Wednesday, January 21, 2015

ACW heads up...

'Plattville Valley' action from a game played
nearly 5 years ago.  All these pics appeared in
this blog about 5 years back (see here).
My pal 'Jacko' of the Painting Little Soldiers' blog has been refurbishing his plastic ACW armies as one of his many ongoing projetcs.  His has been a very busy blog of late.  Having played with my own Bluebellies and Graybacks rule set many zillions of years ago, he was including that set among his range of options.  I thought that was very kind of him - and flattering too.
Detail from the 'Plattville Valley' action.
He has, however, run into a problem with the base sizes of some of the figures he has bought, and my rather minimalist base sizes for my figures.  Here is my method:
Part of Lt-Gen Scraxton Scragg's CSA Division: a Brigade
comprising three Louisiana and two Texas Regiments.
Infantry: mainly 3-figure strips on bases 1-1/2" frontage by 1/2" deep (say 19mmx13mm to the nearest mm).  Some figures are mounted in pairs on 1"x1/2" bases, and some individually on 1/2"x1/2" bases.  There seems to me little objection to 'rounding' these off to a 40mm frontage for 3 figures, by, say, 15mm depth.  An alternative is to make bigger 'main' bases, say 1" (25mm) square with 4 figures on them and the odd individual or pair...  However, my march columns are 3 figures wide.

A Union regiment showing my standard unit organization,
and the base sizes (1.5"x0.5" for 3-figure strip).
Units have been standardised on 27 figures: 1 C.O. (on foot), 1 flag-bearer, 1 musician, 24 other ranks.  In line they for 2 ranks of 12 shooters each, and a third rank of the command figures. I have a few units that vary in size (29, 23 or 21 figures, plus a small detachment of Berdan's Sharpshooters in green uniforms).
CSA Cavalry Regiments.  My Union Battalions are smaller,
but 6 of those nearly equal the 4 Rebel units.
Cavalry: Mostly individually based (3/4"x 1-1/2" bases [19mmx38mm]), but could equally well be based in pairs (1-1/2" square bases).  For the sake of simplicity, I fudged these to 20mmx40mm as making only a trivial difference, even across a whole unit.
CSA, all arms.
CSA and USA cavalry units are not identical:
CSA: Regiments of 23 figures: CO, Guidon, Bugler, 20 troopers:
USA: Battalions of 15 figures: CO, Guidon, Bugler, 12 troopers.
Two CSA gun batteries.  Each represents two
real batteries (1 model cannon to 4 real).  Together,
these batteries for a battalion.  In the foreground,
20 pr Parrott guns fashioned from tube, and mounted
 on Airfix ACW artillery carriages.
Artillery:
I could never get the gun/battery ratios the way I wanted, and so compromised upon a battalion organisation.  Each individual gun represents 4, which is fine for the CSA, but represents just 2/3 of the standard 6-gun Union battery.  I have considered organising them into 2-gun Confederate and 3-gun Union batteries, with each such battery representing two real ones.  Two of these 'wargames' batteries form a battalion of 4 (16) CSA or 6 (24) USA cannon apiece.

Army Composition:
Union:
34 Infantry Regiments, mostly 27 figures, 1 @29, and I think 3 @ 21 figures.
plus a half-battalion of I think 10 or 12 Berdan's sharpshooters (these are ESCI);

6 Cavalry Battalions each of 15 figures;

18 cannon organised into 6 (double) batteries of 3 guns and 13 officers and men.

Roughly 1080 figures and 18 cannon.

Confederate:
23 infantry regiments, 20@27 figures, and 3 @ 23.

4 Cavalry regiments @ 23 figures

12 cannon organised into 6 (double) batteries of 2 guns and 9 officers and men

Roughly 755 figures and 12 cannon.

Possibly both armies could stand the addition of a few more guns, say, to 21 and 14 respectively...
~//~
(I am still in hibernation really, not really making progress on anything new.  Sorry)



10 comments:

  1. Another great post Ion.

    By the way - we played ACW games using B&G for around 6 years so they were a decent set. To be honest when I started war-gaming I learnt from Grant\Featherstone and Archduke Piccolo. I'm going to use a slight larger base as you suggested (which can then double up for other sets).Cheers

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    1. Sounds good! I did enjoy those games. It is a pity the 'Second War Between the States' campaign turned into such a frost, though. I always felt I rushed into it rather, without enough preparation. At any rate I'm glad you enjoyed those games.

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  2. Nice to hear from you and a treat to see your Airfix ACW. I like the pistol conversions.

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    1. Thanks Ross. I've added a paragraph to the posting, buy the way, that I intended but forgot to add, concerning the composition of my armies.

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  3. Rank and file always impresses Ion. Good skills.

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    1. I haven't done much of anything with these fellows in a long, long time. Very sadly neglected they are. That will have to change. I think they would look reasonably good with more 'finish', but thanks for the compliment!

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  4. Replies
    1. I have not added to that collection these twenty years at least. Some figures I've had since 1974.

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  5. For what it's worth, in 1864 Grant reduced the number of guns in Union batteries in the Army of the Potomac from 6 to 4. Whether other Federal Armies followed suit is unknown to me (I've never seen anything on it either way). This does simplify things from a wargaming standpoint, as USA and CSA would thenceforth be equal in terms of numbers of guns, although many of the Union batteries I've read about still had 6 guns--perhaps only new or reconstituted batteries had 4 guns instead of 6...

    Best regards,

    Chris Johnson

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    Replies
    1. I didn't know about that reduction, but it does sound as though the change was probably gradual and piecemeal. I did read once that Napoleon wanted to reduce his artillery batteries (companies) from 8 to 4, but recognised its impracticality owing to the need to double up on company-level support services. Possibly U.S. Grant's plan ran into the same problem.

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