Battle of Malplaquet

Just when I was settling into decisions for next years projects it occurred to me that today, 11 September 2013 is the 304th anniversary of the Pyrrhic victory at the Battle of Malplaquet fought between England, Austria, Prussia and the Low Countries on one side and France and Bavaria on the other. It was a battle that was famous for the commanders, John Churchill of the English (the Duke of Marlborough) and Prince Eugene of Savoy on the one side and Claude de Villars and Louis Boufflers on the other. Overall there were 86,000 in the armies of the Grand Alliance with 100 guns and and 75,000 and 80 guns on Bourbon side.

The Army of the Grand Alliance found itself at Malplaquet near the modern Belgian/French border. In the morning of 11 September 1709 at 9.00am the Austrians attacked with the support of Prussian and Danish troops. These were commanded by Count Albrecht Konrad Finck von Finckenstein. They pushed back the French left wing into the forest behind them. On the French right wing the Dutch under the command of the Prince of Orange, John William Friso, attacked to distract the French and prevent them from coming to Villars’ aid.

Later a decisive final attack was made on the weakened French centre by British infantry under the command of the Earl of Orkney. This attack occupied the the French redans. Allied cavalry was then able to advance through this line and engage the French cavalry behind. By this stage, de Villars was off the field having been wounded earlier so Boufflers was in command. Boufflers was leading the Maison du Roi and six times drive the Allied cavalry back before finally deciding the battle was lost and surrendering the field.

The victory for the Grand Alliance had come at some cost however with 21,000 casualties from within the alliance compared to 11,000 casualties on the French and Bavarian side.

Now I am torn again between the War of Spanish Succession and the Great Northern War. Of course, I could just do this as Imagi-nations. Oh yes, and I am still planning something with the Thirty Years War.

Rank and File - Hacking for the Great Northern War and War of Spanish Succession

Well, that's a long title!

Truth is, after one game of Rank and File, I felt really comfortable with them as a rules system for the Seven Years War (7YW). After a week of pondering them, I find I am feeling really comfortable with them as a rules system for the American Civil War. I can also see me using them for the Great Pacific War (if I can ever find those bloody figures). I'm not sure about them for the Napoleonic Wars yet.

However, if did occur to me that if they work well enough for the Seven Years War, they should work well enough for the earlier ways - namely the War of Spanish Succession (WSS - Marlburian Wars to the English) and the Great Northern War (GNW - Stora nordiska kriget to the Swedes; Северная война to the Russians). During this period there were a couple of innovations in Europe and a little anachronism in Northern Europe.

Amongst the powers engaged in the WSS the use of the plug bayonet had or was ceasing with the introduction of the socket bayonet from late in the 17th century. This meant infantry had a sharp pointy thing that they could also continue to shoot, therefore not needing pikes any more to hold cavalry off. In the north, the Swedes and the Russians both held onto some pike men in each regiment until towards the end of the GNW.

Artillery was more effective as I understand later in the 18th century but apart from the pikes and the possibility of the odd plug bayonet what really separated the warfare of 1700 to 1721 from that of 1740 onwards?

Now I am researching some more and looking at modifying Rank and File to suit one of my sorely underplayed and modelled favourite periods of history.

RIP Donald Featherstone

Donald Featherstone (born 20 March 1918 in London, died 3 September 2013 wrote more than forty books on wargaming and military history⁽⁽¹⁾⁾. I have a number of Featherstone’s books in my library under my mother’s house.

His books were probably the single thing most responsible for my generation developing an interest in wargames. My first two wargames were in the early 1970s when a friend invited my to his place to play a game or two. The first game was an American Civil War battle using Airfix figures and the second was an ancient battle (Rome vs Britons). Both battles used Featherstone’s rules that were included in his book, the War Game.

After the second game, the next book I went out and purchased was the War Game.

I would say that if H.G. Wells was the grandfather of modern wargaming, then Donald Featherstone was the father. Others have had a mighty influence on the early days of the modern hobby, the likes of Charles Grant, Tony Bath, Jack Scruby, Peter Gilder and Paddy Griffith amongst others come straight to mind. Featherstone, however, with his 40 books piqued our interests and then fed the fires of that interest with more books and the wonderful Wargamer’s Newsletter – a publication I eagerly awaited to come through the mailbox.

