Walking Off the Ledge

It's like walking off the edge of the world.

Yesterday my daughter Lelia and I drove to the summit of the Haleakala volcano in the National Park of the same name. The temperature change from sea level (84F) to summit (54F) was really something to behold and fortunately we were prepared with some warm coats to wear upstairs.

As we reached about 8,000 feet above sea level we realized that we were higher than the layer of clouds that we could see from the base of the mountain. The road climbed ever so slowly up the hill with our driver, me, going even slower. I'm used to alpine driving, but this was white knuckle work even for me. In many places there were no guard rails between the road and the sheer drop to below, which made me very uncomfortable. The guard rails don't make safety any better, but they provide some psychological help.

At about 9,000 feet I decided to turn around at a small parking lot, one of the last ones between us and the summit, so it was go,no go at this point.

All in all it was an enjoyable excursion and I'm glad that we tried it, but if I ever return to Maui, I won't make this trip again.

Battle of Trenton Anniversary

Washington directs the set up of the American artillery atbthe head of King Street in Trenton

Today is the anniversary of the Battle of Trenton fought December 26, 1776. George Washington's rag tag American army defeated the Hessian garrison at Trenton, New Jersey thus breathing life into the American cause.

I fought Trenton as a solo Wargame back in  January 2015 and the Americans held form and defeated the Hessians once again. I'm blogging on the road so it is difficult to put some links to the original blog articles, but I will fix this when I return home.

Trenton blog report 2015

The Twelve BEST Christmas Songs

Our Maui Christmas Tree

Well we have gotten all of those horrible Christmas songs posted on my list so now let's take a look at the twelve best Christmas songs. 

1). Silent Night

2) White Christmas 

3) The Christmas Song ( chestnuts roasting on an open fire...)

4) Hark the Harold Angels Sing

5) Adeste Fidelis ( Come All Ye Faithful)

6) Sleigh Ride

7) Walking In a Winter Wonderland 

8) We Wish You a Merry Christmas

9) Joy to the World

10) Christmas Comes to Harlem

11) Here We Come a Caroling

12) Santa Claus is Coming to Town

Honorable Mention:

* Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas Day

As you can see, many of the songs on my list are the old classic and traditional songs that we would sing while Christmas caroling (yes, we actually used to get a group of people together and go door to door in the neighborhood singing Christmas carols).

Thus my song criteria is that the song has to be singable and can be sung as A Christmas carol.

Der Alte Fritz and his Family wish you and yours a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

The Battle of Kunersdorf Game Preparation

Frederick surveys the deployment of his advance guard from the Walke Berg heights

I decided to go ahead and do a Kunersdorf-Lite game before going off for the holiday. I will be posting the pictures and game report on this blog using the scheduled post feature in Blogger so that the posts will be placed on the blog while I'm away.

Prussian advance guard of 3 grenadier battalions.

Advance guard prepares to assault the Russians deployed on the Muhl Berg.

Here are some of my thoughts about the organization and composition of Allied and Prussian forces that fought at Kunersdorf. First, I wanted to remove the detached troops from the order of battle. These lucky units were left behind to guard bridges or the baggage park while the fighting was going on.

How many soldiers were at Kunersdorf? The numbers vary greatly using a number of sources such as Christopher Duffy, Kronoskaf (German General Staff Histories) and Alfred Rambaud. So you have to sort of pick one and just go with it. I decided to use Rambaud as my source noting that some of his figures are identical to what Christopher Duffy has in Russia's Military Way to the West.

Prussian Army at Kunersdorf

Rambaud and Duffy present the total Prussian army at 49,000 soldiers comprised of 35,000 infantry, 13,000 cavalry and 1,000 artilllery crew. With detachments of 9 battalions guarding the bridges near Goritz and 13 squadrons of hussars guarding the left bank of the Oder River, I come up with a number of 6,700 soldiers not present at the Battle of Kunersdorf.

