Battalion Structure for Drums of War

With my up-and-coming French and Indian War antics in mind, I have been looking at unit organisations for my French and British Armies.

My favoured RSM miniatures come in three main poses for the infantry; marching, advancing with the bayonet forward and a stand- and kneel-and-fire pose. I've been thinking of how to make this work for me.

In the "Drums of War" rules, a batallion is made up of two or more "Grand Divisions" and small five figure "elite companies. I had been thinking of how to make the figure poses work for me to help identify units by type on the table-top and came up with the following:

Centre Company troops (to use an anachronism) would be represented by troops in a firing-line pose.

Grenadiers would be represented by figures in the stately "march attack" pose.

Skirmishers or light troops might be represented by troops in the advancing pose.

The uniformity of pose means that there might be no gross dissimilarities of pose when elite companies were formed into ad hoc Grenadier or light batallions. Furthermore, I very much like the idea of one day being able to do the defense of the hieghts of Carillon with the Lights forming their historical piquet duties, whilst the Line fire over the log entrenchment and the Grenadiers stand steadfastly behind them, ready to seal any breach that might be made in their order. Note here that at the left of the line is the light company.

At the right are the Grenadiers.

The battallion from above; the "hatmen" or centre companies have been grouped in two Grand Divisions, flanked by the elite corps.

The sharp-eyed among you will note that the centre companies are in a three-deep line with the induvidual figures offset to allow the rear ranks not to perforate the skulls of the front when offering fire.

The Niagara Campaign

RSM British infantry painted as 44th Foot

I've been thinking a little about the material resources I'll need to to my Fort Niagara Campaign next year.

I have been asking myself the usual questions about the sort of things I'd like to represent on the tabletop, what I am able to do on a map and what I would like to see played out in a demonstration game.

Starting with Fort Little Niagara, it seems to me that this was a simple palisaded for that guarded the start of the portage road. There seems little information on it's ground-plan, so I am assuming it was a square/rectangular palisade with a timber blockhouse at each corner. I hope that Rene Chartrands' projected third Osprey on the forts of New France can shed a little light in tim for me.

This volume will also cover Fort Niagara itself, although I have the book on the siege which reproduces the many excellent maps and cross sections of the works as they were in 1759. I hope it can resolve certain matters of detail for me. It's a model I really want to build for myself; perhaps eventually as a demonsration game, and I've enough information on it to do a reasonable reporduction.

In conjunction with this (and perhaps expanding on the thought of making this a demo game) I like the idea of using the two brigs the French had available to them to stage some amphibous operations; I find myself inspired by Hornblower.

I'm more and more tempted to use Bill Protz's "Drums of War" rules, although I have just lost my second copy. I've about torn the house apart looking for them, but no luck!

Rogers' Rangers

Not too much to do on the weekend except watch Season 1 of Battlestar Glactica on DVD and do a little painting. I fished a few Rogers' Rangers out of my lead pile and cleaned them up. With only three poses to play with as can be seen here, you ned to vary their colour schemes to give them a little more visual interest.

As usual, nice clean figures with a minimum of clutter to subtract from the basics - good anatomy and an elegant line. RSM Figures from the chaps at DPC. There is a URL in the comments section of this post.

I bought these because I'd both not settled on a French and Indian War project for next year at the ime and also becaise I'd never painted any of these figures - heaven knows, I think I've painted at least one or two of every other figure that DPC put out! I also think it'd be nice to use them in skirmish games.

Light Bobs

Having nothing better to do this weekend, I dug out and rehabilitated some old, poorly painted British Light Infantry for the Fort Niagara Campaign. They are the ever-reliable RSMs, straight out of the relevant Blanford and lovely to paint. I decided to do a representative few from each of the light companies present at la Belle Famille. The sharp eyed among you will notice that the pants on a couple of the figures are white. I was looking for a means of adding a bit more variety to the very-similarly uniformed troopers and remembered the 44th wore white small-clothes in their fatal encounter on the Monongahela, ans so it went. I'll be repeating this experiment on their cousins in the Line companies as well to difference them from the men of the 46th.

