More matchstick madness

All this posting about early 17th Century armies and how to recreate them on the wargames table got me to thinking.  Dangerous I know!  As a result I find myself descending the rabbit hole that is 'can I make reasonable representations of those armies in 2mm'.  I will admit that the thought had crossed my mind before but I had all those nice Irregular Miniatures 2mm blocks for my BCW armies, so I didn't pursue it.  The issue was that after posing the blocks for pictures I wasn't fully happy with the look of things, especially with the pike blocks being made up of smaller blocks of pike with gaps around them.   After all these were huge blocks of pikemen not small clumps aggregated together.  So off down the rabbit hole I have proceeded.

Much messing around with MS Paint later I have some prototype three rank blocks of musket and pike.  I'm debating making the pike blocks deeper so six ranks or more.  I'm now looking at various sources to make pikes to stick into place on the pike blocks.  Nylon broom bristles are looking favourite so far, I just need to find some that are the right thickness.

So far so good (I think)

What attracts me to this system of creating armies is that I can get more detail onto the figures by printing a wrap around skin than I could paint onto a casting, oh that and the fact that it is cheap.  Cheap is good.  Plus the actual creation process both drawing the figures and creating the blocks is an exercise in mindfulness.

Watch this space for further developments.

Putting it all together

The 17th Century Armies stuff  that is.    It's one thing to look at how armies were made up and deployed and another thing altogether to create those units on the table top.  So without further ado lets see what some of the formations I have been blogging about actually look like when laid out using Irregular Miniature's 2mm blocks.  These are based in blocks of 100 men 6 ranks deep with the bases covering the correct footprint for pike in close order and shot in order.  The distances between men in these formations was pretty much the same across all armies in the period.

I apologise for the lack of accurate uniform colours and flags.  I used my ECW blocks to portray all of the formations so they are mostly NMA units.

Infantry

Lets start with the Spanish as they have a lot of variations and they are fun to try to recreate!  The formation commonly thought of as a Tercio had several variations as shown in my original post here Small but Perfectly Formed (elenderilsblog.blogspot.com).

Here in all it’s glory, the late 16th Century Spanish ‘Terció’

Big isn't it!  This version comes in at 3,200 men rather than the 2,922 in the original post.  By the early 17th Century it was probably no longer used at this size.  I certainly don't have any plans to use a formation this large.  Instead I would opt for one of the following two formations for the period to 1620-25(ish) again these are slightly larger than the versions in the original post.  I could reduce the number of pike bodies to four (representing 400 men) for smaller formations

A Spanish 'Extended Square' (of 1600 men) early 17th Century

The same number of men but deployed as a 'Square of Men' (El Gente)

These would work as a Spanish Formation until the very early years of the Thirty Year's War but quickly evolved into the next formation.  This is more recognisable as a pike and shot formation akin to those we see in BCW images.  It still has the arquebusier garrisons on the flanks of the pike though.

A mid 1620's or early 1630's Spanish Escuadron of 1,200 men

By the mid 1630's the formation is smaller so I would drop two hundred of the shot.  The formation is probably only 9 ranks deep by this stage but that isn't easy to depict with blocks in six ranks so I styed with 12 ranks.  By the early 1640's the formation drops to six ranks in depth and a headcount of between 900-500 men which is easier to depict, and a formation that (apart from the high number of arquebusiers) wouldn't look out of place in a BCW engagement of the same period.  

Spanish Escuadron of 900 men mid 1640's

Once I laid out the formations for the 1630s and '40's I could see the Dutch and German influences in the deployments or possibly the Spanish influence the other way around.

Keeping to the armies in the order that I posted about them brings us to the Dutch.  Deployed in 12 ranks each battalia is slightly oversized at 600 men due to the fixed numbers in each casting.  I could manage batallia of either 300 men or 600 men but the smaller version would not have the proper shot to pike ratio.  

A Dutch Brigade of four battalia with artillery support

It does look the business though, doesn't it and looks like it could face off against a Spanish Field Square.

Lastly, lets look at some Swedish formations

Three squadron Swedish Brigade (of 1,400 men) in the initial deployment layout.

