"Breitenfeld 1631" Topic

Please can anyone recommend a book which discusses the tactics and lists the strengths of the units involved- also the ratio of pikes to shot if known?

Thanks, Simon

Hi Simon,

Someone will probably be along shortly to really help you. That said I recall a recent thread which referenced back to one of 2009 called "breitenfeld 1631 orders of battle and maps" which has an awful lot of what you are looking for. It is all much easier for Lutzen, where a truly excellent Osprey exists by Richard Brzezinski, which has a lot of detail on OOBs. Daniel S on this board is the real expert, however.

Cheers,

Mollinary

Thanks Mollinary, Daneil S's 2009 post is very helpful.

A proper book on the battel would be very helpful! I'll look out for the Osprey Lutzen, thanks.

Best, Simon

Swedes are pretty easy. They had a 5009ish) man battalion with about a 3-2 Shot to Pike ratio. They formed in brigades/regiments of usually 3 battalions…though sometimes 2 or 4.

The Saxons are a bit of a problem. They had raw troops and much fewer shot. The modern accounts say that they formed a solid "block" whatever that means.

Imperials seemed to hold close to 1-1 pike and shot. My S&T magazine on the subject suggests 1500 man regiments. Probably not the Spanish squares but a look similar to the dutch battalion but with much deeper ranks.

I am not sure how reliable the Strategy and Tactics magazine article is on the subject as it is probably 40 years old. If you can find a copy, it is an interesting read.

That and wait for Daniel S to come by and support, refute and/or add to anything said here.

For the Googley challenged the article mentioned above is here. link

In piecing the Saxon forces together, the article says 18,000 troops. Gustavus has 5,000 allied cavalry and the Saxons "added 9,000 conscripts." So we have only accounted for 14,000 of 18,000 troops. I suspect the last 4,000 are Saxon regulars.

I used to have that S&T; the first one I ever bought, and I played the game many times. I fear it is long lost.

Looking at the map, the Imperial regiments seem to have a broadly similar frontage to the Swedes. I'd be curious to know whether the Imperials had abandoned the square by this stage, and what their pike/shot ratios were.

See on Gmt site their musket and pike rules and scenario books. Oob and historical analysis. Did a lot of research.
Never underestimate what has already been done by another one before you even try.

They had a 5009ish) man battalion

Ahem….500ish not 5009ish!

Here is the old 2009 post mentioned earlier in the topic, while I've conducted a fair bit of additional research since 2009 it is still around 90% accurate for the most part with changes in unit strenght and composition being the main diffrences.

2009 Breitenfeld ORBAT
This is the most accurate map of the battlefield that has been made. Do note that the Imperial-Leaugist army deployed on a considerably wider frontage however as they deoployed their infantry in much shallower formations than the 30 rank deep ones drawn on the map.

Here are the actual order of battles for Breitenfeld.

The Swedish Army: Gustav II Adolf

The actual command structure is a bit unclear. Horn writes that Gustav Adolf commanded the Right Wing with Baner as 2nd in command. Monro writes that the King commanded the infantry in the centre and Baner writes that he himself led the Right Wing.

The artillery: Colonel of the Artillery Lennart Torstensson
Four 24-pound Demi-Cannon
Eight 12-pound cannon
Regimental artillery.
Each brigade had six regimental cannon attached for artillery support, a total of 41 3-pound regimental cannon and 1 6-pound regimental cannon were present at Breitenfeld.

The Right Wing: General of the Infantry Johan Baner

1st Line: General Johan Baner
· Stålhandske's squadron (Finns): 400 Horse
· Wunsch's squadron (Finns): 300 Horse
· General of the Cavalry Åke Tott's regiment of Horse (2 squadrons): 800 Horse
· Erik Soop's regiment of Horse (Swedes, Västgöta ryttare): 400 Horse
· Per Brahe's regiment of Horse (Swedes, Smålands ryttare): 400 Horse
· Sperreuter's squadron of Horse (Swedes, Östergöta ryttare ): 150 Horse

Commanded shot
· 4 detachments from Johan Banérs regiment (Germans), 860 musketeers

Notes:
Brahe's regimet was led in the battle by his major, Karl Joachim Karberg.
Soop's regiment was led by his brother, Lieutenant-Colonel Knut Soop.

