Scourge of War Boards

I'm working on a new mod, it is about the marlburian period, the War of the Spanish Succession at the beginning of the XVIIIth century.

English infantry firing to the French


French infantry


Cheers

A,

Looks great! Have you given up on the Zulu mod? I was really looking forward to that one.

B

I did not give up, but there are some problems with the Zulu mod, first problem it's the balance of forces: if you have 2000 brits against 15000 zulus you are wiped out in 5 to 15 minutes, but if you put 2000 brits against 5000 zulus they can't even arrive to charge your troops. Another problem it's the rate of fire, with the Martini-Henry rifle there is a high rate of fire and the units after few minutes of battle remain without ammunitions.

Why not just reduce the rate of fire? There is a large difference between the parade ground and battlefield rates of fire.

Ottimo lavoro Alessillo, purtroppo però l'AI comunque non agirebbe in accordo alle tattiche del '700. Perchè non provare con battaglie europee contemporanee: una Solferino o una Magenta del 1859 o una Custoza del 1866 sarebbero comunque allineate alle tattiche del gioco di base con poche modifiche (il quadrato comunque era raro perchè la cavalleria caricava meno) anzi molte cose del gioco base potrebbero essere riciclate come le uniformi da zuavo o i moschetti austriaci. Forse potrebbe anche essere giocato in multi.

Great units alessillo and an interesting and colourful period. It's a welcome expansion of the SoW universe.

Would these uniforms stretch to the Williamite War of the 1690s (i.e. Boyne) or the later Jacobite war of 1715?

Good to see you modding for SoW.

B)

All,

At a stretch, these uniforms could be used for King Wiiliams War (1690). There would have to be some vestiges of pikemen though. They would serve admirably for the Jacobite War (1715), since it happened literally right after the Spanish Succession War ended (1702-1714).

Also,

Alessillo - Awesome! Great figures! As Tank and I have commented, this game engine would work really well for the "measured formalism" of 18th. Century warfare with little or no modification. Truly looking forward to this Mod.

Jack B)

Great looking troops! Lovely! Awesome!

For the Jacobite Rebellion you'd need Highlanders... almost pure melee troops. Hard to represent unless you give them an ammo supply of 1 or 2 only.

Pikes is pushing it. I don't think SoW can handle pure melee weapon-armed troops.

I personally find the Lace Wars more interesting than the Napoleonic period. Army organisation though is very different, even 'brigades' were not often in use in Marlborough's time and armies were often divided into 'columns' which were the admistrative sub-divisions used on the march and in battle the army would deploy in 'lines' or 'wings' with a general allocated on an as-needed basis to each with no permanent high level commands at all.

I suppose you could call the entire army a 'corps' in the SoW organisation and the wings would be 'dvisions' but below that there weren't really any further tactical command levels.

Marlburian medium and heavy artillery was also almost wholly immobile as it used civilian contractors to move it to the battlefield and they withdrew once it was placed. The light guns were allocated in pairs, usually, to each infantry battalion and were pushed along with it as it advanced.

This makes modding Marlborough's wars quite hard using SoW as a basis.

Infantry formed four ranks deep IIRC, and the French about six. No-one had socket bayonets and some infantry didn't have plug bayonets either. Thus melee casualty rates should be extremely slow.

What is your thinking on all this, Alessillo?

Brother Tank,

I agree with everything you've said except the Bayonet part. I have several books, (primarily Chandlers' "...Age of Marlbourgh"), which state the socket bayonet was in universal employment by European armies by the beginning of the Spanish Succession War, the French, (as usual), being the last to finally fully adopt them by 1703. The English, Dutch and most German States variously report using them in place of the (failed) ring-type bayonet between 1695 and 1700. The English loss to the Jacobites in 1689 was the push they needed to go from the "Plug" type bayonet to the socket type.

Now, having said that, you are entirely correct by saying melee combat casualties should be extremely low. A probable reason for this was the early socket bayonets had no locking mechanism, allowing them to fall off in the heat of action. Bummer there, eh?

The 3-pounder "Battalion" guns will be an issue, definitely. Otherwise, you're spot on.

Still, it can be accomplished. I'm with you, the Lace Wars are indeed a favorite timeframe.

Jack B)

Before to work on the mod I read these books:
Art of Warfare in the Age of Marlborough by David Chandler
The Anatomy of Victory by Brent Nosworthy
The Armies and Uniforms of Marlborough's Wars (vol. 1 and 2) by C. S. Grant
Great and Glorious Days by J. Falkner
Blenheim 1704 by J. Falkner
Ramillies 1706 by J. Falkner
La Bataille de Malplaquet by A. Corvisier

The making of the sprites it is the last step of my work and I decided to make them after that I had permission from Flikitos and Wangrin (two modders of Empire Total War) to use their models and textures. I have already tested various aspects of marlburian warfare, like "battalion" guns, three and four ranks deep formations, order of battle organization, rate of fire and others. The result is good, almost from my point of view, of course there are some problem with the SOW engine, but they are the same that you can find in the Napoleonic mod. When the mod will be finished you will judge the result.

Cheers