The Siege of Havana

Yesterday I received a book which I had splashed out on, courtesy of some sales of Wargaming the Sugar Islands Campaign.

I wasn't expecting anything too exciting, just a different narrative from other sources I have, but I was soon corrected.

The Siege of Havana by Francis Russell Hart was published in 1931.  I managed to find a signed copy from a bookseller in Germany and was surprised to find that it was a limited edition publication of only 675 books of which 112 were sold in the Uk, the rest in the US. The book is a well written narrative of the build up, siege and it's impacts and draws from English and Spanish language sources which are well referenced. It's a lovely read, even for an academic work, but it's real joy are a few of its maps and illustrations which I have not seen before.

Spanish Plan of El Morro.

Map of Havana, surrounding environment and troop dispositions.

Last week, whilst away on business, I did some research online to try to find more information on the Spanish Militias of the Havana garrison. I couldn't find anything detailing them at the time of the siege or before, other than that they existed. Plenty of information after 1762, including all of the illustrations of their uniforms, but nothing prior to their reorganisation after Havana was restored.

Hart's book book however has some key information. The numbers reported by English writers of the time of 4500 trained troops, 9000 sailors and 13 to 15000 militia were inaccurate, (and treated as such by Admiral Pocock who only asked for names of the regiments which he would be facing). Spanish writers numbers of around 5000 effective are closer quoting 750 marines, roughly 1900 troops, 1200 sailors and at the most 1500 black militia, (although only 2000 muskets, some in poor condition were available for the militia). Hart doubts that much more than 3000 effectives could be equipped for service. Although there were large numbers of men few of these other than the above were trained and fully equipped as infantry, cavalry or artillery.  The rest is appears had pikes or swords and possibly just machetes, good only for a sortie en masse.

Together with my copy of the Naval Records Society's Siege and Capture of Havana, Hart's Book will provide the basis for my sequel to the Sugar Islands Campaign, "Against Spain".

Le Coureur - a ship for costal actions

After my visit to Graham H at new year I spent some time looking on eBay to see what ships were available for gaming. I didn't want a frigate or man o war, but perhaps something smaller and cheaper. I was actually looking for a bomb ketch or mortar vessel.

I stumbled across a model that looked to be about the right size and decided to keep an eye on it. A day later the seller started to accept offers and I went straight back with what he was asking.....I figured that the ship was either good for 28's or just a little smaller and good for 1/72, in which case I wasn't too interested. However the price was too good to ignore. 

She arrived yesterday and I rigged her up to take some shots. 

Le Coureur was a French coastal lugger captured by the British and sent to the western Atlantic where she was in turn captured by the Americans. With 8 guns she makes a fine wee cutter or brig for supporting landings in the Caribbean or on the French coast or even the Great Lakes. As you can see she is a good fit for 28's, especially the correctly proportioned Crann Tara / Fife and Drum types and so will go into action against Spain and France supporting my British. There seem to be a few different kits available of her from digging about online, this is the larger version.

I have some of the excellent Naval Landing party from CT so they will form the crew and I shall be constructing a polystyrene base for her, just as Graham has on his blog. 

Not bad for...£20😳😳😳

2020....looking forward

Well 2019 ended up a busy year. Rather too much going on to really get into the big project that I had planned but I did manage to finish some smaller ones and with the Italian 19thC stuff use some figures which I had actually put on a bring and buy stand a year earlier!

But enough of what's behind, what has 2020 got in store?

Well this year I will publish the follow up to the Sugar Islands Campaign. It will still be called "Against Spain" and will cover the sieges of Havana and Manila. 

During the Christmas break I was able to finish the Spanish infantry for the Cuba garrison and I made a start on the Edimburgo Dragoons, painting their officer. I will base and flag up all the units in one go, but have added temporary flags for the shots below. 
The Havana Rgt has no flag shown on Kronoscaf. Conjecturally therefore I will be adding the arms of the city of Havana to another units flag, replacing the coat of arms on that, which should be easy enough. The flag will be mounted on a brass tube which slides down over the shaft shown in the pics and allows the end to be flattened and shaped to a point - it also allows it to be removed if I come across the correct flag! The blue of the Havana Rgt and yellow of the dragoon officer were done using citadel contrast paints.

I have also finished all the infantry for my Crimean War project. I have 4 units of 18 Russian inf and 4 of 12 British Coldstream Guard. I will be using Rebels and Patriots for games with these, making the Russians to be "large" units to allow for the disparity in numbers between to two sides. The Russians will be poor shots while the British will be guard shock troops with 18in range. This should force the Russians to close and give the British both the benefit of the Minie rifle but make them keen to get in with the bayonet if the Russians do defend. We'll see how it goes! 

