THE OMPLFAT JR4TEGI5T WAR GAME HEADQUARTERS "There's no other store like this in the world" - CHANNEL 7 EYEWITNESS NEWS "War Gaming - Has also given rise to a specialized store. Its name is the Compleat Strategist" - NEW YORK TIMES " ... You can find enough sorties, battles and full scale wars to keep all the classes at West Point busy for years - NEW YORK DAIL Y NEWS Hobbyists gather every week at the Compleat Strategist, a Manhattan store specializing in war game paraphanelia, to play battles with 25mm soldiers - TIME MAGAZINE At 11 East 33 Street is the Complete Strategist, catering primarily to war games, with enormous selection of rules and a substantial supply of 25mm figures, as well as books of interest to all modelers ... - CAMPAIGNS MAGAZINE The above is just a sample of the interest and attention our New York store has generated in three short years. Stop in and see for yourself. Our New York store is centrally located just a few steps from Fifth Avenue and The Empire State Building, close to the Pennsylvania and Grand Central Stations and all bus and subway lines. Our store is the largest of its kind to be found anywhere (we just expanded our selling space). We carry a full assortment of games, rules and figures for the discriminating wargamer- not only the complete line of well known manufacturers such as-A.H **S.P .I. **G.D .W. **T.S.R. ** - but also the creations of smaller organizations and privately produced games. If you can't find a particular game on our well st ocked shelve s, we'll do all we can to get it for you. In addition to a wide selection of military and fantasy miniatures, domestic and foreign magazines, we sell everything in accessories including several lines of paints, brushes, counters, He x sheets and dice. Fantasy buffs and science fiction enthusiasts will find figures and games from all manufacturers, books, prints, colorful calendars, rule booklets and a complete line of playing aids. Both our locations are well stocked and feature game- rooms freely available during store hours. If you would like a free copy of our new and extensive 2S -page Catalog and to be placed on our mailing list, please drop us a note. All in stock merchandise is shipped within 24 hours of receipt of order. If you'd like to call or mail in your order (to the New York store only), both Master Charge & Visa credit cards are accepted. Sample file
Transcript
THE OMPLFAT
JR4TEGI5T WAR GAME HEADQUARTERS
"There's no other store like this in the world" - CHANNEL 7 EYEWITNESS NEWS
"War Gaming - Has also given rise to a specialized store. Its name is the Compleat Strategist"
- NEW YORK TIMES
" ... You can find enough sorties, battles and full scale wars to keep all the classes at West Point
busy for years - NEW YORK DAIL Y NEWS
Hobbyists gather every week at the Compleat Strategist, a Manhattan store specializing in war game paraphanelia, to play battles with 25mm
soldiers - TIME MAGAZINE
At 11 East 33 Street is the Complete Strategist, catering primarily to war games, with enormous
selection of rules and a substantial supply of 25mm figures, as well as books of interest
to all modelers ... - CAMPAIGNS MAGAZINE
The above is just a sample of the interest and attention our New York store has generated in three short years.
Stop in and see for yourself. Our New York store is centrally located just a few steps from Fifth Avenue and The Empire State Building, close to the Pennsylvania and Grand Central Stations and all bus and subway lines.
Our store is the largest of its kind to be found anywhere (we just expanded our selling space). We carry a full assortment of games, rules and figures for the discriminating wargamer- not only the complete line of well known manufacturers such as-A.H**S.P.I. **G.D .W. **T.S.R. ** - but also the creations of smaller organizations and privately produced games. If you can't find a particular game on our well st ocked shelves, we'll do all we can to get it for you.
In addition to a wide selection of military and fantasy
miniatures, domestic and foreign magazines, we sell everything in accessories including several lines of paints, brushes, counters, Hex sheets and dice. Fantasy buffs and science fiction enthusiasts will find figures and games from all manufacturers, books, prints, colorful calendars , rule booklets and a complete line of playing aids.
Both our locations are well stocked and feature gamerooms freely available during store hours.
If you would like a free copy of our new and extensive 2S-page Catalog and to be placed on our mailing list , please drop us a note.
