The Vimeiro Refight

Now, I know as much about the Peninsular War as I know about the back end of the moon. I have never been really interested in playing either the French or the Brits and when I have played Peninsular games I have always pitched for Spanish, Portuguese or KGL commands. Besides, in my book there just is not enough cavalry…

So when it came to the 200-ers refight of Vimiero yesterday I had asked to umpire, as I will happily do for all Peninsular games. This was going to be a new experience for me, as I had not umpired for many years and not with these rules. Art of Command has been continually tweaked anyhow, and in this case we had introduced different methods of handling cavalry, and the charge sequence that I had wanted.

I knew very little about the original battle so I was not going to be too influenced by historical operations.

The Battle

Now, in the first case there will be pictures of this game on the 200-ers website. In the meantime you will have to make do with whatever I can find. Anyhow, the battle was Wellesley’s first engagement in the Peninsular, and we had asked one of our younger players (the Young Guard) to take on the role. Playing Junot was my mate and sparring partner David Ronaldson. As I said to him he was the perfect choice; aggressive and half mad. We had also slightly changed to battle in that Junot was allowed to abandon Lisbon and bring the Division that was there up to join the battle.

This, in a way, was not necessary. The British plan was essentially that of static defence, with a creeping paralysis setting in as the battle progressed, with units only being sent to threatened sectors far too late in the day. The French, on the other hand, had a very maneouverist plan, with Junot prepared to change the emphasis of his attack as the battle progressed. Unsurprisingly it was a very convincing French victory.

Umpiring and the rules

As the game progressed I confess that I found it harder and harder to bite my tongue. The experienced player who was supposed to be playing Murray, Wellington’s QMG, was also playing Hill, and was so fucussed on his own crumbling position that there was no-one who was taking a weather view of the battle. This, I think, was very clear where one British division on the far left could have easily given up a couple of battalions and possibly its battery to reinforce a threatened sector.

But there was also the issue of the rules. Basically we had dealt with the issue of heavy cavalry being used as panzer divisions only to uncover another; the overwhelming power of skirmishers. The British had concentrated the majority of their light troops in a light brigade and this was holding the town of Vimeiro. The rest of the divisions were left with very little light infantry, a few rifle companies and their battalion screens. The French, on the other hand, had plenty of Legere all over the place, and the overall combat results reflected this. In front of Vimeiro, where the British had a superiority of light infantry, the French attack stalled, and then routed, leaving the British in posession of the town. Elsewhere the situation was reversed with the French not having to commit close order troops and instead just skirmished the poorly screened British lines to death. Where the French did commit two columns against the British, they found the one totally fresh line to do it with and the results were very predictable: the French got shot up and retired to their start lines.

What to do?

So this is the next area to consider. What to do about skirmishers. What sort of outcome should they be able to create? Personally I feel this should be few casualties and lots of harassment, and here I think the disorder issue comes in handy.

My initial thought is that for every six, or part of six, skirmishers you simply roll a d6 and get a result. 1-3 nothing, 4-5 one disorder level (or force a redeployment if artillery), 6 a casualty. Against a screened target, target in cover, deployed artillery and so on you need to roll a 6 on a D6 first, and if you get one then roll again for a result. It is pretty easy to divide up the firers and roll a D6 for each. Basically against a screened target you have a 1 in 36 chance of causing a casualty, and a 1 in 18 chance of creating some disorder. Whatever the die roll, only one casualty can be taken by each target per turn and the maximum disorder you can create is ‘Disordered’. Skirmishers themselves can be shot at in the normal way, with possibly an increased minus for firing at them to make firepower casualties a remote possibility.

Battalion screens should be able to screen the battalion. As it stands the battalion light company cannot screen it’s parent line, which seems absurd. So any battalion screen should be able to screen its parent, and only its parent, entirely.

Those are my thoughts so far, I'll keep thinking...