2nd Line: Rheingraf Otto Ludwig
· Rheingraf Otto Ludwig's reigment of Horse (3 squadrons): 700 Horse
· Claus Dietrich Sperreuter's regiment of Horse: 300 Horse
· Sigfrid von Damitz regiment of Horse: 150 Horse
· Ernst Dönhoff's squadron (aka the Courlanders, Cuirassiers): 200 Horse
· Jürgen Aderkas' squadron (aka the Livonians, Cuirassiers): 300 Horse

The Battaile: The King's Major-General Maximilian Teuffel
The Yellow brigade:
· The King's Lifeguard company
· The Hovregiment (the "Court regiment" aka the Yellow Regiment, Col. Maximilian Teuffel)

Åke Oxenstierna's Swedish brigade:
· Axel Lillie's Upplands and Närke-Värmlands regiment
· Åke Oxenstierna's Dalarna regiment
· Hastfehr's Finnish regiment

Erik Hand's Swedish brigade:
· Erik Hand's Östgöta regiment
· Karl Hård's Västgöta regiment
· W. von Salzburg's Dals regiment?
· The Red regiment (Geisbrecht von Hogendorf)?

The Blue brigade:
· The Blue regiment (Hans Georg aus dem Winckel)
· The Red regiment (Geisbrecht von Hogendorf)?
· Chemnitz's regiment

Reserve of the 1st Line:
Col. James Ramsay's regiment of foot (Scots): 350 musketeers
The Count of Ortenburg's regiment (The King's German Liferegiment, Col Georg von Uslar)
1st squadron: 250 Horse (Cuirassiers)
Monro of Foulis regiment of Foot (Germans): 400 musketeers
The Count of Ortenburg's regiment (The King's German Liferegiment, Col Georg von Uslar)
2nd squadron: 250 Horse (Cuirassiers)
John Hamilton's regiment (English): 260 musketeers

Notes:
Maximilian Teuffel was acting as "the King's Major-General" a ranke which is often mistakenly shortend to simply Major-General. The King's Major-General was chief of the General Staff and as such Teuffel outranked all other Swedish officers except Horn.

On the eve of battle the Swedish infantry mustered 14 742 men. An outbreak of plauge shortly before the battle forced Gustavus to reform 8 brigades into 7. Hence th e strenght of the individual brigades is not known as regiments and parts of regiments were mixed to create the brigades used in the battle. The Swedish General Staff calculated the brigades had a strenght of 1568-1578 men. (216 Officers, 488-498 pikemen, 576 musketeers and 288 commanded musketeers) But this assumes all brigades had exactly the same number of troops and I'm not entirely sure that this was achived.

There is some debate about the placement of the Yellow brigade and the
Oxenstierna brigade, of the four important sources two have the Yellow brigade
in the place of honor ((the first position on the right) while two have the
Oxenstierna brigade in that position. I tend to belive that the Oxenstierna
brigade held that position as Gustav Adolf did deploy Kyle's native Swedish
brigade in that position at Lutzen with the Yellow brigade holdning the next
position in line. But I have yet to prove this beyond doubt.

There was no 'Red Brigade', Guthrie has invented that name for Erik Hand's
brigade. There is some debate wether Hogendorf's 'Red regiment' was part of
Hand's brigade or fought alongside the Blue regiment in Winckel's brigade.
Some of the evidence can be interpreted in both ways and the Red regiment had been a part of Winckel's brigade as alte as 4 days before the battle. It would be unusual but not unheard of for Gustav Adolf to mix German and native Swedish troops. I belive that Hogendorfs regiment was split between Hand's brigade and the Blue brigade.

It is unclear wether von Salzburg's swedish regiment took part in the battle
or not, if it did do so it only did so with one company of 150 men, the 3
other companies were detached from the army.

