Dad, Do You Know Anything about the French & Indian War?

Hochkirch Church and the Alter Fritz Gasthaus. This has nothing to do with the French & Indian War, but I wanted to try out my scanner. Picture taken in 1994 on the Duffy Tour.

So my wife and daughter come home this evening from a school outing and Herself announces that it is time for Lady Emma Cuddlestone-Smythe to do her homework. Herself asks me, "Do you know anything about the French & Indian War? It's part of Lady Emma's homework assignment for this evening."

Do birds know how to fly? Do cheetahs know how to run fast? Here was a hanging curveball just waiting to be belted into the grandstands for a home run.

"Why yes," said I, "I happen to know a little bit about the F&I War."

I knew that my response was going to put me in charge of homework this evening, but this time I didn't care, in fact, I wanted to help. So Lady Emma sat down at the kitchen table and I got out a place mat so that we'd have a firm writing surface and not scratch the antique pine table. The mat also happened to have a map of the world on it.

So I took a look at the homework assignment and discovered that it had nothing to do with the French & Indian War, well at least not directly. The topic was merchantilism and the trade triangle between Britain, the American Colonies and the West Indies or Africa. Lady Emma had to determine whether certain historical events benefited the Colonies or Great Britain. Easy enough.

For a warm up exercise, I had Lady Emma point out geographic places: Britain, the Colonies, Mexico, Africa, China and the Indies. I wanted to make sure that she had the geography down pat. Then I went to the pantry and hauled out a bottle of molasses, a bag of sugar, some cotton balls from the medicine cabinet and a cloth table napkin. I had Lady Emma identify where each of these items might have come from. She didn't get many of them correct, but we quickly reviewed how sugar and molasses originated from the West Indies, cotton from the Southern Colonies, and cloth, buttons and nails came from Britain.

I then told her to imagine that we owned a farm in Pennsylvania (where my ancestors came from) and we were growing corn and raising sheep for wool. Our cousins in Virginia were growing tobacco and my other cousins were merchants living in Boston. We then worked through how the raw materials were harvested or extracted in the New World and sent to the Old World for processing into finished goods. At this point we would move the props (cotton balls, sugar, etc) around the map from the place of export to the destination.

In this manner, Lady Emma began to understand how the flow of trade occurred during the 18th Century. Most of the homework assignment covered the trade triangle and the Navigation Acts and various other tax acts imposed on the Colonies by Britain. Lady Emma then asked me,

"Dad, why do I have to buy rum and molasses from Britain when I can buy it directly from the West Indies?"

I was so proud to see the light bulb turn on inside her head. She was able to understand why the American Colonies were so upset with British trade policy and how that could lead to ill feelings for the Mother Country, which eventually manifested itself in the American Revolution. I think that I just might make a good history teacher.

As a sideline, we briefly covered the age old dispute between England and France and how it was naturally transported across the pond to Canada and the Colonies. Lady Emma began to see how valuable the colonies were to France and Britain and why they might start a war over control of the North American territories.

OK now, back to painting American Continentals. We have a war to fight.

I trust that in the near future, the homework will actually cover the F&I War, but I am confidant that Lady Emma understands some of the underlying reasons for the war.

v

1st & 3rd Pennsylvania Regiments - AWI

3rd Pennsylvania Regt. circa 1777 - Fife & Drum Miniatures painted by Der Alte Fritz.

I have been working on this unit of Fife & Drum Continentals in brown coats for several weeks now. My painting mojo seems to have returned and so I finished the unit over the long Thanksgiving weekend and managed to get them based as well. I think that I like them better than the blue regiment that I painted several months ago.


Here is the start of my next AWI regiment - the 1st PA Regt. with green facings and red button lace. The whole regiment will use the Fife & Drum firing poses and mix in a few militia figures for variety. I really like the way these figures all fit together in their poses, as capably demonstrated in this picture.

Saturday evening I sat down at the painting table and tucked into my next regiment of Continentals - the 1st PA in green facings with red button lace. I wanted to use all of the action/firing line figures in the regiment to see how they would look together. This is a little bit of "thinking outside of the box" as these particular figures lend themselves well to skirmish stands (as shown in the round stands in the back ground).