Both sides have to be based , which I will do in one go, and I need to add some Cossack light cavalry and a British gun to complete my forces. 

The 19thC will continue to be a side project for me as I need French, Prussian and Austrian cavalry and Austrian Jäger. Extra poses for the latter will, I hope, will be produced by Pirans Warriors at some point this year. This will allow me to cover all the hyphenated wars from 1859 to 1871. A friend from the Oldmeldrum club has some Danes which he is painting so the Schleswig Holstein War will be getting a visit. 

The Wild Geese will be meeting up in June once more. I'm already looking forward to that and will have some organising to do. 

I also hope to publish the collection of scenarios I put together for the 1849 Campaign Against Rome, possibly as a pdf booklet. If there is any interest in this please let me know. 

Napoleonics - Using Lasalle

I had a good game of Lasalle this week with the lads at Oldemeldrum - my French vs Alistair and Mike using the Russians.

We played on my snowy terrain cloth, a good old fashioned felt piece a terrain mat. It had been up int he loft since we played Mollwitz 3 years ago abut looked perfect.

The game kicked off over on my left with what can only be a described as a direct assault  by one of the Russian horse batteries. It rode up and unlimbered getting ready to sweep away my own smaller battery in a hail of canister. However due to the turn sequence it was my guns that fired first and forced the Russians to limber back up. Later that turn I sent my Lancers after it and they caught it before before it could react and destroyed it. 

Lancers ready to pounce as the guns fire into the Dragoons

The same unit of Lancers were then charged by then a big 6 base dragoon unit and lost the melee but it was inconsequential and they were driven back with few losses. I was soon able to recover their status and, after giving his cavalry several turns of artillery fire which saw the loss of the original Russian dragoon rgt, all three regiments of French Lancers attacked and drove back another unit of dragoons and a regiment of Cossacks.

On the right I lost an artillery battery on the first turn, knocked out by his heavy battery. My second battery was also forced to limber up and I took hits on my infantry. Not a good start. However I got my infantry moving in assault columns, covered them with a regiment in line to soak up some hits and started to cross the ground quite quickly. My remaining foot battery was soon in action again and kept a lively fire on his infantry. My troops were closing and as expected the leading line regiment was soon broken by the fire from the Russian guns. However the columns behind were effectively fresh and so attached the battery which was destroyed. 

French advancing to close on Russian right.

Back on the left Alistair infantry had at last reached the point when they could wheel onto the flank of my position,  although they were still too far to fire on my men. 

The threat to my left.

With my cavalry out of the way clearing the Russians, I was able to being my horse batteries to bear on this threat.

On the right I had 5 battalions, all of them fresh, converging on the Russians, plus my supporting battery. 

The French attack develops.

The Russian cavalry were worn and on the back foot. However there wasn't time to finish as it was now after 1030. A bloody nose for the Russians and some winter cheer for the French.

Russian gunners getting nervous and under fire as the as the French close on them

There were not many obstacles other than two woods, which freed things up and the slightly narrower table made for a quick engagement. It was a good game and it looked great on the snowy terrain too! 

That's probably it from me in terms of games til new year sadly! But I have almost finished painting and building up my Crimean War armies and will be basing them soon and I have some French Horse Artillery crew to paint too. I should have those done by the end of the year. 

Targe @ Kirriemuir

Yesterday I ran the Seige of Rome 1849 game at Targe in Kirriemuir with the folks from the Oldmeldrum club.

This is my local show and I always try to attend. It's suffered the last couple of years with a date clash with Crisis and a few of the traders who used to come have been absent. This seems to have had a knock on effect with numbers as visitors seem to be outnumbered by players from clubs running games. By early afternoon, things were getting pretty quiet and I think Targe needs a bit of a new spark to liven it up a bit. 4 games stood out, Leuchars Club with their Boshin war game, Falkirk's Pebble Island game and SPIT's Bay of Pigs and The Iron Brigade's Pacific Atoll game. All had excellent scenery and figures but I have to be honest and say that only 3 of these seemed actually to be demo games and not a static diorama.

In our game the French moved their trench closer and closer to the walls and despite taking casualties  the breach was reached and an assault was made by early afternoon. Mike T's pyrotechnic siege gun blasts looked great and the addition that and of the spent cannon balls drew many positive comments. Most visitors to the table were unfamiliar with the period or the campaign, with many confusing it with later battles. However it's obscurity was a good talking point and the feedback was it was good to see something different, and a siege game too. Thanks to the Meldrum lads for helping out.