"Two ECW questions" Topic

It's a difficult period to research.

So, not sure on these two questions.

Who wore sashes? Officers, NCOs & ordinary soldiers if they felt like it?

How did Commanded Shot, attached to units of Horse, keep up?

As usual, my opinions not binding on reality.
1) Certainly officers, certainly not rank and file foot--who had no "office." I get the feeling that there's a gray area into which non-comissioned officers might fall--as well as horse, who are generally a notch up socially from foot, and a bit more prone to be spread about a battlefield and not in nice orderly blocks.

2) I've never seen a "doctrinal" answer. Clearly they couldn't: even a horse at a walk is travelling faster than marching men. My working wargame assumption is that--when they weren't in hedges or such--they were placed somewhat in advance of the horse before things got serious. The idea was that their fire would disrupt the opposing horse, giving the friendly horse an edge in the horse-on-horse melee.

But of course this is of little consolation to the commanded foot unless the melee takes place slightly in front of them instead of after they're overridden. The timing is murderously tight, which makes it a desperation move, used by an army which simply does not have enough horse.

Morning Donald,

The answers to your first question are here link

As for the second… the notion of commanded shot, and forlorn hopes has been skewed by wargames rules writers, figure manufacturers, and that old favourite Wargamer Facts™. Did they exist? Yes. Did they exist like rules writers, figure manufacturers and Wargamer Facts™ would have you believe? No.

There were some units that were raised as musket only. Famously the Parliamentarian fire lock artillery guard, and the Palatine princes' lifeguards. There were a number of musket only units raised for garrison duties at castles (mostly Welsh Royalist units). Then there were a tiny handful that took to the field – Wemyss, Brereton and most notably Sandford's. Those that took the field usually operated a bit like dragoons but without the horses. Taking/defending bridges, lining hedgerows etc

Commanded shot attached to horse. Off the top of my head, and through a slightly overdosed lemsip fugue, I can't actually think of any examples of this happening. Could be wrong, but I think this may well be a wargame thing rather than a real thing.

Ad hoc detachments of musketeers as forlorn hopes certainly existed, but again effectively dragoons without horses.

Units of Royalist musketeers accompanied their horse at the Corbridge fight against Scottish horse, early 1644.

I was under the impression that Langdale's force was pretty much horse, with very little foot support. What foot he had followed up behind the horse rather than being attached.

Someone with his books handy double-check me, but as I recall there was commanded shot with some of the brigades of horse at Marston Moor.

As for the scarves/sashes, than you Keep! With you on the solution, too. Not the only instance in which my miniatures have been more uniform--and the sides more clearly distinguished--than the historical reality.

I hate to go out on a limb but I think CS were first used in the Thirty Years War. As per the question, I have no idea how they kept up with the Horse – roller skates?

We first used them with the Field of Glory (R) rules where you got the proverbial +1 when the combined unit charged. A little "gamey" I'll admit.

Currently, the *very* few units of musket-only infantry we allow in VwQ, act like slow dragoons. So we got it right?

That scarves were worn by anyone who could get a length of cloth generally fits with the figures we buy in "our" scale. So TD & SHQ got that right.

KYPD: I suppose it depends on how close one defines 'attached. I've read the primary sources a number of times (but not recently) and have the impression that the musketeers were pretty closely 'attached'; and that they supported the horse by firing on the Scots as the Royalists charged (or was it, fell back?).

I have always supposed/understood that commanded shot were mixed with the horse on the field and otherwise with their infantry unit on the march. I would assume that they trained together at some point, but again, I am not an expert, just supposing. I am thinking of Gustavus' organization in believing this. Forlorn hopes fall into the same category, I would think.

Of Corbridge: the Scottish sources say the Royalists had 300-400 musketeers "waiting on them"; and that when the Royalist horse withdrew, and the Scots followed up, the musketeers fired on them.

So the horse and foot must have been pretty close to each other. But then, the Royalist horse and foot had been both quartered at Hexham, only a couple of miles from Corbridge.