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TOPIC: Scenario Development: The Second British Invasion of River Plate - 1807
PM Whirlwind
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Posts: 412
Scenario Development: The Second British Invasion of River Plate - 1807
Whirlwind
21st Aug 2016 08:06:17

 One initial question - how big is the table? Or what scale is the map?


PM hwiccee
Standard User
Posts: 173
Scenario Development: The Second British Invasion of River Plate - 1807
hwiccee
21st Aug 2016 08:40:15

On creating the armies no army generator should not be a problem, just use historical information to build the actual army. I am afraid this is not really my period but here are some links to get started with -

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=kdQTAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=LUMUAAAAYAAJ&dq=buenos+aires+expedition+1807&printsec=frontcover&source=bl&ots=4lAOVsvCnb&sig=cBvQ7zOVlIi46gVdwKhWk2xaoAY&hl=en&ei=KllUSoHDEtGJtged_fymCA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=buenos%20aires%20expedition%201807&f=false

http://inspire.redlands.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?filename=0&article=1000&context=books&type=additional

http://www.95th-rifles.co.uk/research/the-invasion-of-south-america/

http://www.napoleonicwarsforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=704

 

 


PM Glenn Pearce
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Posts: 404
Scenario Development: The Second British Invasion of River Plate - 1807
Glenn Pearce
21st Aug 2016 07:06:32

Hello Friedrich_Wilhelm!

Welcome to the wonderful world of Baccus 6mm.

Great choice in projects as very few if any have tackled this period before in the Baccus forum.

You will pretty much have to draw up your own armies into a Polemos format. In this period only a few British battalions would be 1000 men, most are probably closer to 500 in the field. Once you obtain some actual orders of battle you will be able to see this. The small size of these battles (generally less than 5000 per side) indicates that you will probably want to reflect smaller bodies of men. Perhaps groups of 200 or even 100 men per base would give you a better look and feel of the battle. Think of them as one or two companies per base. You will have a better feel for this once you have your o/bs.

For all of your figures you will need to obtain some pictures of the various units and than go through the Baccus ranges (mostly Napoleonic) to see which figures will paint up to look similar. In 6mm your mostly just looking at hats and sometimes coats, your paint brush will fix almost everything else. Standard British in stove pipe shako would probably cover most of their infantry and Spanish in hat would probably do for most of the Argentine infantry.

6mm is the approximate height of the figure which is different from your ground scale. The rules tell you that a base is 100-125 yds wide by 50 yds deep, but that is for about 500 infantry. If your bases have fewer men on them, than they would cover a smaller area. I wouldn't stress too much over this. The first thing to obtain is a map covering perhaps the biggest battle and see how much detail you can get on your table. Then see if your bases will also fit reasonably within some of the known areas. Unless your scale obsessed it's simply a matter of making everything fit without too much fudging. Obviously the bigger your table the easier it is for you to obtain a good fit. I have a ping-pong table 5' x 9' and often find thats too big for small battles. Your simply trying to find a size or level of detail that looks and feels good.

Hope this helps you in some way.

Best regards,

Glenn


PM Glenn Pearce
Standard User
Posts: 404
Scenario Development: The Second British Invasion of River Plate - 1807
Glenn Pearce
21st Aug 2016 11:17:57

Hello FW!

Your welcome, glad to help when I can.

Research is part of the fun and frustration. Your into a lesser known area of the period and no doubt there is some key information in Spanish that might be hard to come by. As you have discovered there are a couple of interesting looking books in English and hopefully some of these will help fill in some of your blanks. However, the cold reality is often its just not out there and until you do find it you will just have to fudge some things. I've been doing scenarios for about 40 years and some I've done a number of times. Every time I start over with a clean slate as almost every year some new or at least better information appears. It's not unusual for the second or third time to be almost a totally different game.

For you just starting with no figures using paper proxies is a great idea and will allow you to work out some of bugs/problems before you take the next step.

Best regards,

Glenn


PM hwiccee
Standard User
Posts: 173
Scenario Development: The Second British Invasion of River Plate - 1807
hwiccee
22nd Aug 2016 12:20:05

As Glenn mentioned the research can be fun and you can finf some interesting stuff out there.

