The Battle of Nantwich - preparation

On Friday of this coming week, I have arranged an ECW battle with some friends. This morning I've been setting out a briefing note for the other players, which I thought might be of interest here.

Please note that this is not an attempt to teach everyone about the Battle of Nantwich - I've done a bit of tweaking with the history and the OOBs, to make best use of the troops available and try to give a balanced game. What follows is simply a copy of what I've sent to the players. Apart from the scenario and the starting position, there is to be no attempt to replicate or re-enact the historical battle, this will just be a free-for-all.

My sources are John Barratt's super little The Battle of Nantwich 1644 (Stuart Press), John Dixon's equally super (though larger) The Business at Acton (Partizan Press) and the scenarios for Nantwich in De Bellis Civile 1644-45 and Charlie Wesencraft's Pike and Musket book. It goes without saying that my version will not be like any one of those, though they were all useful.

The game will be played using my ECW variant of CCN, with a couple of scenario tweaks. OK - the rest of this post is just what I have sent out to next Friday's players.

The Business at Acton  - the Battle of Nantwich, 25^th January 1644

The Armies:

Royalist

Commander:                   John, Lord Byron

2^nd-in-Command:      Maj.Gen* Richard Gibson

Horse:

Col. John Marrow’s Regt

Lord Molyneux’s Regt

Lord Byron’s Regt (v)

Sir Thos Tyldesley’s Regt

Foot:

Sir Michael Earnley’s Regt (v)

Sir Robert Byron’s Regt (v)

Col. Henry Warren’s Regt (v)

Col. Richard Gibson’s Regt (v)

Sir Thomas Tyldesley’s Regt

Sir Fulk Huncke with approx 400 musketeers (v)

Artillery:

A battery of medium sakers

Some light pieces

* = acting

  

Parliamentarian

Commander:                   Sir Thomas Fairfax

2^nd-in-Command:      Maj.Gen* Sir William Brereton

Horse:

Sir Wm Brereton’s Cheshire Horse

Sir Wm Fairfax’s Regt (Yorkshire)

Col. John Lambert’s Regt (Yorkshire)

Maj. Thomas Morgan’s Dragoons (Wales)

Foot:

Col. John Booth’s Regt (Cheshire)

Col. Richard Holland’s Regt (Manchester)

Col. Sir Wm. Brereton’s Regt (Cheshire)

Col. Henry Mainwaring’s Regt (Cheshire)

Col. Alexander Rigby’s Regt (Lancashire)

Col. Ralph Assheton’s Regt (Lancashire)

800 musketeers from Nantwich Garrison (r)

Artillery:

Some medium sakers

Some light pieces

[Units marked (v) are of Veteran status, those marked (r) are Raw – everyone else is Trained by default. Unless otherwise stated, Foot regiments are about 650 strong, and in each of them approximately one third are armed with pikes and the rest with muskets. Horse and Dragoon units are about 400 strong. All Royalist Horse are of “Galloper” type (i.e. they employ the Swedish-style tactics adopted by Prince Rupert), though none of those present are classified as Rash. The Parliament Horse are all “Trotters” (i.e. they use the more conservative Dutch-style tactics).]

Background – Cheshire 1643-44:

Lord Byron

In late 1643, John, 1^st Lord Byron marched from Chester with a Royalist army which contained a high proportion of excellent, veteran troops who had previously served in Ireland. His objective was to gain control of the troublesome eastern portion of Cheshire for the King. Initially things went well; Beeston Castle was taken, and a close but significant victory was gained over the army of the chief Parliamentarian leader in the county, Sir William Brereton., near Middlewich. The main result of Middlewich was that Brereton became convinced that he could not stand up to the Royalist army in open battle. Byron now set about attacking the town of Nantwich, which was the last remaining Parliament-held place of any size in the county, having an important bridge over the River Weaver. On the way there he was involved in the infamous massacre at Barthomley Church, on Christmas Day 1643, where a number of surrendering Parliamentary troops were shot out of hand after they had (reportedly) been offered quarter. Byron was unrepentant, but the incident backfired on him, in that it increased Parliament’s resolve to counterattack.