For this unit, I set the figures closer to the back of the stand so that a minimal amount of the musket or bayonet is extending over the front edge of the stand. I always find that having all of the firing figures pointing off in at least a 30-degree angle prevents them from poking the stand in front of them in the rear, should you chose to form them into a march column. Just for grins, I added a militia man wearing a brimmed hat to this stand to add some extra variety to the poses. I am really excited about how good this stand looks and will be eager to finish the unit by the end of this week. I am painting six figures at a time (one stand) from start to finish, rather than going my normal "assembly line" routine for all 30 figures.

Fife & Drum mounted officers and standing militia officer painted as a Continental. Fencing, corn field and trees were made by Herb Gundt of H.G. Walls.

And finally, I got around to basing some of the general figures that I painted several months ago, as shown above. The brigadier general is on the round stand and the regimental commander is on the rectangular stand. I added the Fife & Drum militia officer to the brigadier's stand for composition purposes. It looks as if the mounted general is pointing to something in the distance and the dismounted figure is looking in the same direction. In the near future (i.e. probably during 2012) I plan to add personality figures for both British and Americans as well as a couple new horses.

Fife & Drum Continentals

I have been working on a unit of Continentals in brown coats with white facings, and they really turned out nice! I almost like them better than the unit in the traditional blue coats with red facings. I will post pix this weekend, but wanted to provide a quick update. The painting mojo seems to be coming back. It's a good thing.

Next on the table: several companies of British Guards for the AWI, at least I want to think that they are next. I had a couple extra Continentals and started painting them as the 3rd Pennsylvania regiment (buff or tan breeches/white waistcoat/brown coat with green facings and red lace on the button holes). I finally found a color that I like for the traditional "Continental Tan" that many regiments (or at least the senior officers) wore. It is Howard Hues "Geo Hex Tan". However, I may have to mix my own highlight color, but now that I have the shade that I like, mixing the highlight is easy peasy.

The Battle of Lago Bosco in 1810

A company of Royal Horse Artillery go into battery near the village of Lago Bosco, near the Spanish-Portuguese border, circa 1810. Click pix to enlarge the view.

On November 19, 2011 we played the inaugural battle in der Alte Fritz's new War Cave with a battle from the Napoleonic Wars in Spain, circa 1810. We had four players with Bill P. and Earl K. playing the British side, while Keith L. and yours truly played the French side. I actually wanted to play on the British side with Bill so that I could command my new 83rd Regiment, but then that would have placed the two most experienced BAR Napoleon players on the same side, so we split up.

The scenario was inspired, somewhat loosely, by the events in the book Sharp's Enemy, by Bernard Cornwell. It was November 1810 and the campaign season was coming to a close, with both sides going into winter quarters - the French in Spain, and the British quartered in Portugal. The British had established a number of forward posts along the main roads and mountain passes that separate the two countries. One such outpost lay at the mouth of a narrow defile, at the village of Lago Bosco in Spain.

The French were to make a reconnaisance in force with a brigade of infantry and a brigade of light cavalry. Their objective was to sieze and control the pass before the British could react and stop them. A small British force raced to the village to support the light infantry (2 companies of the 5/60th ) manning the post in Lago Bosco.

French Forces
4 battalions of infantry (Veterans) 72 figures per battalion
1 company of Baden Jagers (12 figures)
1 battery of foot artillery (3-8pdrs and 1 howitzer)
1 regiment of dragoons (4 squadrons)
5 squadrons of chasseurs a cheval

British Forces
2/83rd Foot (78 figures)
Royal Marines (32 figures)
2 companies 95th Rifles (24 figures)

2 squadrons of hussars (24 figures)
2 squadrons of light dragoons (24 figures)
1 squadron of KGL hussars
1 more squadron of light dragoons
1 section of Royal Horse Artillery (3 x 6pdrs with 15 crew and 3 limbers)

As you might surmise by the comparative rosters shown above, the French outnumber the British infantry by about 2 to 1. The objective of the British was to possibly prevent the French from passing through the defile, or failing that, to hold them at bay for 8 turns (which in theory would provide time for elements of the Wellington's army to come to the pass and stop the French from capturing this important terrain feature). Given the sizeable difference in forces, I set up the table with a lot of terrain features and fall back positions from the pass to the town. I envisioned that the British light infantry might delay and then fall back towards Lago Bosco.