Chemnitz small regiment had been a part of the Yellow brigade 4 day before
the battle but several sources has Chemnitz as a squadron commander in the
Blue brigade. None list Chemnitz with the Yellow brigade at the battle. I belive that surplus
troops from the Blue and Red regiments joined with Chemnitz men to form the
3rd squadron of the Blue brigade

The Reserve: Col. John Hepburne
Thurn's brigade:
· Graf Hans Jakob von Thurn's (Black) regiment
· Adolf Dietrich von Effren-Hall's (Black) regiment
· Sigfrid von Damitz' (White) regiment

Hepburne's or the Green brigade:
· The Green regiment (Hepburn, Germans, Prussians to be precise, not Scots!)
· James Lumsdaine's (ex-Spens, Scots)
· Mackay's regiment (commanded by Monro) (Scots)
· Unknown German regiment(s)?

Vitzthum's brigade:
· J. Ruthven's regiment (Germans)
· Johann Vitzthum's (Orange) regiment)
· Mitschefall's regiment

Reserve of the 2nd Line:
Jaroslav Schaffman von Hemmerless' regiment of German Horse: 400 Horse
Andreas Kochtitzky's regiment of German Horse: 300 Horse

Note:
The composition of the Green brigade is not clear, one source lists the 3rd
squadron as 'Dargitz' but this regiment was in the town of Brandenburg and
not present. Another source lists 'Lovenstein' as commander of this 3rd
squadron but there was no such commander in Swedish army at this
time. Could be an otherwise unknown officer of one of the German regiments
in the army (a Lt-col or major). The Green brigade may have had two, not one squadrons of Scots. There certainly was enough troops to form two squadrons of Scots troops.

Vitzthum's brigade had been reinforced by troops from other regiments to
bring the brigade up to strenght

The Left Wing: Fieldmarshal Gustav Horn.
1st Line: Fieldmarshal Gustav Horn.
· Horn's Lifeguard company (Cuirassiers): 100 Horse
· Moritz Pensen von Caldenbachs regiment of Horse (2 squadrons): 550 Horse
· Wulf Heinrich von Baudissin's regiment of Horse (3 squadrons): 600 Horse

Commanded musketeers
· Waldenstein (Aka Wildenstein) 360 musketeers
· Oxenstierna (Swedes) 280 musketeers
· Hand (Swedes): two detachments, each with 300 musketeers
Notes
Horn's Lifeguard was part of one of the squadrons formed by Caldenbach's regiment.

The detachments of commanded musketeers from Hand's brigade also contained musketeers from Hogendorf's Red regiment.

2nd Line: Col. Adolf Didrik von Efferen-Hall
· Col. Adolf Didrik von Efferen-Hall's regiment of Horse( 2 squadrons): 800 Horse
· Col. Nicolas de Courville's regiment of Horse: 250 Horse

Notes:
Gustav Horn's rank was Fieldmarshal, not "Royal Marshal". The later rank did not exist in the Swedish army. Guthrie has probably invented it as a translation of "Fältherre" (From the German "Feldherr"), the Fältherre was the commander in chief of the army and outranked only by the King. As Gustavus Adolphus commanded his army in person the rank was not used after 1629. (Jacob de La Gardie was allowed to retain his title as Fältherre even after he laid down his command as a sign of respect for his great services to the Crown.)

Guarding the bagage
Col. Georg Kristofer Taupdel's regiment of Dragoons: 400 dragoons

The Saxon Army at Breitenfeld
CinC: Elector Johann Georg of Saxony

The Right Wing: Fieldmarshall Hans Georg von Arnim
· Hans Georg von Arnim's lifeguard, 2 companies: 200 (400?) Horse
· Liferegiment of Horse (Dietrich von Taube), 6 companies: 600 Horse
· Eustachius Loeser's regiment of ‘Ritterpferde': 700 (800?) Horse