The first thing that jumps out at me is how wide the initial deployment is.  I can see why some authors suggest that Swedish pike may have sometimes been deployed in shallower formations to allow then to adequately cover the unit's frontage.

The same brigade deployed 'shot forward'

Not too hard to change the opening deployment to one of 'shot forward'.  The leading pike body simply stays put , the left and right shot bodies move forward and the right and left pike bodies step outwards allowing the central shot bodies to wheel into place.  I'd think that the latter stage of wheeling would be the tricky part.  Simple if you don't have an enemy body closing fast of course and your troops know the drill to use.

This time pike are deployed to the front.

Once again relatively easy from the initial formation, the two flanking pike blocks step forwards and form on the lead pike body.  The outermost shot bodies then close up on the central body of shot.  I have shown the shot in twelve ranks matching the initial deployment of the centre body of shot but that may not have been how it was done.  Leaving the flanking shot in six ranks would expose some of them unless the pike move to the order (loosing the advantage of mass against a cavalry attack) or they were deployed in shallower bodies of three or four ranks as mentioned above.  This would leave the brigades flanks open too, as the frontage contracts an awful lot.

Switching between shot forward and pike forward would be more difficult and I'm wondering if the brigade did that in two steps.  Firstly redeploying to the initial formation before continuing to the new one.  It could be done by having the pike open order and letting the shot move through but that is speculation.

Seeing some of these formations laid out and knowing that they would have some artillery attached at brigade and squadron level makes me think that I might need to create a second smaller base size for ultra light artillery.

One interesting point.  All of the above images are on the same base cloth.  The shots display a range of shades of green between shots which just goes to show how lighting can impact on a camera phone's ability to capture colour!

As I haven't completed the posts on the  Swedish army or even started the German one I will leave it at this for now.  A further shorter post on depicting cavalry will follow in due course.

17th Century Armies - Part 3 The Swedes

Under Gustavus Adolphus the Swedes became the next important battlefield innovators.  They further developed the tactics and deployments of the Dutch Army and demonstrated their effectiveness on the Battlefield.  That said it is hard to know where to start in describing the evolution and tactics of the Swedes as so much has been written and so many books, websites and blogs cover the topic.  Certainly I'm not going to bring anything new to the table.  Instead I'm going to concentrate on how to play a Swedish Army for the period.

1. 1632 portrait of Gustavus Adolphus (reigned 1611 - 1632)

So why bother at all?  Well at Breitenfeld in 1632 the new Swedish tactics destroyed an Imperial Army under Tilly.  This has to be something worth looking at to see how it can be replicated on the tabletop. Especially as Tilly was an experienced commander who until that point had (allegedly) never lost a battle. 

To understand how the Swedish tactical doctrine developed we have to go back to earlier Swedish experiences of warfare and recognise the limitations they were under.

2. Breitenfeld 1631.  Engraving by Matthaus Merrian, note the deep formations of cuirassiers standing off to shoot from a distance

At the start of the Seventeenth Century Sweden was not a particularly populous or wealthy kingdom, neither was it in the forefront of military innovation.  What it was, though, was involved in a number of territorial and dynastic disputes within Scandinavia, Russia and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.  The experience gained in these conflicts showed that the Swedish military required modernisation. During the 16th century the Swedish army was based upon volunteers from the peasantry who formed the infantry and cavalry formed from the nobility.  Unusually, the infantry were organised into semi-permanent bodies who were maintained in garrisons or billeted.  Cavalry came from the nobility as and when required.

Their first and arguably most important change was to put army recruitment on a new footing, the older semi-feudal method of raising troops was replaced by the formation of a regular army based upon geographical areas.  Each Swedish Province was required to provide and support a defined number of infantry and cavalry.  So by the very early years of the 17th century Sweden had a well organised military recruitment and funding system and a standing army. 

Hard lessons were learned in fighting Polish heavy cavalry in the period 1600 - 1629.  Swedish cavalry lacked the armour and large breeds of horses needed to create the three quarter armoured horse favoured in the rest of central Europe.  Other solutions had to be found to allow any chance of beating Polish heavy horse.  Equally the infantry had to be bolstered to provide an effective anti-cavalry defence if the cavalry battle went against the lighter Swedish Horse.

