/hwg/ - Historical Wargames General

>Was looking at modern war
>Like make up a modern nation and paint the colors accordingly
Imagi-nations (as they're called) are cool and pretty common in moderns wargaming. Especially with AK-47 Republic, a ruleset about modern African wars. There's also fullblown 6mm-scale divisional-level type stuff, where you could fit a whole corps on the table, and imagi-nations could be a thing there too (see: Tinytanks).

>Like make up a modern nation and paint the colors accordingly

That would be AK-47 Republic, a very tongue in cheek Cold War Africa rule set. It's designed for larger battles using smaller guys (10 or 15mm)

Modern there's Spoecter and Eureka I mentioned before or if you're willing to look at 20mm (and so can use 1/72 vehicle kits of which there are thousands of options) Under Fire Miniatures are excellent as are TQD miniatures. Zevezda has a limited range of plastic Cold War kits that are quite nice too

And since you're new and maybe haven't gotten oriented yet, 1st and 2nd edition of AK47 republic are in the OP

>
Wow those are nice

Looks like a good starting point. Thanks!

Oh also the Boxer rebellion will give you the chance to paint a lot of different colorful figure types for the different nationalities, factions etc. I don;t know who makes good figures though.

Renaissance armies did not have uniforms, you can paint them however you want, for pretty much any country. Before the time of Louis XIV, the closest thing to uniforms were either commanders buying their own troops the same color clothing or mandating some sort of sash or something for identification, like Wallenstein did.

anybody here got a good pic dump of Byzantine soldiers from the 13th century? both post-imperial reformation and the preceding states like the Despotate of Epirus and the Empire of Nicaea?

What was the first time uniforms came in?

Didn't the Spanish Tercios have some kind of uniforms?

First English uniforms were the New Model Army in the ECW.

As far as I understand it, a Tercio is just an organizational unit in an army. So by that definition, yes, some would, because sometimes regiment commanders would buy their soldiers uniformed clothing. That isn't an army-wide uniform though.

Luzon 1945 - The final liberation of the Philippines (Osprey Campaign 306)

Driven from the Philippines in 1942, General Douglas MacArthur returned three years later to force the Japanese off of its main island of Luzon. Containing the capital of Manila, vital natural resources as well as thousands of Allied prisoners of war, the triumph at Luzon would be a vital step on the road to victory as the Americans continued to island-hop their way towards the Japanese home islands. This new study details one of the hardest-fought campaigns of the Pacific War with Japanese fatalities alone on Luzon topping 200,000. Emphasizing the differences in Japanese and American strategy, and detailing the combat operations of the campaign, this volume tells the story of how MacArthur kept his promise to return and liberate the Philippines.

mediafire.com/file/y18d2b75oo3pd8j/Osprey - CAM 306 - Luzon 1945.pdf

I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask this, but I have to wonder what the advantage is of the maniple system other than flexibility. Maybe I'm stupid, but I kind of see a pretty big disadvantage in it.

The idea is to deploy your troops in three lines among a checkerboard system to allow for easy manouvering and at the same time allowing you to keep your second and third lines fresh if the battle goes sour, right? But why do this? If the enemy is equally numbered and throws their full forces into your lines, your men are now outnumbered 3-to-1 at the front and your enemies can easily surround the entire army, as most of your second and third ranks are nowhere near the real fighting. Wouldn't it make more sense to put both Hastati and Principes in the first line, keeping only a small minority of veteran Triarii in reserves just in case?

The Roman enemies Phalanxes usually deployed 8 (& usually more) deep. Romans deployed 4 deep (when in line) - so, all three lines were about 10 deep - not much more than the enemy.

Also, each Roman takes up some more room (frontage) than the Phalanxman, and the total front was (nearly) the same.

The rotation of men was a pretty vital aspect of the roman fighting machine, your troops are always fresh, and the enemy is constantly being worn down. Its a wonder what a few minutes rest can do in a battle.

