I'm in the midst of reading the 1st volume of Robert L. Scheina's 2-volume history of the wars of Latin America. The 1st volume, sub-titled "The Age of the Caudillo, 1`791-1899" is a general purpose history (which it has to be to include the amount of information it contains) of 569 pages, including maps, phots and notes.
While it lacks details that a gamer might want to build forces (OOB, uniforms information and such), it does give a decent outline of the hundreds (thousands?) of campaigns broken down by the war and area it happened in. An interesting amount of information is given dealing with the naval warfare of the period as I was surprised by how many naval battales were fought by multi-ship squadrons of small ships up to frigates and SOL with the author giving the name of the ships and their gun totals.
The early part of the book deals with the wars of independance, allowing those so inclined to build forces (I'd recommend the Yahoo group) for Napoleonic type uniforms, formations and tactics. As most armies seemed to have been between 3-6,000 men on average, made up of colorful uniformed troops, including infantry, cavalry and artillery, many battles can be recreated at a decent scale (I'd suggest that 1:20, or 1:10 would be typical). Those wanting large forces of lance armed cavalry will be thrilled also (smile).
The volumes, while listed as $29.95@ in 2003 by Brassey's, Inc. were sold for under $10 USD each at Half Price Books (in Greenfield, WI).
Excellent value for the money. Now that I'm reaching the mid-century period, I'm watching for areas of interest to my ACW hobby (appears that with a simple flag change my Confederates would fit right into many of the battles).
Dan
gets started with Flintloque.
