"Let's talk about amphibious operations" Topic

I have a lot of nice 1/1200 ships, a growing collection of appropriately scaled terrain, and the blocks of 2mm troops from Irregular look like they'd grace such a scenario quite nicely. It seems like there ought to be a way to use them to play horse & musket era amphibious operations.

Before I spend a lot of time and treasure working out how to do this on my own, I thought I'd see if anyone here has tried this kind of madness. How did you do it? What rules did you use? Do you have pictures?

- Ix

I did a game based on the siege of Quebec (1759) a few years ago.

Probably use one stand as a company or platoon, and rules for divisional or brigade size fights.
In Langton rules, if I remember well, you have some useful rules for landing that can be adapted for other systems.
No pictures but I did start that for Acw. Still there somewhere in a box.

Probably use one stand as a company or platoon, and rules for divisional or brigade size fights.

In my Quebec game mentioned above I used 1 stand to a battalion.

I've played through many landing party and shore actions using FLoB

David, what is the FLoB ruleset?

what is the FLoB ruleset?

Form Line of Battle?

I did a game based on the siege of Quebec (1759) a few years ago.

Do you have a description of it posted anywhere? It would be nice to know how you did it, what it looked like, how it played, what you'd do differently next time, etc.

In my Quebec game mentioned above I used 1 stand to a battalion.

My initial thought is to use 40-50 man stands, because that's approximately 1-2 boats of soldiers, and conveniently the scale of most tactical horse & musket rules.

- Ix

In Langton rules, if I remember well, you have some useful rules for landing that can be adapted for other systems.

Not in the third edition, which is the only version I own. There are rules for cutting out expeditions and towing with boats, but nothing about landings or shore parties.

- Ix

I have no access to my toys.
Owned several rules. Pretty sure, maybe #2 the one in A4 ?

or I get mixed up with ACW. Why not ask on a special topic?

Again, as numbers should not be huge, grand skirmish or brigade rules low level enough to id who comes from which ship. Mostly less than a bataillon.; only if you intend to have the landing opposed. Otherwise any scale will do.
You can get ideas with games of Quebec yes, or some for 1812 USA.( perfect captain?)

Hi All,
I have made troops from hair-rollers for my 1-1200 scale ships. Sorry! my I.T. skills suck! So I cannot show you here. If you go to Vol's Blog "A Miniatures Hobby Room" and look for my "How to " thread part 4. You can see them and how to make them.
Be safe
Rory

You mean this article here? If so, the end result is pretty nice. I'll have to see if I can find some hair curlers like those.

I also like the crew on the yard arms. That's a really neat idea.

- Ix

(Warning: Shameless plug ahead…)

ODGW's soon-to-be released POST CAPTAIN will have complete rules for shore raids, cutting out actions, gunboats, land units, and coastal batteries. The land combat is decidedly low level (company sized).

Yellow Admiral,
Yes! One could use lines of troops by using strips. I have also made cavalry (Not shown) the gun batteries are Langton's. If you wish I can send you stuff on cavalry. Look on-line for the rollers (Stohr Hair-rollers). devsdoc at hotmail dot com for me.
Be safe
Rory

Do you have a description of it posted anywhere? It would be nice to know how you did it, what it looked like, how it played, what you'd do differently next time, etc.

There was a series of articles about it in "The Nugget". You should be able to find them here:
link

Again, as numbers should not be huge,

The British fleet at Quebec numbered over 200 ships.

The bottom drawing looks very similar to the USA landing at Vera Cruz in the Mexican-American War. There are comments on long boats full of junior officers (who would later be generals in the ACW) almost be destroyed by a cannon shot. there is also the famous story of Grant throwing the horses off the ship, expecting them to swim to shore. Instead of the normal be led in by a long boat.

So the long boat landing concept was very common in the era of sail.

Ive seen the OGDW rules for Post Captain and they are very nice indeed.

Sorry, I can't help much with naval rules, but here are some more ideas. The SYW is very fertile soil for this kind of thing as it was the genesis of the British ability to co-ordinate amphibious operations, including the design of specialised "landing craft" that would be recognisable as such today. This Wiki article is about the first of a series of raids made by British forces on the French coast in the late 1750s – ended in failure, but valuable lessons were learned (think of it as an earlier – and less bloody – Dieppe). These raids included cavalry, as well as infantry and artillery, and might be more interesting because of that.

link

For smaller actions, have you thought of "landing" the troops in 1/1200 scale, and then fighting in something larger (eg 28mm) using something like "Sharp Practice"? For an example, look at the story of HMS Diamond Rock:-

link

Alternatively, look at the AWI, in which the 1776 NYC campaign included numerous landings as Howe tried to by-pass Washington's various defensive positions on the island of Manhattan – the last of the pictures in your first post actually depicts one such incident, namely the landings at Kip's Bay on 15 September (up until 2008, the painting was wrongly identified as the slightly later landings at Newport, Rhode Island).