"First Italian War Of Independence battles for rule sets?" Topic

I was wondering if anyone had considered adapting the battles of The First Italian War Of Independence for any commercial rule set?

I've been reading Radetzky's Marches. It seems that the technology is smoothbore weapons with the Austrian equivalent of Congreve rockets. Any good Napoleonic rules that don't reward the phalanx-column attack should do.

The only difference in weapons is in Germany, where the Prussians used needle guns in street fighting. But that's out of your chosen theater.

There is a variant of Fire & Fury called "Fire and Furia Francese" that fits the bill. It is free to download but I don't have the website memorized.

There are a couple of scenarios from Italy available as well.

I am with Vincent. A good set of Napoleonic rules will suffice. There might have to be some tweaking on morale and command and control but General de Brigade or Black powder would provide a good basis.

The Fire & Fury variant can be found on the Wyre Forest Wargamers site wfgamers.org.uk

As well as covering the First Italian War of Independence there are also variants, and scenarios, for other 19th century wars. Well worth a look.

Ezza

I'm also fond of Bloody Big Battles, which can handle all smoothbores. You might need to take the unit scale down to 500 troops/12 guns per stand or even further, but it should work. Some of the Hungarian battles of that period have been made into BBB scenarios, no Italian ones yet.

After finishing the Balkan Wars, after a break, my goal is to tackle for BBB the following battles

First War of Italian Unification, Battle of Santa Luccia 1848 (41.500 Piedmontese vs.
42.000 Austrians)

9. First War of Italian Unification, Battle of Custozza 1848 (22.000 Piedmontese vs. 33.000
Austrians)

10. First War of Italian Unification, Battle of Novara 1849 (47.500 Piedmontese vs. 75.000
Austrians)

All of them large enough for the proper BBB treatment. But we are talking 2018-2019 at the earliest (I still need to finish 3 more Balkan War Battles-Kilkis-Lahana, Kalimanci, Kresna Gorge)

All right Konstantinos!

Evviva Konstantinos! Great news, judging from the quality of your balkan wars scenarios (but allow me, is Santa Lucia and not Luccia, Custoza and not Custozza..)

Io non parlo italiano bene! Viva VERDI! Viva Radetzky! And yes I am aware those are two contradictory evvivas! :p

That said ,Chris might get to it before me :p

KTravlos,

I suggest also:

Goito 1848 (22.750 Piedmontese, 31.750 Austrians)
Volturno 1860 (24.500 Garibaldini, 50.000 Neapolitans)

There are some interesting articles on Volturno in some very old numbers of Practical Wargamer, btw.

As ever,
Fabrizio

torgauproject.blogspot.it

May I ask kn were you got hose numbers? Wikipedia lists about 30.000 total participants at Goito, and I do not remember Voltruno being so massive. Tht is why I id not hve them on my list. I will look at my Embree for Goito and my Essential history on Voluntro to check 100% as well as my Foreign Correspondents. You nm ight be more right as you can use th italian sources.

1st Custoza was 5 days of smaller engagements and manoeuvres rather than a single large clash between those numbers. But it could make an interesting small campaign by itself. The whole 1848 could be a good campaign with rules that prevents the various italian factions from collaborating and taking sane decisions.
I visited Novara in 1999 for the 150° of the battle and I made many photos of the reenactment.
The tactics were late napoleonics but with units deploying larger number of skirmishers because the terrain everywhere is heavily cultivated and populated with small ditches and hedgerows. For this reason cavalry was rarely effective or used in large units. Also artillery needed to find the spots with good fields of fire or covering roads.

Neil Thomas's 'Wargaming 19th Century Europe' covers this war and has lists for the armies.

The numbers for the Volturno are deceptive because a substantial part of the Neapolitan army never actually got into action. I think it could be given the BBB treatment even with the forces involved.

Battle of Pastrengo April 30th 1848