""Austrian" Croats in the 7YW - on the game table." Topic

Christopher Duffy offers us a lot of ideas for scenarios in the 7YW using Croats in battle in his new book "By Force of Arms". He held the Croats in high regard in his Army of Maria Theresa in the 1970's, but seemed more dismissive of them in his earlier book on the Austrians in this century.
He seems to have changed to a degree in his opinion on the battle worthiness of the hussars as well.

At Lobositz, the Prussians send a strong force to clear its left flank of the Croats on the conicle hill, which eventually resulted in the Prussians going in with the bayonet and driving down over the hill toward the village where the battle essentially ended with the Austrian withdrawal.

At Kolin, we find Croats goading the Prussian right flank to launch a premature attack on them to drive them away, that resulted in a general engagement, counter to Frederick's orders.

On the Austrian right, the Croats held a village in the face of Prussian attacks, and took a good deal of punishment before they had to withdraw.

At Moys, 7 Sept., 1757, I understand that the Croats may have led the attack uphill just in front of 42 massed companies if Grenadiers, followed by 21 Fusilier battalions (in columns three battalions deep). Duffy indicates the may have been flanked right and left.

I am building Prussian and Austrian musketeer and fusilier battalions of 48 figures, three deep; and grenadier battalions for the Prussians of 36, with possibly 2 at 48. I use 9 figures for Austrian grenadier companies, and freely brigade them differently for whatever scenario.

How do you out there use Croats on the war game table. When I am done, I will have two Croat battalions of 4 companies each, 16 figures to a company. That's 128 Croats! They will be drawn from 4 actual Croat regiments.

Frankly, I have no one to game with, and now enjoy deploying them on tables to show the interaction of forces. Some day I want to game them.

GdeP

My group uses smaller 12 figure battalions. Croats are class 2 skirmish (class 1 being militia and class 4 being guards) infantry. Couldn't stand up to formed troops but very useful for holding bad terrain.

Years ago I gamed the American Revolution with a gamer who had set of rules using "UE's" or Unit Effectiveness. Using 20 sided "dice" you had to roll the Unit Effectiveness or lower for the unit to perform certain functions. British often started at 20's but dropped with casualties and comabat results, but usually always won. Hessians would start high -19's, 18's and some Americans would be 18's, but usually smaller units. Allowed for a lot of variation for the "rag-tag" Americans.

The 1 to 4 range makes it difficult to deal with some units. Militia (land battalions in Hanoverian, Hessian and Prussian service?)at 1; would Frei Korps then be 2's? Croats were certainly better raw material, and more hardy that Frei Korps units – 3's? Regulars then 4's. Grenadiers 5's and Guards 6's?

Few of us would paint up militia units for our collections, so perhaps Le Noble and older Prussian Frei Korps would be 2's, along with Croats, but newer Frei battalions would be 1's – Rapin, etc. Regulars 3. Grenadiers and Guards 4?

The Croats tend to be most effective when they are deployed in some sort of cover or broken terrain. Lobositz – the Lobosch Hill; Kolin – hiding in the tall cereal grass or deployed in some of the villages; Leuthen – in village, wooded area and behind an abatis; Hochkirk – leading the columns through the woods and then dropping off when the regular infantry emerges into the open ground.

I wouldn't allow them to be out in the open, nor would Iet them be formed infantry in a wargame setting. But put them in a village, in a woods or in hilly terrain and they will prove to be a tough nut to crack.

leuthenjournal.com/?p=74

We use "Warfare in the Age of Reason". Militia, freikorps etc are class 1, line inf and Croats are class 2, grenadiers (and Austrian and Prussian hussars) are class 3, Guards are class 4.

Not as much detail as some would like but the game played nicely.

But DAFs comments re: Croats applied to our experiences as well.

Sending grenadiers into the woods to deal with them was a waste of good troops so I painted up more Freikorps. With all the terrain modifiers everyone is only rolling 1 dice anyway.