The Centre:
· Liferegiment of Foot (Hans Casimir von Schaumburg), 3 companies: 600 men
· Hans Georg von Arnim's regiment of Foot, 10 companies: 2184 men
· Hans Melchior von Schwalbach's regiment of Foot, 10 companies: 2180 men
· Dietrich von Starchedel's regiment of Foot, 10 companies: 2180 men
· Eustachius Loeser's regiment of Foot, 10 companies: 2180 men
· Hans kaspar von Klitzing's regiment of Foot, 10 companies: 2180 men
· 1st Free company (Daniel von Schlieben) 318 men
· 2nd Free company (Albanus von Brandenstein) 444 men
· 3rd Free company (Calus von Taube): 350 men

The Artillery:
10-20 cannon
See below

The Left wing: Major-General Hans Rudolf von Bindauf
· Johann Wilhelm von Sachsen-Altenburg's regiment of Horse, 8 companies: 1000 Horse
· Hans Rudolf von Bindauf's regiment of Horse, 8 companies: 1000 Horse
· Wolf Adam von Steinau's regiment of Horse, 5 companies, 500 Horse
(Possibly only 3 companies/325 men took part in the battle)
· Caesar Pflug's regiment of Ritterpferde, 6 companies, 700 (1000?) Horse.

Notes on the Saxon army

The Infantry
The Saxon infantry consisted of 6 ordinary infantry regiments, the Electors Liferegiment of foot and 3 ‘free companies'

The Liferegiment of Foot commanded by Schaumburg consisted of 3 companies of infantry taken over from Bayreuth-Kulmbach and 2 companies raised locally. The Electors household infantry, the Unter-Guardia, did not take part in the battle. It remained in Dresden were it spent the entire war as part of the garrison.

The regular infantry regiments had 10 companies each. The ‘free companies' are sometimes counted as part of the Elector's Liferegiment but there is little evidence in the Saxon sources for this. Von Arnim considered the free companies to have been poor soliders due to thier lack of discipline.

An Saxon infantry company consisted of 200 soliders (40% pikemen and 60% musketeers) led by 18 officers and staff. The "free companies" were to have 300 soldiers each and were all-musketeer units.

In general the Saxon infantry was well equipped and clothed. The infantry also seems to have worn uniforms. Compared to the dusty and worn Swedes they looked like "painted soldiers" to quote an eyewitness.

The Cavalry
The Elector had his own Liferegiment of Horse led by Dietrich von Taube. It consisted of the "Leibkompagnie Einspännige" and 5 companies of mounted arquebusiers, a total of 6 companies and 600 men. The "Leibkompagnie" was probably equipped as cuirassiers

As Fieldmarshall von Arnim had his own mounted lifeguard of two companies with a total of 200 men equipped as cuirassiers. There is some debate as to the size of Arnim's guards. "Sverige Krig" has it as two companies each of 200 men. Rudert as a single company of 250 men and Opitz quotes a list from a letter in which Arnim's lifeguard is supposed to have mustered 400 men in August.

The main part of the Saxon cavalry were the 3 large regiments formed in 1631, each of 8 companies, with a total of 1000 men and 120 officers and staff. 4 companies were equipped as cuirassiers and the other 4 as mounted arquebusiers. Two of these regiments fought at Breitenfeld, the third (Hofkirchen's) was at Torgau escorting the Saxon artillery train.

A fourth regiment of cavalry was provided by Wolf Adam von Steinau, his regiment had been raised by Bayreuth-Kulmbach but had entered Saxon service when the Markgraf was forced to disband his army by the Emperor's troops. Steinau's regiment was probably equipped as cuirassiers, though I have yet to fully confirm this.

The Saxon nobility provided two regiments of "Ritterpferde" (Aka Lehnsreiterei). Each regiment had 6 companies. In 1618 the two regiments had mustered 1550 cavalry but according to Rudert that they had a strenght of 1800 cavalry in 1631 but no source is named for this number. Opitz quotes a list in which the two regiments of the noble levy mustered 1400 men at Leipzig in August. The ‘Ritterpferde' were supposed to be equipped as cuirassiers but how well they lived up to the regulations is unknown.