The French enter the defile with light cavalry screening their advance. A company of 95th Rifles peppers the column with long range riflery. The French responded by facing the green jackets and blowing them all away with their high-powered first fire. In the distance you can barely make out a walled farm house that was manned by the light company of the 83rd and the Royal Marines.

Things did not start out well for the British. They had placed the rifle-armed companies of the 95th on both sides of the defile, but they opened up their fire too soon and too close to the French column that was advancing through the defile. The French 1/12e de Ligne lost a couple of figures, then turned left into line and fired about 70 rounds of musketry into the Rifles on the left hand hill, wiping them all out. The 1/12e then decided to scale the hill since it was no longer occuppied. This would pry open the British control of the valley.


A view of the imposing French column, from the British point of view, as they emerge from the defile. In the foreground you can see the light company of the 2/83rd on the right and some Royal Marines manning the walls of the farm compound. Again, note the French cavalry screen to the front.


RHA deploy facing the mouth of the defile, supported by the grenadier company of the 2/83rd. In the distance, you can see several squadrons of British light cavalry waiting to pounce on the French when they deploy on the plain.


The French deploy their artillery battery and elect to blast a hole in the walls of the farm compound, rather than assaulting it with infantry. The orange flashes are blinking LED lights from Warlord Games in the UK.


...and the walls came a tumbling down. The Marines decide to evacuate the compound after seeing the French artillery reducing the walls to rubble. At this point, the RHA also retired and fell back behind a protective ridge.


The fox is on the run as the hounds surge forward across the plain, infantry and French dragoons in close support.

In the picture above, you can see two French battalions. The one just coming off the hill, on the right, took three turns to get down a 12" slope. In BAR rules, you deduct two D6 from your movement for descending a steep slope and the French normally move 12 inches in line. As God is my witness, the French general rolled dice scores of 12, 11 and 10 in succession indicating moves of 0", 1" and 2" on those three turns. While that was going on, the French battalion on the left had marched around the base of the hill and was still ahead of the fellows who were clinging to the hill. :)


The British cavalry commander, Lord Paget (Bill P.) decided that there was nothing more that it could do now that the French were advancing out of the defile in force, so he ordered his brigade to retire behind Lago Bosco and cover the retreat of the infantry and horse artillery.


Captain Richard Sharp and Sgt. Harper point the direction, to Captain Hew Grant of the RHA, that the rest of the army is travelling. Elite Miniatures RHA figures and Sharp & Harper "specials" sculpted by Richard Ansell for Too Fat Lardies as a give-away for purchases of their "Sharpe Practice" rules. Sharp and Harper will march again soon.

So the British were pried out of their blocking position at the mouth of the defile by a skillful and methodical plan of attack by the French commander. They held off the French for 8 turns, so in that respect, they had succeeded in buying time for the rest of the army. The French were the victors by virtue of their control of the deflile and it seemed likely that they would probably roll over the defenders inside the town of Lago Bosco.

Some observations on my part: I had thought that the 2:1 advantage of the French could be negated by the terrain. My big mistake was in allowing the French to scale the heights of the hill on the left side of the defile. Once the French owned this position, the British defense was no longer tenable and they had to fall back or risk being cut off from the town. I should not have allowed any troops other than light infantry to scale the hill.

The British could have used one more battalion of regular infantry in all liklihood.

The player commanding the 95th Rifles was kind of new at all this. He has played BAR games with us for the SYW, but had never had a rifle-armed unit before. I have found that most gamers do not know how to use rifles at first. The advantage of the rifle is its long range compared to that of a musket. Rifles should be able to pepper away at the enemy, whilst they themselves are out of range of musketry. Thus rifles should never get too close to the enemy as their advantage is negated. Thus the first company of rifles was blown away by a single volley (first fire bonus too) of the French infantry. I have no doubt that the British player will take this lesson to heart and employ the rifles to better effect in future games.

This was a tough scenario for the British. I had minimal expectation that they could stop the French, but I though that they did well to hold them off for 8 turns. Had I not allowed troops on the heights over looking the defile, they may well have stopped the French. Bill P. later told me that he had contemplated massing all of his British cavalry at the mouth of the defile and lauching them into the French as they marched through the defile. That might well have worked and it would have been interesting to see how that tactic would work out.

