"Looking for a Peninsular battle ..." Topic

To be used as a blueprint for building out my armies.

Something about the size of Vimeiro (15k per side) but preferable with Spanish troops added to the mix. I.e. troops from all 4 nations.

Any suggestions ?

Bigger but id needs be, you can scale down: Talavera?

Barrossa perhaps…

Castalla link use the Portuguese as the Italians from Sicily.

Battle of Sourauren – will need to scale sides down a bit:

I was looking at Barrosa as on option. Thanks

All ideas welcome !

Talavera would be about 32 brigades / french divisions if my OOB is correct so that would be too big. Perhaps one day …

Prince Essling – I am astonished. I had never heard of Italians in the ALLIED army before now. My Google foo seems to be weak today could you point me to a link with more info?

Thank you!

Allied OoB for Castalla (from the embedded link above):

Orders of Battle
Allied Order of Battle
Murray's army counted 17,080 infantry, 1,036 cavalry, and 30 guns. It consisted of two Anglo-Italian and two Spanish infantry divisions, plus Adam's brigade. The army was organized as follows.
Lieutenant-General John Murray, 8th Baronet
1st Anglo-Italian Division: Lieutenant General William Henry Clinton (4,036)
1/10th Foot
1/58th Foot
1/81st Foot
2nd Italian Regiment (1 battalion)
Roll-Dillon Battalion
2nd Anglo-Italian Division: General John Mackenzie (4,045)
1/27th Foot
4th King's German Legion Line Battalion
6th King's German Legion Line Battalion
Sicilian Estero Regiment (2 battalions)
Independent Brigade: Colonel Frederick Adam (1,179)
2/27th Foot
1st Italian Regiment (1 battalion)
Calabrian Free Corps (1 battalion)
Light companies of 3rd and 8th KGL Line battalions
20th Light Dragoons (2 squadrons attached)
Olivenca Regiment (2 squadrons attached)
Foreign Hussars (1 troop attached)
1st Spanish Division: Colonel Samuel Ford Whittingham (3,901)
Cordoba Infantry Regiment (1 battalion)
Mallorca Infantry Regiment (1 battalion)
Guadalajara Infantry Regiment (1 battalion)
2/Burgos Infantry Regiment (1 battalion)
2/Murcia Infantry Regiment (1 battalion)
5th Grenadier battalion
2nd Spanish Division: General Phillip Roche (4,019)
Aragon Volunteers (1 battalion)
Portuguese Volunteers (1 battalion)
Alicante Infantry Regiment
Chinchilla Infantry Regiment
Canarias Infantry Regiment
Cavalry: 9 squadrons (1,036)
Artillery: 30 guns (500)

You might consider selections from Albuera. The IVth Division of Lowry Cole has the 1st and 2nd 7th Foot, Royal Fusiliers plus the 21st Foot – Royal Welch (not "Welsh" as I recall) Fusiliers -/48th 3 battalions with royal blue facings, all with white hackle. Wearing the stovepipe, as fur caps were in England.

Only the light companies of the other division were there – all buff faced: 3/27th Inniskillings; 1/40th West Riding; and ?/48th, North Hants? Why not do full battalions?

Add 1 company of the 60th Rifles; and 1 of the Brunswick Oels rifles.

Then the Loyal Lusitanian Legion – 1 battalion in green; 2 battalions of the 11th Portuguese; and 1 of the 23rd Portuguese – light blue facings, edging in red.

Plenty of Spanish in Blake's army. Walloon Guard battalion and 3 others fought the French to a standstill on the allied right. Elements of the British 2nd Division wrecked in Houghton's Brigade. French using Vistula Lancers; 2nd Hussars; lots of Dragoons, lots of variety.

GdeP

You might need to worry more about the terrain for Sorauren than the numbers involved. Unless you don't bother about these things.

Having been there, I can confirm the contour lines on that map are close together for a very good reason! :o)

My suggestion would be to pick and paint for each army at its strongest point, and then through a process of deduction, you can get to the forces you need for any given battle. For the British, aim for a mid-1813 OOB; for the French, you want the Army of Portugal for about 1810.

One other alternative might be to fight the northern flank of Vittoria as self-contained i.e Graham's attack

@ Garde de Paris

"plus the 21st Foot – Royal Welch (not "Welsh" as I recall) Fusiliers"

Well, no, but yes, and sort of. That would be the 23d Royal Welsh Fuzileers.

1702 The Welch Regiment of Fuzileers

1713 The Royal Regiment of Welch Fuzileers
(For service in War of the Spanish Succession)

1714 The Prince of Wales's Own Royal Regiment of Welch Fuzileers(named for the future King George II)

1723 The Royal Regiment of Welch Fuzileers
1747 Ranked as 23rd Foot
1751 23rd Regiment of Foot (Royal Welsh Fuzileers)

1881 The Royal Welsh Fusiliers

1921 The Royal Welch Fusiliers
(ancient spelling of "Welch" officially restored, but regiment had always unofficially retained that style)

Great ideas thank you everyone

Some more Peninsular multi-national battles:

Castalla (the 1813 battle) Anglo-Spanish v. French

Gebora (1811) Spanish-Portuguese v. French

Orthez (1814) Anglo-Spanish-Portuguese v. French

Pombal (1811) Anglo-Portuguese v. French

Saguntum (1811) Spain v. French, Italy, Naples, Grand Duchy of Warsaw

Tordesillas (1812) Anglo-Spanish-Portuguese v. French

you can try the battle of San Marcial (August 31st, 1813) french last relief attempt of San Sebastian, attacking uphill against Spanish troops, with 2 british Div menacing their flank and no retreat due to the rains swelling of the Bidassoa

or one or both the non battles of Tarragona (1813)- Murray was Pant-s*ting himself at being attacked by enemies that were half his strength (he almost ordered a retreat before Castalla), but you don't have to…
same troops as castalla, with Whittingham and Roche exchanged for a 8-10 battalions of low morale regular spanish foot and a lone squadron of spanish irregular horse. the french have no clue of what they are attacking….

If you want something different, and an action I've always been interested in, how about the two sieges of Zaragoza in 1808 and 1809? It was the 19th century Stalingrad, and no British were involved. I've never for some reason been interested in Peninsular War battles that involve the British.

I'd go for Barrossa as well – you get an interesting mix of British troops there and the whole thing is do-able.