"Portraying Ottomans in BAR" Topic
4 Posts
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JCBJCB | 21 Mar 2014 6:00 p.m. PST |
I've picked up a copy of the BAR rules for my proposed imagi-nation, and was thinking of using the Ottomans as an opponent, rather than just another real or imaginary central European power. I'm using the large generic organization for my European imagi-nation, but don't know how I might model an Ottoman orta, let alone their cavalry. Any ideas? |
Der Alte Fritz | 21 Mar 2014 6:18 p.m. PST |
For starters, I usually assume that a battalion or group of infantry are going to average around 500 to 700 men as this number seems to hold true for most of the European armies during the mid 18th Century. If you can find a copy of Age of Reason rules, they have a nice order of battle suggestion for Ottoman armies. I would follow their recommended percentages. I don't have any of my books in front of me, so this is all off the top of my head. Let's say that you want 12 elements in your Ottoman army. I'd go with half cavalry and half infantry. So of your 6 infantry units, make 2 of them Janissaries and rate them as Trained or Veteran. They probably were not Elite by this time. The other 4 battalion or ortas should be "levies" or troops raised locally for the campaign. Rate these as Untrained or at best Trained. For your cavalry, use 1 regiment of heavy guard equivalent cavalry and 5 assorted light cavalry regiments. Your Ottoman cavalry should outnumber your European cavalry by a significant amount. I'm on the road this evening, but over the weekend I will come back and refine the OOB for your Ottomans -- a great choice, BTW. Assuming you use 25/28mm figures, RSM has a very nice Ottoman range of figures. You can augment them with Dixon and TAG figures. I really like the TAG janissaries. For cavalry, check out the old Essex Renaissance range for all kinds of Turkish-Ottoman cavalry -- their older uniforms and dress was still used during the 18th century. Dixon and TAG probably have cavalry and Old Glory would be worth checking into. The point is, the more variety that you have, the better your Ottoman army will look, so mix in all kinds of figure ranges. Check out these 15mm figures from another TMP thread. I would bet that the company has a lot of information on the Ottoman organization on their web site. TMP link More later
Fritz |
JCBJCB | 21 Mar 2014 6:47 p.m. PST |
Fritz, that's a great start. About 12 units is precisely what I had in mind. The artillery's going to be a blast to model. I'm grateful for the help. I'm doing 28s, for certain. I'm guessing organization within the ortas should be kept a little awkward. I use 12-man, three-rank companies (four), plus a 6-man command group for my European battalions. |
Freiherr Graham | 30 Mar 2014 6:34 a.m. PST |
I'm working on this for my 4th Austro-Turkish War project at the moment, so this discussion is really useful. I'm planning to use BAR too. My thinking so far goes like this: I've designed a plausible OB for the Austrian coalition forces, based on real ones but my choice of units. This worked out at 5 battalions of infantry, an artillery battery, a regiment of hussars, 2 of "heavy" cavalry, a battalion gun and an appropriate complement of officers, total 420.4 points using the BAR points system. This works out at about 300 figures. The Turks at this period and in this context (Bosnia) are reasonably organised and well led. And after all, they did "win" the war, and decisively. They are also fighting on their own territory. So I've given the Turks a numerical superiority of plus 25%, and then worked out their points so that they come out the same as the Austrians. This gives me 3 ortas of Janisseries, 4 of average troops and 3 of raja, with 32 figures per orta, making them the equivalent of a BAR "small, generic battalion". I still have to work out the cavalry. Looking at the garrison of Novi Pazar (503 men in 5 infantry and 2 cavalry companies, 2 artillery companies and a company of volunteers, 7 brass cannon and 360 smaller pieces), there isn't a big discrepancy between the 70% / 24% Austrian infantry / cavalry distribution and the 60% / 20% Turkish one. Also the few pictures I've seen show great swarms of Turkish infantry, but NOT clouds of cavalry. I must re-read von Schmettau to see if his eye-witness account gives any clues as to Turkish tactics. My Turks will have numerical superiority but relatively poor cohesion because of the smaller unit size. Well, that's the theory, anyway! Any thoughts and suggestions will be useful. |
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