The butcher's bill was very light for a BAR game. As French cavalry commander, I lost 22 horsemen and our infantry lost 9 or 10 soldiers. Most of the British losses were to the 24 cavalry that were stationed near the mouth of defile. I don't recall that they had many infantry casualties. So it really turned into a battle of maneuver, rather than one of fire. All in all, an intersting battle. A few tweeks in the scenario could make for a very fun game.

Peninsula War

British staff having a pre-battle conference in front of my new windmill from HG Walls. Mounted figures from Elite Miniatures. Sharpe 95th Rifles figure from Alban Miniature.

This afternoon we christened the Man Cave with its first wargame since the remodelling, and tried out our new rules for the Napoleonic Era using a 1:10 ratio of figures to men and the BAR rules system. I will post more about the game tomorrow, but wanted to use this opportunity to show off some of the figures that I have been working on over the past several weeks.

Our group had established a "painting challenge" with a deadline of November 5, 2011. The only problem was that I was in the midst of a deep painting funk and couldn't bear the thought of picking up a paint brush. As a result, I had nothing to show on the deadline date. However, with today's game coming up, I knew that I had to whip out the Royal Horse Artillery and two companies of the 5/60th Rifles to use in this game, so the pressure was on.


24 members of the 5/60th Rifles defend a churchyard.

I started with the 24 rifles that we would need for the game since they are relatively easy to paint. The only problem was trying to figure out which color to use for their trousers. Various sources list blue, grey and even rifle green or brown (for that on campaign look). Since there seems to be no definitive proof, I opted for the more colorful blue pants. I painted a couple of the figures with grey, but didn't like them as much. For extra fun, I found an old Redoubt Sergeant Harper figure carrying his famous 7-barrel Nock Volley Gun. I can't wait to see him actually use it in a game.

Next on the list was three Royal Horse Artillery cannon with crew and limber teams. I opted for the Elite Miniatures range since Elite has the full limber crew in its range.


Elite Miniatures RHA deploy against the French somewhere in Spain. A grenadier company of the 83rd Foot provides support.

I started the three gun sections on Veterans Day holiday (friday) and had the guns and crew done by the following Sunday. Next came the limber and crew (4 horses, 2 horse rider, 2 limber riders and 1 limber = 9 pieces). I only had enough pieces to assemble and paint two limbers, but fortunately I was able to borrow a third limber for our game.

And finally, here is the complete 83rd Regiment of Foot deployed in line. It currently has 78 figures and I have one more centre company of 12 figures on hand that I could add at a later date. I finished these figures this past summer, but never had them on their movement tray for a photo shoot. You really get the senses for how long the 2-rank line is when compared to the French 3-rank line.


British 2-rank line deployed to receive two French battalions in attack column. Here you get a good idea of how easy it is for the British to overlap the columns on the flanks.



Closer view of the 83rd Regiment.

As you can see, I still have a lot of figure terraining work ahead of me to give the units a finished look. But I like the way that this project is shaping up.

Tomorrow: a report of the battle at Lago Bosco in Spain.

Update: November 8, 2011
Katie passed away today around 4pm central standard time. The vet said that her muscle mass had deteriorated severely and that she was dehydrated. Clearly, it was Katie's time. My wife and daughter were there to make their final good byes and our hound was cremated along with her favorite toy.

I want to thank everyone for their thoughts, prayers and kind comments about Katie. It is very much appreciated. Our daughter is having a hard time accepting things, but she seemed to have a better handle on things before she went to bed. We decided that we would hold an Irish Wake for Miss Katie this coming weekend. I also plan to visit the Rainbow Bridge web site that several of you have suggested. This will help too.

I imagine that Katie outlived all of her litter mates, probably because of all the walks that she took. I can picture her brothers and sisters, and her mother, Scout, waiting for Katie and wagging their tails in anticipation of seeing their sister at long last. She is in a better place - of that I am sure.

This weekend, we plan to visit the neighbor's down the street and introduce ourselves to their new Golden Retriever puppy. Seems like a good idea.

Finally, I want to thank Katie for being a terrific good luck charm last night. Without her, the Chicago Bears would not have defeated the Philadelphia Eagles in the football game. :)

Good bye Katie.