Also the Romans tended to find things that worked well from other militarizes (and cultures) and incorporate them, they probably wouldn't implement something if it never worked in practice.

What you just described has nothing to do with the maniple system though.
To answer your question, because life isn't like a video game where you can see everything and perfectly coordinate all your forces. In a perfect world, yes having all your troops engaged is better than not - concentration of force is a huge part of military theory for a reason. however especially in the past, before information technology, coordination and poor information have always meant that having a fresh mobile reserve which can meet threats or exploit breakthroughs had always been more important than just hoping you can mob your opponent to death.

This is my main gripe with wargames: you see & know entirely too much.

Video games haven't made it any better, either: since they still let you know too much - even when all the requirements for some awesome fog-of-war are there.

youtube.com/watch?v=gbSa9ZvSMaQ

I agree I've not played Bolt Action yet but while watching a demo game a guy put his americans into ambush mode in a forest and the german player just fired at them with his stug when they were meant to be hidden. Also stuff like snipers and MG teams in buildings, the opponent would just avoid that are even though his troops shouldnt know they're there.

I think if both players were to take a rough drawing of the table then mark on their copy where they've placed units before play, that would make it more interesting cause you'd think

*area

I'm mostly thinking about using markers with the unit (or non-unit) inscribed on the bottom.

With neither side knowing what's under the enemy's marker, if there are, like twice as many markers than units, and with having to reveal your own marker in order to find out what is it - I think the Scouting part of any game could be a whole lot better.

Like: you want to know what's in the village over there ('cause you know something is) - you gotta move your troops out of the woods and take a look.

"Dummy" counters were always a great way of handling fog-of-war in Squad Leader, and it works on the tabletop too. I've seen an ACW game where units were represented by different-sized blue and grey wooden blocks, until they were 'identified' by an opposing ruin and the minis were then placed.

Pre-written orders was another sound idea that's been around a while. (Trying to simulate fog-of-war has occupied gamers since Featherstone - in the old days they used to kneel at the table edge and use literal line of sight. Don himself discusses several ways to deal with it in his Complete Wargaming). Players have to outline before the game what their units would be doing several turns ahead, and could only amend those orders once things were underway. (One thing about the Combat Mission series that I loved was the 30-second real time periods where you couldn't change your orders, so were required to think ahead and punished for careless decisions). It worked better for slower-placed stuff like 18th century and Napoleonic because of the generally shitty communications. This sort of thing was in the same vein as having the C-in-C in another room, issuing orders based on what his corps commanders were telling him.

While I somewhat agree with you, wargames generally aren't trying to exactly replicate the real thing. They are, at their core, games.

I'm not, exactly, trying to replicate the real thing, either.

It's just that, IMHO, games are a simplified, fast-paced shadows of the real thing they're meant to represent.

And, right now, games choose to represent the combat part of the battle & mostly ignore all the rest of it.
IMHO, the rest of it should be a bit more represented. (& Scouting is just a start)

Again, IMHO

>They are, at their core, games.
Games concerned with war. "Wargame" implies equal parts war and game, but each game has its own balance. Harpoon and ASL have more war, BA and FoW have more game.

For of war is one of the most important elements of warfare. Ambushes are incredibly powerful, as are unexpected flank attacks. Knowing exactly where your enemy is makes recon meaningless - recon traditionally being one of the cornerstones of warfare. You can't attack an enemy unless you know where he is, and you won't know where he is without recon, or at least some kind of information.

That said, fog of war and limited command control are two of the hardest things to implement in a wargame, so its no surprise they get gleaned over in favor of something playable - not everyone has the time or inclination to play double blind with a referee, or mark up a map of the table with where their forces are deployed. True fog of war can't really exist without a referee, although blinds are an ok alternative.

Limited command control is easier to implement, but can often lead to frustration as players are used to being able to move or attack with any of their pieces, like in chess or really any boardgame. Having a unit that can't move of attack for the entire game, while realistic in some situations, is a total waste of time in a game - painting all those miniatures, learning the rules, rolling all the dice, all so a unit can do nothing. So most games try to find a balance between fun and historical accuracy.