Sir Thomas Fairfax

Sir Thomas Fairfax was sent from Lincolnshire with a sizeable force of good Yorkshire cavalry, joining with Brereton around Manchester, and their combined army set off to deal with Byron.

Byron’s attack on Nantwich was beaten off with heavy loss, but the town was besieged.  Instead of approaching Nantwich from the East, from Middlewich, Fairfax surprised Byron by approaching from the North, through Delamere Forest, and thus on the west side of the Weaver. Byron had only a few troops on this bank of the river, and therefore had to move his men over the river to face the threat. This is the point at which our action today commences.

Scenario – the Battle of Nantwich:

The Parliamentarian baseline is the top (North) edge of the picture. Each hex on the table is about 150 paces across.

It is a cold, grey day. A recent thaw has melted most of what snow there has been, but the ground is generally very muddy. This is a flat, agricultural area with few hills and little woodland.

The stone bridge at Beam Bridge was destroyed a while ago by the Nantwich garrison, and the Royalists’ temporary pontoon bridge there has been wrecked by the swollen River Weaver, so Lord Byron has had a lot of trouble getting the second part of his available forces (including all of his horse) on to the West side of the river to meet Fairfax’s approaching army.

By midday, he has the foot units of Gibson, Warren and Earnley and all his artillery (a large battery of medium guns plus a small light unit) in position at Acton church, but the regiments of Robert Byron and Tyldesley and all his cavalry are coming up in the rear as best they can, having spent the morning marching some miles upstream to Shrewbridge to cross the river and then marching back towards Acton.

Fairfax has arrived by the Chester Road, approaching over the low wooded ridge on the north side of the field. He hasn’t come very far (his men camped last night at Tilstone Heath, about 8 miles away) , but the roads are in poor shape, so they are puffing a bit. The roads marked on the battlefield have no functional role in the game beyond helping to make sense of the geography – the rules give no movement bonus on roads.

The river is unfordable throughout. The areas of Welsh Row, Acton Church, Darfold Hall and Henhull (farm) are all classed as built up areas/villages for the purposes of the rules – i.e. troops occupying them are assumed to be able to make use of the walls and buildings to provide defensive cover and firing positions. A feature of the battlefield which is mentioned in all accounts of the fighting is the hedged enclosures (farm fields), which made things difficult for the cavalry. In this game, such enclosures are treated similarly to woods – all mounted troops entering a field must stop on arrival, and may defend it as though it were a wood (though a field will not obstruct line-of-sight, so that artillery may fire over a field). Units of horse leaving a field/enclosure must stop immediately afterwards to reform, unless they are carrying out a Retire & Reform manoeuvre. Thus cavalry are handicapped in the enclosures in a manner which should correspond to the historical situation.

Parliament have first move throughout. Parliament receive 6 command cards, Royalists 5 – to reflect the disorganisation in Byron’s army and (to a lesser extent) Fairfax’s greater leadership ability. “Victory Banner” counters will be awarded on elimination of units and leaders as normal, but there is a special additional VB counter available to the Royalists while/if they hold the Welsh Row position.

7 VBs wins the day for either side.

Initial set-up:

Parliament – Nantwich garrison are in Welsh Row at the outset. They have to remain there until the fighting starts. Once firing has commenced in the central area, a throw of 6 on a normal die (throw at the start of each turn) will allow them to decide (subject to subsequent suitable Command cards!) to sally out to join the main action. Note that these troops are classed as Raw.

The remainder of Fairfax’s army must be placed in the Centre section of the table, within 2 hexes of their own baseline. Artillery must initially be placed behind another friendly unit – they were held up by the soft ground. Leaders may be attached to combat units as they arrive.

Royalists – Huncke’s musketeers may be placed 2 hexes distant from Welsh Row. The artillery (one unit of 2 medium guns, one of a single light gun) and the foot units of Earnley, Warren and Gibson may be placed on, or within 1 hex of, the 3-hex hill at Acton Church – Richard Gibson himself may be attached to any of these units.

The remainder, with Byron, must be deployed south of the roads near the Royalist baseline, and no nearer than 3 hexes to Nantwich.

Notes:

Artillery: Bear in mind that a single-gun battery is unable to cause loss to troops in buildings or cover – the larger battery has a chance of doing this. Artillery is also very vulnerable in melees.