Update: November 8, 2011

Katie passed away today around 4pm central standard time. The vet said that her muscle mass had deteriorated severely and that she was dehydrated. Clearly, it was Katie's time. My wife and daughter were there to make their final good byes and our hound was cremated along with her favorite toy.

I want to thank everyone for their thoughts, prayers and kind comments about Katie. It is very much appreciated. Our daughter is having a hard time accepting things, but she seemed to have a better handle on things before she went to bed. We decided that we would hold an Irish Wake for Miss Katie this coming weekend. I also plan to visit the Rainbow Bridge web site that several of you have suggested. This will help too.

I imagine that Katie outlived all of her litter mates, probably because of all the walks that she took. I can picture her brothers and sisters, and her mother, Scout, waiting for Katie and wagging their tails in anticipation of seeing their sister at long last. She is in a better place - of that I am sure.

This weekend, we plan to visit the neighbor's down the street and introduce ourselves to their new Golden Retriever puppy. Seems like a good idea.

Finally, I want to thank Katie for being a terrific good luck charm last night. Without her, the Chicago Bears would not have defeated the Philadelphia Eagles in the football game. :)

Rest in Peace Katie (1996 to 2011)

Katie at about age 1 or 2.

Update: November 8, 2011

Katie passed away today around 4pm central standard time. The vet said that her muscle mass had deteriorated severely and that she was dehydrated. Clearly, it was Katie's time. My wife and daughter were there to make their final good byes and our hound was cremated along with her favorite toy.

I want to thank everyone for their thoughts, prayers and kind comments about Katie. It is very much appreciated. Our daughter is having a hard time accepting things, but she seemed to have a better handle on things before she went to bed. We decided that we would hold an Irish Wake for Miss Katie this coming weekend. I also plan to visit the Rainbow Bridge web site that several of you have suggested. This will help too.

I imagine that Katie outlived all of her litter mates, probably because of all the walks that she took. I can picture her brothers and sisters, and her mother, Scout, waiting for Katie and wagging their tails in anticipation of seeing their sister at long last. She is in a better place - of that I am sure.

This weekend, we plan to visit the neighbor's down the street and introduce ourselves to their new Golden Retriever puppy. Seems like a good idea.

Finally, I want to thank Katie for being a terrific good luck charm last night. Without her, the Chicago Bears would not have defeated the Philadelphia Eagles in the football game. :)

*************************************

Original Posting

I am sad to announce that the oldest of our two Golden Retrievers, Katie, will be making her final visit to the vet's office tomorrow. Katie is 15 years and about 5 months old, which is pretty good for a medium-sized hound. Her vet calls Katie an "impressive senior".

Katie has been diagnosed with pancreitis (spelling?) and so she wasn't able to eat or keep down the little food that she could eat. I was feeding her baby food (chicken, strained) the past few days and she seemed to like that. Dang, I had wanted to cook her a nice juicy filet steak for her birthday, but I forgot all about it.

She ate some food last night, but this morning, well...... let's just say that the mess was coming out of both ends, so to speak. Our vet says she likely has lymphona too. Since she can barely stand up on her own (she's ok once she's on her feet) and won't eat, it is obvious that it is time to put her down. She has turned into a bag of bones, wasting away.

Katie and I went for a short walk this evening, and hopefully I made amends for all the times that I ignored her or took her for granted. We are watching the Bears-Eagles football game this evening, and she seems to have brought good luck to the Bears.

Unlike most dogs, Katie was never a "car dog". She hated riding in the car, in fact, she threw up all over my wife's sister when they brought Katie home from the breeder's for the first time. She never got over her disliking of cars and car rides.

Katie loved playing fetch (she's a Golden Retriever, after all) and once she had the bait or the ball, would not give it back to you. So instead, we played a game called, "I Want That Ball", or Keep Away, if you will. I don't think that I ever caught her unless she wanted me to catch her.

More stories later, we've got a game to watch and need to spend our last evening together.

*********

Katie liked her dog walks and seemed to take it upon herself to keep me trim and in shape. We used to go on long walks of three or four miles in every kind of weather, good or bad. At first, she didn't like the leash and fought it. We had to use a harness to get her to move. Eventually, she figured out that if she led me instead of pulling behind me, that walks could be a lot of fun. She was still going at least a mile a day twice a day up until about last week.

