update..

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First off, a 'catch up'..

My regular reader (singular 😏) will know that more than anything I do like to look up (errr..  do exhaustive research) to investigate the history of the regiments and commanders that I paint for my armies, but sometimes, I don't have time - and so it was I noticed that I hadn't had chance to do this for three or four regiments in the War of the Spanish Succession project.. 

I suspect in this case because they pre-date the blog! I intend rectifying this over time and on an irregular basis, and this week the first of those is Schomberg's (nicknamed "The Black Horse" after the colour of their facings) 

So without further ado, another 'regiment of renown' graces the blog

Origin and History

• 1688 - the year of the so called Glorious Revolution - following the landings by the Prince of Orange, William, Lord Cavendish, Earl of Devonshire with a small armed retinue travels to Derby, and then Nottingham, raising troops on behalf of the Prince. 
• On his succession the Prince of Orange (now William III) commissions the Earl of Devonshire to raise a regiment of horse from these recently raised troops, plus Protestant soldiers previously belonging to the five regiments of horse raised by James II. The new regiment was styled “Devonshire’s Regiment of Horse”.
• 1690 - the regiment is ranked as 9th Horse in order of seniority. 
• In April, the Earl of Devonshire was succeeded in the colonelcy by Meynhardt (or Meinhardt) Schomberg, and for the first time the regiment became known as the “Schmomberg’s Horse”. 
• In July, it was at the Battle of the Boyne (after which Schomberg was created Duke of Leinster for his part in the battle) and in spring of 1691, the regiment became known as “Leinster’s Horse”. 
• 1692- during the Nine Years' War (1688-97) the regiment was sent to the Netherlands where it joined the confederate army. 
• 1693 - was part of the attack of the Lines of the Scheldt. The same year, after the death of his brother, Meinhardt became the 3rd Duke of Schomberg, and the regiment was once again “Schmomberg’s Horse”. 

• 

  Meinhardt himself.. Painted by John Baptist de
  Medina...  apparently he had a bit of a temper..

  1694 - ranked as 8th Horse, a rank that it would retain until 1746. 
• 1695 - formed part of the covering army during the siege of Namur.
• 1698 to 1701 - stationed, generally, in the south of England.
• 1702 - the War of the Spanish Succession - the regiment was sent to the Dutch Republic. Later that year it provided cover for the sieges of Venloo, Roermond and Stevensweert. 
• 1703 - employed in covering the sieges of Huy and Limbourg. 
• 1704 - took part in the battles of Schellenberg and Blenheim. For the attack on the Schellenberg (which formed the original basis for my project), along with Wyndham's, Cadogen's and Lumley's regiments of horse - 10 squadrons of Britain's finest - they were under the brigade command of Lieutenant-General Cornelius Wood
• 1705 - the forcing of the French lines at Neer-Hespen and Helixem
• 1706 - Battle of Ramillies, the capture of Antwerp and the blockade of Dendermond
• 1708 - Battle of Oudenarde, the siege of Lille, the passage of the Scheldt and in the relief of Bruxelles
• 1709 - the siege of Tournai, the Battle of Malplaquet, and the siege of Mons
• 1710 - the sieges of Douai, Béthune, Saint-Venant and Aire
• 1711 - passage of the lines at Arleux and in the siege of Bouchain.
• 1714 - ordered home from Flanders and then proceeded to Ireland where it's establishment was reduced to peace time levels.

By the by, in 1788, it was retitled the 7th (The Princess Royal's) Dragoon Guards, then amalgamated with the 4th Royal Irish Dragoon Guards, to form the 4th/7th Dragoon Guards in 1922, and then amalgamated with the 5th Royal Inniskilling Dragoon Guards, to form the new Royal Dragoon Guards in 1992. I think I remember reading, that they are the only one of those regiments of horse that James raised to still survive, albeit in a much amalgamated manner!

Schomberg himself was created Knight of the Garter in 1703, and Queen Anne appointed him Commander-in-Chief of the British forces sent to Portugal for the War of the Spanish Succession. Once in Portugal though, he was largely ineffective in command, and his dreadful temper attracted universal disgust: neither Peter II, King of Portugal, nor Charles, claimant to the throne of Spain, were prepared to accept his behaviour and he was sent home in disgrace. Schomberg died in 1719, and as his only son had predeceased him (though he had three daughters), all his titles also died with him..

