Back to bases

In this article we will be discussing some of the various issues in representing the War of 1812 and battles of a similar scale on the tabletop. In particular we are looking at the battle of Chippawa. Lets start with a picture of the army outlined in the earlier article we I looked at the American OOB for the battle.

The above picture shows almost the entire American army for the battle of Chippawa with 30cm ruler behind it to give an indication of how much terrain it covers. The bases shown here in the picture are the one introduced for the Napoleons battles rules and are 20cms wide.While it is not clear the area covered by the American army covers a distance of about 40 cms. This means the battle can be fought on a small table such as a coffee table.While there is some appeal in this idea. I have a bigger table that I wish to use. So we need to look at unit sizes or unit representation.

This works out into two options that I can see. Bigger bases or more bases, not to mention a mixture of the two.Both options involve more figures but not more units. For me this should not be hassle as the units shown are only part of what I have painted. Though rebasing is always a pain. The number of bases may be an issue of ergonomics as reducing the number of bases makes it easier to handle the units as indeed these bases can be fiddly.The current fashion here is the Napoleonic field of glory is a 4cm base with 8 figures on on it. Which is two of the NB bases. Rebasing opens up the ability to fit in other players and their rules sets. It also has the ease that everything is on the same sized bases.

Recommendation: Rebase to 4cm bases.

So what are we representing with these bases. The basic unit of infantry we are representing is the battalion of foot. A battalion can be further divided into a number of subunits. Using the British as as an example you have wings or half battalions. Each wing divides into two divisions and each division into two platoons and so on. Each subunit being comprised same number of files or at least as equal it can be.The smallest possible subunit is the section of five files and three sections a platoon, giving the smallest battalion a strength of 120 files or 240 rank and file.

Now that is what the drill book has to say. Reality is a completely different thing. The first is that smaller units are often combined into larger units. At Chippewa the American 9th and 22nd infantry are combined into a single battalion. This is a nice clean example of what can happen. Other examples during the war are less clear, you have both sides run brigades of multiple battalions that are smaller than the TOE of single battalion. Are these grouped together into a single battalion. Then there are the various adhoc taskforces that are created both on the battlefield and in the wider campaigning area.

From this there are three conclusions that can be drawn.

Conclusion: The platoon is nice but impractical
Conclusion: An even number of stands
Conclusion: There a minimum unit size.

Dealing with the last two together it  it would appear that the smallest possible unit consists of two stands. One advantage of the war of 1812 is that you can pretty much track down the unit size for all the battle.

125	14th infantry	Crysler's Farm
144	89th foot	Crysler's Farm
150	1st infantry	Lundy's Lane
150	light	Crysler's Farm
171	1st foot	Lundy's Lane
184	advance	Crysler's Farm
200	2nd lincoln	Chippawa
200	9th infantry	Lundy's Lane
200	11th infantry	Lundy's Lane
225	12th infantry	Crysler's Farm
225	13th infantry	Crysler's Farm
225	16th infantry	Crysler's Farm
240	89th foot	Crysler's Farm
246	5th Pen	Lundy's Lane
250	bn 10th infantry	Chateauguay
250	ny militia	Lundy's Lane
275	8th foot	Lundy's Lane
300	22nd infantry	Lundy's Lane
300	23rd infantry	Lundy's Lane
300	9th infantry	Crysler's Farm
300	11 infantry	Crysler's Farm
304	49th foot	Crysler's Farm
321	33RD INFANTRY	Chateauguay
336	inc militia	Lundy's Lane
341	24rd infantry	Chippawa
350	light infantry corp us	Chateauguay
354	25th infantry	Chippawa
375	25th infantry	Crysler's Farm
376	glengarry	Lundy's Lane
380	25th infantry	Lundy's Lane
400	8th foot	Chippawa
400	1st foot	Lundy's Lane
415	maine and new hampshire vol	Chateauguay
416	11 infantry	Chippawa
425	89th foot	Lundy's Lane
425	21st infantry	Crysler's Farm
432	21st infantry	Lundy's Lane
460	100th foot	Chippawa
500	1st foot	Chippawa
541	5th Pen	Chippawa
549	9/22 infantry	Chippawa
591	4th infantry	Chateauguay
635	103rd Foot	Lundy's Lane
651	22st infantry	Chippawa
700	31/31st infantry	Chateauguay
762	11/29th infantry	Chateauguay

Well I haven't done them all yet but a quick peruse of three books bu Donald Graves( Fields of Glory, Where right and glory lead and Red coats Greyjackets) has given me a list of 46 to discuss. The list is somewhat arbitrary and not fully representative except of those battle covered. But hopefully we can learn something from them. So lets look at the largest and smallest.

The largest is the 762 men of the combined 11th and 29th infantry at Chateauguay. This is close to being a full strength unit but is still short of that mark.As such while you should be able to field this as your largest normal unit you may need to go larger.

At the other extreme is the smallest the 125 men of the 14th infantry at Crysler's farm. Fortunately we have the opportunity to dismiss it from our list as a unit. Graves describes it as moving as part of a column with the 11th infantry. This allows us to create  the 11th/14th infantry with a strength of 425 men.  Its possible that this is so.

Moving up the list the next is not so east to dismiss. Its the 144 men of the 89th foot under Captain Barnes also at Chysler's Farm. Its role in the battle was to provide supports to Lt.Col Pearson,s advance guard of light troops. So by rights they should be counted as part of his command and eventually raising the possibility of forming a battalion under his command. But Pearson is wounded and his command retires away from Barnes command. Leaving them independent for the rest of the battle.

There are also a number of units only a little bit bigger than Barnes command. So to keep the math simple 150 men smallest to 750 men largest or five times greater.

Conclusion: If your smallest unit is two stands your largest will be ten stands with the possibility of being larger

150 men for your smallest unit equates to 75 men per stand or about 35-40 files.This slightly smaller than the original Black powder cold steel. Now how does this translate into the other arms of cavalry and artillery, A cavalry file is allocated approximately 50% more frontage than an infantry file which roughly equates to a meter. So a cavalry stand has 24-26 files or 50 horse.An artillery section of two guns also fits neatly onto a base with a frontage of about 25 meters.

So the basics are done.Of course the hardest part is making a plan and sticking to it.