The 45 - The Government Army

GENERALS

C IN C @ 100 points only one per army.

General for the German contingent @ 50 points up to one.

Subordinate General as the second in command he can also act as an infantry or cavalry brigade commander @ 50pts up to one.

British brigade commander only 1 per brigade or “formed line” @ 50points up to three.

Field officer to command a cavalry or infantry regiment or sub section of either @ 20points up to three
two per brigade or “formed line”.

German or Dutch brigade commander @ 40points up to two per three battalions.

Up to 2 artillery officers each one to command a battery @ 40 points.

MOUNTED TROOPS AND CAVALRY

5 figures for Cumberland’s bodyguard of “HUSSARS” light trained cavalry that can also skirmish, there is no cost to upgrade as skirmishers.
@ 10 points per figure.
This unit can only be used when Cumberland is commanding the army.

6 to 15 figures of dragoons of raw line heavy cavalry, elements of 3 figures per troop, two troops per squadron.
@ 8points per figure
2 points to make raw line heavy cavalry as trained line heavy cavalry @10 pts per figure .

5 to 12 figures of trained light volunteer cavalry “Kingstons” , elements of 3 figures per troop, two troops per squadron.
@ 10points per figure.
1 point to allow volunteer cavalry to act as skirmishers, all or none of the regiment .

INFANTRY AND OTHER FOOT UNITS

12 to 24 figures of raw line infantry, elements of 4 figures per stand each representing one company.
@ 3points per figure
1 point to make raw line infantry as trained line total @ 4pts per figure
1 point to make trained line infantry as veteran line total @ 5pts per figure

6 to 24 figures of raw irregular charging soldier infantry armed with muskets @ 4points per figure, organised as a battalion.
1 point to make raw as trained irregular charging soldier infantry @ 5pts per figure.

6 to 20 raw loyalist or government militia infantry @ 3points per figure.
1 point to make them raw irregular militia infantry.

20 to 30 figures of raw line German “Hessians” or Dutch infantry @ 3points per figure.

ARTILLERY

1 to 3 light medium guns to be deployed in one battery or in a mixed battery each with 4 trained crew, 4 horses, a limber and a levy driver, @ 53 points with limber.

Up to 6 light guns with 3 crew, 2 horses, a limber and a levy driver, @ 29 points if raw, @ 32 points if trained , deployed in two batteries or issued as battalion guns up to half or all .

Up to 2 Coehorn mortars to a artillery battery, each mortar with 2 trained crew, @ 10 points per mortar

Or

One light medium howitzer with 3 trained crew, a limber, 4 horses and levy drivers @ 53 points.

CHARACTER GENERALS (at no extra cost, these in fact replace the C in C)

General Sir John Cope classed as “CAUTIOUS”

General Henry Hawley, classed as “RASH”

William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland commander at Cullodon, classed as “BOLD”

ARMY ORGANISATION

1. The C in C can only act as the army commander, unless a brigade officer is directly replaced by him or killed, there is only 1 C in C and 1 Subordinate general. They can command troops of either infantry or cavalry or both with 1 general per brigade of cavalry, infantry and artillery .
Brigades of infantry consist of up to six battalions of any foot and cavalry brigades of up to four squadrons.

2. Artillery can be deployed as a battery with its own commander or placed under the command of the subordinate general.

3. For an army of 2200 points, 1 C in C and a subordinate general are needed.

4. An officers influence is tested for before the start of the game, the test is as per the rules for the British 1 or 2 is cautious, 3,4 or 5 bold, 6 rash and for German/Dutch 1,2,3 or 4 cautious 5 bold and 6 rash.
Or you can use the character generals from the top of this page. Field officers are used to command at regimental or detached element level, they can only control the unit for which they are placed into base contact with, these officers influence can be counted as per the other officers.

5. If you choose to use the standard army list then you can have up to 18 battalions of infantry with two of these classed as veteran line, but only if the entire army is British, with only one trained to two raw battalions within the army, the army must have at least 50% of its line infantry as raw.

6. With using the army list up to 4 regiments of dragoons (line heavy cavalry) can be used, only 50% can be trained cavalry, and only 4 troops of cavalry to 3 battalions of infantry can be used. If using volunteer cavalry (Kingston’s light horse) only two other dragoon regiments can be used. The cavalry can be deployed by squadrons, but each has to be under the control of a field officer.