Further references:

7th Dragoon Guards (britishempire.co.uk)

Painted in that spurge of painting I did to kick off the period late 2006 - 8 horse - figures are Dixon

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As mentioned a few posts ago, I bought a ticket for all the features* in the Portsmouth Historic Dockyard a few weeks ago..  best of all it allows unlimited re-visits for a year, and all for only £44. I intend to make VERY good use of it, but for my first visit, and also for the first time ever (which is why I bought the ticket to be honest), I went to see Mary Rose..

Just a few pictures - there's plenty on the web, but these are mine, and as is my way they are the things that caught my eye..

First off - the entire ship looking forward from the stern...  absolutely, completely, and utterly mind blowing..  the period where they were having to continually spray her so as to stop her decomposing is now over, so the view is unobstructed. They have also displayed her side on, so it's like a cutaway diagram; you can see all the details of the decks... What you see is the whole of the starboard half of the ship, minus the castles that would have been at each end. These castles, and the port side of the ship had disappeared over the time she was resting on the bottom (430+ years)..

Everything in the museum is original to, and from the wreck site.. Mary Rose is important because she spanned that period of Naval warfare where the focus shifted from close range, grapple, and then board to the newer methods of longer range, gun and cannon offensive. Mary Rose had a major refit in 1536 to keep her current in naval attack methods - gun ports and broadsides were very new technology at the time..

Talking of guns, there are a surprising number of cannon, and what interested me most was that there is very little commonality - would have been a pain in the posterior making sure the multiple types of ammunition was available..  this one (next) is one of the newer, bigger, bronze guns - a  lower deck culverin..

...and this is one of the lighter, wrought iron, upper deck, pieces of ordnance..  a form of breech loader so quick to reload but not able to take as big a charge as the cast bronze guns..

Both types side by side..  

Despite the fact that Mary Rose was increasingly being developed and refitted, and rearmed for the anti ship role, she was still also equipped for the older, more traditional, anti personnel role and what stunned me was the sheer quantity of long bows ..  boxes of them were discovered on the wreck and are displayed as such..

..but look at the thickness of those bows! No wonder that numbers of the skeletons recovered show the abnormalities that drawing the war bow from an early age would have caused..

..but for me the star of the day was the ship itself..  very much recommended if you get a chance to visit.

Next on the list for me is a visit to Gosport to see HMS Alliance and the Submarine Museum..

* Features include Mary Rose, HMS Warrior, HMS Alliance (and the submarine museum), HMS Victory, M33 (a WW1 Monitor), the Royal Navy Museum, and also The Explosion Museum of Naval Firepower...and if that's not enough it also includes the water bus to get you to the exhibits in Gosport, and a Harbour Tour boat!!

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Laters, as the young people are want to say...

"Firing into the Brown" #39 - Light boxes, dioramas, girders and stuff..

"So Carnehan weeds out the pick of his men, and sets the two of the Army to show them drill and at the end of two weeks the men can manoeuvre about as well as Volunteers. So he marches with the Chief to a great big plain on the top of a mountain, and the Chiefs men rushes into a village and takes it; we three Martinis firing into the brown of the enemy".

Kipling "The Man Who Would Be King"

Time for another update..

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Bit of fun.. 

Whilst taking photo's of various bits and pieces for the blog recently I have struggled a bit with lighting - I'm not a fan of the flash as it gives a very artificial, over bright, light with significant shadows..  I like/prefer to use a tripod and rely on the stability that gives to take pictures without flash, but it still requires good light and in the winter, even with artificial lighting it's a bit gloomy..

Reading some of my fellow Bloggerati's musings however, and they mention the delights of a light box.. a peruse on the monolithic online shopping experience would indicate these are not much more than a box with either a lot of, or a single big, bulb(s) in the top - white surrounds to reflect and concentrate the light - so I decided to make my own...

This is phase one.. a simple box, taped along the edges and then lined with white foam board - to provide the light source (phase 2) I bought two metres of USB powered self adhesive LED ribbon coming - similar to the following:

Which I then stuck to the foam board in the top of the box

With space for USB cable to exit ..

...and here it is all lit up..  

Be interesting to see if this works - if it doesn't the LED ribbon will be used elsewhere - probably on the boat! 😁

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 Recently invested in an all features/exhibits ticket for the Portsmouth Historic Dockyard - basically you buy the full ticket and it then gives you unlimited access and visits for 12 months. Only £44 which I consider to be astonishing value when you consider what it gives you access to for an entire year..  I shall be making good use of it!

