"Mexican Revolution CLA Lists" Topic

For Boggler… I've come up with some loose guidelines that I've mentioned in past TMP posts that I might eventually get around to formalising:

Treat Zapatistas and 1913 northern revolutionaries as Irregular, Morale 3. Zapatistas have breach-loading rifles (representing mixed weapons), and northerners have repeating carbines (again representing mixed, but better, weapons).

From 1914 any northern rebel cavalry can be upgraded to Regular, Training 2, Morale 3 (repeating carbines).

For 1913 northerners up to one unit may be Irregular infantry, M3, repeating carbines, from 1914 up to 3 northern units may be Regular infantry,T2, M3, repeating rifles.

Zapatistas can have up to two units of cavalry, Irregular, M3, breach-loading rifles.

Zapatistas may have up to one unit of Soldaderas, Irregular, morale 5, but with a minus 1 close combat modifier.

From 1914 any northern faction can have a bodyguard cavalry unit, Regular, Training 3, Morale 4. If Villistas this can be the Dorados, who have the special rule 'effective mounted fire', that allows them to fire normally if stationary that turn.

Zapatistas and 1913 northern rebels can have no more than one MG and one artillery piece. Northerners can have two of each in 1914.

Any rebel faction mat have one unit of up to 8 dinametros, with the same classification and training rating as ordinary infantry of that faction, but with M5 and with the addition of bombs.

Federal regulars are T3, M2, stubborn, repeating rifles (infantry) or carbines (cavalry). One infantry unit may be zapadores, T4, M4,stubborn, and one may be guards/cadets, T3, M5, stubborn, but the latter may only be fielded in defence of a major city.

Rurales are T2, M3, repeating rifles (infantry) or carbines (cavalry).

State troops are T2, M3, breach-loading rifles (infantry) or carbines (cavalry).

Volunteers are T2, M4, repeating rifles 9infantry) or carbines (cavalry).

Federales are subject to the usual MG/artillery rule for well-equipped armies: up to one of each per three infantry/cavalry units.

This should get you started :-).

Just curious, but what are the "CLA rules?" (I know I shall wonder why I didn't remember as soon as someone posts the answer, but until then I have no idea).

Thank you..

….that's absolutely brilliant and a great help in working out what I'm going to do next.

:O)

CLA = Contemptible Little Armies

I should add that Zapatistas are of course mainly infantry, and northern rebels are mainly cavalry.

Also, as is obvious my focus is the Huerta phase of 1913-14 – because it has everything. Diaz resigned before the 1910-11 Maderistas could begin regularising and up-arming, and Orozco's forces were also irregular; so if you want to do earlier phases of the revolution, rebels don't get the chance to upgrade to regular.

For the inter-revolutionary fighting of 1915 any units can be upgraded to T3, M4, with repeating weapons, and all forces are treated as well-equipped for assignment of artillery and MGs.

For the final, Carranza government phase federal forces reverted to relying on conscripts, and the Villistas reverted to guerrilla tactics – so just use the same ratings as for 1913.

I've provided generalisations; some revolutionary factions in 1913 had trained units from the outset. Both Carranza and Obregon had state militia units, and there were even a couple of units of rurales in their forces – albeit probably still armed with Remingtons or Winchesters – so you'll need to fine-tune your ratings for particular factions.

I also didn't mention the Yaquis, who constituted a substantial proportion of Obregon's infantry, but aren't available in 28mm. Because you're doing 20mm, in which they are available, I'll suggest that they should remain irregular until 1915, and being armed mainly with bows and machetes, you should have them shoot as irregular cavalry. It's probably fair to allow up to half the infantry units in an Army of the North-west force to be Yaquis. They also need a special rule to represent their tactical invisibility, and another to represent the demoralising effect on federal troops of the sound of their drums.

Excellent advice. I will get to work! Thank you.

:O)

Jim

One other troop type I neglected to mention is federal irregulars: former northern revolutionaries who'd changed sides, such as Orozco's Colorados. They would have been rearmed with Mausers, but remain untrained, so should be rated as irregular cavalry, morale 4, stubborn (surrender meant summary execution), with repeating carbines.

One CLA rule that has to be disregarded is the generic irregular cavalry fire range (with the above exception); it doesn't really adequately represent the sort of firepower revolutionary units could deploy. Just substitute the suggestions from the previous posts.

Venceremos!

Boggler,

Just in case you may not have seen it in the Early 20th Century Media folder, Henry Martini provided excellent advice on the Mexican Revolution in a thread about a new book: "Maneuver and Battle in the Mexican Revolution."

As a result of our conversation in that thread, I have also purchased the CLA rules, and have been studying those with great interest as part of my project to set up a game using the Piquet-Barrage rules. With many real life challenges intervening, I haven't had a chance to read the new book cover to cover yet, but there is a lot of useful information in it for setting up battles and campaigns for the opening phases of the Revolution, and I am eagerly looking forward to publication of the planned two further volumes to cover the whole of the Revolution.

Enjoy your games!

Jan

TMP link

Jan, I can help with this conversion to Piquet, and I'd like to borrow that book when you are done with it

Eric,

I've finally had a chance to start reading Janssens' book from cover to cover after dabbling in excerpts for a few months, and I'm almost up to Chapter 3, the battle for Ciudad Juarez. The book is great, plenty of fine detail and capability analysis, and as soon as I can get our series of Mexican-American War battles underway, next up will be Piquet-Barrage for the Mexican Revolution. I've already picked up some ideas from the book that will help us with the Piquet ratings.

Jan