The Artillery
The Saxon army had an artillery train of 18 cannon located in the Electors armoury in Dreseden. Twelve 24-pounders and six 12-pounders. It required some 1812 horses, 453 wagons and 906 men.
On the day of the battle the main Saxon artillery train was not present as it had only reached Torgau, which is some 50 km from the battlefield. (It had been delayed by a shortage of horses and wagons. )
Despite this it is reported that the Saxon army had 10 to 20 cannon in the battle. These were probably drawn from the other armouries in Saxon such as those belonging to towns for example Leipzig. Indeed a document does mention "Leipzig artillery pieces" with the Saxon army prior to the battle. The number and types of cannon used in the battle are very uncertain. Catholic sources speak of 19 or 20 cannon, Theatrum Europeaum of 10.

The Saxon deployment at Breitenfeld
As with the Imperial army the details of the Saxon deployment are mostly unknown. It is possible to determine on which flank the cavalry regiments were deployed by using the written sources but beyond that the details are missing.

The saxon army used the modified verions of the Dutch system which had become popular among the Protestant states of Northern Germany in the early 17th Century. The infantry deployed in battalions of 1000 men formed 10 ranks deep while the cavalry used squadrons of 3 to 6 companies
Each company was formed either 10 or 5 ranks deep and there was a gap of about 50 feet between each company in a suqadron in order for the companies to be able to manouvre.

<b/>The combined Imperial and Catholic League Army at Breitenfeld

Estimated strenght 21.000 infantry, 11.000 cavalry. There are considerable gaps in our knowledge of the Imperial-Leaugist armys chain of command. Commanders marked "?" were present but their position is conjectural. "*" marks units whose position in the order of battle is known, all other positions are conjectural.

CinC: Generalleutnant Jean T'Serclaes, Graf von Tilly

The Right Wing: Generalfeldwachtmeister Egon, Graf von Fürstenberg
· Wengersky's regiment of Cuirassiers: 6 companies
· Schönbergs regiment of Cuirassiers (CL): 9 companies*
· Alt-Sachsen's regiment of Cuirassiers: 10 companies*
· Cronbergs regiment of Cuirassiers (CL): 8 companies
· Baumgarten's regiment of Cuirassiers (CL): 5 companies
· Wangler's regiment of foot: 10 companies, 1200 men*

The Battile: Tilly assisted by Generalfeldzeugmeister Otto Friedrich, Freiherr von Schönberg (?) and Generalfeldwachtmeister Joachim Christian, Graf von Wahl(?)
· Wahl's regiment (CL): 10 companies*
· Comargo-Reinach (Aka Grotta) (CL):unknown number of companies*
· Pappenheim's regiment (CL): 10 companies*
· Goess' regiment: 10 companies
· Savelli's regiment: 10 companies
· Blankhardt's regiment (CL): 10 companies
· Baldiron & Dietrichstein: 11 companies
· Alt-Tilly (CL): 10 companies
· Geleen's regiment (CL): 10 companies, 2000 men
· Chiesa's regiment: 10 companies
· Gallas' regiment: 11 companies
· Neu-Sachsen&Fürstenburg: 10 companies

The Artillery
· Eleven 24-pound Demi-cannon
· Four 16-pound cannon
· One 12-pound 'Quarter cannon'
· One 8-pound cannon (‘feldschlange')
· Two 8-pound cannon ('short' & ‘Wallensteins')
· Two 3-pound cannon ('feldschlangen')
· Two ‘Steinstück' (‘Hailshot pieces')
· 4 ‘small cannon'
Notes
‘Steinstück' were short iron cannon used to fire cannister shot made of stones.
Had short range and were probably used for defence of the heavy artillery at short range.
‘Schlange' was the German name for a cannon with a particlarly long barrel, often 30 calibres long or more. IIRC the English term for such cannon is "culverine".The ‘small cannon' were probably 3-pounder at best and migth very well have been 1,5-2,5 pounders. The 8-pounders might in fact be 6-pounders as a pound had diffrent weight in diffrent parts of Europe. For example a Danish 14-pound cannon would have been a 16-pounder in Sweden. If this is the case the ‘short' Wallestein 8-pounders could be the 6-pound regimental cannon Wallenstein experiemented with in 1629

There was a force oft 1000 Imperial-Leaugist commanded musketeers present on the battlefield, (possibly one of several) these troops probably attached to the artillery as guards .