Those solutions were found and the Swedish Army which entered the Thirty Year's War would show itself as capable of standing and beating the best of the Hapsburg's Imperial army.  To do this Gustavus Adolphus had turned to both the best of the Dutch system, the writings of the classical age military theorists and added a dash of home grown inventiveness.

Infantry

Theoretically infantry regiments composed of ten companies each of 100 men.  The Regiments were divided into two squadrons each of which was intended to be of around 500 officers and men.  These were the building blocks of the infantry tactical combat unit the Brigade. In reality some regiments were understrength so only formed one squadron others could form the bulk of a Brigade one their own.  

Swedish Infantry was generally well trained and experienced.  Any foreign troops taken into Swedish service were trained and equipped to fight in the same formations and use the same tactics as Swedish troops.  These units were backed up by mercenaries from Germany and Scotland as well as allied troops from German protestant states.  Mercenaries were equipped and fought in the same way as the native Swedish troops, allies in their state's preferred style which was commonly Dutch until the mid 1630's.

The Swedish Brigade

The Swedes were famous for the use of the intricate 'Swedish Brigade' during the period immediately before and during the early years of their involvement in the Thirty Year's War.  Yet in reality it was only in use for a relatively short period.  The Swedish Brigade initially started life with three squadrons in an arrow head formation (1627-28) changing to four squadrons arranged in a diamond (1628-31) which reverted to three squadrons again (1631-34).  Finally the three squadron brigade's formation was simplified, probably sometime prior to Nordlingen, with each squadron consisting of a central block of pikes flanked by two sleeves of musketeers, but still in the arrowhead formation.  After Nordlingen the Swedes abandoned the brigade as a combat formation and moved to the German style of tactics (as used in the later stages of the first BCW).

The key to understanding the Swedish Brigade is to realise that the illustrations commonly found in modern books and in Cruso's period manual are only the initial formation.  The brigade was not a static entity and changed when fighting to create different brigade combat formations determined by the situation.   According to a recent response on TMP by Daniel S, (who I am told is Daniel Staberg) and whose views I place a lot of value upon, there were possibly six basic formations available.  I have found details on a couple as shown below.   In the following P is a pike block and S a shot block, the number shows which squadron they are drawn from.  In each case the top of the image would be facing the enemy.

Each Squadron was theoretically made up of 216 pikemen in 36 files by 6 ranks and 288 musketeers in 48 files by 6 ranks.  However, when compared to a three squadron brigade (from Cruso) the average number of musketeers for each squadron is less than this at 208 men, so each squadron has lost 16 musketeers 48 men in total who probably were sent to provide fire support to the horse.  Given the obsession with having complete files of six that means 8 files are detached but those can't have been taken equally from each of the three squadrons as clearly dividing 8 files by three squadrons doesn't give a round number of files.  So in theory a Swedish squadron had a pike to shot ratio of 1:1.333 so for our purposes close enough to use either 1:1 or 1:1.5 depending on how you want to round the numbers.

3. The ideal three squadron initial deployment

The reserve shot block was used to fill gaps in the other musket blocks.  Some of each brigade's shot would also be detached to support the cavalry wings.

4. The ideal four squadron initial deployment

 

5. Late three squadron initial brigade formation circa 1634

Next we have to consider what the actual fighting formations were and when they were used.

6. Three squadron brigade pike forward.

The pikes forward formation may have been used as both melee (attacking) and defensive formation.  Daniel S says that he is aware of a brigade attacking in this formation at Lutzen.  Andre Schurger says it was a defensive formation but that there is no evidence for it's use.  So I'm going to say its a formation for use when the brigade's flanks are secure and hand to hand combat is immanent particularly against horse.  Whether the shot then joined in the fighting would probably depend on circumstances.

7. Three squadron brigade in an attack posture shot forward

I see the shot forward variant as a more general purpose attack formation, perhaps where the flanks of the brigade are less secure or where weight of firepower is considered more important.  I would expect that after a couple of volleys the pike would move forward through the shot to engage at point of pike.

