"Battle You've Most Grown Tired Of? Waterloo!" Topic

You were asked – TMP link

re there some historical battles which you've gamed so many times, you never want to see them again?

13% said "Waterloo"
8% (tie) said "Battle of the Bulge" OR "Gettysburg"

47% said "I am not tired of any historical battles"

Never thrown a dice yet. I collect 28mm figures, from a conflict that lasted a few hours, in a few small fields south of Brussels. 95% are in the attic in the dark.

Interesting Q though. (OK, I admit I tried WWI trench warfare in 1/72 and WWII Allied Airborne landings in 1/300 in the 1970s. Both led to absolute massacres and then I discovered that half the world had XX chromosomes and attractions that went with that).

How would you grow tired of any battle where the outcome is in doubt? Unless it was boring to start with I guess.

The Bulge? Naw. Soon as "Oh, it has turned out nice again" there is that sound of Jabos.

The Alamo. This is controversial but read "Flight from etc" and you realise how brave they were, but how incompetent were their leaders.

Countless other battles, but how great that almost half replied does not apply.

Good question to ask though! Needs to be posed. I hope we get a response

Name of the "flight from etc" Alamo book deadbeat please?

Thank you

Deadbeat?

Deadbeat?

A Deadhead is not a …actually to tell the truth those that survived the hedonistic 70s and 80s probably are. Even band members dropped like flies. Jerry G, Brent M, Pigpen etc

The book. It is brilliant

Pulled it off my youngest lad's bookshelf.

I got the name wrong.

Exodus from the Alamo
The Anatomy of the Last Stand Myth

Phillip Thomas Tucker

It will not be popular, but it is well researched. His point is not to denigrate their bravery, but to stress how meaningless it was, how incompetent was their leadership, how the Mexicans outclassed them. The real message is how they broke and tried to flee, because they were totally exhausted and sound asleep..but yet some gunners fought on from the mission ramparts. I thought it far better than the John Wayne Texican myth.

I have James Donovan's "Blood of Heroes" unread on my shelf. But I doubt that will prove more thought provoking than Exodus. Folk will hate it (or ignore it), but they are missing the message. Alamo defenders were largely amateurs, none had bayonets, they totally outclassed the Mexicans in artillery, yet were massacred; as for the slavery issue…oh read the book and do post on here

I have a love/hate relationship with the Battle of Waterloo. I hate it because it dominates the available Napoleonic literature in English. It's like nothing else happened. On the other hand, I love that one can dive into it deeply, with French, German and Dutch-Belgian perspectives now available, so one can triangulate what may have actually happened, rather than relying on the British telling us it was all them.

I HATE AND DESPISE SPELL CHECK !!
My sincere apologies deadhead.
Thank you. I have the book. I thought there was one I had not heard of or do not have. Russ -- or you can call me CUSS in retaliation?

Just ordered the Exodus from the Alamo book off ebay – I look forward to reading it.

BTW, I prefer the remake of the Alamo film, rather than the John Wayne version.

It was all us

I have a love/hate relationship with the Battle of Waterloo. I hate it because it dominates the available Napoleonic literature in English. It's like nothing else happened. On the other hand, I love that one can dive into it deeply, with French, German and Dutch-Belgian perspectives now available, so one can triangulate what may have actually happened, rather than relying on the British telling us it was all them.

I would have said that the exact opposite is true. There has always been a very extensive literature on the Peninsular War in English too, it has never just been about Waterloo. The problem with Napoleonic literature in the campaigns without British involvement is how until relatively recently, the scholarship in English has been so reliant on French narratives.

As I recall John Wayne didn't originally intend to appear in The Alamo, but he was required to star in it as a condition for obtaining funding. I am curious how much the script/story line got re-written once it was determined that John Wayne would star.

Whirlwind,

You have the advantage of living in the UK, where people know about the Peninsula War. Here in the US, my experience has been that one is lucky to find any Napoleonic books at all, and most of those are about Waterloo. The situation has gotten much better thanks to the Internet and the relative ease of ordering internationally, but for the first 20-30 years of my interest in the period the pickings were scarce.

Here in the US, my experience has been that one is lucky to find any Napoleonic books at all, and most of those are about Waterloo.

The US does tend to be rather insular. I remember going in to bookshops in the US and seeing books titled "The Civil War", like the US is the only country to have ever had one! Here in the UK we have had at least half a dozen which tends to give you a broader perspective on the whole civil wartheing!

I have to laugh at the idea that only the US is so "insular"

Do not be so hard on yourselves. We all had our versions of Joe Kennedy and Lindbergh, even back then.

We have here a "War of 1812" thing that does not have a single Cossack in it. That gets me every time. What the heck is that about?

Any account of a battle fought south of Brussels in 1815 suggests only one nation left any decent account of the action, north of a line from LHS to Hgmt

No Yanks, you had good teachers in ignoring the bigger picture, this side of the Atlantic. Unless it suddenly suited us, just like you in fact…common sense!

+ Fred Cartwright.

The 1812 Board is useless for asking questions about the Отечественная война 1812 года (Patriotic War of 1812).

We have here a "War of 1812" thing that does not have a single Cossack in it.

But at least we have the decency to call one of ours the English Civil War, even if it wasn't! :-)

Waterloo!!!!

We have here a "War of 1812" thing that does not have a single Cossack in it.

Except HMS Cossack.

Deadhead

"Any account of a battle fought south of Brussels in 1815 suggests only one nation left any decent account of the action, north of a line from LHS to Hgmt"

I'd agree that it used to be true, but thanks to the efforts of Gareth Glover, John Franklin, Andrew Field, Paul Dawson, John Hussey, Charles Esdaile, Erwin Muilwijk etc I wouldn't say that so much today, even for Anglophones.

For those with a smatering of schoolboy French and a dictionary, Coppens and Courcelle's Carnets leave little excuse.

I know the sensationalist and revisionist approach has had it's problems, Hamilton-Williams and Hofschroer for example. On the other hand, I think there will always be the "airport" style book that rehashes and makes no serious attempt to illuminate. Whilst they have their attractions for newbies and casual readers, I shouldn't think they will trouble many of the adherents of this forum.

Not tired of any battles. OK maybe Kursk.

I do not mind Waterloo, as long as I lead Neys cavalry charge!!!!

Cheers
Matt

Back on the 200th anniversary of Waterloo battle, I participated in the Snappy Nappy Campaign in a Day Waterloo Campaign event with 19 players across 11 tables.

In our version of 1815 events, Napoleon held in the right and center and made the left, looping through the town of Hal and via Ghent, his main attack area to get to Brussels.

Waterloo does not have to be a hey, diddle diddle, French up the middle slugfest if you add table space and options.

The seven-part blog, including maps, OBs, and recaps is here on Peter's Blunders on the Danube blog:

200th Anniversary Waterloo Campaign in a Day

The only historical battle I don't want to play anymore is the one where there are two armies occupying the long edges of a table end to end (and usually standing shoulder-to-shoulder), which then charge straight forward and shoot/hack until one side loses enough units to be called "broken". I'm not sure which actual battle this is supposed to be, since miniatures gamers seem to recreate it with miniatures of every era and medium (except maybe airplanes).