I am not sure what your Spanish is like but some useful stuff here I think -

http://www.granaderos.com.ar/index.html

http://www.granaderos.com.ar/articulos/art_ordenbsas.html

http://www.granaderos.com.ar/articulos/art_ordeningles.html

This is a major event in Argentina and I suspect you will get a lot of interesting sites in Spanish on this.

 


PM keithabarker
Standard User
Posts: 57
Scenario Development: The Second British Invasion of River Plate - 1807
keithabarker
22nd Aug 2016 06:38:07

My Spanish is poor, but the sources above seem to give strengths for Spanish infantry but not British.

Assuming that 1 British Battalion roughly consisted of 1000 men for this period could be a bit dangerous.

At the start of a campaign (e.g. when going out to the Peninsular) a 1st battalion could have 1000 men if it could be recruited up to strength from a 2nd battalion staying at home. A 2nd battalion or a single battalion regiment would not be able to do this and would probably start a campaign with a strength of about 700.

These strength would very quickly be reduced by the rigours of transport and campaigning.


PM hwiccee
Standard User
Posts: 173
Scenario Development: The Second British Invasion of River Plate - 1807
hwiccee
23rd Aug 2016 07:04:06

On the bases I think the key thing is too have one base per 500 - 700 men. So I would combine 2 or more smaller units to make a single base unit of this kind of size. Similarly if you do have a unit which is larger than 500-700 I would split it into 2 bases (or more).

So for example (using http://www.granaderos.com.ar/articulos/art_ordenbsas.html) the Division Derecha has about 1500 infantry and 400 cavalry. So I would have maybe 3 infantry bases which would be the 2 'Patricios' battalions and the Marina battalion - the other units are assumed to be part of these bases. If the other units have specific uniforms you could have 1 or more strips of a base in that uniform. I do this with units of combined grenadiers which are come in the 18th century - a unit made of the grenadiers from 2,3 or more regiments. With the cavalry you coud have these as 1 or 2 bases as cavalry units are smaller. It is really 1.5 bases and the 'Centrio' Division only has 150 cavalry (about 0.5 of a base). So I would probably combine these to give these 2 divisions a total of 2 cavalry bases.


PM Glenn Pearce
Standard User
Posts: 404
Scenario Development: The Second British Invasion of River Plate - 1807
Glenn Pearce
23rd Aug 2016 11:29:47

Hello FW!

Your concerns were the exact same problems that I had to resolve when I wrote the next rule release for Baccus that covers North American Wars from 1754-1815. In the back of my mind I also realized that they could be applied to the wars of liberation in South America. So they are right up your alley if you want to wait for their release. Peter is hoping do so this year which only has a few months left. In the meantime you can work out the other problems and paint your figures.

They are a flexable design which will allow you to play any size of battle that you want and size it to fit any figure scale (ratio) that you want. You simply size the base (number of men) to fit the lowest unit that you want to show. For example your Spanish group of 90 men could be your basic number so say it rounds off to 100 men. That then equals one base. Your British battalion of 500 men would be five bases. If you think that is going to give you too many bases than you up the scale to 200 men for three British bases or use 250 and have two bases. In both examples the Spanish group of 90 still is only one base. This gives you a balance of playability and also allows you to paint every unit in it's unique colours.

The assetment of troop experience and generals is very similar to GdD. It's all up to you to decide, the game or senario designer, based on what your research has turned up. This is one of the reasons that my scenarios change from year to year. New information turns up and I adjust these ratings accordingly.

If you want I can draft or convert your orders of battle into my design so that you can get a better idea of what I'm taking about. Just send me a copy for both sides covering a certain battle and I'll send them back to you in this format. My email is glennrpearce@hotmail.com

Best regards,

Glenn


PM Glenn Pearce
Standard User
Posts: 404
Scenario Development: The Second British Invasion of River Plate - 1807
Glenn Pearce
23rd Aug 2016 11:37:46

Hello FW!

Sorry, our posts crossed. If you can just put the number of men beside those units and perhaps also if they are light/skirmish troops or line infantry I will send you an example of what I'm talking about.

Best regards,

Glenn


PM Whirlwind
Standard User
Posts: 412
Scenario Development: The Second British Invasion of River Plate - 1807
Whirlwind
24th Aug 2016 05:21:37

For the numbers of soldiers in the British battalions, can I recommend you look in the relevant volume of Fortescue's History of the British Army, vol 5., here and here.


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