K

Begorrah’ed

It’s honking…

Here are my first set of Wild Geese, in this case the first battalion of the Irish Regiment of Irlanda. I have not painted a 25mm unit in red before but I must say that I am very happy with the wat that these have turned out.

The unit was part of the first draft sent to Italy which landed at Ortobello in 1741. Irlanda boasted 1,037 men on disembarkation and, along with the Walloon and Swiss, the desertion rate remained fairly low. Conversely the Italian and Spanish units suffered terribly from this, as presumably the men could slip into the civilian population far easier.

How many of the men were actually first generation Irish is hard to say. Certainly of the officers I would have anticipated a high number of Catholic Gentry, denied service in the British army due to their religion, looking to exercise their traditional employment elsewhere. You can find Irish officers serving in Europe in virtually all armies, but clearly France and Austria soaked up many.

But of the rank and file things are far muddier. Although there was no real bar to service placed by the Brits, there were lots of people fishing in the Irish labour pool. For a start there was British army recruitment, they were on the ground and closer. The French, too, had several Irish units on establishment so the Spanish did face considerable competition. I cannot imagine anything more than a small minority of Irish peasantry fired by anti-British feeling to serve with the Bourbons, so I suspect it came down to bounties.

Of course there were second-generation Irish in Spain, scions of the original Wild Geese of the old Pretender, yet there were far less of these in Spain than there were in France. On top of these ‘Irish’ you could add British deserters/prisoners who enlisted during the WAS, but the beneficiary from these can only have been regiment Ultonia (which was not in Savoy either, so was it before Gibraltar?), but Irlanda and Hibernia, isolated in Italy, could not possibly have had this as a source.

So, what? A rag-bag of Germans, Swiss, French and whoever else could be swept up to join some second-generation Irish and whoever the recruiters managed to inveigle into the ranks from Ireland proper.

In terms of painting, well, the red is actually Revell’s Karminrot, with the Blue coming from a navy blue provided by my local art shop, the gaiter colour being Revell Beige and the leatherwork being Revell Braun. It is actually a pleasure to paint something where white is a very small part of the whole, unlike Napoleonics where white breeches and crossbelting are very much the norm.

Next on the stocks are the second battalions of the Lombardia Regiment and the Sardinian Swiss Regiment Diesbach. Also up are some proper Spanish battalion pieces, so pics of them shortly. In the meantime I dedicate this unit to WildGeese on TMP.

K

Andere Andere…

The Dons have landed

So here is the first Spanish unit of my Camposanto project. This has been quite a slow-burner whilst I have concentrated on completing IV Kolonne at Aspern-Essling but I managed to get these over the finishing line yesterday evening.

These are the boys from the first battalion of the Lombardia Regiment. It is a classic Spanish National Regiment and, despite its name, is not one of the regiments raised in Italy.



The figures are Front Rank SYW French. As such I chose to accept some minor inaccuracies and a UK based company I have an established relationship with rather than the more accurate but US-based and more questionable castings of the London War Room. So, as can be seen from the rear view the hatmen have swords, which the Spaniards did not have, and are wearing the cartouche box at the hip rather than as a belly box, which was far more frequent. That said, other than the club nerd type (who would declare the figures totally unplayable) I think they look close enough and good enough to pass muster.

I have done this battalion at 16 figures strong plus the battalion gun section.As the Spanish battalions varied in size on landing I am approximating this to number of figures. So the Guards battalions (all 12 of them….) are only going to be 12 castings strong, whereas the second battalion of IR Besseler will be 24 strong.

Lombardia as a regiment landed in Italy with two battalions on the 8^th November 1741 with some 1,067 effectives. It was part of the first of two tranches of men sent to Italy, in this case 19 battalions of Infantry and 12 companies of Horse. A second tranche put ashore on the 13^th January 1742 composed of 15 battalions of Infantry and another 12 companies of Horse and this was the total number of troops sent by Spain to central Italy.