Note the unit designations on the back of the bases.

I'll try to have a little skirmish game soon to try out the Drums of War rules.

Fort Niagara

I'm starting to look at building Fort Niagara.

It's quite an unusual fortification for the French and Indian War. Most of the larger forts that the French built were more like that at Ticonderoga/Carillon, being basically a square plan with a bastion at each corner. A ravelin might cover a gate or push the defences deeper out into the surrounding terrain.

Niagara was a rather different story. Originally a rather dilapidated wooden stockade surrounding a few buildings, the French engineer Pouchot decided that he would wall in the point on which the fort would sit. That original trace may be observed in the fort today.

He built what is basically a crown-work of two demi-bastions connected by a curtain, with a large bastion covering the gate. The bastion stood in a ditch, but the lunettes either side of it that supported the covered way stood on the salient places d'armes, proud of the ditch. On closely examining the diagram and the cross-sections, it also seems to me that a shallow ditch was excavated in front of these as well, but that it was not part of the main ditch.

Much of the work was built of material excavated (as can be seen in the cross-sections in the image above) from the ditch. Obviously, the forts defences are oriented eastwards as that was the most likely avenue of attack, although the northern and southen walls were fortified to a degree with retrenchments and stakes.

The fort had two major short-comings.

The first was that it's guns were mounted to fire "en barbette" or straight over the parapets which offered the gunners little cover as the British advanced their saps. This was largely overcome by building merlons from sand-bags.

The other was that there were no bomb-proof shelters for the troops, and thus the garrison suffered quite a few caualies from British mortar bombs and also became progressively exhausted due to not being able to rest.

I'll be using this illustration and others I have to start planning my own model of the fort in coming weeks and months, so watch this space.

Drums of War...

This weekend I was lucky to have some time to myself, so I dug out some old RSM Indians and Militia who had been sitting in a box for a very long time; more than five years, if I'm right. I think these are such beautifully designed figures that I am really looking forward to painting the 80 or 90 more I'll need for the Fort Niagara campaign. They are so easy to paint that I got through ten of them in an evening. These Indians have been based to my usual "skirmish" standard - induviduals on 25mm bases, or groups of two on 50mm bases. They make for a suitably scattered and irregular grouping - just what every war-band needs.

There is an indian firing a musket who is dressed in full buck-skins and standing ine middle of the formation who is I think, the first wargaming figure I ever painted.

Some projects are longer in the gestation than others!

Militia; I'm not too sure whose side they are on. I note the figure on the far left may be a coureur du bois due to his little cap, so I am guessing French..? I am pretty sure the militia in hunting shirts are probably meant to be Americans rather than Canadians, though. Who knows? Perhaps they are all simply "frontiersmen".

Another view of the Militia. They are not such impressive figures straight out of the bag, but they paint nicely; not much more than successive layers of lighter and lighter dry brushing with a little layering-on of the final highlight, all followed with a wash of sepia ink.

In other news, work on the Victorian Navy continues in a satisfactoy way.

In the Grim Darkness of the 41st Milennium...

... there will be only War.
No wonder these guys look peeved.

What, they ask, about social policy? Housing? Rental support? Gays in the Military? Legalising Black Lotus?

Two of the most fiddly miniatures I've ever painted, I'd think, especially after someone* dropped a load of orange-juice over them!

These are veterans of the Tyranid War. They look jolly tough. I'm thinking of sprinkling a few of them among my tactical squads.

According to the new Codex Space Marines fluff, as Ultramarines they are the best marines ever and no-one can kill them and all other Space Marines wish they were Ultramarines, too. And the Index Astartes (which all Marines should be following - otherwise they are not allowed to game in the Emperor's stores) was written by their Primarch who was apparrently such a strategical genius that he managed to be far from the centre of the action during the Horus Heresy. That's how good he was!**

*You know who you are.
**Tongue firmly in cheek.

The Siege of Fort Niagra - La Belle Famille

Fort Niagra's only real hope was in relief from the Army of the Ohio which Captain Pouchot, the Fort Commandant had despatched to menace the western frontier of the British colonies.