This is what pisses me off about video (war)games - they are capable of all that, but the makers are so concerned about muh moneyz & pander to the casuals.

>dat smug shield

Building a demo board, bought a 1:48 scale C130 to use as the centre piece.

The board is going to be 4' square and the plane looks to be about 2' square ish once assembled. Good thing it's crashed so I it isn't just a giant LOS blocker

>but I kind of see a pretty big disadvantage in it.

What you "see" and "think" has nothing whatsoever to do with reality.

As a combat vet and former AIT instructor, I can safely say that high on the list of fantasies video game "trained" fools like you possess is COMMAND & CONTROL. Being a fool, you blithely assume perfect knowledge of the location of you forces and those enemy along with perfect control of the former.

One of my favorite parts of AIT was disabusing fools like you of the video game and paintball "tactics" they had "learned".

You've also failed to see how one side can concentrate it's entire force at the point of contact to achieve a 3-1 advantage and still have enough forces to wrap around the legion's flanks.

The manipular legion and it's offshoots worked very well for centuries and gave Rome mastery of the classical world. Given the same tech and other capabilities, no organizational system you can think of could do any better.

Going to break it in half or leave it more or less one piece?

Splitting it up into:

- Nose
- central wing area (raised complete wing, crumpled half wing)
- the rest of the half wing
- Tail section

I can neither confirm nor deny the initial inspiration was from a certain map in a certain call of duty game

This feels like a copypasta, is this a copypasta?

I've wondered the same thing. At Fraustadt(1706) the Saxon commander has two lines and the swedes have one. But when the swedes break through the first line the second line falters and runs away as well.

>I'm mostly thinking about using markers with the unit (or non-unit) inscribed on the bottom.
that's how we do it

Easy and quick, right?

Not to mention adds a whole lotta guesswork.
"Are those 10 markers on the right real units there to annihilate me if I weaken it, or is he just bluffing?"

The Swedes were also attacking from both flanks with cavalry.

It isn't hard to see why infantry surrounded on all sides with cavalry to their rear and no cavalry cover of their own fled and surrendered.

Anyone know where FFL symbols would be placed on tanks? For WW2?

Also, where the fuck can I find a 28mm M4A1 Sherman thats not 40 smackaroos? It's the most aesthetic sherman I know.

>Anyone know where FFL symbols would be placed on tanks? For WW2?
The online Tanks Encyclopedia has a couple of pics, but other than googling around I could only suggest looking at the relevant Ospreys. You should be able to find some contemporary pics that would help.

Found a copy of Decisive Battles of the English Civil War by the unfortunately named Malcolm Wanklyn for very cheap in a local book shop. It seems to sell itself as a reassessment of conventional narratives which raises some concern that maybe the author put agenda before accuracy, but I guess I'll find out when I read it.

>Malcolm Wanklyn
Wonder if he's any relation to one of Britain's best WW2 sub aces
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malcolm_Wanklyn
I found this entry at the Surname Database illuminating:
>Recorded as Wank, Wanck, Wancke, the diminutive Wankel, the occupational Wankmuller (Germany), and in England as Wanklin, Wankling, and Wanklyn, all diminutives, this is a surname of pre 7th century Anglo-Saxon and early German origins. It has two possible meanings in its base forms, although as a compound such as Wankmuller, meaing a miller by a path, the options are greatly increased. The base form translations are either topographical and describe person who lived by a path or bye road (wank), or the same word used in a transferred sense as a medieval nickname for a person regarded by his friends or peer group, as having a fickel personality! In most countries in Europe, surnames from nicknames form one of the largest groups in the surname listings. Those surnames considered overly robust or obscene, of which there were many, have now disappeared, or have been replaced by gentrified versions.

Meh, he's a wanker any way you cut it.

The about the author section on the back doesn't mention much, only that he is an Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Wolverhampton.

>Wolverhampton

Thanks user! Im working on an FFL platoon to go with (against?) my DAK and want my tanks to look cool.