The Spanish that were sent over clearly lacked heavy guns with only battalion pieces issued. Ostensibly this was not a problem as the Spanish could call on Farnese-rules Naples and their ally Modena to supply troops too. Unfortunately for the Spanish Modena was quickly overwhelmed by a massive Piedmontese offensive before they arrived so only stragglers were forthcoming from that quarter. Naples proved a broken reed too: the Royal Navy simply sailed into Naples harbour and threatened to turn the place to rubble if Naples aided the Spaniards. This threat kept the Neapolitans at bay for two years.

So the Spanish were on their own, and with the RN dominating the sealanes they had no new drafts of men sent over from Spain. The result was that the battalions withered as the stresses of campaign took their toll. More Spanish to come soon.

K

Prize Swiss

The Neuchatel

To start with lets explain the brief hiatus: I am currently looking to get back into the job market after 18 months of freelancing so I have been very focussed on that aspect of my life and the painting has fallen by the wayside a bit. But here are two recently completed units to cast your eyes over.

The Battalion de Neuchatel that I have painted here is actually not for me but is a prize to be given out at our Vimiero refight due to take place on the 31^st August. I am umpiring, so there is no danger of me winning my own figures, and there are suggestions that it will be the prize for the ‘player’s player’, a new one on me but apparently a revival of an old practice in the 200-ers.

I chose Neuchatel because it is unusual, can stand alone as one battalion and I guess that many people do not have it. Unlike modern illustrations, which show almost neon yellow I chose a more realistic darker yellow, actually the Revell Ochre colour, as the jacket shade. This, to me, gives them a more solid and less Disney-esque look but is still yellow enough to support their nickname of ‘The Canaries’. What I am lacking, of course, is a colour. GMB flags has just got back to me (Graeme has been holidaying in France for a fortnight, apparently) so it will be there by the time it is given away.

If this goes down well I will do more of them as prizes. There are lots of quirky and interesting units out there that can serve as stand alone prizes: the Grand Duchess Pavlovna battalion, Lobkowitz Jager, some of the more chocolate box Confederation units. See how it goes.

And now for something completely different.

No, not a man with 3 buttocks…in fact not that different at all. I have been painting up some oddments to sell on ebay every now and again. One small selection I am offloading are my Flintloque stuff, and here is the latest sample. There is something very appropriate about the Russians being represented by the undead: ‘they just keep coming’ but with little imagination or flexibility. So here is a pic of my first tranche of forces of the Witch King, basically regulars and artillery. I have another lot of 12 Werewolf Jager and some mounted and dismounted cossacks plus a Lich to run it all. Probably get round to that sometime…

Enjoy

K

From the Workbench: Appendix

End of the month

Although there is over a week to go before the end of the month This sort of wraps it up for June. I am away for the rest of the month as ‘respite care’ for my frail gran up in Yorkshire to allow my aunt and uncle to have a worry free week’s holiday. So this is the last painting post I will manage in June, although there will probably be another discussing the results of this Sunday’s Art of Command rules meeting in Salisbury.
Anyhow, wheel on the eye-candy…

IR55 “Reuss zu Greiz”

The Inhaber of this regiment was Feldmarschalleutnant Heinrich XIII, Furst zu Reuss-Greiz, from the Royal House of Reuss where everyone was called Henry. Notwithstanding the obvious confusion this would cause at a family reunion, the princes of Reuss were also part of the Confederation of the Rhine and contributed troops to the Grande Armee. But, as was the case with several German countries, the transient nature of politics was not going to get in the way of long term relationships. Also of importance was that many minor German Royals served in the armies of their larger neighbours. The most famous are probably the Leichtenstens and Hohenzollern-Hechiggen, but the Reusses were equally keen to serve in the Habsburg Army, Reuss-Greiz was joined by Reuss-Plauen who was Inhaber of IR17 (Henry again of course, this time number XV) both FML in 1809.



