Happy New Year

I have Ralphus over at The Wars of Louis XIV to thank for this. It’s a delightful thing to listen to. I hope you are able to listen to it where you are in the world. Brigadier Peter Young on Desert Island Discs in 1977.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p009mt3m?partner=uk.co.bbc&origin=share-mobile

For non-UK readers, Desert Island Discs is a very long-running BBC radio programme in which famous people are asked to imagine themselves stranded on a deserted island, in the manner of Robinson Crusoe, and pick 8 records from the shipwreck that they would save. It’s assumed the castaway would also be able to save a gramophone player. They also get to choose a luxury and a book. In the course of the selections, the celebrity reveals something of themselves.

The Brigadier shows his playful side in this programme. I’m picturing him, rosy-cheeked, moustache twirling as he pops his head up through the famous hatch in the Wargames table.

WAS Italian Campaign Ideas

A couple of fairly inactive days have given me some time to come up with a map and some variations to the rules I used for the general War of the Austrian Succession campaign last year. The map took most of the time as there was quite a lot of trial and error superimposing a map of Italy onto a hex grid that has the same number of hexes as my cloth for a 4 foot x 8 foot table.

Anyone who knows anything about the map of Italy, will have immediately spotted the fallacy in my statement that Italy, being long and thin, was better suited to my table than the map of Europe. Ignoring the toe and heel, Italy is more of a T-shape with a sloping stem. Especially as for this campaign I wanted to include Nice (then part of Piedmont) and Toulon (a key strategic node in any Western Mediterranean campaign). As I wanted to focus more on the northern provinces, I chopped of the foot and completely ignored Sardinia and Sicily. Also, I honed in more on the north western sector, as this contained key battlegrounds for Piedmont. Here is the resulting mess (I drew it in Preview so the coast is a bit wonky). Given I've straightened up the stem of the country, North is actually more in a NNE direction. As the overall map is quite congested, I chose not to represent rivers other than the Po. Others are theoretically 'factored in' (i.e. ignored!).

The grey pentagons represent mountain hexes. Hexes are something like 25 miles across. The 2 mountain hexes in the sea represent Corsica (a Genoese possession at the time).

POST SCRIPT

They say you should always sleep on things. Having re-examined a satellite map, I will move Turin higher up (and remove that mountain symbol) giving a plane below the city. This might become another city hex. Cuneo or Alessandria. This creates an extra objective as well as a better representation of the physical geography.

Quite a lot of changes were necessary to the rules. First, a turn was reduced from 1 month to 1 week. Ground scale is also increased. Obviously the factions are different to the last campaign. Out go Prussia, the Pragmatic Army, Saxony and Bavaria. In come Naples and Genoa. The list of cities that must be held by each faction obviously also differs. This last element took quite a lot of thought, and probably could still be improved. I haven't tested if this is balanced. Rules for crossing mountains were tweaked. In the old rules the Alps were impassable. In these, all mountains can be crossed, but with the size of forces in each hex severely limited to represent them having to be strung out. At this time, the movement of armies along the Ligurian coast was extremely difficult with mountains close to the sea and only small tracks to follow, plus the risk of being bombarded by the Royal Navy whilst doing so.

The biggest difference comes with the addition of naval rules. This is the danger of making up rules - you start with one thing, then they can just grow and grow. I might end up ditching them completely (and cutting out Britain to simplify things. My rationale for including Britain, was that the RN really did offer another dimension to this theatre. It stopped the easy transportation of Bourbon armies and supplies across the sea, levelling the playing field somewhat for Austria and Piedmont. And it allowed for the Austrians to transport troops by sea occasionally. It will make the Neapolitan 'player' think hard before sending large forces up north, and makes the French cautious about the Riviera. In terms of size of naval forces, Britain will have 3 'flotillas' and Spain and France will have 1 each. The idea is to make it possible for the Gallispans to win control of the sea, but make it very, very difficult.

My next task is to find some suitable models to represent the naval forces, and a way to temporarily turn the relevant part of my green baize into a marine hue.

A baptism of fire: options

Hoping you've all been having a grand old time, and you and your loved ones are not all ready to brain each other. Over here, I always thought that the institution of the Boxing Day match fulfils a valuable social function in that regard. Anyway, enough of the small talk. I've been thinking about how to 'Christen' my new armies. Two main options occur:

(1)    A straightforward 're-fight';

(2)    Run a new mini-campaign along the same sort of lines I did last year, but limited to Italy.

Being a methodical sort, I drew up a table of battles in Italy in the 1740s (see below). 1744 looks very busy. I don't know if I missed any. This is a relatively new theatre to me. I just relied on Wiki*, and the appendix to The Art of War in the Age of Marlborough, which ends in 1745.  But I quite fancy doing the campaign. I could dust off the old rules, tweak them a bit to reflect the constrained geography. And Italy lends itself better to a long thin table.

Battle	Year	Date	Bourbon contestants	Bourbon number	Habsburg-Savoy contestants	Habsburg-Savoy number
Campo Santo	1743	8 Feb	Spain, Naples	11,400 infantry, 2,600 cavalry, 12 guns	Austria	9,000 infantry, 3,000 cavalry, 25 guns
Casteldelfino	1744	18 Jul	France	5,000	Piedmont	2,000
Velletri I	1744	17 Jun	Spain	5,000	Austria	1,000
Bellino	1744	17-19 Jul	France, Spain	24,000	Piedmont	6,000
Velletri II	1744	11 Aug	Spain, Naples	24,000	Austria	16,000
Villafranca	1744	14-27 Apr	France, Spain	30,000	Piedmont, Britain	8,000
Casteldelfino	1744	18 Jul	France	5,000	Piedmont	2,000
Madonna Dell’Olmo	1744	30 Sep	France, Spain	33,700	Piedmont, Austria	28-36,000
Bassignana	1745	27 Sep	France, Spain, Genoa	70,000	Piedmont, Austria	55,000
Piacenza	1746	16 Jun	Spain, France	25,000 Sp, 15,000 Fr	Austria	45,000
Rottofreddo	1746	10 Aug	France, Spain	25,000	Austria	30,000
Assietta	1747	19 Jul	France	25,000	Piedmont	15,000

Apologies for the formatting of this table. I had everything neatly aligned in the document I created it in, but Blogger seems to be throwing a spanner in the works.