7. Up to 6 battalions of mercenary infantry can be used in the army but they must have their own national general commanding them.

8. Up to 2 battalions of loyalist militia can also be fielded.

9. Up to 2 battalions of Highland Infantry, one of the Argyll Militia and the other the 64th or Loudons Highlanders, up to one per six battalions of British lines.

10.There can be mixed batteries of artillery with only one light medium to two light guns fielded in the army

A Redcoat reminisces

I think that most of AWI regulars of a certain age originally became interested in the period thanks to Airfix and the “Washington Army” and “British Grenadiers” packs of 1/72nd soldiers, mine were supplemented with the Napoleonic range and drawing on inspiration from films like “Waterloo”, “Northwest passage”, “Drums along the Mohawk”, “The Alamo” and “The Buccaneer”, also armed with my imagination I set about playing soldiers with Uncles, Grandad and my Father.

The older I got the more interested I became in military history, my first endeavour with metal was the Hinchcliffe and Minifig English Civil War when I was about fifteen, soon it was WWII with 1/300th scale. Dropping my interests with figures I pursued more adult past-times from the ages of 16 – 23 but still having an interest in all things military, around 1988 I met up with another chap who had the same interests as myself, Front Rank English Civil War were our first 25mm collection which was closely followed by Front Ranks AWI....... and the rest as they say is history.

We have put on various demo games since 1990, the first was The Battle of Princeton, by this time we had become interested in re-enactment and signed up with “SAR” (Society of the American Revolution) as members of the 37th Foot, the first demo game was fun as we had members of the 3rd New York and 2nd Rhode Island groups commanding Washington’s army and the 37th in charge of Mawhood's brigade. Between 1990 to around 1998 we were demo game regulars at the Colours and Warfare shows, one year we staged a Crimean game, owing to work constraints we have had to put on hold some of the games planned and have not been at Colours since the show moved to Newbury, we have however staged two WW1 games and two generic AWI games at the Warfare (Reading, Berkshire).

During 2003 and 2004 we even staged a couple of games in conjunction with the National Army Museum, the 2003 game was “Spencer Ordinary", I prepared the game using my figures and information supplied from Brendan Morrissey's knowledge of the engagement, we fought the game on a 1:5 ratio, I now have raised the Queens Rangers to fight the same engagement on 1:2 ratio using Front Rank and Perry Miniatures figures, rules set has always been "Rebellion in the Colonies" by Peter Helm, printed in 1989, with some of our changes though. The army list used is really the Novek books, we use the listed returns of the Novek books to raise regiments. Presently we re-basing and tidying up all our old Front Rank figures to mix in with the Perry/Foundry stuff, the 37th no longer participates in UK events as we have all became older (wider in some cases) and tied down to our responsibilities, however we have not yet written ourselves off.

Redcoat37th

Musgrove Mill

Apart from having to work my visit to the Carolina’s was quite relaxed, having finished grafting one morning I decided to visit the “Musgrove Mill” state park which was about 35 miles from where I was staying in Spartanburg, SC.

On arrival to the park I managed a chat with one of the park rangers who was quite informative, the park being only a state park does not have the resources as say one of the national parks however I did enjoy my visit.

The visitors centre has a few exhibits relating to the period and a fibre optic diorama of the battlefield which relates to the actual engagement fought at Musgrove Mill, with a audio explanation of the fight of August 18th 1780.

An Edward Musgrove purchased a tract of land on either side of the Enoree River and by 1774 he was quite well established with a house and mill which was primarily used for “Grist” but was also used as a saw mill.

The South Carolina back country at that time was frontier land and heavily wooded, adjacent to the house which was at the top of the incline up from the river was the wagon road, the crossing as expected would be known as Musgrove Ford. There are only the ruins of the old Musgrove house that exist today as the house was mysteriously burned down during the 70’s, there are some information panels placed around the park. The area of the battle is on the Northern side of the Enoree River with the visitors centre and ruins on the Southern side, the park are hoping to gain enough funds to be able to link up both sides with a trail running up to the area of the battlefield.