IR55 started life as a Walloon regiment, but the loss of the Austrian Netherlands meant that all of these units were given Polish recruitment areas to replace the lost Belgian ones. In the case of IR55 this does not seem to have worked out to well, the regiment having a mere 692 effectives in the field at Aspern-Essling, and the drafts after that battle and returning injured only brought it up to 1,056, in neither case was this very strong for a two battalion Austrian regiment. Another clue that all was not well is the consistent absence of a third battalion. This implies a shortage of manpower even before the war began, and during the campaign events in Poland would have made matters very hard indeed. It comes as no surprise to me, then, that IR55 was chosen as one of the regiments to be disbanded after the Wagram campaign was over. It remained so until after 1815.



At Aspern-Essling, though, the regiment did manage to attack Essling successfully, getting a toehold in the Churchyard on the 21st, only to be thrown out again by a French counterattack. This is generally the pattern of fighting in both villages, and we must make sure that any rules we use reflect this. At Wagram the regiment was in 5th Korps which lived out the battle on the Bisamberg and was never committed. Although only a souped-up division in reality any refight we do of Wagram should give Charles the option of committing it behind Klenau and Kollowrat, 13 battalions, 8 squadrons and 5 batteries are not to be sniffed at.

The regiment had two commanders in 1809, the first was an Oberst von Koller who had commanded since 1805, the second was an Oberst von Gober. I cannot work out when the change actually took place but I would not be surprised if it was after Aspern-Essling. Certainly Koller was promoted to GM and awarded the Ritterkreuz of the MTO again sometime 1809-1810 but the actual date is unclear. Like Oberst Frelich of HusR10, awards handed out for Aspern-Essling seem to have lacked the usual Austrian commitment to bureaucracy.



In terms of painting, as the regiment was so weak, I have elected only to do one battalion (18 figures) although I have figures for two. The second battalion may transmute into 2/IR50 ‘Stain’ as I want this regiment for Wagram as part of 6th Korps.

Carneville Freicorps

My first unit of VI Kolonne is the diminutive Carneville Freicorps. Part of the brigade of Simon Graf Carneville this is the classic light infantry officer that Austria tended to attract. Carneville had been leading light troops ever since he raised his first freicorps in 1792 from émigrés in the Austrian Netherlands. This unit fought throughout the war of the first coalition before becoming part of the 11th Light Battalion in 1798 led by the man himself initially, but he was promoted to GM July of that year. He then seems to have plateaued, as he is still at GM rank in 1809, indeed stays there until he dies in 1816.


His only benefit, therefore, may have been as a leader of freicorps and light troops but unsuited to higher command. Certainly other officers of a similar stamp went further, his divisional commander at Aspern-Essling was a fellow freicorps leader and light battalion commander, Prinz Victor Rohan. Something was clearly holding him back.

The unit itself is small, but pretty. I used Front Rank firing and loading Hungarian infantry to represent them, the poses are not only suitable for skirmishers they hide the unusual half lapels they seem to have had. The two Hussars were painted up from a few leftovers from HusR10, and also look very good. Whether the hussars in particular will be of any use is open to question. My first choice would be as recce, but at Aspern Essling we sort of know where the enemy is. Chopping up enemy skirmishers? Doubt they will deploy many. I guess it is just ‘looking pretty’ then. The infantry are of more use, especially in the swampy area nerer the river on the left of VI Kolonne.

Also a milestone: first VI Kolonne unit..yeah!

1st Russo-German Legion Horse Battery

I have actually had this painted for some weeks, but have kept it quiet as it is a surprise present. Our host at Salisbury is David from the Nap200-ers and this is a gift for his son, Alex. This is not just a whim. When we refought Eylau and I got captured early on, much of the ‘blame’ can be laid at Alex’ door. Inexperienced and out of his depth he had been put in charge of the whole Russian left flank. Attacked by the French cavalry in an outflanking move he went to pieces in the face of a very bad situation. In fact he owed this to his performance at our previous battle, Jena, where he had commanded a small division and done some useful work. It just goes to show that one good performance does not make a good wargamer, and I noticed that at Friedland he was in the centre were his dad could keep an eye on him.