"Reserve"
· Montecuccoli's regiment of Cuirassiers: 9 companies
· Haraucourt's regiment of Arquebusiers: 5-6 companies
· Erwitte's regiment of Cuirassiers: 8 companies
· Coronini's regiment of Arquebusiers: 5 companies
· Colloredo's regiment of Arquebusiers: 6 companies

The Left Wing: Feldmarschall Gottfreid Heinrich, Graf von Pappenheim
· Holsteins regiment of Foot: 10 companies*
· Strozzi's regiment of Cuirassiers: 5 companies
· Neu-Sachsen regiment of Cuirassiers:6 companies
· Rangoni's regiment of Cuirassiers: 5 companies
· Neu-Piccolomini regiment(?) 6 companies
· Alt-Piccolomini Cuirassier regiment: 10(?) companies
· Pernstein's regiment of Cuirassiers: 10 companies
· Merode's regiment of Arqubusiers: 5 companies

Dragoons and Croats
Isolano's Croats: 16-17 companies
Isolanos dragoons: 1 company, 100 Horse

The Swedish General Staff calculated the brigades had a strenght of 1568-1578 men. (216 Officers, 488-498 pikemen, 576 musketeers and 288 commanded musketeers) But this assumes all brigades had exactly the same number of troops and I'm not entirely sure that this was achived.

That would make 16 officers and NCOS, 40-42 pikemen and 72 musketeers per company, if I calculate correctly.

According to my notes, the official strenght of an infantry company was supposed to be 16 officers and NCOs, 54 pikemen and 72 musketeers.

I'm afraid it is not possible to count that way since companies were split up to form the actual combat units. For example the English and Scots regiments of Ramsay and Hamilton had a total of 16 companies but the men of those companies were spread out over 3 combat units, the pikemen served with the Green brigade while the musketeers formed two squadrons of musketeers led by Ramsay and Hamilton. There was a lot of mixing going on to make up for the general shortage of pikemen as well as the many absent sick soldiers.

In theory a Swedish infantry brigade was made up of 648 pikemen, 576 musketeers and 288 commanded musketeers inot counting the officers. But in practice there was a shortage of pikemen and a surplus of musketeers, particularly so at Breitenfeld were only 3440 Swedish pikemen were present compared to 8572 musketeers. A lot of musketeers were used to create the detachments supporting the cavalry wings and the advance guard of 3 musketeer squadrons led by Ramsay, Monro and Hamilton but even then some brigades probably had more shot than the 864 required on paper.

Now the Saxons did not have as many musketeers as the Swedes but they were not as bad off as some sources seem to suggest. There was about 7400 Saxon musketeers at the battle compared to almost 8600 Swedish ones. Back in 2009 the sources I had seemed to suggest that Saxons most likely used battalions 1000 strong with a 1:1 ration of pike to shot while the surplus shot and all musketeer free companies were used for other duties.

Imperial & Leaugists infantry regiments are just about always presented as being pike heavy deep formations. In reality they had paper ratios of pike to shot that were similar to the Swedish ones or even better (some Leaugist units were recruited with a 1-2 ratio) and in practice the regiments hade the same problems with a shortage of pikemen as the Swedes. For example in 1627 the Duke of Holstein's regiment of Foot had 1361 musketeers but only 327 pikemen
link

Neither they use "deep" formations, their formations were indeed deeper than Swedish ones but the Swedes were using the thinnest formations in Europe. Without giving away too much research for free neither the Catholic Germans nor the Spanish were as backward and inflexible as they are presented in a lot of works, in reality they were far more modern, flexible and effective than they usually get credit for though that is slowly changing thanks to new research being published.

Thanks for taking the time to post Daniel. Now to examine the discrepancies.

How were the Saxons so easily defeated? Thy were hit by mainly a cavalry force. Surely they could have at least held on for some time right?

