Peninsular War

FM WarB

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It all starts with Oman, an impressive piece of research. Eighty pounds is cheap for the complete set!
 

trauth116

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I think ultimately I would like physical copies of Oman's material for the library here. I have never really worked out how to get pdf's off of GoogleBooks and in the past have tried to avoid them (as I have been too busy to look up how to do that).

Ok, well all of that aside, I will have to see what I can find. I did send away for a newer one on the war as a whole; mainly because I found it cheaper than I can get if for here. Esdaile's book I think -but like I said, I got a couple of others packed away -and I did send off for that Atlas as well.

Am thinking about getting a small order of 6mm figures as well and seeing what type of quality those have. One of my big someday projects is to do up one of those really nice miniatures tables -and who knows, but Spain is a pretty good topic to be sure. :)
 

AlAmos

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Steve,

You should look into the hard plastic 28mm figs. Victrix and Perry are two of the companies offering them. I picked up some frogs and brits from Perry. It's been some 20 years since I've painted figs, but they seem to paint up quite easily. :)

Cheap too, after tax it worked out to be about 90 cents (USD) per fig.

al
 

trauth116

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Update:

Well Elsdaile is off at the moment, as my source found out that they were out. . . probably too good of a price. I can get it here for A$25 so am shooting for paying less.

Nikel - forgot to add- yes, that phantom map I was thinking of was Zucker's Road to Madrid map, but I suspected you were aware of that :).

Al - no doubt, they do; Wargames Illustrated when Battlefront or whatever that NZ company that owns Flames of War took it over, added a couple of feebies early on. One of them was one of the Perry 95th Rifles guys - pretty nice too - and I imagine that I am going to get into them at some point as they look like a lot of fun to work with. But they are about I think 20 pounds which comes out (this is very rough) -to about A$40 (and the Aussie dollar is currently worth nearly $1.08 US...). I also want to explore some of the Baccus stuff and for about A$20 (shipped) - I can get a couple of units (like 98 guys - granted 6mm guys) a set of skirmish riflemen and some flags to play around with. It is sort of recon I guess. . . for all I know I may not too. I really like the look of GMT's Battle for Normandy -a lot. But -well, budgetary concerns ... the same old story :D.

I did fill out my Sharpe's set - apart from a couple of the short stories Cornwell wrote for the Sharpe's Society. Got through the TV series- bought the final 2 India DvDs ... and am a big Sharpe's fan .... even had to go out and get Black Death because Bean is in it (and don't have HBO so Game of Thrones isn't an option).
 

AlAmos

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I bought 600 10mm Greeks once we finished Greek Wars research, and found out I couldn't see the little guys well enough to paint them. That's why I've gone up scale. ;-)
 

trauth116

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I hear you about the painting, Al. I do 1:2400 scale ships (or rather, have in the past), and about the main thing that I learned there is that you don't need a brush to apply paint.

In my case, sometimes I would use sharpened toothpicks. I suppose, though, that the main thing can also be choosing something with a detail level that helps out.

I found that ESCI figures (back in the day --- sometimes now you can find them I think under Italeri) were easier to paint than Airfix.

But yes, the Perry figures (haven't seen Victrix in my hands aside from advertisements) have wxactly that.

Painting though... man, I haven't painted anything since the last century now .... (it didn't used to be so bad - but well as we get further into the 21st Century it all seems a little sadder). I had to leave all my paints in the US, and haven't had the time to paint; and the disposable income to recreate my old paint collection (in light of the not having time to actually use paints - it wasn't a priority) just yet.
 

trauth116

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Atlas received, and it is a very nice presentation. If I ever get time I will do a more proper style review.
 
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Lest we forget Spanish Victory in the Peninsular..........



The Battle of Alcaneiz of 23 May 1809 was the second major Spanish battlefield victory of the Peninsular War , after Bailén in 1808, and was fought between the Spanish "Army of the Right" commanded by General Blake and the General Suchet's French third Corps.
At the end of the siege of Saragossa, there had been less than 4,000 Spanish troops in Aragon, but by mid-May, General Blake was gathering a new Army of the Right€, which would soon contain over 20,000 men. On 18-19 May, Blake, with just under 10,000 men, captured the town of Alcaneiz. This force contained the 4,000 survivors of the disaster at Saragossa and 5,000 men from the Army of the Centre. Another 10,000 men were known to be on their way, so Blake held his ground at Alcaneiiz, awaiting their arrival.
Suchet finally reached Saragossa on 19 May, and took command of 3rd Corps. By this point the corps was in a dreadful state. Morale was very poor, partly because of the suffering caused during the siege of Saragossa, partly because of the series of minor defeats at the hands of the guerrillas and partly because their pay was in arrears and the only way to find food was by constant marauding. Despite having a nominal strength of 20,000 men, when Suchet arrived the Corps was at only half of this strength. Despite the poor condition of his army, Suchet quickly realised that he would have to attack the Spanish at Alcaneiiz. On 23 May, the depleted French force arrived in front of the Spanish position. Only two of Suchet's three available divisions were with him, giving the French a strength of 8,138 men on the morning of the battle. Blake slightly outnumbered the French, with just under 9,000 men, and was in a strong defensive position, based around three hills outside the town of Alca±iz. The only weakness in Blake€™s position was that he was fighting with his back to a river. If the French had forced his army to retreat, then the Spanish force might have been totally destroyed.