These are the only formations I have seen images of (Plus a mention of a brigade throwing it's shot forward by 15 paces to form a line ahead of the pike) but I could see how a number of variations could be deployed to meet different eventualities.

So if you have managed to get your head around all of the above, guess what you can pretty much forget all of it!  That's because the next issue is that the brigade formations in the manuals are ideal versions and the actual formation strengths and pike to shot ratios could and did vary a good deal from the ideal versions.

According to Andre Schurger's thesis (see below) the infantry brigades at Lutzen had wide variations in pike to shot ratios with some having no pike at all!

8. Swedish Infantry formations and manpower at Lutzen (1632) after Schurger (2015)

The above list shows the Infantry present at the battle of Lutzen (1632) and derives from two contemporary documents.  It details the units which made up each brigade, the number of companies in those units and the number of musketeers, pikemen and officers in each.   How the split between pike and musket was determined I can't tell.  I noted that dividing the number of officers by the number of companies gives a total of 12 officers per company in every case which seems perhaps a little too neat.  Although only showing a snapshot for one battle it shows how wide the variation from the theoretical organisational plan was in reality.  Very few units have an average company size close to the paper establishment of 100 officers and men , which is to be expected after some hard campaigning. 

Schurger's illustrations in his thesis clearly show each brigade to scale and with numbers of troops as detailed above.  It is clear that for the purposes of his work he does not consider any kind of rebalancing of pike and shot or unit sizes had occurred prior to the army going into action.  All formations are deployed in Swedish three squadron brigade style even those with German allied squadrons included.  This is as shown in Peter Snayer's painting of the battle.

Please note a great deal of the information in this post was drawn from the background sections in the following work:

The archaeology of the Battle of Lützen: an examination of 17th century military material culture. PhD thesis Schürger, André (2015) University of Glasgow

This post has become a bit lengthier than I expected so I'm going to split it into two parts as I did the one on the Spanish.  Next up will be a look at the cavalry, artillery and army deployments as well as how to put it all together to create a wargames army with a distinctly Swedish feel to it.

it's all gone a bit quiet!

I'm currently writing a post about the Swedish Army as part of the series on early 17th century armies.  It's taken me down a couple of new rabbit holes and is proving to be as complicated to write as the Spanish article was!  I have quickly realised that what I knew about Swedish Formations and tactics was only the very small tip of a very large iceberg!  While these are very interesting rabbit holes they have forced me to totally rework what I had written to date so as to add the new information and have things hang together in a way which I am happy with.

So while you are waiting here is a link to an excellent PhD thesis on the battlefield archaeology of the battlefield of Lutzen which I stumbled across,  It includes really useful information on how the Swedish army developed  during Gustavus Adolphus' reign, how it was deployed and how it fought at Lutzen.   It discusses the value of the various sources of information and references a number of useful looking information on the Swedish army in the TYW.   Enjoy.

core.ac.uk/download/pdf/293048746.pdf

The next post on 17th Century armies should be along shortly.

Early 17th century cavalry

 As I have been doing my reading on European armies of the period 1618 - 1660 I have become aware that my thinking on cavalry is coloured by three things!  Firstly I'm a child of the old WRG ancients rule sets that partly defined troops by the amount of armour they wore.  Secondly that my main interest in 17th century wargaming is the British Civil Wars where cavalry was almost entirely of the one type and are all lumped together in the catch all definition of 'Horse'.  Lastly that as a British Civil War re-enactor I only see one type of cavalry used in one tactical style.  That leads me to consider that the standard cavalry unit consists of troopers in back, breast, pot and buff coat charging into contact with swords.  All right that's a bit of an exaggeration I suppose.  I knew about three Hazlerigg's Lobsters and similar types and the use of pistols shooting from range, but at some level I still have the light, medium, heavy cavalry WRG mind set.

Lets be honest here, this is not helpful when looking at European cavalry in the period up to and during the BCW in a wider European context.  I have just spent time looking at period descriptions of Cavalry and it's becoming clear that even the 17th century writers didn't always agree on how to classify cavalry types.  