Now summoned back, they made the epic journey back and entered into combat with a British force about half their size that had been detatched to contest the approach to the fort.

They met at la Belle Famille, virtually under the eyes of the besieged garrison.

The British began by despatching 50 light infantry each from the 44th, 46th and 4th\60th Regiments. These 150 soldiers built a log wall that they rather determinedly stuck behind throughout the battle that was to come!

A little later on they were reinforced by another 150 "hatmen" from the centre companies of the 44th, 46th and the converged New York Regiment.

Again later Lt Colonel Eyre Massey brought 140 hatmen from the 46th as well as 25 Grenadiers from the same regiments rather depleted Grenadier company.

Rushing up the portage road to meet them were Six Hundred Compagnies Franches de la Marine and Two Hundred Militia.

The French might have had 250 Indian allies with them but for the fact that British allied Indians had prevailed on them to declare their neutrality in the coming fight. The "British Indians" numbered around 310 and did not participate in the fight, but joined in the aftermath, killing the wounded, scalping the slain and pursuing the survivors.

The Seige of Fort Niagra -The French Order of Battle

Captain Pouchot, the French Commander at Fort Niagra had 486 men for a garrison:

Troupes de Terre: 149 men of the La Sarre, Royal Rousillon, Guienne and Pouchots' own Bearn Regiment. This last unit had actually rebuilt the fort between 1755 and 1757. I assume that they came in equal numbers from each regiment; the French practice was to create mixed detatchments to lower the risk of heavy losses to the parent unit.

Compagnies Franches de la Marine (Independant Companies of the Navy): 183 Officers and men.

Militia: 133 Officers and men - of the Detroit Militia? Can anyone help clarify this point?

Artillerymen: one Officer and 20 men. As to whether they were the royal or colonial artillery I do not know. Their small number must have meant that large numbers of troops must have been delegated to the guns' service. Dunnigan mentions that 75 fusiliers were assisting the gunners which figure I assume he derives from Pouchots' memoirs.

When Fort Little Niagra was abandoned and burned, the garrison made their way up the portage road to Fort Niagra. The Garrison at Fort little Niagra was two officers and 70 Marines and Militia strong. I would suggest that 20 of the garrison were Militia.

Pouchot also had two lake boats at his disposal.

They are described as being a brig and a schooner named the Outaoaise and the Iroquoise respectively. They were pierced both for ten twelve-pounder cannon, five to a broadside. I do not currently know their crew sizes.

The Seige of Fort Niagra -The British Order of Battle

The British Army that set out to besiege Fort Niagra consisted of 2400 Officers and men organised thus:

1330 men from the 44th and 46th Regiments.
200 men from the Light and Grenadier Companies of the 4th\60th Regiment
Two composite battalions from the New York provincial regiments organised into five companies each.
30 personnel from the Royal Artillery

Colonel William Johnstone had organised 600 warriors of the Six Nations to accompany the British Army, whilst another 276 Seneca would join the Army at Niagra. About another 69 others would drift in during the course of the Siege.

The Siege of Fort Niagra

I've been thinking over what activities I would like to go through in 2009.

A few posts back I mentioned my re-kindled interest in the French and Indian War, and specifically the siege of Fort Niagra. This has led me to read BL Dunnigans account of the siege and the repulse of the French relief force at la Belle Famille. It seems to me that the forces involved on both sides were really quite modest. The French Garrison at Fort Niagra was 486 men at most. The British Army beseiging the fort was about 2300 strong.

The French Army of the Ohio that rushed headlong to it's unhappy fate at la Belle Famille consisted 800 European and 500 "Indian" troops, whilst that of the British detatchment that defeated them was less than 500 strong.

Surely then it would not be impossible to examine some orders of battle that would let this campaign be played out at 1:10 or even a 1:5 troop ratio? La Belle Famille especially would be perfectly feasable at the latter ratio.