Suchet began by making two attacks on the strongest part of the Spanish line, the Cerro de los Pueyos, at the right of the Spanish line. These attacks were repulsed by General Areizaga, at the head of a division of Aragonese troops. Suchet would later claim that these had only been feints, but his entire account of the battle is somewhat unreliable (as is so often the case in the memoirs of defeated commanders).

If the attack on the Spanish right was a feint, then Suchet waited too long to launch his main attack, for by the time this began the fighting on the Cerro de los Pueyos had ended. The main French attack was made against the centre of the Spanish line, and was made by two regiments, formed into columns of battalions, 2,600 men from the 114th Regiment of the Line and the 1st Regiment of the Vistula. While French columns repeated failed against British lines, they had a much better record against the Spanish, but this time Blake€™s line held. The French column reached within a few hundred yards of the Spanish line, but then the Spanish artillery began to hit it with grapeshot, its flanks came under long range musket fire, and the advance halted. This was always the moment of crisis for any column. After remaining static under heavy fire for a few minutes, the French column broke and fled back into the French lines.
This ended the battle. Suchet's force had suffered 700-800 casualties, and he himself had been wounded in the foot. The French retreat began smoothly, but after dark, a rumour spread that the Spanish cavalry had captured the rearguard, and the army scattered, not coming back together until late on the next day. Blake had suffered 300 casualties during the battle.
 
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Nikel

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I think ultimately I would like physical copies of Oman's material for the library here. I have never really worked out how to get pdf's off of GoogleBooks and in the past have tried to avoid them (as I have been too busy to look up how to do that).
I can pack, upload them somewhere and post a link here if you are interested and allowed in the forum ;)

Only the volumes available 1-3, 5 and 6.
 

Nikel

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Here they are :) The source of the scans is Michigan University

http://www.fileserve.com/file/cYmJvNt


Includes :)

1 1807-1809. From the Treaty of Fontainebleau to the Battle of Corunna. 1902

2 January-September 1809. From the Battle of Corunna to the end of the Talavera Campaign. 1903

3 September 1809-December 1810: Ocaña, Cadiz, Bussaco, Torres Vedras. 1908

5 October 1811-August 31,1812. Valencia, Ciudad Rodrigo, Badajoz. 1914

6 September 1,1812 to August 5,1813. Siege of Burgos, retreat from Burgos, Vittoria, Pyrenees. 1922


The text is of very good quality, only in a few pages it may be a bit cut in the margins. Appendices with many OOBs also very good. Maps lost, some are available in Napoleon series maps page

http://www.napoleon-series.org/military/c_maps.html



Example, Tamames 1809. The second spanish victory after Bailén, and this time according to Oman the french were veterans from Germany, but the spaniards outnumbered them in a defensive position, not only Wellington was a master of defense in the ridge :crosseye:





Missing :cry:

4 December 1810-December 1811. Massena's Retreat, Fuentes de Oñoro, Albuera, Tarragona. 1911

7 August 1813 to April 14, 1814. St Sebastian's Capture, Wellington's Invasion of France, Battles of Nive, Orthez, Toulouse. 1930
 
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trauth116

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Thanks for posting that Nikel... I think at some point too, I will have to get the actual books for the library (but that is just me... I still like paper too). Also thanks for pointing out the source for some of the maps on that site ( which would make them -based upon the age of publication - public domain). Even if not I have my eye on a map making add on to a program I have that would allow me to create something along those lines - I'd been putting off getting it, as I hadn't had time to learn it ( and then didn't have anything to do with it if I had spent the time to learn that program) -so who knows- but maybe reconstructing some maps along the same lines might be on the cards at some point.

I know sets of maps of the major battles, and in a period style, would be a nice add on to any product on the Peninsular War. Which, isn't to say that that wouldn't also hold true of any in the rest of the broader period known as the Napoleonic Wars - but since I don't actually own this add on (I got some map program by ProFantasy- mainly for image making -not game use unless you mean boardgame use)... let alone have any experience using it - I am not really in the position to make any promises ... just another thing put on the 'might be interesting to do someday' list... which is already fairly hight.

~Steve
 

Nikel

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Legion de la Vistule....


Charge!!! :D


I wonder how do you say charge in polish? What would have shouted Colonel Konopka? ;)
 
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They would not have shouted "charge", preferring to instead shout,

"Lepiej zabic Rosjanow niz Hiszpanskow - Husssah ! " Of that I have no doubt. :horse:
 
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