One term I have come across is 'Battle Cavalry', these are cavalry whose role is to charge into contact with the intention of breaking the enemy formation.  It doesn't seem to consider the speed of the charge though. Everything else seems to be considered as 'Light' cavalry such as those intended to provide fire support to these charging types.  Oh but wait where does that leave WRG style light cavalry?

Another way of defining cavalry is  as Cuirassier or Harquebusier.  This is similar to the battle cavalry definition.  Cuirassiers charge home while Harquebusiers don't.  This seems to be a common definition in Imperial armies.  What it isn't doing is defining the amount of armour worn as later in the Thirty Years War some cuirassier regiments only wore back, breast and pot, while early in the war some Harquebusier units wore quite extensive armour.  Plus it still doesn't cover Hussars and Cossacks.

The Battle of the White Mountain 1620 (via Wikipedia)
 created by Matthaus Merian in 1635

A much better view of the above can be had on the Wikipedia page about the battle, as it can be increased in size quite nicely.   Looking at that engraving gives us another way of defining cavalry.  The engraving gives titles to the various bodies of cavalry.  On the Imperial side we have 

• Cossacken (I assume these are Cossacks as account's speak of Polish Cossacks),
• Various units of Reutez (Reiters)
• Croaten and Ungaren (Hussars? Possibly skirmishing cavalry)

While on the Bohemian Protestant side most bodies of cavalry are not given titles but a single large body are noted as Reutez.

Non of which says anything about the amount of armour worn or tactical preferences although it can be inferred that Reitez are pistol armed Cuirassier types.  Notice the conspicuous lack of support types like Harquebusiers though.  They were almost certainly present just not noted on the engraving.

In my home brew rules the default cavalry type is 'Horse' with back, breast and pot over a buff coat, armed with pistols and a sword.  Whether they fight cuirassier or harquebusier style depends on the tactical style chosen from:

• Shock - go straight for melee contact
• Mixed Shock - preference for melee but can shoot
• Mixed Firepower - preference for shooting but can melee, or
• Firepower - Shooting at range is the standard, will only melee in exceptional circumstances.

There is an armoured bonus in combat for troops with better armour than the default and a minus for poorly equipped horse who lack armour.  An optional rule looks at weapon reach in combat giving a first melee round bonus if you outreach the enemy..  Weapons reach goes from Pistol in melee, pike, lance, polearm, sidearms.

This is what I had in mind as 'standard' Horse.  (Photo of SK horse by Angus Kirk)

Using that I can define cavalry as follows:

Cuirassier Lancers - Horse, Armoured, Shock Tactics, Lance reach bonus.

Reiters/Ritters - Horse, Armoured, Mixed shock or Mixed Firepower Tactics, Pistol reach bonus.

Late TYW Reiters/Ritters - Horse, Mixed shock or Mixed Firepower Tactics, Pistol reach bonus.  Some nations may have still used some in three quarter armour until the end of the war. 

Croats, Hussars, Cossacks etc - Horse, Poorly equipped, Skirmish or Firepower Tactics, Pistol Reach bonus (may have lance if historically correct).

Early TYW Harquebusiers - Horse, Armoured, Mixed Firepower Tactics, Pistol reach bonus.

Mid and Late TYW Harquebusiers - Horse, Mixed Firepower or Mixed Shock Tactics, Pistol reach bonus.  This includes most BCW English cavalry.  Note how Harquebusiers and Reiters are now pretty much identical.

Swedish Hakkapeliitta's - Horse, Poorly equipped, Shock or Mixed shock, Pistol Reach Bonus.  I'd tend to class these as elite to reflect the reputation they had.

BCW late war Royalist Horse -Horse, Poorly equipped, Shock or Mixed shock side arm weapon reach.  (e.g, The Northern Horse and second rank regional cavalry units).

Covenanter Lancers - Horse, Shock or Mixed shock, Lance Reach Bonus.

Covenanter Horse - Horse, Mixed Firepower or Mixed Shock Tactics, Pistol reach bonus.

Other factors to take into account are whether to treat the unit as either elite or unwilling and whether they are equipped with Arquebus/carbines and can fire those while mounted.

