The League of Augsburg
The dust is settling.. With Talon and Claw reflections and a QRS!
The book reached its first customer on August 16th and now seems to have arrived in most corners of the globe. It was a massive relief to finish this project which had been all consuming for over eighteen months.
The final decision to print is always a bit like betting £50,000 on red. You know there is a risk that something will not be right but having checked and checked, you can't find it. It was...
National Museum of Ireland: 17th/18th Century exhibits
A little lead in on the late Elizabethan period with this musketeer and then the display moves on to cover
the 17th/18th century exhibits. The section begins with a ' How would you invade Ireland?' map with some notations on it.
We them go into the period of the Confederate Wars and the Cromwellian occupation. The mannequins were particularly good.
I was very taken by the simplicity of the Jacobite...
The National Museum of Ireland - a lovely wee surprise
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| The parade ground square at Collins Barracks which is an old British Army facility from the late 18th/early 19th century. |
I squeezed this in whilst speaking at a conference in Dublin. What a wonderful find it was. In this first post I thought I would trail the variety of fantastic and interesting militaria contained in a very substantial and well laid out national museum. I visited the Collins...
Marlborough's Danes
Yes, I know. How could Warfare have produced such an important component of the armies of the period without me getting my act together and at least letting everyone see what they look like in battalions?
An unforgivable omission but as always I will trot out my 'one man team' excuse. Well, that and Ottomans, Wagonburgs, wee ships, Cossacks and the like.
Anyway at last I have some units of Danes to...
Did you hear the one about four Dutch Heokers? December 1689.
Eilean Dub Mor, December 4, 1689
William III and his army landed at Carrickfergus, Ulster in August 1689 and the international struggle for Ireland began. His army was ill-served by its officers and during the terrible winter camp at Dundalk thousands of men died from disease. The situation was disastrous and...
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| A regimental camp at Dundalk October 1689 - King William's soldier die in droves daily. |
Against the wind - Bantry Bay May 11, 1689
This second scenario using my 1/2400 ships is based on the events of May 11, 1689 when Admiral Herbert's English fleet attacked a French fleet under Admiral Chateaurenault in Bantry Bay on the south west coast of Ireland. It also gets me back to Ireland and my favourite theatre of the entire period.
The historical action was inconclusive and involved 24 French and 19 English vessels. Most were 3rd,...
The historical action was inconclusive and involved 24 French and 19 English vessels. Most were 3rd,...
Blood & Cutts! Part 2
The second part of my piece on Lord John Cutts of Gowran.
An appraisal of England’s fire eating general
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| English hero - for sure, Subject of Swiftian satire - definitely! |
What he did best
His speciality was leading assaults into the breach. Many of his wounds were received in such situations. He seemed to gravitate towards peers and superiors with a similar disposition to his own. One such, Thomas...
One to One wargaming - table top reality
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| A real life soldier! Musketeer Sean of a Jacobite regiment in Ireland circa 1689. Copyright B Hilton. |
Figure gaming usually falls into some broad categories in terms of scale. Firstly there is the model scale and secondly, the model to man ratio.
Typically 40mm, 28/25mm, 20mm, 15mm, 10mm, 6mm are the most common categories for the former. Of course there are several intermediate scales and some...
One to one wargaming: expanding the idea
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| Three 48 man companies of musketeers from the garrison of Derry. A company of Mountjoy's Regt at the centre. |
I was very pleased that the first post on this subject was popular and that visitors were stimulated to consider the implications of frontages, deployment, fire methodologies and movement around the battlefield and its table top imitation.
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| A battalion of Jacobite Foot based for Beneath the... |
One to one wargaming: A visual study in British company deployment 1685-1698
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| Company six deep |
I have been planning this particular post for about three years. Why has it taken so long? I needed to get a run at it. I am fascinated by the compromises necessary in wargaming particularly in relation to scales. Vertical scale distortion, ground scale distortion and finally the challenges in representing the depth of formations relative to their width. This last one has always...
Rawdon Raises an Army, Part Two
Thomas Grove - Rawdon's forces begin to muster!
So that's two units of Horse finished! Hugh Magill's Dragoons with Hugh Magill himself as a personality. As well as the 3rd squadron of Rawdon's Horse!
I went with a drab uniform for Rawdon's dragoons using Foundry Granite and Forest Green for the cuffs.
Magill's dragoons I went with a red (foundry terracotta) uniform with green (forest green)...
Militia - all painted
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| various pikemen - Sedgemoor? Derry? Boston? |
It took a while but I finally got the lot painted and Toggy did some too! This post is just to illustrate the potential of these beautiful models.
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| Armed wth scythes, polearms and short pikes - Raparees? Huguenots? Town mob? |
I really enjoyed painting them - so easy.
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| The musketmen - each has 4 arm variants so multiply the horde by four and there is still no... |