Finally - A battle report from Skovkapellet

Surprise at Dawn and The Fate of Ewald Kopp

The lately acquired literary sources have helped immensely.

The fate of the crew of the Rubenstein Kreuzenfeldt, not less the kingdoms of Teutonia and Strandia have hung in the balance for no less than ten years............. something had to be done.....

It is 5.30am on the 25th April last.......

The map translated to the tabletop. North is to right.

The crew wait in the bowels of Skovkapellet until first light then they creep upstairs and through the secret door into the church from where they take up positions to greet their rescuers. The secret agent contingent under Arminius Quint slip away through the woods, not wishing to get caught up in a swords and gunpowder type operation - sly winks, impersonation and lashings of gin are more to their taste.

Crewmen emerge into the chapel from the secret door behind the altar.

Arminius Quint bids adieu to Captain Hardie as the crew set up their gun to guard the steps.

 The ship's crew and and a 6 pdr full of nails ensures nobody will dare climb the steps to the chapel! 

The first rescuers to arrive on the table are the Equestrian Squadrons of the Teutanian Young Gentlemen's League for Politeness. (henceforward 'The Equestrians'). They trotted as quietly as possible toward the Skovkapel from the east, having spent the previous day scaring small girls on ponies and drinking the tea tent dry at the beach gymkhana they had entered as cover for their trip to Strandia.

Thelwellian adventures of the TYGLP(Equestian)

Amazingly, the dice were with the Equestrians and they obtained the Skovkapel without hindrance and before any Strandian was awake.

'Good Morning, Captain Hardie I presume'  :  'Ave yer got any grog in yer saddlebags laddie?'

The next Teutanians to arrive were the TYGLP Senior Battalion who had spent the previous day sight-seeing in Guldborg. Despite the dogged inspection of every tavern in the town they marched overnight to quietly march in their stocking feet past the camp of the Fish who were still snoring and a few servants preparing the morning porage did not even deign to look up from their task.

Salt or sugar was always a dilemma for Tobias Shunt as he boiled the porage. If he got it wrong there would be hell to pay from the sentinels of The Fish.                                                                                                                                And what did he care if several hundred idiots without shoes wandered past in the dawn?

The Seniors battalion was well past the camp before the Fish were roused and stumbled out to grab their muskets, porage and shoes, not necessarily in that order.

One sentinel had the good sense, or accidental misfortune, to fire an alarm shot, or wild discharge from a musket irresponsibly left loaded as the Sergeant Major would later have it ... This alerted the Strandians further afield and they began to assemble.

Warning or mishap? In any case it woke everyone up..

The Juniors battalion now arrived by the East Road and still the Strandians over by the Master of the Keys House and the Woodcutter's cottage had not stirred. Evidently a keg or two of Mutti's Rum had been sneaked over to them during the previous evening's revels.

At the Skovkapel all pleasantries and hasty slurks of grog aside, the sailors mounted up behind the horsemen and they started off for the Southern Way and,eventually, Teutania.

The Strandian cavalry and infantry had by this time roused themselves and marched over to the Skovkapel too late to do anything.

The deserted chapel, TYGLP hastening away and the Strandian guards hurrying slowly towards (avoiding?) participating in a pitched battle

The Thalassian prime mover, Baron Thelonius Thwacke was foremost with the Senior battalion of the TYGLP and he decided with the Junior Lieutenant Colonel, Franz Pottenthaler, that they should beat a retreat and avoid further confrontation, the job had been done.

Pottentahaler agrees with Thwacke(left) that the job is done.

The Fish, however, needed to salvage some morsel of credibility. Didriksen hastily got them into a firing line and as the Teutanian colmns disappeared from view, sent an overoptimistic volley after them.

The gods and the dice were willing to grant him a smidgin of luck and a hit was scored on the rearmost company of the Junior battalion. The Teutanian foot strode out even faster to disappear in the woodland mists denying any further combat. 

A single measly hit was all Didriksen and the Fish could put against a completely successful Teutanian mission to rescure the falsely imprisoned crew of the Rubenstein Kreuzenfeldt.

Tragically, the hurrying troops left behind a bundle of cloth and limbs in the dew-soaked grass. The sixteen year old new recruit with a club foot, only son of a widowed washerwoman. Ewald Kopp had been struck in the back of the head and sank silently to the ground as his comrades strode blindly on. 

Oh leide! Poor Frau Kopp..

When the Fish discovered their sole victim he appeared so pathetic that Didriksen ordered him immediately buried at the foot of the Skovkapel rock. The disappointed Fish extended to their unlucky opponent the honour of a simple wooden cross which their colonel did not deny. Oh, on how many days in the future Strandians would rue this decision....