I shall dust off my old copy of the War Game over Christmas and sometime in the New Year, at least once, Roll a Six to Hit!

Donald rolled one on his saving roll!

First Test Post

It is nearly time to move Thomo's Hole from its current home at coldie.net. To that end I am having a look at whether to continue it in WordPress or move it across to Blogger. I will then get around to migrating the past entries in the blog and the stats to date.

I am not sure whether I will hold the current domain name, http://thomo.coldie.net or whether to grab a new domain name.

Thomo's Hole has been extant on the Internet for 15 years now so I am planning on keeping it running, just not sure where at the moment.

I also added a picture as I want to see how well it all works with a photgraph in there as well.

Lastly are the themes - will add a couple of them shortly.

A Cool Night for a Beer

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="320" caption="Dave and Oyuna at the Ice Bar"][/caption]

Saturday night in Ulaanbaatar. I had just returned from Nukht, about 20 minutes drive out of town, where the bank had held a planning session. About 7:30 I found myself with nothing much to do except watch TV and watch the washing dry so thought I would head over to Dave's Place for a bite to eat and a pint of "X". I hadn't been there for a while so thought it would be good to catch up on a few things  - like what had been happening for the last three months.

So, enter Thomo, from a -36 degree evening outside. I had walked to the pub and heaven's it was cold. Entered, undid coat and Dave says "we are just going out, come with us". Thomo does up coat again and we headed out into the cold again to the other side of the Railway line and a party around an Ice Bar. The party was hosted by some of the guys from Ivanhoe Mines. There were two half gers ((small sized gers)) there, as well as a number of 44 gallon drums burning wood. Food was inside.

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="320" caption="Thomo after his stupidly walking home - the red is real as is the ice!"][/caption]

Naturally we stood outside, fully rugged up, drinking beer and freezing (but all being too tough to be the first to go back inside). Remember, it is -36 degrees celsius. The beer was kept chilled in a large insulated container with ice in it -- the ice and the container designed to keep the beer chilled for drinking, but to prevent it freezing. No insulated beer can holders (stubby holders) needed here.

'twas a good party though, great food (which I believe was made by Joel of the UB Deli), top music and a great time. The photo above is Dave and Oyuna from Dave's place standing by the Ice Bar. I could not take it any clearer on the phone camera as my hands were shaking too much from the cold.

When Your Snot Freezes

I've been away for a couple of weeks. Had a small medical problem that needed checking in Hong Kong - more on Hong Kong later.
Winter has settled into to Mongolia now - last night it was -25 and whilst the apartment is toasty warm (actually, I am lucky, I am in a new apartment so can control, somewhat, the heat coming from the central heating), outside it is, well, a little chilly.

I had experienced cold weather before, living for three years in Norway ("morn, morn, ikke sant?") and the Norwegians have a very sage saying, "there is no such thing as bad weather, simply bad clothing". They use this as justification for being out and about in any weather. Many of you can recall the pictures on television of the Winter Olympics in Lillehammer a few years ago and the image that flashed around the world of a number of Norwegians, sat together in the snow with a fire, drinking coffee and picnicing in the sunshine whilst the temperature was -20.

I have sat outside in -20 temperatures in the sunshine with Norwegians drinking beer. However, I can feel that winter here is going to be a little different. Today, something that has never happened to me before happened to me. I walked outside on my way to do the shopping and ....

My snot froze in my nose.

A most unusual experience. I've had my breath freeze in my beard before (that happens around -12) but never have I had the snot in my nose freeze. Sort of makes the nose feel rather funny.

Of course, walking back from the supermarket and the delicatessen my shopping also froze in my shopping bags.

And this is only early December. Last January the temperature range here for one day was -37 to -30 ... hmm, wonder what freezes at -37 - everything else on you is well frozen by then.

Thomo Travels Again

There are no blog updates due for a couple of days as Thomo is currently travelling. Actually, sitting in Hong Kong at the moment.

Updates to the blog will resume in a few days time. In the meantime, think of Thomo getting fatter again on the wonderful foods available in Hong Kong.