7 btns of regulars and 2 btns of Freikorps--assuming 600 per battalion = 5,400

13 squadrons of hussars --assuming 100 cavalry per squadron              = 1,300

                       Total Detachments:                                                           = 6,700

After deducting the detachments I estimate that the Prussian army on the battlefield had 29,600 infantry, plus 11,700 cavalry and 1,000 artillery crew for a total force of 42,300 men.

Russian and Austrian Armies at Kunersdorf

Rambaud and Duffy cite the Russian strength at 43,000 infantry plus 4,650 battle cavalry and 7,200 light and irregular cavalry (Cossacks). With 4 battalions of foot protecting the baggage park and removing the Cossacks from consideration as likely troops on the battlefield I generate an estimated force of 41,000 infantry plus 4,650 cavalry and 1,700 hussars for a total force of 47,350 men.

The Austrians are thought to have brought around 18,000 troops to the game including 7,000 regular infantry plus 6,000 cavalry and 5,000 Croats. The Croat light infantry were largely guarding bridges across the Oder and some were at the south end of the battlefield well out of the way of the fighting to the north. So all the Croat battalions were eliminated for consideration. In addition there were two regiments of Austrian hussars (Kolnaki and Nadasdy) that were deployed near Frankfort  and were not engaged in the fighting. Removing all the Croats and the two hussar regiments I estimate the Austrian army at 7,000 infantry and 5,000 cavalry for a total battlefield force of 12,000 men.

Total Forces in the field

So after deducting all of the detachments and combing the Austrians and Russians into one "allied" force, the comparisons of soldiers engaged in fighting are as follows:

Infantry:            Allies - 48,000 versus 29,600 Prussians

Battle Cavalry:  Allies - 9,650 versus 11,700 Prussians

Total Forces:     Allies - 59,300 versus 42,300 Prussians

Ratio of Allies to Prussians is 1.4x

Ratio of Allied Infantry to Prussians is 1.6x

Ratio of Prussian Cavalry versus Allies is 1.2x

I am not going to get into the artillery arm of the two sides, but after deducting lighter battalion guns the Prussians had 114 heavy cannon (largely 12-pounders) versus 200 Russian field guns that were mostly in the 6-pounder size along with a considerable number of Shuvulov Howitzers. The Austrians had 48 cannon of various sizes, but none of the sources seem to be able to break out the light cannon from the heavy field guns.

Perhaps one of my readers can do some research on the artillery arm of both sides at Kunersdorf.

The Wargame Armies

As I often do, I start with the number of infantry that I want to field for the Prussian army and then multiply that by the ratio advantage of the allies in order to estimate the allied total of battalions. I decided on 8 Prussian battalions and 1.6x that number equals 12-13 allied. If I decided on 9 Prussian battalions then the allies increase to 14 battalions.

For the cavalry, I gave the allies 3 cavalry regiments times 1.2 to equal 3.6 Prussian regiments, rounded up to 4 regiments. I used 5 heavy cannon per side on the table.

Let the Game Begin

Russian battery on the Grosser Spitzberg

Another view of the Grosser Spitzberg, packed full of red coated Russians.

Prussian cavalry deployed next to Kunersdorf, guarding the left wing of the army.
The cavalry is actually starting off-table so they aren't really there at the start of the game.

I will start the game as a solo play on December 17th and hopefully finish it by December 18th.

The 12 Worst Songs of Christmas

Don't mess with Chips the Wonder Cat by playing any of the songs on the list.

It is Selection Sunday, that time of year again when I release my annual list of the 12 worst Christmas songs that we all hear over and over again on the one radio station that plays Christmas songs. This year we have a Selection Committee comprised of Mrs. Fritz, the Princess Fritz and me, the Original Fritz.

We have some big changes in the list, compared to last year, with a couple of songs making the list for the first time. In this #MeToo era I had to add a newcomer to the list: Baby It's Cold Outside. You know what I'm talkin' about. See the You Tube version of the song from the movie - YIKES! The committee added another newbie when we heard this song on the radio just this very morning - "All I Want for Chistmas is a Hippopotumus."