Anyhow I was very gruff and short with the poor lad. OK I had been captured and his mis-execution of my plan led to catastrophe, but you should never, ever, ever do anything to discourage young people from taking up the hobby, and being anything less than encouraging to young players is so uncharacteristic of me I must put it down to stress. So the RGL Horse Battery is by way of an apology to the lad. Although David has thousands of figures himself, there is nothing like owning your own kit and using it in battle. I just hope he becomes more comfortable around me in the future.

K

From the Workbench

Progress

This week I finally finished two significant units from IV Kolonne: HusR10 ‘Stipiscz’ and IR22 ‘Coburg’. These are significant milestones and I am very happy to be past them. Already underway is IR55, which only fielded less than 700 at Aspern-Essling, so although I have figures for two full battalions I am only looking at doing one for the time being. I will get round to doing the second battalion when things are a little less focussed on A-E and Wagram, also on the stocks is ChlR6 ‘Rosenberg’. In fact, for IV Kolonne, that only leaves the 3 battalions of IR9 ‘Reuss-Greiz’, 6 guys from ChlR6 and two 6lb cannon plus my figure for GM Neustadter. Our next battle, Vimeiro, is on 8th August and I would really like to have all of IV Kolonne finished by then.

IR22 ‘Prinz zu Sachsen-Coburg-Saalfeld’

Even more so than IR8, IR22 is a pretty average German infantry regiment. The Inhaber of this regiment was General der Kavallerie Prinz Friedrich-Josias zu Sachsen-Coburg-Saalfeld. This gentleman was a General of considerable experience, having led the Austrian army in the Austrian Netherlands in 1793 and 1794. Very much an 18th Century figure he was still wedded to the campaigning principles of cordon and siege. Still, both Mozart and Haydn composed music in his honour.



The Regiment was German in style, originally recruited from Illyria, but by 1809 had become a Moravian-based regiment. As a whole the unit put some 2,500 men into the field at Aspern-Essling, giving fairly strong individual battalion strengths, presumably helped by the units close proximity to its depot in Moravia. At Wagram it is still able to put over 2,100 men into the field. The facings were Imperial Yellow, with pewter buttons. The Colonel-commandants for the regiment in 1809 were initially Oberst Wenzel, Graf Vetter von Lilienberg (whose relative, Major Graf Vetter, was commander of the 2nd Moravian Volunteers) giving way to Oberst von Watzl, who commanded the regiment through to 1813.

HusR10 ‘Joseph Freiherr Stipiscz von Ternova’

HusR10 is a good representation of what was an excellent mounted arm, namely the Hussars of the KK Armee. All cavalry unit raised in Hungary were hussars and for the Hungarian gentry they were a very prestigious posting to be sent to. Stipiscz himself had been awarded the Knights Cross of the Order of Maria Theresa in 1794 when he was colonel of ChlR7 ‘Graf Kinsky’ from 1794 to 1797 and rose up the chain of command, eventually ending up as a General of Cavalry. However, this eminent solder had to make way as Inhaber in 1814 for Frederick William III of Prussia. He remained, however, second Inhaber and for practical purposes his duties probably did not change that much.



HusR10 is a very pretty unit, light blue overall with the grass green shako. It had at one time been commanded by that stalwart of avant-garde commands, the Freiherr von Kienmayer, and the 1813 brigade commander the Freiherr von Mecsery. In 1809 at Aspern-Essling it was part of FML Klenau’s Armee Avantgarde which formed part of IV Kolonne. It’s colonel, Oberst Franz Freiherr von Frelich (later GM) commanded a brigade made up of his own Hussar regiment and IR3 ‘Erzherzog Karl’. It fielded 861 men at Aspern who, on day two of the battle, were one of the regiments that repulsed the charge by Lasalle’s cavalry.