Hooptedoodle #89a - ...and another thing...

Vignemale, Pyrenees

This follows on from yesterday's post - partly because I am on a potential roll with Robert stories, but mainly because I'll forget if I don't write it down today.

Another of Robert's pub tales.

When he was still an Army helicopter pilot, Robert was sent on a prestigious, multinational mountain flying course in the Pyrenees. He said it was an exhilarating experience, but even while they were on the course some of the lads started getting bored and having ideas for some unofficial fun. Eventually, a few of them requisitioned a number of large insulated containers from stores, and took a surprising amount of fresh snow from a glacier - similar to the one illustrated, perhaps.

This was smartly transported to one of the naturist beaches next to Cap d'Agde and there - in the height of the season - the pilots had a monster snowball fight, in full flying kit. Naturally there was some collateral damage to the unfortunate naturists, and there were a number of formal complaints, which were dismissed out of hand as ridiculous. How could such a thing have happened? - snow? - on a Mediterranean beach in August?

Case dismissed. Another example of something that never happened. Maybe there is a recurrent theme developing here.

Hooptedoodle #89 - Robert and the Missile

More ancient tales from the pub...

Since the spam seems to have eased off and I’m feeling a lot more upbeat, I have decided to end my temporary rest/sulk and do another post – just to see how it feels.

Things are still very busy around here, but I have arranged an ECW wargame for next week – it’s in the diary – and am really quite elated at the prospect. More of this in a later post, I think – the intention is to stage a game based on the Battle of Nantwich, so I’m doing some reading and general preparation for that, and I’ve painted up a suitable church specially for the occasion. I even had a look at the actual church on Google Maps - such is my commitment.

On Sunday I was at a very wet barbecue in Edinburgh, and enjoyed meeting up with some former work colleagues. Somebody mentioned another ex-colleague we had, Robert, who was not present, and a number of very amusing Robert stories were recalled. One in particular has had me chortling occasionally this week, so I thought I would trot it out here, in a spirit of suitable bonhomie.

I must mention that I am unsure of the exact details – no doubt some Cold War period expert will be able to correct the story as necessary – but I have no doubt of its truth; Robert was never the sort of chap who would make anything up. I would bet a lot of money on that. It is also possible, of course, that this story is otherwise well-known and exists in alternative versions based in other countries at other times, with other equipment. If the tale is, in fact, bollocks then I offer my humble apologies, but I will certainly be surprised.

Robert was an absolute treasure. He worked for me from about 1987 to about 1991, and we recruited him from the British Army, where he was serving as a major at the time he left. He was ex-Sandhurst, and had a very active service life until a helicopter crash in Northern Ireland left him with injuries which forced him to retire to the Army’s IT operation. He had no previous experience of life or work outside the services, and he was frighteningly enthusiastic to get started. His life-long devotion to the Army was eventually killed by having to have his car checked for bombs every morning in Germany before his kids were driven to school. That would do it, right enough.

Robert’s greatest value to me was that he was used to getting things done. Different mindset. If he was asked to do something, he expected to crack on with it and make a good job of it. He had not got the hang of the more common approach of his new civilian co-workers, which was an instinct to spend two weeks preparing excuses for why we had failed to deliver something which would have taken a week if we had just done it. The bit he found most difficult was understanding the context he was now working in. He found it unbelievable that anyone would agree to do something and then not do it – an everyday situation in our firm – and he couldn’t come to terms with the fact that there wasn’t much he or anyone else could do about it. No, I used to tell him, we can’t put them on a charge, unfortunately – what we have to do is convince them up-front that they will get something out of it. Yes, I used to tell him, I realise that Jeannie in the corner is not the nominal manager of that department, but she is the one who makes the place work, and she is the one you need to get on your side – the theoretical hierarchies here work differently, and in more subtle ways. Robert took all this on board, but found much of it strange.

Apart from his energy and his positive approach, Robert was also valuable because he was an excellent chap who came from an interesting and (to us) alien world, and had real-life experience of combat and other life threatening situations, which was more exciting than we were used to. Some of these life threatening situations, it has to be said, were a result of the manic approach to recreation which seems to be a characteristic of young military men. A pint with Robert was always worthwhile – he had a fund of fantastic stories, and many of them became legends among his colleagues. It was very common for Robert stories to feature in the pub, even when Robert himself was not present, and that, gentlemen, is fame indeed.