To that end I hope that 2009 will see me play out a convention game marking the 250th anniversary of la Belle Famille, as well as privately gaming the Siege of Fort Niagra. I intend to undertake the entire campaign with RSM miniatures.

In my next post I will share the Order of Battle information I have assembled so far.

Time Out

El Capitano - the casting is a Commander Dante of the Blood Angels. He's on permanent transfer to the Ultramarines, now.
An angry, angry man, the Sarge. I suppose that in the grim darknes of the 41st Milennium, you'd get a bit peeved occasionally.

Trooper Womble. A lucky bulk eBay purchase snagged him and most of his comrades.

Trooper Smith. Note the extreme highlights!

Trooper Jones. Coming to your house to set the cat on fire.


Inspired somewhat by this blog I'd been meaning to paint up some Space Marines for the fun of it.

Being a traditionalist, it had to be Ultramarines.

Because of the level of fiddly detail on them, they are a bit of a chore to paint - especially with having to highlight the edge of each and every bit of armour plate!

I havent even looked at the arms and weapons yet.

Still it's a nice change.

Is the Old School Wargaming Yahoo Group Dead?

Everything has it’s time on Earth and in time that allotted span must come to a close.

Has this happened to the Old School Wargaming Yahoo Group?

Consider:

Is there really anything NEW happening there?

Once upon a time the group was a real clearing-house for information. New members were being put in tough with like minds, a very great deal of information was being exchanged. Old miniatures lines were being evaluated, old books re-read, ideas being shared; it was a melting pot for ideas.

What is happening there these days?

It seems to me that we are going around and around in circles to the point that the group is becoming a caricature of it’s old self.

All too often we get this ridiculous self-image of the OSW member as a florid-faced retired Colonel type of figure, slurping the port and brandy whilst inflicting his foul cigars upon those about him from the comfort of his leather-padded chair.

How many times must we have the debate on what it means to be Old School? The argument always resolves on the inevitable suggestions of hail-fellow-well-met versus reminders that the old schoolers had their rather glaring faults as human beings? Everyone then just realizes that they want to have fun playing with toy soldiers.

Is the problem one where the topic is too limited? There is only so much self-indulgent “Old Schooling” that a group can chew over before all the juice of the topic is vanished?

Guess What I'm Thinking?

Recently I've been reading my new Osprey on the Fortifications of New France (FORT 75) and I've been revisiting some very old wargaming territory.

The French and Indian War was my first love, and you never forget the first one, do you? I think this came from a few sources. One was the front cover of the 1982 Military Modelling issue which featured the new (!) Pax Britannica 28mm figure range of French and British Figures contesting a palisaded fort. Lovely figures and very well painted. Another was a uniform feature in the same magazine some time later on the FIW period. The final push was the first "real" wargames magazine I ever bought.

That was "The Courier", back when Bill Protz was the editor. He and another gentleman wrote twin articles on "The Action at la Belle Famille" wherein French forces attempting to relieve the 1759 seige of Fort Niagra were defeated at the eponymous action.

Compagnies Franches de la Marine fire at advancing Red Men.
The Indians in this image contain the FIRST Ever RSM/Pax Britannia figure I ever bought!

I have noticed that the next volume in the FORT series that is in preparation by Rene Chartrand intends to conclude with an examination of the Forts around the Great Lakes - this includes Fort Niagra. It's a real shame that I've mis-laid/lost my copy of "Drums of War Along the Mohawk" - BARs older brother. I'll just have to buy another.

War Games and the DIY Spirit

In his introduction to “War Games”, Don Featherstone makes reference to his age being one of “Do It Yourself”.

When you read this book, you really do have this point brought home to you again and again. One pictures the Author slaving away with plaster of Paris moulds, producing the odd few soldiers before the mould falls to pieces – perhaps the odd mould explodes because the plaster of Paris was imperfectly dried out. I was minded of the author grimly gripping his hard-won casting in a pair of pliers whilst doggedly grinding away at the abundant flash with a selection of rat-tail and jewellers files, probably before going on to modify some plastic Airfix ACW types into Sassanid Persians with only a razor blade and some Plastic Wood to get him through.