Last resting place of Sentinel Ewald Kopp. Late of the Junior Battalion of the TYGLP.

The rescue of the sailors from the Reubenstein Kreuzfeldt was a total success. Hardie and his men would be greeted as heroes in the streets of Allenstein and the TYGLP avoided proscription and even gained recruits. The Thalassians had won this round.

In Strandia, it was put out that the piratical Teutanians had been whipped, fined and delivered back to their masters riding backwards on donkeys. General Mollberg ordered a heavy hand to be henceforth  exerted against all Teutanian presence in Kurusaare.

Grabson Spotte and Lieutenant Colonel Dideriksen watch the Teutanians disappearing towards the horizon  from the terrace of the Skovkapel and deliberate over the version of events that General Mollberg should come to know about their brave defence against overwhelming odds.

Progress!

 Despite life intervening with tragedy and challenges. Despite moving house and rebuilding yet another old house. Despite age setting in and worldly distractions multiplying. Despite lethargy, sloth and the temptations of a myriad other projects. Despite all these odds I have begun again with the Cold Sea.

SOURCES

A source of  new information and new impetus has been the fortunate discovery of new material pertaining to the martial history of the nations around the Cold Sea.

The first was the result of browsing an antiquarian bookshop. A massive tome caught my eye and it proved to be a battered copy of the rare official history of the wars printed by the Arborians. The events being so distant in time and place from the modern and more southerly city where I found it, the proprietor let me have it for a song. 

The second fount of inspiration I discovered amongst the effects of an old uncle who unfortunately recently expired at the age of 103. In his younger days he had also become fascinated with the wars of olden times and a dusty shelf of books included a key find.

 Despite the spine being so damaged it was not at first apparent what I had hold of, a quick glance at the title page showed me I had inherited a copy of Aage Lynsverd's memoir of the Great Borelian War!

Newly armed and reanimated I have embarked on the retelling of Arboria's great project to civilise the wilder bounds of the Cold Sea and the turmoil it let loose on the northern lands!

Next episode will be the tale of the spark which ignited the blaze!

RE. Pontoons, again

 I forgot to include a little explanation of my choice of size for the pontoon models.

I ended with card models 10cm long. These looked ok on the waggons and two filled my 'rivers' nicely. 

To further justify this choice I should also show this photo also.

No paddle, nor a creek, luckily.

I made a model in the same scale as the figures - 40mm, or about 1/36.

Then  made a model at the ground scale of 1mm to the metre/pace/yard.

The 'true scale model was obviously to tiny and the figure-scale boat would be ok for a diorama but a bridge or waggon train using them would have blotted out my wargame table.

Hence the 'practical' choice of a 10cm pontoon. Big enough to look realistic, small enough to be used on the table.

The waggon started with a pair of horses but also got 'rationalised' down to a single one. 

Workshop : pontoon waggon and pontoon.

WAR WAGGONS

The sinews of war in the age of musket, pike and sword ran on wheels. The wheels of supply waggons which had to roll or everything else would have stopped. Powder, shot, charcoal, flour mills, provisions, fodder, shoes etc. all trundled behind the army to keep it fighting.
waggon and supplies.

                                              Just a few of the waggons accompanying an army

                                                                    (after Goransson)

In the Swedish army the commissariat waggons were known as 'rust waggons' - rust derived from the German for 'equipment/tools' - the Danish army knew such support waggons as 'corpse waggons'.

                                                       Not a jolly load (Russia, Great War)

The greatest of Marlborough's victories, Blenheim, relied on his army marching up the Rhine and over to the Danube in order to knock Bavaria out of the war and save Vienna. This distance was 250 miles or so and had to be covered speedily. Therefore Marlborough made supply depots in advance of his campaign and kept a veil of secrecy over the whole operation so that the French were caught off guard and could not stop him before he arrived at the Danube.

                                                          The March to the Danube

                                                     from WARhistoryONLINE.com

The march could not have been accomplished with the usual enormous supply train and commissariat following on the heels of the army so minimal supplies were taken along and troops were resupplied en route.


"As we marched through the country of our Allies, commissars were appointed to furnish us with all manner of necessaries for man and horse ... the soldiers had nothing to do but pitch their tents, boil kettles and lie down to rest. Surely never was such a march carried on with more order or regularity , or with less fatigue to man and horse"
wrote Captain Parker of the Royal Irish Regiment.

                                                  Idyllic army camp life ..when all is well

All the 'necessaries' had to be emplaced by waggons and achieving this on the horrendous roads of the time was an enormous achievement. Roads were really only 'ways' or commonly used routes, with no paving and little formal maintenance.