Today’s story from Robert’s army days involves the Honest John missile. Robert was still recovering from his helicopter accident at the time, and was mostly involved in ceremonial and other light duties, when he and a good friend were ordered to attend a NATO test firing of an Honest John. Now, this was a big deal. Many servicemen had been trained to serve with these missiles, and had even been through launch drill (as had Robert and his pal), but they were frighteningly expensive, so that no-one knew anyone who had ever experienced a for-real launch. They were actually going to launch one, which was an exciting prospect for all concerned, and Robert and his colleague were duly delivered to a clearing somewhere in the Ardennes, all togged up in their ceremonial uniforms, as part of an international guard of honour. Everyone who was anyone in the top brass of NATO was there, and a lot of work had gone into constructing very smart, wooden seating galleries – there was carpet and white cords everywhere. No expense spared.

With everyone suitably tensed up, and the guard of honour at attention, the Belgian launch crew selected for the test duly arrived and went into their drill. It was a wet, overcast day, but they were really very impressive – crisp and assured, under scrutiny from the field-glasses of the High and Mighty who were watching from a safe distance. As the moment approached for the launch (and remember, these boys hadn’t actually fired one before, either), the clamps which held the missile to its cradle were opened, and a lot of adjustment and shouting of commands was going on when Robert’s colleague quietly drew his attention to the fact that the crew did not appear to have released the 4cm thick steel securing bolts which held it in place. Shortly afterwards, the missile fired. The noise was unbelievable, apparently, and the ground shook before the missile, with very large truck still attached, rose from the ground and disappeared into the low clouds.

Robert told us that his strongest recollection was of the strange silence which followed. He could hear the odd, strangled sound of the guard of honour trying desperately not to laugh, and the indefinable, though very real, sound of general embarrassment at a strategic level. The gathering broke up very quickly, with appropriate levels of harrumphing, and everyone was rushed away in staff cars. The joiners had even started to dismantle the seating before the guard of honour received a very short briefing.

This did not happen, they were told. Anyone who mentions this – ever – will be in more trouble than he could ever imagine. And thus this event which had never happened was blotted from the records.

It seems that the missile did pretty well – it landed about a kilometre away, in a field, though of course that hadn’t happened either. Naturally the British contingent could not leave it alone. The Honest John kit came with a dedicated range computer, which could print out range tables and settings for a variety of payloads and situations. Some bright spark printed off a special range table headed up HONEST JOHN MISSILE – WITH LAUNCHER ATTACHED and sent it anonymously to Belgian HQ. Robert said that he was interested to see if there was any come-back, considering that the original event on which the joke was based had never happened.

They never heard anything further about it.

I believe Robert is in the consultancy business now – I bet he is still good value in the pub.

Foy's Twelfth Law

Foy's Twelfth Law states:

It is in the nature of all things that there must be an ending. Eventually, even I shall have nothing to say.

Hortillery & Articulture...

...or something like that.

Big 'uns

Little 'uns

It's taken a while to get everything ready (because artillery is fiddly), but my ECW armies finally have guns. In fact they are rather over-supplied now, but there is an element of future planning in there (he lied). I still need to get a couple of big bombarding guns and a couple of mortars, since you can't do the ECW without sieges, but this will certainly keep me going in the meantime. A dozen new guns with crews are going into the boxes tonight - very good.

Topic 2

In the garden, Nature rears her formidable head once again. Last October I posted here to express our astonishment that our half-hearted attempt to grow Edelweiss from seed produced a single fine bloom. This year we didn't know what to expect. Are they annuals? We had no idea.

Well they have come up fine and strong, and we have the beginnings of a marvellous show. Unbelievable - and this is despite the environment in our garden being wrong in a number of ways:

1. Next to the sea - salty air and high humidity

2. Wrong type of soil

3. About 1000 metres lower than their preferred habitat

4. Permanently overcast, near-Arctic climate

We can only assume our Edelweiss don't know any better. Here they are, anyway - alive and well and living in entirely the wrong country. We hope our experiment is not endangering our Scottish ecosystem...