War gaming in this era was tough. Really tough, especially for people without a lot of money. Retired Brigadiers could afford the best of everything, but someone with a day job and access only to the local public library laboured under special handicaps. Materials were rudimentary, unsuited or roughly adapted from many other theatres of life, it would seem to me. Every man (and I do mean every man) was an island, vainly reaching out to his few others of like mind, making contact through Model Soldier and Model Railway societies. Writing on the topic were in Mecanno Magazine (or whatever), Home Florist or some other ill-adapted, non-speciality publication, but somehow the War Gamers persevered with their damp, sand covered tables and plaster of Paris scenery.

I should note here that the three main rule-sets offered, Ancient, Horse and Musket and Modern (ie, WW2) are by Tony Bath, Don Featherstone and Lionel Tarr respectively. Interestingly, Featherstone also provides a brief set of rules for what he calls “close wars”, or what you or I would today call skirmish gaming.

What I thought most interesting about the book though was how it was seen by the author in his introductory remarks. The edition that I read was that of 1970. The book had been in publication since 1962 and gone through seven editions, for every war gamer melting type-setters lead in his kitchen there were now one hundred war gamers now using professionally made product. In 1970, war gaming was a hobby that was clearly on the move, and really one can only look back now, some thirty-eight years further on with some amazement at the changes that have been wrought on the hobby since.

What really strikes you when you read this book is the handicaps that the war gamers of this period laboured under. They really did do it themselves. And that dedication to and perseverance with the hobby is what shines through this excellent little book. The rules are simple – some would say rudimentary – but are obviously products of a time when research materials were thin on the ground and not easily accessed. Again, one imagines the difficulties that these authors laboured under.


The internet has been the salvation of the hobby, with vast amounts of product of any kind available to anyone with an internet connection and a credit card.

The DIY spirit though, is well and truly moribund.

First Thursday Book Club

It has been on my mind for a while now to publish short reviews of "Classic" war-gaming titles on a fairly regular basis. I first turned this idea over when I made it my resolution to re-read my entire "Old School" collection over the next year.

What I am thinking of doing just now is posting once a month (or more often if I have time) a review of about 500 or so words. I'm not sure as to what criteria I'll be applying, but style, content, readability will be featuring with some sort of weighting.

The first volume I will be looking at will be Donald Featherstone's 1962 "War Games: Battles and Manoeuvres with Model Soldiers" - more this evening when I have refreshed my memory!

I would be more than happy to take submissions on this project - if you are interested, please email me at: bloggerator@gmail.com

More Croats

I had the day at home yesterday and started in on some lead mountain reduction. Among other things, I had one part-completed company of Croats I wanted to knock off before I moved on with any more conversions. My companies are fifteen miniatures strong, so I had ten to do from plain metal to final blast of varnish.

Below is the first shot of the completed troops. Note that after what seemed to me a sucess with the dismounted Kurfurstin Dragoons, that I am starting to base the odd few troopers on larger bases to allow for the creation of mini-dioramas.
The same line-up from a different angle. Note the minor conversion on a couple of the loading troopers for the sake of a little diversity in the firing line.

The completed company with flag-bearer. I think the colour is from Frederic Aubert's site, although there are many lovely Austrian flags available, including those from the Warflag site.

Full line-up of my Croats. I've now three full companies with another two in preparation. I expect to finish off a fourth company in the next few days.

Maria Theresa's Wild Men

It seems like ages ago that I began to become interested in the less regular of the forces available to the Austrian Empire in the 1740s or so on. This project that I began at the time to start creating some of them has been on hold for a long time, but Amy and I were away on a brief holiday recently and while we were away there were a succession of rainy evenings where she read a detective novel and I got out the Greenstuff and some RSM Croats.

The images below are the painted-almost-to-completion results of a two-day painting blitz; well, it was a blitz for me!
A few Warasdiners. New additions to the company-sized unit I am slowly putting together. It was conversions like these that opened my eyes to the potential of the RSM castings. The Officer at the right of the image is from the Russian Infantry pack to whose coat I have added a fur edging down the front. He needs some metallic lace on his waistcoat to finish him off. Had I a fine enough brush, I might have made an attempt at some gold frogging as well.