All in stock merchandise is shipped within 24 hours of receipt of order . If you'd like to call or mail in your order (to the New York store only), both Master Charge & Visa credit cards are accepted.
Sam
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>J~~UM~tt NORTH AMERICA'S FOREMOST MINIATURE GAMING MAGAZINE
FEATURE ARTICLES
LINEAR TACTICS AND THE WARGAME - Part I .. ....... . ............. . ........ . ...... . . .. 4 RICHARD REIHN provides fresh & surprising insights
AMERICA AND THE SEVEN YEARS WAR. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 CHRISTOPHER NELSON discusses Fort Ticonderoga
BUSINESS MANAGER: Leo Cronin ART DIRECTOR: Joseph Miceli
ADVERTISING MANAGER: Gloria Miceli
THEME EDITOR: SEVEN YEARS WAR Ken Bunger
CONTRIBUTING EDITORS
William Abrams; B.yron Angel ; Stuart Asquith; Phil Barker; Robert Beattie; Rodman Burr; Steve Carpenter; Tom Desmond; Steve Haller; Peter Hollinger; Ian Kn ight; Doug Johnson; Robert Mosca; Eric Ritchie; Bob Sarber; Bruce Weeks; Jim Womer.
STAFF CARTOONIST: Jose Niera STAFF ILLUSTRATOR: Mike Gilbert
STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER: Philip O . Stearns
THE COURIER PUBLISHING COMPANY, INC. Richard L. Bryant, President
DIRECTORS
Richard Bryant, Leo Cronin, Gloria Miceli
THE COUR IER is published approximate ly bimonthly at 45 Willow Street, Brockton, MA 02401 USA. Back issues are avai lab le for $2.75 (foreign add .75<1 for ai rm ai l) six issue subscriptions are $10.50, USA ($12.00 Canada & foreign su rface rate; $18.50 Europe and South America Airmail, 3rd c lass; others are $21.00 Airma il , 3rd c lass). Al l monies in US funds drawn on US bank s or international Postal Money Order. Subscripti ons sta rt with NEXT publi shed issue after rece ipt of payment.
No responsibility is assumed for statements of fact or opinion made by the authors. No responsibility is assumed for unsolicited manuscripts, but all submissions are welcome, no query necessary. All submissions should contain a self-addressed STAMPED envelope.
This magazine and other publications of The Courier Publishing Company are sold with the understanding that every reasonable attempt is made to deliver them safely through the mails . The Courier Publishing Comapny is not responsible for items lost in the mails. Replacements will be provided at their usual cost.
DEALER INQUIRIES (USA), ADVERTISING COPY AND INQUIRIES, SUBSCRIPTIONS AND ARTICLES to THE COURIER, Box 1878, Brockton, MA 02403. CANADIAN DEALER INQUIRIES: Le Champ de Bataille, P.O . Box 996. RR #I 1 Mascouche Heights. Quebec JON1TO, Canada. FOREIGN DEALER INQUIRIES to P.O . Box 1878, Brockton, MA 02403 . USA.
THE COURIER has become an effective forum for the Historical Miniature Wargaming Hobby. The tone of the letters in DISPATCHES FROM THE FIELD and, what I expect to be a controversial article: The Hobby - Two Points of View, both serve to point this fact up most clearly . THIS is what THE COURIER was always intended to be .
We need the articles on rule design, game scenarios, OB's, flag and uniform data, battle reports, and the like, they are the meat and potatos of the hobby. But, just as importantly, we must make our voices heard in the various manufacturing companies that supply the hobby. We do not want to take a back seat to the non-historical, non-miniature gaming segment. To this end we must view our attitudes, the good and the bad , with an eye toward increasing our numbers . There will be more articles in the future discussing the hobby, what it is, where it is going, and how to promulgate it. We have come out of the closet, now lets BEAT THE DRUM!
At the back of this issue is a nomination ballot for the Origins '81 HG Wells and Charles Roberts award . I urge everybody to send one in -BEAT THE DRUM!
In The Courier Dispatch you will read about the new Acadamy of Adventure Gaming Arts and Design. Write in for information and join if you are eligeable - BEAT THE DRUM!