First visit was the weekend just gone where for the first time ever, despite living in the city almost my entire life, I mainly (and finally!) went to see Mary Rose (HMS Driftwood as she's kindly known in some RN circles 😁), but having explored her*, I wandered through the separate Royal Navy Museum and happened to spot this - which is just glorious....

Fictional boat attack on a Mediterranean fishing village c. 1810

40 or 54mm scale I think, but modelling at its very finest... 

* standby for some pictures taken on the day - it was an awesome exhibition/display..

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The girder bridge is complete..  

Grey epoxy primer (won't do that again 😏) with a wash of inks - used the old Citadel Armour Wash, and then a diluted down Rowney black draughtsman's ink. 

Had to go back and give a fair chunk of it a coat of Vallejo Grey Black as the primer was not taking the ink washes well..  

.. a coat of Vallejo Smoke for the plank surface..

Then finally some Rowney Deller "Red Earth" ink for the rust 'splots' - which I am most liking..

Coat of PVA and either flock or sharp sand for the surface of the ramps, and the bases of the bridge..

The models are 12mm/N gauge Minifigs for scale - happy with that...

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Laters, as the young people are want to say...

Danish Lifeguards - The King's Lifeguard of Foot

In a break from our normal weekly compendium, I can confirm he's only gone and painted some little metal men!

Inspired and given a mental boot in the posterior by this awesome post on David's Not by Appointment blog [clicky] I raided the stash, and came up with 24 little metal men in basically the same pose. They were on painting sticks and undercoated almost within a few hours of the post, so I was clearly keen! 😀

During the War of the Spanish Succession, Danish troops were hired out in large numbers to Austria and the Maritime Powers (1702-1709 and 1701-1714 respectively). In total, almost 20,000 men was rented out. The Danes had a fairly large standing army, in order to counteract the military strength of their close neighbour, Sweden, and as idle hands cost money, hiring them out bought much needed funds, ensured the soldiers were paid, but also kept them trained and battle hardened.

The Royal Life Guards (Den Kongelige Livgarde til Fods to give them their full title) was (and still is*) an infantry regiment of the Danish Army at the time of the War of the Spanish Succession, and one of those regiments made available to the Maritime powers. 

The regiment was founded in 1658 by King Frederik III, and comprised a single Battalion - two further battalions were raised in 1867 and 1923. 

*These days they fulfil a ceremonial function, but they are also mechanised in the event they are required on the modern battlefield..

Completed, varnished, waiting basing..

The regiment served at all four main battles of the period (Blenheim/Ramillies/Malplaquet and Oudenarde), but as our main interest is Blenheim, here there they served on the right (under Eugene), in Bielke's Brigade (comprising Danish and Austrian regiments). 

The Bielke in question was Brigadier General Christopher Bielke [clicky], eldest son of the splendidly titled Reich's Admiral Henrik Bielke. Christopher died on the battlefield at Blenheim.

The other regiments (and numbers of men) in the brigade were 

• 1st Battalion, Regiment of Foot Prince George (one battalion, 824 men) -  (Colonel) Christian Jørgen von Urne
• 2nd Battalion, Regiment of Foot Prince George (one battalion, 704 men) - (Lieutenant General) Hertug Carl Rudolf af Würtemberg
• 2nd Battalion, Regiment of Foot Prince Carl (one battalion, 627 men) - (Lieutenant General) Jobst von Scholten
• Regiment Dansk Den Kongelige Livgarde til fods (one battalion, 740 men) - this regiment -  (Colonel) Jacques du val de la Pottrie

Jacques du Val de la Pottrie is an interesting character as well (I've yet to find one who wasn't to be fair!), he was a Huguenot nobleman originally from Alençon in France, who entered Danish service after the repeal of the Edict of Nantes in 1683 (Louis must have singlehandedly provided the Maritime powers with some of their finest soldiers and officers as a result of that single stroke of the pen!). 

He also died at Blenheim (and tragically, his brother was to later die at Malplaquet)

....and this was what prompted me to wield the paint brushes - what a lovely, lovely, regimental standard.. 😊

David advises he will be releasing other flags for the Danish Regiments over time, so I look forward to adding some of the other elements of Bielke's Brigade in due time..

So... 24 figures in all, but the unit comprises a bit of a mongrel selection of troop makes; mostly they are from the CP Models Marlburian range (now defunct?), with a leavening of Minifigs (drummer for certain) and a Black Hat/Gladiator officer (holding his hat) - painted/based January 2024 

Further references:

• Danish infantry uniforms 1700-1730 (tacitus.nu)