She was kind of an aggressive dog when she was around other dogs. Katie would growl and snarl at other dogs - couldn't get along with any of them, save one called Brampton - a German Shepherd-Golden mix. The two of them would nip and chase each other -- it looked like a dog fight, but you could tell that it was just rough housing.

She had a funny way of greeting visitors to the house. When the door bell would ring, she'd run to the door and nearly wag her tail off and whine. It wasn't just the tail that wagged, it was her entire posterior. She really enjoyed greeting visitors.

Later in her life, we felt that we weren't paying enough attention to her as our daughter required more and more of our time. So we thought that it would be a good idea to get her a companion. So we applied for an adoption with "As Good As Gold", an organization that places Golden Retrievers in new homes. This is how we acquired our new boy, "Dave". Dave loves everyone, man or beast. He'd try to nip at Katie and get her to play, but Katie clearly wanted to have nothing to do with Dave. She merely tolerated him.

We are happy to have Dave in our household. He is quite the comedian and a loveable old lug of a dog. His presence will make Katie's departure more tolerable, just barely.

Tomorrow, Mrs. Fritz and the Princess will take Katie on her last walk to the vet and say their good byes. I will have to give mine tonight and tomorrow morning, because I have to be at work. It will feel very strange to come home tomorrow evening and have no Katie to greet me.

Circle of life. Down the street, a household that lost their Golden recently got a new puppy Golden. She reminded me of Katie when we bought her.

I had never owned a dog from birth to death, so this is new territory for me. I'll miss Katie.

On The Road Again

It's been a few weeks since I last posted anything, but that does not mean that I have not been active. I'm plugging away at some of my Fife & Drum Continentals, this time in brown coats and white facings. I kind of like them better than the usual red, white and blue. On the whole though, my painting output has nose dived, hit the brick wall, gone fishing, what have you. I think that the hobby has kind of burned me out lately, so I continue to go at it here and there when ever I feel like it, rather than force myself into an unrealistic painting schedule just for the sake of painting and finishing units.

The hobby needs to be fun, not a chore.

We do have an upcoming game of BAR Napoleon on November 19th at Schloss Fritz. This will be the inaugural game in the new Man Cave. Bill P. has been working like a demon to get four squadrons of British light cavalry done for our Peninsula armies. This game set up will be along the lines of Bill's Colonial Campaigns with Major General Pettygree, i.e. a few large units and an emphasis on grand skirmish gaming, rather than massive armies of French and British. Bill is painting some of MG Pettygrees ancestors, who history tells us fought bravely in Spain to defeat the mighty armies of Bones Apart. I'm looking forward to this game.

Genealogy has been my main interest of late. Tomorrow, I am traveling 350 miles to Ohio to search out my ancestors in Crawford County, Ohio. They come from Pennsylvania Dutch stock and moved west to Ohio around 1845. My great great grandfather, Jacob, seems to have lived off the grid for quite awhile as I'm having a devil of a time finding his exact birth and death dates. Hopefully, this trip will solve some of the questions.

A trip to the county courthouse probate office should turn up Jacob's death certificate and a copy of his will. These, in turn, should provide definitive vital statistics and pin point where his burial site is. Then, I plan to traipse through a few old cemeteries to find the head stones of Jacob and his family, and photograph them for posterity.

So far, I've traced the family back to Andrew, who was born somewhere in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, circa 1766. Once I get Jacob's data pinned down, then I will tackle the more difficult task of finding Andrew's birth place, name of his parents, and date of his marriage to Jane (we don't know what Jane's last name is). This involves searching through church records in Lancaster, because that is where such records were kept until the mid 19th century, when the counties started to track such things. Fortunately, I have a distant cousin in Lancaster who can read Old German and enjoys searching through dusty records and old cemeteries. It sounds like fun.

Meanwhile back at the ranch, Richard Ansell has started on the next 16 Fife & Drum AWI figures -- British centre company men and Grenadiers in bearskins. These ought to be ready by January 2012. I have to say that I'm pleased with the work that Richard has done on this range as well as the superior casting work that I'm getting from Griffin Designs in the UK.

More later, I've got some tombstones to find.