A few of the songs on the list moved down in the ranking. I added last year's rank after the song. It's not that they are any less objectionable to me or the selection committee, but there are others that annoyed us worse.

So with further ado, let's look at the horrible 2018 Twelve Daze of Christmas song list.

1.  Dominick the Donkey (3)

2.  I Want a Hippopotumus for Christmas (new)

3.  Last Christmas - by Wham! (1)

4.  All I Want for Christmas is You - Mariah Carey (2)

5.  Baby It's Cold Outside (new)

6.  Santa Baby - Eartha Kitt (4)

7.  Jingle Bell Rock - various artists (6)

8.  Rocking Around the Christmas Tree (8)

9.  Have a Holly Jolly Christmas - Burl Ives (7)

10. Frosty the Snow Man - Jimmy Durante  (10)

11. Christmas (Baby Come Home) - Mariah Carey (9)

12. Santa Lost a Ho (5)

Dishonorable Mention

*  I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus - Michael Jackson (11)

*  So This Is Christmas - John Lennon

*  Simply Having a Wonderful Christmas Day - Paul McCartney (12)

*  I don't know the name of the song but it's a group sing that sounds sort of like "We Are the Children"

Fife & Drum Christmas Season Hiatus

Hello everyone! I wanted to let you know that the Fife & Drum Miniatures shipping "staff" are going on holiday hiatus for the next several weeks so we will be closing shop and will be open for business again on January 1, 2019. 

You can still place orders on the Fife & Drum webstore site  here, but just be aware that any orders placed after December 18th will not be shipped until the first week of January.

Should you want to squeeze in any last minute orders, the staff can probably handle and pack orders received by Noon Central Standard Time in Chicago for shipping on December 18, 2018.

We want to wish all of our customers and visitors a joyous holiday season and a happy new year too.

We have a lot of new products in the pipeline for 2019 including the following which will be in production and available in January 2019:

Available in January 2019

Austrian horse grenadiers

French heavy cavalry in bearskins

French foot grenadiers with turnbacks and bearskin hats

French Kettle Drummer

French personality figures: Marshal de Broglie and Lt. General Chevert

Prussian postal delivery figure

Figures in the Sculpting Pipeline

We are getting back to the Fife & Drum AWI figures with a full range of Highlanders for George III's British team. There will also be some new AWI personalities including:

Generals Howe and Cornwallis

George Washington and Nathaniel Greene

New Picture Found - Russian Raid on Berlin in 1760

Russian raid on Berlin in 1760 - Alexander Kotzebue (1849)

This morning I was googling my way about the internet looking for some information about a SYW era Russian officer by the name of Tottleben, who commanded the Russian light cavalry (hussars and Cossacks) during the 1760 campaign.

Russian Cossacks - RSM Miniatures mounted on Minden Miniatures light cavalry horses.
Click picture to enlarge.

My search revealed a new painting/image, at least for me, of the Russian raid on Berlin in 1760 by an artist named Alexander Kotzebue, called "Einnahme von Berlin (1760)". See the top of this page for a copy of the picture and then click on the picture to enlarge the view.

The painting depicts what appears to be several formations of Russian cavalry on a grand plaza in central Berlin. The painting was done in 1849 so it appears that some of the buildings in the background are of the mid 19th Century architecture, so some artistic license is used in the picture.

In any event, I have seen a lot of paintings of the events and people of the Seven Years War, but never this painting. So I was rather pleased to have made its discovery. 

I also found a colorful map, in Russian, of Berlin at the time of the 1760 raid, I think. It could be a map of the 1757 raid by the Austrian general Hadik.

Berlin, circa 1760

Engraving of the Russian raid on Berlin in 1760.

I refer you to the Kronoskaf account of the raid, which took place on October 7, 1760 with the temporary capture of Berlin on that date, for detailed information about the raid.

Russian Berlin Raid of 1760

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