What will be the popular lists from the first book?

[david53]

Jiron

You are correct, Early German Protestant. That is the one you want. Interesting to see how it plays as I can't recall seeing one.

I would think badly like the real one. If you consider Mansfeld was the best of the Protestant Leaders in the German area you'll see why its classed as poor.

I think you have to have half your troops poor and your units in three ranks - for getting shot at, so only an army for the brave I fear.

[timmy1]

Sorry Dave, I was meaning the variant for 1618-20 rather than the one you used. Your variant works quite well.

[panda2]

Dave,

I think you are being a bit hard on the early protestant armies from the Bohemian-Palatine phases into the Danish phase of the war. The list doesn't actually require half the BGs to be poor until after 1626, when Mansfeld would be dead. Mansfeld's forces and those of Christian of Brunswick were almost entirely made up of mercenaries, as were the armies of their opponents, and I can't see any particular reason why they should be seen as universally poorer and I would generally classify them as average. During the Palatinate phase, when Mansfeld was employed by Frederic V, he could call on the Palatinate militia. However, this would only have been a small part of his total force and may have been used mostly as garrisons, rather than in his field army.

I expect that the post 1626 restriction is designed to represent protestant German forces after the final destruction of the large mercenary armies when protestant princes were largely dependent on their militia, with perhaps a small standing force, together with the local gentry serving as cavalry and a few mercenaries, if they could aford them. From here to the end of the early German protestant list the main players on the protestant side were Denmark and then Sweden, with the forces of German princes playing a mostly supporting or defensive role. The only protestant German army from the earlier Palatinate phase that I think would have been similar to this would have been that of George-Frederick of Baden-Durlach at Wimpfen, which does seem to have been composed of his own local force with a few mercenaries loaned by Mansfeld. I expect that his tactics of defending field fortifications with poor troops and counterattacking with horse, which were pretty sucessful until his powder exploded (with an accompanying vision of the Madonna in some accounts!), might be one way to play an a militia based army.

As to the the Bohemian armies, which prompted this discussion, Peter Wilson states “The Bohemian Confederation relied on methods of military recruitment used during the Brothers Quarrel, with each province raising its own regiments and sending some to join the common army. The soldiers are often described in secondary accounts as militia, but were mainly mercenaries recruited by officers commissioned by the Estates.”.

Andy

[david53]

Dave,

I think you are being a bit hard on the early protestant armies from the Bohemian-Palatine phases into the Danish phase of the war.

Andy

Am I Andy Mansfeld never won one of his battles with Tilly/Imperial troops. That either says the General was at fault or the troops. Add to the fact that they were rarely paid this may also have effected their morale. Mansfeld was using large numbers of troops raised in England/Scotland mainly from the down and outs of Edinburgh and those untrained in war maybe that was the cause of his defeats.
dave

[panda2]

Dave,
I agree they were hardly world beaters, but I would place as much blame on the generals as on the troops. In the Palatine campaigns Tilly always seemed to be able to catch the protestant forces on the back foot and the three protestant armies, which probably outnumbered the combined catholic league and spanish forces at the begining, were never able to combine.

No doubt the quality of the recruits could be pretty low a times, but at the begining of the palatinate campaign the most significant source of recruits for Mansfeld's army would have been from the mercenary forces recently disbanded by the protestant union, which were probably a bit better than the inmates of the scottish gaols. Christian of Brunswick was also able to recruit a mercenary force recently disbanded by Hamburg at about the same time. Of course these may have been the high watermark in the quality of recruits.

Fortunately, the early protestant list has enough flexiblity for us both to try out our different inteprations. Certainly, I expect that I will prove more than capable of emulating Mansfeld's less than inspiring generalship, regardless of the quality of the troops.

Andy

[DanielS]

That's bit wrong I'm afraid, Mansfeld inflicted a sharp defeat on Tilly at Mingolsheim 1622 as well as beign successfull in a number of smaller actions. Depending on which sources you use he may also have defeated Cordoba at Fleurus 1622.

Baden-Durlach's army was just as much 'mercenaries' as the armies of Mansfeld and Christian of Brunswick, Georg Friedrich both enlisted units of his own as well took over units from the army of the Protestant Union which had been disbanded following pressure from the Catholic Leauge & Emperor. The 'mercenary' lable is to some extent a misleading one, there was no huge pool of battle hardend mercenaries to hire in the 1620's. A 'mercenary' regiment would be lucky if it had some experience officers and NCO's in the ranks, the men as a rule had to be trained from scratch. Trainign the units and building cohesion took time and is why early TYW armies often were "hard" but "brittle", they'd fight hard until the first serious set back which shattered them beyond rallying. Experienced & well trained troops like Tilly's men could rally from defeat and re-enter the fight. Experienced officers and men were worth their weight in gold and much sought after.