Pic related WIP tank. Maybe not super accurate specific, but it is Warthunder accurate.

More WIP. I had wanted originally wanted to use it for the obsolete vehicle event, since M8s were used in the french indochina war.

Buuut that clearly did not happen.

Aside from what's been mentioned, that's why training to do it reliably is a big deal - anyone can form up two lines, but knowing that people from the front rank are going to drop back and being able to handle it without panicking and breaking is a harder task.

I was looking into reading this but had similar reservations. Also because those battles have all been covered a hundred times, and have been trying to find out more about all the random little skirmishes that are basically footnotes to the large engagements.
Best I've got so far is a timeline and a local (Hampshire unsurprisingly) history book that was actually really good for that sort of thing.

Hampshire this, Hampshire that! when will this Southern oppression end! Rise up my Northern brothers!

Up the People's Republic of Sheffield!

In the "early modern" period (pretty much 1600-1700) most armies operated by "commissioning" a Colonel to raise a regiment of foot or horse. The crown would give him a lump sum, he would use that to hire men, buy them weapons, armour, rations, and uniforms (and keep the "left-over" funds as his personal fee, so the incentive was to cut costs as much as possible).

Generally, soldiers would be issued a certain number of yards of cloth, which would be sewn into clothing by their female relative(s). The cheapest way to do it was to buy all the same kind of cloth wholesale, so there would be a "blue" regiment, a "grey" regiment, etc. Red was one of the cheapest dyes, so it was very popular in all armies.

The ideal was to have a soldier issued with enough cloth for a coat, pants, hat, and money for hose and shoes. In practice, they often received the bare minimum for a small coat.

100% standardized colours was almost never a thing until WW1, because different branches (Line Inf, Grenadiers, Skirmishers, Light Inf) would often have different coloured uniforms (skirmishers were usually green or black, for instance), but from the TYW/ECW onward uniforms gradually became more standardized by nation, as the "commission" method became more standardized/centralized/nationalized.

I think the "colonel buying cloth for his regiment" system began gradually to be phased out in most nations beginning at the turn of the 18th century.

Pic related, Gustavus Adolphus attempted to standardize uniform colours for his army and to go after corrupt colonels who abused their commission, but with limited success

They do like it up 'em alright.

Gonna try and get this lot ready for a game next Sunday, anyone else working on anything this bank holiday weekend?

This kind of proves the point of the Romans though. They put their least experienced in front, and the most experienced behind, so that the reserves are the most trained to cope with and avoid the disorder of retreating front-lines.

That said, IIRC it is not 100% certain that the Camillan/Polybian Roman army actually deployed as a checkerboard with gaps in the battle-line, there are convincing arguments for and against it, but they did at least have three lines even if they were unbroken, and smaller organizational units that could be detached (as at Cynoscephalae, for instance). Hannibal even attempted (and failed) to imitate this three-line system at Zama, in order to get the most out of his three quality-tiers of troops (militia, mercenaries, and veterans).

The main strength of the Camillan/Polybian system was versatility, but it also reflected socio-economic realities. The early/mid Republican army was a citizen army, the citizens armed and armoured themselves, and they were "classed" as Equites/Triarii/Principes/Hastati/Velites based on age, experience, and financial ability to purchase the appropriate panoply.

The later Republican army phased out the different troop-types into essentially Principes (which later, briefly, became everyone's favorite Lorica Segmentata Legionaries) because they had absorbed Carthage, Greece, and much of Anatolia at that point (three of the wealthiest regions on earth), and therefore could afford to equip an army of Principes at the state's (or General/Patron's) expense, and use auxilliaries for roles other than heavy infantry (Numidian, Gallic, and Iberian cavalry, Iberian and Cretan skirmishers, even elephants). This contributed to the gradual switch from Maniple to the larger Cohort, which was also a response to the 100-year-long counter-insurgency in Iberia, which necessitated self-contained "corps" instead of large Consular/Praetorian army-groups.