                                  The Great North 'Road' circa 1700 - more like a ploughed field

     

                       'I really don't know how we would manage without the four wheel drive, dear.'


An army used its pioneers, engineers, labourers and contract workmen to better any seriously problematic stretches.

                                          Join the army they said, see the world they said,,,

Daniel Defoe recounts a trip from Rochdale to Halifax in 1725..


..the mark or face of a road on the side of the hill ... but it was so narrow, and so deep a hollow place on the right, whence the water descending from the hills made a channel at the bottom, and looked as the beginning of a river, that the depth of the precipice and the narrowness of the way look'd horrible to us..


..We thought now we were come into a Christian country again, and that our difficulties were over; but we soon found ourselves mistaken in the matter; for we had not gone fifty yards beyond the brook and houses adjacent, but we found the way began to ascend again, and soon after to go up very steep, till in about half a mile we found we had another mountain to ascend, in our apprehension as bad as the first, and before we came to the top of it, we found it began to snow too, as it had done before.


(The horror..the horror..definitely work for pioneers and engineers !)


Another key factor was to use gigs and tumbrils - two-wheeled carts

                                            Britain's selection of carts - not much different in 1700

Tumbrils / tumbrels have had a bad press due to the Frog Revulsion. They were typically also used for cartage of 'fertiliser' at muck-spreading time, making their use for carting aristo's even more piquante for the mad knitters.

                                       'Honestly, my dear I am not scared,' tis the tumbril that reeks.'
                                         (Mr Dickens has not sued, yet, and Mr Carton cannot. Ed.)


Rather than large four-wheeled waggons like pantechnicons, wains, dreys etc.

                                                   Eightenth century, Long AND wide load.

In addition, horses were hitched in tandem to make a slimmer vehicle- Waggons with several pairs of heavy horse could be of monstrous size and weight,

Not one for the narrow ways..

easily stuck in mud or bad going,

Whilst a large-wheeled cart with two horses in tandem could get by obstacles and traffic in bad weather much more easily.

                                               'Daisy and Daisy, give me your answer, do..'


I had to make some supply waggons, so sought the simplest variety. The footprint should be small because the scale is 40mm. Therefore a one-horse, two-wheel waggon is the solution. As per the Blenheim tapestry of the Battle of Wynendæl.

 

Less one horse, just right.

The carts on the Wyndendæl tapestry at Blenheim are 'just right' for their purpose. Large wheels conquer the ruts and stones more easily than small. The waggon is as light as possible whilst stil keeping the load secure. The load is preserved fom sun and rain by a tarpaulin The carter walks or rides on a horse side-saddle if he needs. The horses are in tandem so the whole vehicle is not filling the way.


Here was my prototype.


The wheels were a problem - had to find them on ebay - 40-50mm was ok. Laser cut ornamenetal thingies did the job.


Carters could be converted from Seven Years War figures.


Why does everyone want to get me? :(

The waggon bodies are made from scrap wood and coffee stirrers. Base size is 45mm by 100mm.



So fill them with' unspecified supplies' hiding under tarpaulins and off we go !






Army waggons may have been painted in regulation colours and have tarpaulins with specific patterns or markings.





My waggons should do for any army so I have made a random group, probably of civilian contractors' vehicles. Wonder how they will do if they get close to the firing line?



The sinews of war.

SCALES AND ORGANISATION - THE HYDRA : HEAD ONE

How to organise figures into units on the table that represent their real counterparts in a believable and -more or less - accurate manner? This is a nutty problem.

How to represent a representation of a hypthetical model?

Up to now I had used bases 60mm wide with 4 foot or 3 horse, a fairly common representation used for 25 or 28mm scales. 

photo - wargameinnovations.co.uk

There has also been a tendency to mount figures in 'groups' or 'blocks' to form arbitrary elements which avoid committment to specific scales. 

photo from wargamemiscellany@blogspot

I wanted to use some accurate representation but ended with an arbitrary grouping of 4 foot or 3 horse to stand for a 'company'. Two companies of musketeers and one of pikemen plus a command element gave me a battalion. Three companies of horse with a command element also gave me a squadron.

In this way a battalion can stand in line or column or square. A squadron in line or column.

..or line..

There were several causes of dissatisfaction with this scheme.

1) The battalion appears as a pike block with sleeves of shot rather than a pike-reinforced musket line. 

2) The pike base has no shot and the musketeer bases have no pikes.

3) The horse are rather dense, with a relatively short frontage.

4) If I wanted to incorporate shallow formations of shot there was little scope.

So, with nails bitten back, eyes red with poring over books and my remaining hair writhed out by frustrated fingers, I resolved to do something, anything to solve and remove  this unbudging  persistant irk.

..only, with clothes on.