"Miniatures for Counterfactual or "What if" AWI campaigns" Topic

What if the AWI had ever blossomed into a war in Europe is an interesting exercise. Have any of you ever considered this? Or do the SYW and French Revolutionary Wars suck all the oxygen out of this possibility?

If we were to pursue large land campaigns in Europe during the AWI period, which makers produce figures in any scale usable for the French/British/Prussians/Austrians/Russians of the 1770s.

For French and British, you can use what is already produced. Many Hessian figures can be used for Prussians. Biggest challenge will be heavy cavalry for British, French, and Prussians as these weren't involved in fighting in the New World or in India. For rest, I have no suggestions.

Jim

Of course there was a war in Europe anyway: a three year siege of Gibraltar, not to mention an epic dust up on the island of Jersey- as the colours of the 12th, 39th, 56th, 58th bearing the honour 'GIBRALTAR' with the device of a Castle and Key and the motto 'Montis Insignia Calpe' demonstrated. I think a couple of Hanoverian corps wore it in 1914.

An extended sally across the isthmus (via the airport) into the kingdom of Granada against Algeciras or Tarifa – Tarifa!- would surely be a possibility. Before the Moors departed there were lots of cavalry clashes in those parts. Dammit, why not a raid on Cadiz or Malaga?

Some years ago I briefly suggested (at link ) a scenario whereby an expansionist Tokugawa Japan supported Britain against Spain in the AWI and annexed California. So if you want to go even wider afield than Europe …

Sheesh, Benny! Those Brits. They wipe the floor with the French raiding force and then concentrate on the one principal fatal casualty (The Highlander was only stunned).

What if the AWI had ever blossomed into a war in Europe is an interesting exercise. Have any of you ever considered this? Or do the SYW and French Revolutionary Wars suck all the oxygen out of this possibility?

As 42flanker said: there was a European war. France declared war on Britain in 1778, Spain in 1779, the Dutch Republic in 1780. The war was waged at sea and on distant shores because Great Britain had insufficient forces or allies on the European continent to engage in a land war, and couldn't send more anyway while stretched to the limit fighting two wars in India (against Mysore and the Marathans) and defending its possessions in the New World (Caribbean and North America).

I've never given any thought to a continental war because the real-life war is already really interesting to me, and my life isn't long enough to game all of it anyway. Literally every year from 1778-1783 was a fascinating see-saw Caribbean campaign, and usually a related naval campaign on the Atlantic seaboard of North America. The AWI is already loaded with European-vs-European battles, "what ifs" and "almost happened" fights all over those theaters.

There was one European land theater that very nearly opened: the 1779 attempt to invade England. It might be fun to assume the armada succeeds in getting troops ashore, and then fight that out as a campaign across Great Britain. This is still only a limited war between Britain and a Franco-Spanish alliance (maybe with Dutch help), but French and Spanish soldiers fighting redcoats on British soil is a pretty interesting twist on history, and the naval war to support or starve the troops in Britain would be a tough slog for both sides. Bonnie Prince Charlie was still alive, so might have made a useful dependent puppet for the French to legitimize their war and place on the throne.

Some thoughts:

Frederick the Great deliberately stayed out of the AWI and refused to even recognize the United States until after the Treaty of Paris. He was busy near home, and fought the War of the Bavarian Succession (der Kartoffelkrieg) in 1779. To get either Prussia or Austria involved you'd probably have to figure out how to widen that conflict. The Kartoffelkrieg isn't a very exciting war for wargamers, but might serve as a good pretext for a bigger continental conflict.

Catherine the Great had recently concluded the five-hundredth Russo-Turkish War (1768-1774), so maybe Russia could be available for a central European war. The Ottoman empire probably wouldn't.

As per 18th C. tradition, the myriad little German and Italian states weren't going to war with anybody except maybe as part of a larger army of a great power. Note however that some of them were already emptying the gaols to raise regiments for service in North America. You'll have to look at the treaties to figure out if those units would have been recalled – and then figure out *how* they'd get recalled, since they came over in British hulls, and the British would certainly not *want* to haul them back while the rebellion is ongoing.