Mansfeld had several armies, none fielded much in the way of 'Brittish' troops. the Scots&English presence in his 1621-1623 armies was minor and the army raised in Britain for cooperation with the Danes was shattered by desertion and disease soon after landing in Germany. Given the lack of pay and equipment there was a reason that Mansfeld avoided open battle as much as possible while he tried to make up for the shortages by looting the appropriate areas. On top of that he also saw preserving his army as the main objective.
Regarding his failures we should keep in mind that no one of the early Protestant commanders did any better, Georg Friedrich, Christian of Brunswick, Christian of Denmark and his allies, they all got handed their heads by Tilly, at times with help from Spanish allies.
Hardly suprising given that they had to confront the best battle commander of the war at the head of experienced and confident troops. It wasn't until the Swedes arrived that Tilly had to face an army with an experience and cohesion that equald that of his own army, to make matters worse the Swedish army had better sub-commanders at a time when Tilly had lost some of his best senior officers.

[david53]

That's bit wrong I'm afraid, Mansfeld inflicted a sharp defeat on Tilly at Mingolsheim 1622 as well as beign successfull in a number of smaller actions. Depending on which sources you use he may also have defeated Cordoba at Fleurus 1622.

True Tilly pushed the rearguard until the Imperials hit the main army and yes were pushed off put hardly a hugh victory Mansfeld did'nt follow up and Tilly by passed them to join up with the Spainish army. Once again which sources you believe the Protestants lost four times what Tillys troops suffered.

[david53]

Mansfeld had several armies, none fielded much in the way of 'Brittish' troops. the Scots&English presence in his 1621-1623 armies was minor and the army raised in Britain for cooperation with the Danes was shattered by desertion and disease soon after landing in Germany.

I'd like to see which sources you have for that since the ones i have seen said that there was a large body raised for both mansfeld not including those that died of diease before they got to Germany and a large amount fought for the danish army. Of course this all depends on how many you count as large. Sir John Seton a half regiment of musketers 1200 strong was mustered 1619-20 Sir Andrew Grey another scot raised troops 1620 total of 2500 both these remained with Mansfeld in Bohemia not a great amount but not a small amout either considering both distance and time.

Dave

[DanielS]

For 1621-1622 I use Wertheim and to a lesser extent Reitzenstein. The Palatinate army commanded by Manstein contained 24 regiments of foot in that period, two were English, the 'Old' English regiment of Horatio Vere and the 'New' English regiment of Andrew Grey, that's a bit more than 8% of the infantry regiments being English, i.e a minor presence.

Danish sources such as Larsen-Liljefalk's "Kejserkrigen" tell the sad tale of the army raised by Mansfeld in 1624-1625 in England in detail, it started out with some 4000 Germans and at least 12000 English, however due to abysmal conditions on the ships where the troops was forced to remain for a long time as they were not allowed ashore and the bad weather encounter once on 'dry' land the army was reduced to 6000 men in a months time. Mansfeld was joined by Christian of Brunswick who was supposed to bring 2000 French cavalry but Christian lost some of these in a storm and even more as the combined army languished between the Wesel and the Rees. When Mansfeld went to Hauge to raise much needed money there were only some 700-800 cavalry and 4000 infantry in the army. As no money was forthcoming the army was reduced even further before it reached the Danes. About 3000 men in total of which 400 to 500 were cavalry, once again a minor part of the 40000 to 45000 men commanded by Christian of Denmark. (That's a conservative estimate btw, some source put his army at a bit over 50000 men at peak strenght)

[DanielS]

True Tilly pushed the rearguard until the Imperials hit the main army and yes were pushed off put hardly a hugh victory Mansfeld did'nt follow up and Tilly by passed them to join up with the Spainish army. Once again which sources you believe the Protestants lost four times what Tillys troops suffered.

Well you claimed that Mansfeld "never" won a battle, now the poor fellow is required to produce a "huge victory" for it to qualify??

There were good military reasons for not pursuing Tilly, the very same terrain which had proved so deadly for Tilly's troops would have worked against Mansfeld if he sent his troops across. As Mansfeld did not know how badly effected the Leaugists were common sense cautioned against a advance against troops of superior quality.

Mansfeld losing "four times" as many troops is nothing but classic propaganda, the haul of trophies and prisoner as well as the post battle letter shows that Tilly took a real beating, in fact after reciving a post battle muster Maximilian of Bavaria complained that more troops had been lost than he had previously been told. Tilly himself was badly shaken by the defeat and his letters and actions show real fear of defeat becoming disaster. Had Mansfeld lost 4 times as many troops he would not have reacted that way.