At Wagram the unit was part of Nordmann’s Avantgarde and had received new drafts of men, now fielding 968 troopers. On the extreme left of the Austrian line they crossed sabres with the cavalry of Montbrun’s light cavalry brigade, although other sources place this unit with the main Austrian attack against Grouchy and Pajol. At Wagram Frelich was already a newly-promoted Generalmajor and the new colonel-commandant was Anton Gundaker Graf von Stahremberg, who would retain command until 1811. Frelich was also awarded the Ritterkreuz of the Maria Theresa order, presumably for his performance against Lasalle at Aspern-Essling, but it is unclear whether he was officially awarded it in 1809 or 1810. In 1812 he goes into Russia with Schwarzenberg commanding a brigade of Hussars, but I cannot find any trace of him in 1813 and`1814, maybe due to ill health brought on by the retreat.



Things will take a bit of a break from Sunday for a week or so as I am away for a bit, but there may be more eye-candy before then, if only a little.

K

The Diary of General Ramble

Back to the Future

I have been pondering what to do with the Austrians. My instinct is to look forward to 1813 and get as much in shako as possible, but then you look at it and other than Dresden and Leipzig there were not many smaller engagements you could use them for. It is not like the Russians or Prussians where you can look at 1813 and do a lot. So I have been looking in more detail at the 1799/1800 Italian campaign instead. There are quite a lot of do-able battles, the sides are tactically even and there are plenty of maps. French in Bicorne will be a better fit for my 1806 Prussians as well.



So that means getting as much as possible in helmet. I know that in reality the troops in Italy continued to wear the old Kaskett rather than the Raupenhelm but this is no more oxymoronic than having all my 1809 stuff in Shako. Certain things will 'have to do'. The shakoes on the Hussars are bell-topped rather than the more cylindrical peaked Klobuk and the cavalry helmets will have higher Raupes and so on plus the gunners will be in bicorne rather than helmet or corsehut (for the most part at least) but this really is nitpicking. This is, after all, primarily an 1809 army that I am looking at stretching backwards rather than forwards. Given the infantry is the same and most of the cavalry will serve there only need be a few additions or replacements, such as different Grenzer, Light Infantry Battalions and theD' Aspre Jager. These can all be 'filled in' after the Wagram refight.

The French will, more-or-less, be started from scratch. Not much in my current French force will reasonably serve with the exception of the artillery equipment but the French do field some interesting units: the Helvetique and Polish Legions, Piedmontese Infantry and so on. The charm is that there is not a great deal of French cavalry making it cheaper than doing the equivalent period in Germany.



The loose cannons are the Russians, not many of them, only cossacks as mounted troops, and no idea about artillery at all (will SYW pattern guns do?). But who is going to resist all those Grenadiers in Mitres and powdered queues? Although a lot is said about the Russians in terms of publicity, mostly because of the larger-than-life figure of Suvurov, it was the Austrians who provided the bulk of the troops and did the bulk of the fighting.

Samples from Wurttemberg

One of the things I did this month was order some samples of Wurttembergers from the Connoisseur/Bicorne range. These are much less bulky than the FR stuff I am doing now but are 28mm and will fit in. The overall design ethos is different too, with less crisp detail and more 'rough' sculpting. But I am satisfied with the figures as they have painted up so far. The fact that they are all in overalls with rolled g/c means they are far simpler to paint than anything I am used to, even the French in campaign dress. Meanwhile the artillery uniform is really cool and stands out nicely. So, now that I have finished my 1809-14 French (in terms of buying if not painting) then this looks like the next 'pro-French' project. It is not one, though, that will seriously start until after the Wagram refight. Until then it will be a tide of Kaiserlicks.

K