France was basically bankrupted by the 1778-1783 war with Great Britain, while fighting to take (or take back) colonial possessions in distant places. The economic strain after the war basically lead straight to the French Revolution. To get Louis interested in bankrupting even faster fighting near home, there'd have to be some really big stakes on the table. Italy and the Lowlands were the usual French enticements.

In real life, Britain was overmatched and severely threatened across the globe from 1778-1783, and this contributed mightily to losing 13 colonies in North America, but she actually did pretty well virtually everywhere else. If the European powers get distracted by a continental war, there's a good chance the result would be even better for Britain elsewhere. If France is less engaged in North America, the revolutionaries could easily have lost. France and Spain were in the war mostly for revenge and to redress the balance of power; there was no way they wanted to sit again at a negotiating table with British diplomats negotiating more losses of their territory. Except for the crisis of 1779 I mentioned above, it's hard to think of any way to get them to turn east and away from the project to cut down Britain.

- Ix

Did you read "After Yorktown: The Final Struggle for American Independence" by Don Glickstein?

Do you have any literary suggestions about Caribbean or global struggles contemporary to the AWI ?

Now, that's what I'm talking about!!! Some people keep asking which SYW or Napoleoninc battle they should do 1st, 2nd, etc., make-up your own. There are some very interesting combinations out there. I mentioned before how one of my wargaming friends and I played several games, renaissance period, Scots-Irish vs Poles, they were a blast.

I have After Yorktown by Glickstein, but it's about 38 books down in my reading pile. <sigh>

Also in my library:

The Struggle for Sea Power: A Naval History of the American Revolution by Sam Willis.

The Influence of Seapower Upon History, 1660-1783 by A.T. Mahan

Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence by A.T. Mahan

The Hessians and the Other German Auxiliaries of Great Britain in the Revolutionary War by Edward J. Lowell. This is an old book (1884!) but still a good overview of the Germans who served in the Revolution, much of it sourced from German sources at a time when German historians still cared deeply about this chapter of their history.

Not in my library, but on my shopping list:

The American Revolution: A World War (basically a collection of essays, each chapter by a different author)

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I'm always looking for more detailed accounts of battles and campaigns in the Caribbean. These days, Wikipedia pages are a good place to start research on them. Many of them look like perfectly encapsulated mini-campaigns for miniatures gaming. I mean to game the Battle of St. Lucia and the Battle of St. Kitts as mini-campaigns including naval battles, landings, land battles, and if I can find a fun way to game a siege, the siege of Brimstone Hill.

FWIW, I have found almost zero detailed information about the Armada of 1779. For some reason, it doesn't seem to be a very popular topic in English history…. Not that there's much to say about it. The Franco-Spanish fleet finally got to sea after many false starts, failed to find the British fleet before starvation and disease and maintenance became impossible to ignore, then broke up for the winter and never came together again. Pretty much a waste of time and treasure, like every joint Franco-Spanish naval effort of the 18th C.

- Ix

Have you seen these links?:

link

link

link

I hadn't seen any of those links before, thanks. They are all pretty nice overviews of the AWI war at sea in the Western hemisphere. Hardly enough to organize a wargame or campaign around, but definitely a good start to suggest research topics.

- Ix

I only just got around to reading this article Armand posted yesterday:
link

Not a lot of help here for a continental war in Europe, but lots of interesting diplomatic background to consider.

If Britain and Russia had somehow become close allies (a bit of a stretch), that might help set the stage for other European conflicts. Catherine really wanted Mediterranean possessions to extend Russian power, but was obviously not going to get any from Britain. Maybe she could have gotten Greek islands with British assistance, or at least tacit non-interference…? That might lead to a wider war in central Europe, if you're any good with timeline manipulation.

- Ix

I've said it before, but it bears repeating, Why doesn't anyone do the secondary theaters in major conflicts? For instance SYW; India, The Caribbean, Spain. Napoleonics, Western Germany, Northern Italy, Egypt. The possibilities are limitless.

A little aside here, I've seen a number of AARs from TMP gamers using ficticious countries and equally ficticious armies. Who says historical wargames need to be based on 'real' history?