Imperials. It would seem that the average strength of the Imperial regiments was about 1500 men. However, in your deployment chart, there are 14 regiments while in other charts (on the link I posted above) there are 17 regiments. Now granted, there may be 1 or 2 all shot regiments but that is not going to change the average by much.

What is the ratio of Shot to Pike in the Imperial army? Also 3-2 or 1-1?

John

Thanks again to DS.

Are there any reliable reports and analyses of the battle in English? I would like to learn how the Swedes knocked off the hitherto best army and general in Europe. But there is nothing out there apart from Guthrie.

Who asked(…),
The drawings made by the Swedish General staff historians used both eyewitness reports of Swedish commanders as well as Imperial documents as sources. The maps in the West Point miliary atlas used by the linked page above (originals here link )
Seems to have been made by counting the infantry regiments in the order of battle while not taking into account the Swedish eyewitness reports or that in 3 instances infantry regiments were combined (Comargo & Reinach, Baldiron & Dietrichstein and Neu-Sachsen & Fürstenburg)

The Saxon defeat was not as quick and easy as described in English language sources and more accounts have emerged from the Saxon archives that present historians with an interesting challenge when interpreting the battle.

The basic problem was that most of the Saxon troops were green and inexperience as the Elector had only begun to recruit an army late in the Spring of 1631. For example two of the infantry regiments had barely existed for more than a month before they were called upon to fight at Breitenfeld. Small wonder that some units simply melted away when charged by the finest cavalry in western Europe supported by veteran infantry. But others fought longer and harder than they usually get credit for in English descriptions of the battle not to mention that some regiments remained in action alongside the Swedes until the very end.

Ratios of shot to pike would have been 2-1 or 3-2 on paper in the Imperial-Leaugist army and once on campaign the regiments would have found themselves hardpressed to mantain those ratios.

Thanks very much Daniel; really interesting.

From the "accurate deployment" map, it looks like the frontage of the individual Swedish regiments was broadly similar to that of the Imperialist regiments (with the latter being deeper). Is that right?

Thanks, Simon

"research for free" mmmmm Daniel does this mean the book is on the way?!!!

Regarding the performance of the Saxons, we have played the battle a few times, and only once have the Saxons melted away, the other times they have stayed in place!

Tally Ho!

Daniel does this mean the book is on the way?!!!

Some better English language resources would be nice. Here's hoping!

Has anyone ever translated "Sveriges Krig 1611-1632" into English?
Or at least the chapter on Breitenfeld?

Camcleod,
Given that "Sveriges Krig 1611-1632" is over 5000 pages of text it should come as no surprise that no one has attempted that particular feat. You can't really translate the 52 page Breitenfeld chapter as a stand alone text, there is the order of battle footnotes published as an appendix and the fact that much background information for the campaign and armies is found in previous chapters or in the appendix volumes published separately.

The closest thing to translation would be Michael Robert's account of the battle in his famous biography of Gustavus but he was of course interpreting everything through the filter of his now debunked military revolution theory.

nickinsomerset,

"research for free" mmmmm Daniel does this mean the book is on the way?!!!

I can neither confirm nor deny the existence of a book manuscript

Regarding the performance of the Saxons, we have played the battle a few times, and only once have the Saxons melted away, the other times they have stayed in place!

The Saxons are hard to get right without them ending up either too useless or too effective. After all you are going to have to paint all 18.000 of them and assign some (poor?) player to command them.

My own (untested) solution to the problem was creating a special "shock of combat" test which most Saxon units have to take when first charged or fired upon by enemy infantry or cavalry (cavalry fire does not require infantry to take a test). Modifiers would be applied depending on wether there was a Saxon senior officer present, if such an officer had been killed recently, nearby units had failed the test or if the enemy unit was rated as "fearsome".

Huevans,

Thanks again to DS.

Are there any reliable reports and analyses of the battle in English? I would like to learn how the Swedes knocked off the hitherto best army and general in Europe. But there is nothing out there apart from Guthrie.