NEXT ISSUE SPECIAL
It is with great pleasure that we announce that the next issue will carry an exclusive in-depth interview with the ex-hostage and wargamer:
RICHARD QUEEN
A special thanks to Gloria Miceli of THE COURIER staff who conceived of and brought to fru ition this fantastic scoop.
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We offer over 20 different, superbly detailed 25mm figures for you to recreate thearmies and battles of feudal Japan . All of the major warrior classes are available including Ninja, Ronin , Ashigaru , Samurai and Samurai Officers.
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LINEAR TACTICS AND THE WARGAME - I BY RICHARD K. RIEHN
When I was asked to write something on the Seven Years' War, I jumped at the chance because in Continental Europe Frederick the Great and the Eighteenth Century do not, in any way, take a backseat to the Napoleonic Era. This is a situation which has been created in the United States almost entirely due to the patterns of commercial imports. For this reason alone, the Eighteenth Century has always posed difficulties for a game designer who could only avail himself of English language literature. This became immediately evident when I obtained a packaged boardgame and a pamphlet aimed at figure gamers, so that I might see what was being done on both sides of the fence. I searched for the armies of the Eighteenth Century and the dynamics of both the traditional and the Frederician linear battle. I found neither. The shell, the nomenclature, the trappings, they were there to be sure - But that's all!
Stepping back into time, we leave behind the 'gizmos' and the 'doodads' , which have come to rule modern m il itary thinking and which have become so dear to the slide rule experts. Instead, the soldier, the human factor, comes to the foreground again. And when he does, he is not only a creature far different from us, there is also not enough technology around to bury him beneath at least three layers of statistics. However, even when it comes to the matter of statistics, the technolog ical experts seem to have been struck dumb by so frightfully complicated a contraption as the muzzle-loading, smoothbore, flintlock musket!
I don't know how many times I have seen British pop-4
historians extol the 'accuracy' of British smoothbore musketry. Anyone with but a smattering of knowledge about the interior and exterior ball istics of the Brown Bess, or any other smoothbore musket, knows that such talk is pure balderdash, inspired by ' hooray-for-our-boys' style of thinking, which has no basis in historical fact. What they probably wnated to talk about, was " fire discipline," a trademark of Wellington's Peninsular veterans, which has been expanded forward and backwards into different periods .
However, this is not by any means the only false lead thrown into the game designer's path, nor is this in any way confined to British pop historians. Pop knows no national ity. Or rather, it comes in all national ities. Few fighting men have been subjected to more apocrypha than, for example, the American rifleman. One expert, writing for one of our best known gun magazines, even expressed the notion once that the term 'sharpshooter' was probably derived from the Sharps rifle, because of its superior accuracy!
In the face of such material, the game designer of pre-1900 models is faced with many difficulties. And the further back he would step into time, the greater becomes the hurdle imposed by illiteracy. That is to say, the memoirs written by junior officers and enlisted men, which generally offer the best insight on what really went down on the firing line, becomes increasingly rare.
This condition changes drastically only when we get into the Napoleonic Era. Here, even if much still remains in manuscript, we have ample evidence presented by men
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from the ranks . Far more importantly, the style of warfare had loosened up to a point, reports of their units' activity when combats occurred, thereby opening a vast repository of the 'worm's eye' view which is so constantly lacking in the military histories.
I believe it was the Mareshal de Saxe who said: /I . .. don' t speak to me of generals, tell me of lieutenants, then you are speaking of war .. . !/I I can no longer vouch for the exact wording, but the idea the marshal expressed remains crystal clear in my minC! . And it is this which poses the real challenge to the game designer.
As we reach back into time, the 'worm's eye' view becomes increasingly remote. Indeed, the view from the ranks becomes so rare that, in 1901, the Pruss ian General Staff thought it instructive to publish a collection of letters discovered in the archives of the Stolberg family, which had been written by common soldiers who had taken part in the campaigns of 1756/57 and the battles of Lobositz and Prague.
Thus, when the researcher delves even into a technical treatise on military history, he is generally left to play the role of a would-be suitor who has been stood up by his date. Not even the rare drill manuals help much in his quest for a realistic game design. What he generally ends up with is comparable to a treatise on how he may align his chessmen on the two base I ines and what manner of moves each piece is allowed to make. Having added to that the conditions for ' check' and 'mate' , he is now expected to know all there is to know about the chess game. Tennis, anyone?