Mansfeld was no military genious but hardly the incompetent wretch he is sometimes portrayed as.

[david53]

For 1621-1622 I use Wertheim and to a lesser extent Reitzenstein. The Palatinate army commanded by Manstein contained 24 regiments of foot in that period, two were English, the 'Old' English regiment of Horatio Vere and the 'New' English regiment of Andrew Grey, that's a bit more than 8% of the infantry regiments being English, i.e a minor presence.

Danish sources such as Larsen-Liljefalk's "Kejserkrigen" tell the sad tale of the army raised by Mansfeld in 1624-1625 in England in detail, it started out with some 4000 Germans and at least 12000 English, however due to abysmal conditions on the ships where the troops was forced to remain for a long time as they were not allowed ashore and the bad weather encounter once on 'dry' land the army was reduced to 6000 men in a months time. Mansfeld was joined by Christian of Brunswick who was supposed to bring 2000 French cavalry but Christian lost some of these in a storm and even more as the combined army languished between the Wesel and the Rees. When Mansfeld went to Hauge to raise much needed money there were only some 700-800 cavalry and 4000 infantry in the army. As no money was forthcoming the army was reduced even further before it reached the Danes. About 3000 men in total of which 400 to 500 were cavalry, once again a minor part of the 40000 to 45000 men commanded by Christian of Denmark. (That's a conservative estimate btw, some source put his army at a bit over 50000 men at peak strenght)

What was the make up of the Danish army at that time? what was the % of Danish troops to German troops and other forign troops and do you have the rule and army list book.

[david53]

Mansfeld was no military genious but hardly the incompetent wretch he is sometimes portrayed as.

A man of his time would you say?

[DanielS]

What was the make up of the Danish army at that time? what was the % of Danish troops to German troops and other forign troops and do you have the rule and army list book.

Yes I have the rules and the WoR army lists. Strictly speaking the army wasn't Danish at all. Christian IV went to war in his Duke of Holstein persona as the war leader of the Saxon circle rather than as King of Denmark. He did use the existing small Danish army as recruiting ground for at least one, possibly three regiments but the questions is a bit murky due to the anti-German bias of the Danish historians after the war of 1864. The reason I'm skeptical is that the the two existing Danish infantry regiments simply could not have supplied all of the men of the "Blue" and "Red" regiments even if Christian had recruited every single Danish soldier into them. The "Danish" regiment which was raised in 1626 is a diffrent story as it can be easily traced in the sources. I'd say that Danes were no more than 10-15% of the army and that's being generous and counting each regiment at it's largest. With diesase and desertion factored in I'd say less than 10%. The rest of the army of 1625-1626 was German. (Not counting allied contingents such as the Angol-German army of Mansfeld or the French cavalry of Brunswick). In the post-Lutter period the number of 'foreign' troops increased as both Scots & French were recruited and more native Danes were used as well.

The make up and quality of Christian's armies in the Kalmar war and the TYW was rather diffrent from the one found in the army list but though some sources are now online the language barrier is a hard one to breach when it comes to the scandinavian languages so this is one of the tougher lists to get right without help of a native.

[SirGarnet]

Poor troops are more useful than in FOGAM, so having a few available can be a plus for a list.

A couple of BGs of Poor second-line troops able to provide support to the front line are quite useful. If in a divisional formation in the musket era, they may also be able to usefully shoot through the gaps in the front line in a firefight (e.g., an infantry line of 2 brigades, each of 2 average foot up with a couple base widths between and one poor foot back in support and covering that gap). Posted correctly, they can also help avoid the front line taking the penalty for having an open flank against mounted.

Also cheap artillery guards, placed immediately behind.

[david53]

Poor troops are more useful than in FOGAM, so having a few available can be a plus for a list.

A couple of BGs of Poor second-line troops able to provide support to the front line are quite useful. If in a divisional formation in the musket era, they may also be able to usefully shoot through the gaps in the front line in a firefight (e.g., an infantry line of 2 brigades, each of 2 average foot up with a couple base widths between and one poor foot back in support and covering that gap). Posted correctly, they can also help avoid the front line taking the penalty for having an open flank against mounted.

Also cheap artillery guards, placed immediately behind.

Until the enemy shoot through the gap with there artillery and hit the poor troops and you have'nt got rear support

[DanielS]

A man of his time would you say?

Certainly, albeit a very driven one. It will very interesting to see what the new biography that has just been published reaches in the way of conclusions. http://www.walter-kruessmann.de/zum-buch English summary below the German one.