Been working on this lot for something to do. Had them for years in an unfinished state and I'm waiting for new stuff to turn up so... might as well get some practice..

My favorite solution is to implement it like Kriegsspiel would - umpire and having the rooms be separate. It's a great way, if a bit expensive; you can make it a bit less expensive by taking an overhead photo of the table and having five people (two commanders, two guys communicating the info to the commanders and moving troops about and deciding combat, one umpire), with two in separate rooms, plus one of those covers for writing with a whiteboard-style pen.

But that requires too many people.

Vidya might work, but people like control.

As these guys note, the early Roman army was essential Greek/Etruscan in style, with hoplites supported by lighter troops and very little cavalry. They got mangled by several Gallic invasions, and fought incessant low-intensity wars with Italic tribes, both of whom influenced the switch to the "legionary" style, with a Gallic, Italic, and Hellenic elements incorporated.

The Italics were masters of hit-and-run warfare, and liked to use rough terrain to help this. This encouraged the development of smaller tactical units capable of quicker battlefield reaction and initiative. The Gauls may very well have introduced the idea of a javelin-barrage preceding a sword-charge, probably introduced them to the oval shield that evolved into the Scutum.

Some have posited that the method of hiding behind a large shield and stabbing into the armpit of the man to your right (in front of the legionary standing beside you) whilst in a much looser formation (about 3' to each side) than a phalanx, was primarily determined by the needs of the short Romans to defeat the tall Gauls.

Anyway, long story short, a more porous and flexible battle-line helped to cope with both hit-and-run opponents and "furious barbarian assault" opponents. It also gave them the ability to fight the Sarisa Phalanx to a draw in a straight-up frontal fight, unlike any other infantry formation we are aware of (except perhaps veteran hoplites).

County Durham represent.

That's actually a pretty sexy looking flag, but what is that device on it?

The Cross of St. Cuthbert, a patron saint of old Northumbria with lots of churches and stuff up here named after him (there's a St. Cuthbert's right down the road from my house in fact).

The flag is nice but it's not very well publicised, I would reckon most people here wouldn't recognise it which is a shame.

At first I mistook it for some sort of Asturias flag variant.

>wanna play historical games
>nothing but infinity players
>they always ruin my demo games

Where you at user? Just don't say Hampshire.

Bury Lancashire

The world is a Hampshire, where we can all come together and do some fights.

>if I want any kind of historical presence in my club I need to organize games for others
Feels bad, man. Hopefully I'll soon have space for a table at my soon-to-be home and can invite others instead of bringing both armies and terrain to the club.

>not wanting him to be from Hampshire
It's like you don't want him to find a historical game.

PS. Hampshire is the greatest.

is the hampshire the jerusalem of histricals?

...

Northumberland, ura!
Sheffield, pls go. You're not northern.

>Sheffield, pls go. You're not northern.

hmmmmm

Independence of Mercia!!!

Just because it's past the halfway point doesn't mean it's northern

Muh Boys, Hwicce represent.

It doesn't even have to be half way up to be Northern I'll have you know. I draw the line somewhere around Oxford.

I have produced a helpful guide.

pretty good user, but as a Midlander I am hurt.

I think it's time for late night folk music again lads.

youtube.com/watch?v=Nxls60aYSZA

Men of War does a pretty good job of fog of war - provided you set it to realistic. Using officers with binoculars and light vehicles to recon becomes pretty important in head to head online games.

Hey user, it may take some Google translate but here's a site (in French) that shows an actual tank as well as what the symbols meant. 2db.free.fr/divers_marquages.html

There's also the tank in Dijon, which had some Free French General? in it.

>Video games haven't made it any better, either: since they still let you know too much - even when all the requirements for some awesome fog-of-war are there.

Have you played Graviteam Tactics?

LAV-75

Awesome, thanks!

COOK THE MAN SOME EGGS

Good image

kek

You have allies in the South West; our tractors will grind them down and turn their fields into apple orchards.

You think that's bad, look up the history of flags.

oh man that is a sweet chess set