You are welcome :)

I'm afraid there is not much to chose from, you have Barker and Michael Roberts in addtion to Guthrie, can't remember how much detail Geoffrey Parker went into in his TYW book.
But just about all Breitenfeld descriptions I've read in English suffer from being based on other secondary sources rather than looking at the primary ones and being written under the influence of the Swedish General staff, Delbrück or Roberts (or all of them).

I've spent a lot of time trying to piece together how the Swedes did just that, it is not easy given that we have more than a few gaps in the sources or just have the odd hint which needs to be interpreted. It is too bad that unlike Wittstock and Lutzen we will never have a chance to use archeology to examine the battlefield as too much archeology has been damaged or lost between modern housing, industries and a golf course…

As an off topic note, I picked up Peter Engerisser and Pavel Hrncirik's "Nordlingen 1634" from my local alumni library and was surprised that I could pretty much 90% understand it based on my high school German. Great OOB's and footnotes.

Glad to hear that, it is an excellent book that I found easy to read as well. A good wordbook should help you with the last 10% :)
OOB is very well researched as is the map work that Hrncirik did for the Albuch and the fighting there. Shows how important it is to visit the actual terrain when doing a reconstructing. (And of course it helps that the Albuch has changed little over the years compared to other battlefields)

If you could recommend any other German language books that would be great.

Finding I can read enough German to cope w a history text has opened up new possibilities for me in this period. I checked Amazon.de, but the offerings there were disappointing except for Hrncirik and Engerisser.

A good one is "1636 Ihre letzte schlacth" about the battle of Wittstock and the grave from that battle that was found and excavated by German archeologists link

Thanks. I would love to learn more about Wittstock.

I should point out that much of the book is devoted to the secondary title " Leben im Dreißigjährigen Krieg" and covers the life and death of the 125 men found in the grave, it is more focused on them than on being a indepth campaign & battle history. That said the chapter on the battle is interesting due to the extensive battlefield archeolgy work carried out over several years.

One of the most interesting parts was the isotope analysis carried out using the mens teeth which reveals their origin. Of the 125
3 were Swedes
4 Finns
6 from the Baltic provinces. (Probably Livonians or Courlanders i.e Baltic-Germans)
27 Germans
27 Italians
44 Scots
5 Spaniards
Men came a long way to die on a field not far from Berlin

Other than that I don't have a lot of recently published German books to recomend that have ordinary price tags.
There is Roland Sennewald's truly massive (880 pages) history of the Saxon army in the TYW link
But neither the books nor the postage is cheap…

There is this book about Pappenheim which I have only just recieved a copy of and have yet to form an opinion on.
link

Marcus Junkelmann has written a biography of Tilly link whose the main fault that it is rather short but Junkelmann is a good writer and excellent historian.

Zeughaus Verlag has published two osprey like volumes about TYW subjects.
One about Christian of Brunswick aka "the Mad Halberstadter"
link

And one about Pappenheim
link

I have both and have mixed feelings about them, IMHO the one about Christian of Brunswick is a bit better researched but contains surprising errors in the artwork. (A ensign in Christian's service is shown wearing a red i.e imperial sash! and some other oddities)

The one about Pappenheim has a more factual errors as the author has lacked some important sources and has been unable to make full proper use of the ones he had. (I.e chosing to use information from the very flawed Ospreys about the Imperial army rather than the correct information in an academic source and so on.)

link
A link to the publishers page for Sennewalds book which has a number of sample pages for both volumes

Daniel if you do publish will it be available in English? If you do you have one customer here ready and waiting to part with some hard earned cash.

Yes, anything I do end up publishing will be in English in order to reach as many reader as possible. (And to be honest my German is not up to writing a complete book without it taking decades…)

Thanks for all the links, DS. I spent a lot of time drooling over the Saxon army book with its big price tag!

link

"Ediciones Almena" appears to be the Spanish language equivalent of Osprey with a heavy emphasis on Spanish military history – and that means a lot of focus on the 1600's and 1500's. I have been wondering what these books are like and taking the plunge and ordering 1 or 2.