In order to determine just how an action might actually burn off, he must now turn to the general histories. But what he gets there is exactly what the old marshal was complaining about - the big pictur.e. More generals, battal ions and squadrons moved about, brushed aside, routed . Next thing you know, the line is breached, the flank is turned, one side heads for the hills or the single bridge across the river, with the cavalry in hot pursuit! Its all very exciting, but what went down while the decision hung in the balance? What was the ranker's eye view? When the pop historians do descend to the view as seen from the ranks, the best we can generally expect is a lot of legend, apocrypha intended to be patriotic, upl ifting and what not. And when it comes to explaining the reasons for success or failure, ideology must be brought into play. The arsenal of democracy, as well as its opponents, and their readers, demand this. Such is the power of ideology, nationalism and romance. In the process, the truth usually takes a flogging and it doesn't help the game designer one bit in his search for realism .
How, in the face of all these obstacles, can we transpose the Seven Years War onto the game table? I am neither a wargamer nor a game designer. What I can do, however, is construct a realistic model of the traditional linear battle and how it was altered by Frederick the Great and point out those elements which were characteristic and decisive. From this, it should be a simple matter for the game designer to abstract a set of rules that reflect the original.
Linear tactics was the ultimate answer to a new set of conditions imposed upon warfare by the fusil, the muzzle loading, smoothbore, flintlock musket.
In their original state, the precursors of the fusil were dangerous weapons when loaded, but no more than expensive and fragile clubs between firings . For this reason, it was necessary to protect the musketeer with pikemen, while at least half of the musketeers were to be loaded and ready at all times. In order to achieve the latter condition while at the same time maintaining a steady rate of fire, the musketeers were generally ranked about eight deep and delivered their fire by ranks .
Although this belongs properly in the Thirty Years' War or the Seventeenth Century, let's pause briefly and construct a model in order to see how myths were made. Assuming a company of eighty musketeers, these would be deployed ten men to a rank, eight deep. With four ranks loaded and ready for emergencies at all times, the pace was set by the remaining four ranks which would, at the same time, be working. A practiced musketeer could load his matchlock in little less than a minute under combat conditions. Don't be fooled by the 976 individual loading movements so many texts delight in enumerating. That was only for the purpose of training. Give the musketeer about a minute and allow another twenty seconds for him to step out of the way and for the man from behind to take his place. That leaves a working space of eighty seconds between rounds . Divide this into four ranks working and we can safely assume that our company of eighty delivered a ten musket volley about every twenty seconds. Or, firing through all eight ranks, our company would deliver its eight volleys in the space of about two minutes and forty seconds. Say three minutes to allow for odds and ends.
If each man in our company fires, say, twelve rounds in the course of a given battle, the sample company fired through its ranks twelve times around . Assuming three minutes (add to this a few more minutes, say nine, for minor maneuvers, delays in command, etc.) our company spent something on the order of forty five minutes in the small arms fire zone. For an old time battle, that's a lot of minutes.
Yet, some brilliant theoretician, who had probably never fired a musket, much less seen a battlefield, saw from a report about a Thirty Years' War battle, that the musketeers had expanded twelve rounds of ammunition per man. Knowing that the battle had lasted some three hours from opening gun to finish , this brill iant statistician deduced that, by dividing three hours or one hundred and eighty minutes into twelve, the number of rounds the musketeer expended, that it took them fifteen minutes to load their muskets. Posterity quoted this genius so often that, even in relatively modern works, we are left with the impression that a matchlock musketeer needed the better part of a quiet Sunday morning to reload his piece after he had fired it! I have seen a man fire a matchlock, loose ammunition and all, twice in less than a minute, starting with an unloaded barrel!
With the appearance of the bayonet, the pikemen became redundant and paper cartridges as well as improved firing mechanisms soon brought the musketeer formations down to six and, eventually, four ranks . At this point, the linear system had achieved the characteristic form, in which we are to find it at the onset of the First Silesian War.
5 Owing to ballistic limitations, individual musket fire was