I might have to invent some rules to reflect events outside the theatre which impinge on it. E.G. Frederick's invasion of Bohemia in 1744, kicking off the Second Silesian War, might cause the Austrians to pull back some troops from Italy.  Something to ponder during Escape to Victory, or whichever classic film is put on the telly, if I'm not reading this:

I ordered a print on demand paperback copy from an Indian company on the Abe Books platform. It's an old tome but very interesting reading. Being a facsimile, some of the maps are a bit poor on definition, but the text is fine.

One thing that the little exercise of pulling together this table did do, is remind me that there were several factions involved. On the 'Bourbon' side was the Kingdom of Naples (aka the Kingdom of Sicily*), ruled at this time by a son of the Spanish King Philip V, so an actual Bourbon, and the Republic of Genoa. Genoa, a regional rival of Piedmont, joined the Bourbon alliance part way through the war. In addition, I think the Duchy of Modena also provided troops for the Spanish side at some point. And the Royal Navy provided 1,000 marines for the fence of Villafranca/Villefranche (a port just east of Nice).

* I must do an explanation of the names at some point. Piedmont/Sardinia/(House of)Savoy is another one.

A walk, a hero and a completed project

Actually the title is a bit of a misnomer. There are pictures from two walks below. Two walks that could easily have been done together. But still two different days.

First this example of topical topiary.

The next day the Margravina and I took a walk from Petersham (by the Thames between Richmond and Kingston) into Richmond for a spot of light lunch in French place that specialises in galettes (savoury pancakes made from buckwheat). Afterwards we walked back along the river to the car.

This chap was spotted.

Then this one! Answers on a postcard.

Petersham Meadows. It was not as late as it looks.

Back to that post title being a misnomer. I don’t know about Bernardo O’Higgins (seems 1 too many Os), but that ‘completed project’ is only completed in the narrowest sense. I still need to make those trees for the roadsides (‘garnish’ as Monsieur Broom terms them) and acquire some suitable Italian style buildings. But here we are, one small Spanish force and one, slightly smaller, Piedmontese force.

One of the Piedmontese cavalry units (2 bases) is actually a tweaked and re-purposed French unit. I only had enough figures for one but there was a spare pack of horse grenadiers in bearskins. A flick through the French cavalry pages on Kronoskaf showed me that a few regiments switched to bearskins so now I have two such units.

Hopefully I’ll find the time over the next 10 days to fit in a small game with them.

If I don’t catch you before, Merry Christmas!

Sardinian and Spanish infantry update

I've completed the 8 units of infantry that I started at the weekend. In the pipeline next are the Spanish and Sardinian grenadiers and Sardinian cavalry, and artillery for both. By my reckoning I'm about 2/3 of the way through the models I bought recently.

In my rush to get an order off, I didn't think about general staff figures. Whoops! But I was able to quickly rectify this oversight by raiding my supplies of Austrian and Prussian generals, which I had in abundance.

Below, I present the infantry of the armies of the kings of Spain and Sardinia.

Spanish infantry

The following table shows the units I based them on. Uniform information came courtesy of Kronoskaf SYW pages, so they might be wrong for the War of the Austrian Succession. They were picked because of their service in Italy during the WAS, but also the uniform regimentals.

Regiment	Coat	Breeches	Waistcoat	Turnbacks	Cuffs	Hat lace
Reina	Dark blue	Dark blue	Dark Red	Dark Red	Dark Red	Silver
Asturias	White	White	Light blue	White	Light blue	Gold
Granada	White	White	White	White	Black	Gold
Toledo	White	White	Blue	White	Blue with white stripe	Gold
Africa	White	White	Blue	White	Blue	Silver
Galicia	White	White	Red	White	Red	Gold
Burgos	White	White	White	White	Red	Gold
Lombardia	White	White	White	White	Red	Silver

Below are the following Sardinian regiments (front to back):

• Guardie & Roi (Swiss)
• Savoia & Piemonte  (both Ordinanza nazionale)
• Marina (Ord.naz.) & Reydt (Swiss)
• Aosta & Torino (Reggimenti provinciali)

During the war, the Sardinian army grew to 54 battalions, including the provincials, but excluding the militia. Battalion paper strength grew from a peacetime establishment of 600, to 800 by 1747. This lot below is meant to represent 16 battalions, which can be matched with 'proxies' to double up to 32. In addition there were 9 cavalry and dragoon regiments, but I don't know how many squadrons/men there were per regiment. With respect to the militia, when I get round to it, I'm thinking of basing them up in open order. In their home country they seem to have been used in a light infantry role, conducting petit guerre and denying resources to the enemy, though I believe some participated in the line at Madonna dell Olmo.

Unlike the Spanish (for whom I had no unit colour guides) I attempted to paint the Sardinian flags based on the unit colours. A bit messy! 

I'll aim to complete the horse, guns and grenadiers at the weekend.