I agree about secondary theaters, but the OP specifically asked about large European land campaigns during the 1770s and 1780s, so I was trying to stick to that topic. As I think I've overstated above, I do think there is an awful lot of interest in the real-life course of the AWI. Also, the Caribbean and India and Gibraltar were hardly sideshows in the global European war that erupted around the rebellion, and the Franco-Spanish attempt to invade Britain in 1779 was a true crisis of Napoleonic proportions, but these are lesser known and of lesser interest to gamers.

FWIW, the Seven Years War convention always has a number of games set in tropical theaters. There are always a few tables with palm trees and elephants and non-European garb mixed in among the tricornes and muskets.

- Ix

What scope do the Caribbean island campaigns offer to a wargamer, given the limited acreage and the terrain. The occasional siege presumably did not differ greatly from assaulting a fortress elsewhere, apart from ship-based artillery support. Did overall circumstances vary much between, say, 1755 and 1815

To Yellow Admiral, oops sorry didn't see that.

To 42flanker, the Caribbean would be a site for smaller scale, perhaps skirmish games. Once again though I have to ask, why are we so insistent that our games follow history? Make up you own history your own campaign, be creative and devise your own world with fictitious countries and fictitious armies.
I respectfully submit a recently presented group of scenarios by Jay Ward, a TMPer by the way.
"The War of the Emperor's Balls" with engagements between the armies of the Marquis of Aix-En-Pains and the Duke of Bad Schmaltzberg.

Look it up dude, I can't find it right now.

What scope do the Caribbean island campaigns offer to a wargamer, given the limited acreage and the terrain.

The largest set of evenly balanced fleet battles ever to occur in one theater in any war, plus endless scope for small ship actions, cutting-out expeditions, amphibious raids, etc.

The occasional siege presumably did not differ greatly from assaulting a fortress elsewhere, apart from ship-based artillery support.

True. There weren't any maneuver-based land battles in the Caribbean that I know of. It was a war of posts; mostly sieges and relief efforts, punctuated by occasional assaults.

There were some raids that might be really fun skirmish or mass-skirmish games, like these:
link
link

Did overall circumstances vary much between, say, 1755 and 1815

Mostly in who started each war with which island.

The Battle of the Saintes was not fore-ordained. It could be a really fun "what if" to assume a different outcome at the Saintes (or no battle at all) and fight the subsequent campaign for Jamaica as a short miniatures campaign, or even just a couple land battles and some naval battles. Jamaica is big enough and at the time had enough cultivated land for some AWI-sized land battles between regulars in white coats and red coats.

- Ix

Yes, Jamaica. Cuba?

The British don't seem to have made an effort against Cuba in the AWI. I'm guessing they just didn't have the resources. The capture of Havana in 1762 was a tremendous victory, but a costly effort, and by the time Spain entered the AWI, British forces were already severely stretched.

Dominic Serres and Richard Paton did a lot of beautiful paintings of the 1762 attack. There's a good (and growing!) selection of high resolution images of them at the bottom of the Wikipedia page for the Siege of Havana.

Havana was a multi-month siege operation without any field battles, but I bet games that looked as nice as those paintings would still be popular with gamers.

I think the only way to get field battles on Cuba is to have a siege like the 1762 effort under way, and then land a relief force to lift the siege somewhere else along the coast.

The attack on Havana may have been in the wrong war, but the paintings give a very inspiring impression of Caribbean warfare in the 18th C.

- Ix

I ran a battle set in NJ in 1782.
The premise was that the talks for ending the conflict had not been seeming as promising as desired for the Americans.
With the troops available in one of the campaign guides for the Revolutionary War (Rank and File?), I used historical forces, for the most part for the British in New York, area with some reinforcements for both the Americans and British.
The game was set in NJ, as a large American army decided to threaten New York, to push for more favorable terms in a treaty.
The British wanted to curtail any attack incursion into it's NY and NJ cantonments, so sent out a blocking force, which, greater in number, arrives piecemeal, with some select units in beneficial defensive positions awaiting reinforcements.

The Americans, with many veterans of the last few years fall upon the blocking force, and try to defeat them before the British get fully reinforced.

There would be about a dozen regiments or battalions per side with a couple of cavalry units also for each side, and artillery. The game played on a 10 x 6 table with 28mm