Bless my homeland for ever - erm - just a minute...

Late Edit...

Thanks to John P and Ross for comments - here is a relevant clip I found, which shows how the Sappers might have looked in action. It is a surprisingly long clip...

Strangely, all suitable clips I could find apart from this one were filmed in Oregon. Cultures obviously can be transplanted, like wildflowers.

Perfect Circle

I sometimes have a look at The Miniatures Page (TMP). I am a member – I believe I am a Trusted Member, no less, but sadly I can’t remember my password, and can’t be bothered doing anything about it, so my involvement is limited to a casual gawp from time to time.

Often I find TMP interesting, even useful. On occasions it is a bit depressing, though – a general dumping ground for nerds of all nations who may misunderstand each other and at times aren’t paying much attention anyway, being distracted by the need to strike attitudes and out-nerd each other.

All this is merely my humble personal opinion, of course, but I was interested to note that I have been getting a fair few hits on this blog from TMP readers, and it highlighted what might be a classic example of collectively missing the point. Naturally, I am delighted to welcome all TMP activists here – pleased to meet you – but I was amused by the particular thread which got them here.

A few posts ago I put up a tweaked set of map cards for the Perfect Captain’s Battlefinder system. This was entirely an exercise in self-interest on my part, since I wanted a set of their (excellent) cards which were changed a bit to feel comfortable in a Northern Counties ECW context. Thus my son and I did a bit of PaintShopping and altered the place names to suit. In case it was of wider interest, I offered it up on the blog, with all due credits and links to the Perfect Captain.

It was of wider interest, as it happens. In particular, some worthy Resource Investigator type [check out Dr R Meredith Belbin’s famous work on team roles – identify the members of your local club...] put up 3 of my 4 altered sheets of map cards on a TMP post [obviously not a Completer Finisher, then], with a link to this blog – though not to the post in which they appeared. There are a few responses – one fellow says he found the blog and the C&C-derived rules, but not the map cards. The original thread setter suggests that he should contact me directly, which is accepted as a good idea, though none of the 500 or so hits which came from TMP in the last month seem to have resulted in such a contact – why am I not surprised? Eventually, some hero has reported that the map cards can be found on the Perfect Captain site – which is true, though not my tweaked version, obviously. We can all settle peacefully now – we have successfully completed the circle and arrived back at the point immediately before the point at which I started. Maybe someone will link to this new post, and we can go around again.

In fact, if I have drawn the attention of a few new people to the Perfect Captain then I am more than happy. I am more than happy in any case, simple soul that I am. Some more ECW cavalry will be going away for painting next week, and my artillery should make some major progress shortly. I have an interesting collection of random kit for the guns – some heavy stuff from the old Hinchliffe 20mm range, and a fair assortment of light pieces (from sources unknown), which includes a robbinet, a leather gun, a little frame gun and some other intriguing objects. As ever, I have no real idea what colours to paint these things – maybe plain wood, and there seems to be a generic orange stain whch is often depicted. I am also confused by the various explanations I have read of the names of the types of guns, so for the time being I shall not attempt to identify Falcons or Sakers or even Bastard Demi-Cannons – my ECW artillery will be called Heavy, Medium and Light, which is a cop-out but avoids argument.

A Little More on Tri-Chess

I'd like to be able to blame Hugh for this, after his comment on my recent Pythagoras post, but I think really I just had to produce a graphic to punish myself for losing my 1970s photo. This is how my Glinski-based (accidentally Glinski-based...) Tri-Chess game looked.

I actually built a set, albeit with very cheap, nasty, unweighted plastic pieces (all we could afford in them days, Pet). It was spectacular, but the game itself was sadly flawed - brave but ill-judged, like Babbage's pocket calculator, Cross-Country Billiards and other fleeting glories which history has consigned to File 13. The physical set disappeared long ago, though I remember throwing out the board relatively recently - might even have been in this Century.

Please don't ask me about the rules. It is still a sore point, and I shall just smile mysteriously. No, I do not regard this Grand Folly as clever - merely further evidence that I am basically a moonbeam.