These four figures were inspired by plate C2 of the Osprey volume on "Austrian Frontier Troops, 1740-98". They represent troops of the Ogulin Regiment in 1757. The only difference between them and the RSM sculpts is the red bag I added to the crown of the tschako and allowed to flop down one side and the modification I made to the hand that supports the musket to vary the loading pose. This latter was quite successful, I think and is one I will repeat. I am also experimenting with basing variations for my light troops to give them some more interest after good experiences with my dismounted Bavarian Dragoons.

Above are three Hungarian infantry in the basic 174o uniform, painted as Regiment Ujvary per the print from the Vinkhuizen Collection at the NYPL. It's a simple conversion where I have painted the top of the slightly cut-down tschako red and sculpted on some fur. Perhaps the fur detail is a bit heavy, but I've exaggerated a bit for the sake of making the "furriness" obvious. It could use a thin, black wash to tone down the rather violent high-lighting on the cap, too.

The final image here is a couple of Hungarian Soldiers from the later part of the War of the Austrian Succession, perhaps from 1745 onward. Here they have had new hats added and fur cuffs and edging sculpted onto their otherwise short coats. I am so pleased with these that I am almost certain to do a full regiment of them.

I'd love to do some officers in a mix of "German" and "Hungarian" uniform; pelisses, more fur hats and some flugelmutzen for instance. I'd like to investigate adding sabretaches and hussar boots to some of them at least.

Victorian Militia

Small update at the Defence of melbourne blog here.

More on Castles

Continued...

Just as tower construction was a response to the perceived vulnerabilities of curtain walls, as time passed problems were experienced with defending towers.

Early, simple towers defences were basically crenellations that garnished their tops and arrow slots that pierced their sides. These allowed the archers who were the main troop type of the castle garrison to shoot out at an attacker and to sweep the face of the wall of those who pressed in too closely.

These simple wall-head defences did not however allow the defenders to prevent an enemy from attacking the base of the tower.

The eventual response was to build projecting defences that would allow fire to be directed down the towers’ faces. Called, machicolation, they were basically a gallery that stood on corbels projecting over the top of the wall. In their earliest form, they may have been of wood as at the Cave of Sueth (a remarkable “castle-in-a-cliff” reminiscent of ancient Petra in Jordan), but later were of stone. The most common form I have encountered is the so-called “box-machicolation” which pretty much was a stone box positioned over a vulnerable feature like a door for it’s defence. Just as often, they would also have an arrow loop in the front face.

A variation on this theme was the slot machicolation which cut an arrow-loop at a downward-sloping angle in the wall so that arrow-fire could be depressed to cover areas closer to the foot of the wall or tower.

Building a castle on an isolated spur or ridge was an early practise in fortification, seemingly imported from France with the original Crusaders. This may be seen today at Saone, about 30 km from Lattakieh in Syria where the well-preserved castle stands today. It’s most remarkable feature is the rock-cut fosse or ditch dug out by Moslem prisoners who left behind a remarkable 23 metre high spur of living rock that in it’s day supported a bridge over the ditch. As neat a description as any I have read runs like this:

“Lawrence of Arabia called it "the most sensational thing in castle-building I have seen". The morning mist was rolling up from the dramatic ridge on which the ruins stand, in the midst of precipitous ravines. In the distance you can see the Mediterranean. Everything here was built "big, solid and magnificent", with a key feature being the extraordinary 28m high rock monolith, which once supported a drawbridge. The monolith stands in a formidable 156m long ravine cut from the living rock, 28m deep and 14m to 20m wide, dating mainly from Byzantine times. We were taken around by a man born within the walls of the castle, when it was still possible for ordinary folk to live there. One feature he showed us: a secret spiral stairway that runs from the roof of the keep, down through the giant central pillar in floor after floor, and then through the living rock of the mountain to the river, far below. The idea, apparently, was to take besiegers from behind.”

Next time: Gates...