The map shows the current extent and future plans of the Musgrove Mill site, the battle site was more open than the current area, the ford was just below where the highway 56 bridge is, the road in 1780 crossed at this point, the ground falls away downhill from the visitors centre and foundation ruins of the Musgrove House, the track follows roughly where the road would have been down to the Enoree river, crossing at the ford the road would slowly rise up hill towards an open area where the engagement was fought, looking at the optic diorama map in the visitors centre gives a good idea of the lay of the land, the road was open on both sides which I suspect allowed a little more freedom of movement than being confined by the woods on either side.

By August 1780 a small loyalist force had established a camp and base of operations in the vicinity of the Musgrove House owing to the road crossing and good conditions that were offered for recovering soldiers, there were around 400-600 loyalists of varying troop quality “garrisoned” here, Edward Musgrove was in fact a neutral. A group of 200-300 Patriot militiamen rode to strike what they thought was an equal number of Loyalists at Musgrove Mill on the Enoree River. Instead, they found themselves badly outnumbered, the Tories having been joined by 300 provincial regulars from the nearby British post at Ninety Six. Retreat was impossible, a frontal assault suicidal. So the Patriot forces took a strong defensive position and lured the Loyalists into a fierce fight that turned into a near rout after the British attack collapsed when they lost their commander.

I spent around 3 hours in the area and quite enjoyed my visit, must admit that it is my intention to return to Musgrove Mill one day when they have the park as per their proposed plan.

A Travelling Redcoat

Cowpens and Kings Mountain 2007

I visited these two sites while working in Atlanta during July 2007, the reason I want to return is twofold weather and camera problems, back in the good old day of point and shoot film camera's I never had this kind of trouble.

Some of my shots of the interiors of the visitors centre's are a little blurry.

A Travelling Redcoat

Travelling Redcoat's

So where have we been……….

The US and Canada, we try to take in as many AWI and ACW battle sites as we can and any other places of interest:-

AWI - Saratoga, Trenton, Princeton, Monmouth Courthouse, Fort Niagara, Fort Stanwix, Bordentown (occupation weekend with BAR), Williamsburg, Yorktown, Guilford Courthouse, Cowpens, Kings Mountain and Jersey the channel Islands, we did two events there with a group of re-enactors as part of the invasion of Jersey.

ACW – Fredericksberg, Gettysburg, Richmond and associated sites, Atlanta's cyclorama and Kennesaw Mountain.

War of 1812 – Fort Erie, Fort George, Fort York, Lundys Lane, Chippawa, Queenston Heights, Butlers Barracks and Stoney Creek, one of us have been in Canada for a couple of months and managed quite a few visits to the Niagara area which rates as one of our most loved areas we have been to so far, from Richmond to Yorktown Virginia rates pretty high as well.

Portland Oregon have Fort Vancouver, "the fort that fur built" this is a National Parks site and is a very good example of a stockade type fort.

We also have a deep interest with the USMC and Royal Marines, we have been to the Royal Marines museum in Eastney Portsmouth, in 2006 one of us worked out of Richmond Virginia for around a month and visited the USMC Museum at Quantico, what can be said but absolutely outstanding.

There are other places that I have visited some are listed here, there are also many other places that I have been to but not much there floated my boat, Russia – Moscow and St Petersburg (worth a weekend away), Greece – Thermopylae, Belgium – Ypres, France – Normandy, Northern Spain and Portugal, Gibraltar and South Africa.

We will post more as time goes by...................

Who are Redcoats at WAR

We are small group of like minded individuals who are interested in the wars fought by the British Army between 1700 and present day. Our current projects see our group raising armies to fight the Boer War and the American Revolution, over the last few years we have accumulated a wide variety of books and relevant information relating to these two periods.

We intend to post our progress as we endeavour in preparing to hit the wargames circuit with two demostration games that we hope to show in 2009, we will also post some general information of the two periods we are currently covering, our little group is made up of wargamers and a couple of re-enactors who also like to wargame.

In the past we have staged games using 25mm figures for the American Revolution, Crimean War, 7th&8th Cape Wars and World War I, inspiration comes from Tarletons Quarter and Touching History for the AWI, these have to be two of the best sites showing a very high standard of figures and terrain.

Col. Tavington