The first pair of armies are not the greatest fighting forces ever, but they do have some interesting points. Two different tactical doctrines were used by the opponents Swedish vs Dutch. Prince Rupert forcing his Uncles army to fight using tactics they didn't really have the training in while Essex stuck with the tried and tested Dutch system.
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| De Gomme's plan of the Royalist deployment. Parliament's forces are off the top of the plan (source Royal Collection Trust website) |
The Royalist deployment is interesting as it used the four squadron brigade structure (if De Gomme's plan is accurate and there is no reason to think it isn't) which had been tried and abandoned by the Swedes a decade earlier. This placed one squadron in each brigade to the rear as a reserve of sorts and required some complex drill to bring it forward into action. As a result up to a quarter of each brigade's manpower may not have been available in the initial attack unless the brigades had time to 'shake their lines out' which in my view wasn't likely. I take that view due to the Swedes abandoning the four squadron brigade in favour of one with three brigades, which would have been easier to deploy for action and the fact that De Gomme's plan shows just enough space between the front three Brigades to allow the rear two to advance into the line of battle.
By comparison while he is often considered cautious and conservative in outlook, Essex played to the strengths of his untried army and the experience of his officers. His brigades deployed in chequerboard formations with gaps in the front line to allow the second line to advance.
The Royalist cavalry were deployed three ranks deep and supported by dragoons for added firepower. Both wings had a small reserve brigade behind the front line. This was not a chequerboard formed by individual troops of cavalry but by the larger squadron or regimental formations.
By comparison Parliament's horse where in deeper eight rank formations intended to allow the use of rolling firepower. Individual squadrons were deployed chequerboard here as well although Ramsey may have abandoned that deployment on his wing and brought the second line up to join the first to minimise the advantage of the longer frontage enjoyed by the Royalist horse. Like the Royalists they were supported by shot both dragoons and detachments of shot.
It seems that Parliament's forces were better equipped with a higher proportion of musket to pike than the Royalists in the infantry brigades. I have worked on the basis of Parliament being 2:1 ratio and Royalists being 1:1. The exception to that is Ballard's Brigade where both Holles' and Ballard's Regiments have detached significant numbers of shot to support the cavalry on their flank these I have reduced the headcount of the main brigade by the number of musketeers deployed as commanded shot and reduced them to a 2:3 ratio. I have placed a battery of artillery with each army but have not allocated any light guns either to brigades or as stand alone guns, so that is a decision for you to take if you play the game.
The order of battle is drawn from the excellent book Edghill: The Battle Re-Interpreted by Scott, Turton and von Arni. My version has more information on unit strengths. pike to shot ratios and number of ranks in each formation but I have had to remove this to make the list fit into the blogger format!
The battlefield
I used the maps in the Edgehill book to create a simplified version of the battlefield. I’m ignoring the slope of Edgehill itself by starting the action after the Royalists have descended to it’s base. I have included some hills on Essex’s side of the field and some field boundaries where these had an impact on the fighting. All of those features are rough ground.
Welcome to the Battle of Edgehill October 23 1642.
Looking forward to seeing this on the table.
ReplyDeleteHow do you use the frontage between 5 Royal Brigade sand 3 Parl? Are the 3 Parl. double units?
ReplyDeleteHi takeda33
DeleteYou raise a very good point, the simple answer is I don't in these rules. A Swedish four squadron brigade deployed on a frontage of roughly 200 - 300 yards which matches the calculations for Royalist brigade frontages. The Parliamentarian brigades were all of around 2,750 men each with battalia deployed in a chequer board formation. It is possible that some brigades had regiments forming two rather than one battalia (Chomley's and the Lord General's). Deployed in six ranks 2,750 men would require an absolute minimum frontage of 450 - 500 yards and my source suggests with intervals brigades required between 575 to 600 yards. So your suggestion of double width Parliament brigades does make sense.
All that said I ignored it for two reasons, firstly it would make the Royalist brigades over powerful in combat as they would stack two brigades up against one. That would give them an average 6 shooting and 10 melee dice against Parliaments 4 and 6 which I suspect would allow them to roll over parliament's brigades in quick time compared to reality.
Secondly, I wanted this to be a fairly simple 'beer and pretzels' level game. so having all units on the same sized bases helps with that. Under the rules it is hard to move around a brigade's flanks but not impossible which goes some way to model a wider frontage than covered by the unit's base footprint.
All that said I expect a number of issues to come up when I play out Edgehill and the rules are not set in stone (yet). For a more detailed reproduction of the unit footprints I would use my other home brew set 'Stand with me to fight the field'. I created the fast play set for people who found my first set too detailed.