EDIT

When I first drafted this article I forgot to say that the individual posts on each army will state the formations and weapons used.  That adds most of the period flavour required to fully individualise each cavalry type.

 

Getting back into the swing of things (sort of).

I haven't been doing much which is modelling or wargaming related since Christmas, or before it to be honest.   I normally set up my gaming table in our conservatory which isn't the warmest space in the house and without any games in prospect my modelling and painting has slipped back a long way.  What I have been doing is reading around the development of the Swedish Army for the next part of the 17th Century armies sequence of posts and doing an awful lot of online role playing through the medium of Everquest.

If you are not interested in computer games then the name Everquest will mean nothing to you.  Everquest is old now, the game will celebrate its 25th anniversary in 2024 and by now it's played by die hard fans (like me), people who stumble on to it by accident and old players who return for a short term nostalgia fix.  Graphically it's been improved over the original 1999 release, although not by a huge amount as there is a limit to what can be added to the bones of 24 year old programming.  Instead the game has expanding the original playable area of the game through 30 expansions. 

As you can see the early graphics were a bit, well blocky

What keeps me coming back though is the game play. The game is essentially a sword and sorcery role player in the Dungeon and Dragons mould. Players take on the role of a persona within the world of Norrath divided into melee or spell caster types with a few character types who can do a bit of both. I play as one of the later as I like the flexibility of that persona; a Wood Elf Ranger. In football terms (that's Soccer to my American readers) a Ranger is a utility player capable of doing a number of different things as need requires. The core of the game was always the interaction between a group of players each of whom brings a different set of abilities to the party. Sadly after two and a bit decades that ability to find a group of players within the game has lessened as player numbers reduced. Many players now have multiple game accounts and, for want of a better phrase, tend to play with themselves rather than interact with others. So it has been a nice change to find that when the 2023 expansion arrived just before Christmas it was one where some of my guild mates (bear with me I will explain guilds in a moment) wanted to form online groups to play. Four or five real people sat in several countries interacting to solve tactical problems and puzzles in our cosy little fictional world with all the associated banter that goes with it. Hence I have been slacking on the blogging front, but not on the Rangering.

Guilds? These are an online group of players who have created an in game association larger than just a playing group. The guild can provide facilities and support greater than individual players as the game software provides things where equipment, spells and loot can be shared and distributed amongst guild members.

Yes I know it's all a bit geeky, but I like geeky.  If you like geeky too and a game which is a bit old school Everquest can be played as a free to play game with only minor limitations to what you can do in game. You can find me on the Antonius Bayle server which caters for European time zone players.

With all of the above out of the way I have actually been doing some tabletop gaming related stuff this month, mainly texturing bases of completed figures but its a start.

It's that time of year again.

Time to reflect on another year gone past as we commence another orbit around our star. 2023 been a funny old year and not what I expected this time last year.  I don't think I have achieved any of the wargaming objectives I set myself, mostly due to the dreaded “circumstances beyond my control”.   In fact I haven’t done most of things I was expecting to do this year let alone the wargaming stuff.  So surely  2024 has to be an improvement on 2023.  I'm hoping for more wargame shows attended, more games to be played and hopefully more figures painted, oh and more blog projects completed.

The last 12 months have been a learning experience in life style management.  Clearly I can't just chuck any old rubbish down my throat after my unscheduled cardiac event, no matter how tasty it is.  So 2024 has to be a year of sensible food and drink choices (yeah right).  OK well fairly sensible then.  I suspect my days of carrying a musket in the service of Parliament are behind me too.  I will have to try to avoid becoming one of those boring old farts who sits in the corner of the beer tent lamenting how modern re-enactment isn't a patch on what it was.  I will probably do more commentary work, if they will have me, along with crowd line work.  I fancy the persona of a religious and political radical a Leveller, Digger or a Ranter perhaps.

So less of this unfortunately! (photo by Rusty Aldwinkle)

The key thing though, and this is the really important thing, is that I’m still here to muse wistfully about that state of affairs as are all of my friends and family who started the year with me.  One thing is for sure this getting old lark isn't for wimps!