"Literary Wargames"

Many wargamers sometimes like to recall our "ancient heritage" from among a number of literary personages like Robert Louis Stevenson, G. K. Chesterton, and of course mentor, H. G. Wells. I recently ran across another pre-WWII reference complete with a rules description in a somewhat obscure novel by the author of The Once and Future king, etc. - T. H. White. On pages 100-102 of his detective mystery originally written in 1932, Darkness at Pemberly Abbey (New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1978 reprint), White describes one of the main character's pastimes:

"He amused himself by launching a miniature fleet, electronically controlled, on Pemberly Lake. With these he fought noisy engagements, which were heard for quite a distance round, until they were all too battered for action. Then he turned himself to warfare on land and elaborated a game which had some of the interest of chess. He used the most realistic lead soldiers imported from France, and miniature artillery specially manufactured for him by Bassett-Lowke. These pieces fired real shell, made of china, and had a very natural effect.

The battle ground was divided by a high canvas sheet into two halves, and on either side of this sheet the combatants - Charles and Elizabeth, or the butler - entrenched their armies for two days prior to the battle. At zero hour the canvas was removed, and after tossing for the initiative, the battle began. The rules became increasingly elaborate.

The contending armies moved in turn, each being reckoneddd at twenty-five points. These points were controlled by a table of movements. thus for the loss of one point one cavalryman could advance ten yards, or one infantryman could advance 3 yards. The discharge of a howitzer cost five points.

The white army might select to expend its turn by discharging five shells from the howitzers, and the black army might reply with a ten yards charge by twenty five dragoons or a five yard charge by fifty. Or either side might split up its points; firing one shell, advancing five cavalrymen ten yards, and fifteen infantrymen three yards. The adjustments became more and more delicately balanced, and the rules of capture more and more specialized. The impetus of the attacking force was allowed for in a charge. Moves could be coommuted and saved up for a mass attack. tanks. machine guns, mines, flammenwerfers and even poison gas were introduced. Elizabeth and the butler found that protection was necessary. The combatants operated thereafter from behind triplex screens.

"I recall using a sheet on a clothesline in a basement to hide our initial tabletop dispositions before opening our battles using rules in the 1960's from Don Featherstone, Joe Morschauser, or Jack Scruby. Sometimes those dispositions allowed for up to half of each army to be placed within a foot of the blind! Most of us can at times identify with the observation that "The rules became increasingly elaborate." We seldom have to actually take physical cover, however.

STEVE HALLER

Yes - there is nothing new under the sun. Some of the "newest" rules in use today use something similar to the point system described above as initiative points. We haven't used poisonous gas, however since I gave up cigar smoking and the pre-game bean suppers were outlawed. --Dick Bryant

Corrections to the Battle of Valverde

While I read with considerable interest Mr. Novak's article describing the battle of Valverde there are some comments I would like to make regarding McRae's battery and the Texas artillery.

BG Sibley's Texans left San Antonio with eight 12-lb mountain howitzers in two cannon companies. That of Lt. Reily attached to the 4th Texas and that of Lt. Woods attached to the 5th Texas. In the Confederate Territory of Arizona they picked up Capt. Teel's B Battery/1st Texas Artillery with four 6-lb guns. At Valerde the Texans captured McRae's battery. The composition of this unit varies from historian to historian. I have seen it described as four guns and six guns, with the six guns being described as two 6-lb and four 12-lb, three 6-lb and three 12-lb, and four 6-lb and two 12-lb.

Taylor in his well researched book gives McRae two 6-lb guns, one 12-lb mountain howitzer and three 12-lb howitzers. Happily Whitford reports a post-war interview of Maj. Teel by a Capt. Deane in which Teel describes McRae's battery as two brass 6-lb guns and four 12-lb howitzers. These guns were commanded by Lt. later Capt. Sayers of the 5th Texas and manned by that regiment's cannon company in the retreat from Albuquerque. Before leaving Albuquerque Capt. Teescribes McRae's battery as two brass 6-lb guns and four 12-lb howitzers. These guns were commanded by Lt. later Capt. Sayers of the 5th Texas and manned by that regiment's cannon company in the retreat from Albuquerque.

Before leaving Albuquerque, Capt. Teel supervised the burial of the eight mountain howitzers, now without ammo, in a corral north of the city plaza. In 1982, Maj. Teel revisited Albuquerque and supervised the recovery of the guns. All eight were found and were divided evenly between New Mexico and Colorado. Two are now the property of the Albuquerque Museum, two are unaccounted for, and four may still be in Denver.

At Peralta, April 15, 1862, the Texans lost one 12-lb howitzer, possibly the mountain gun, and retired with the five remaining Valverde guns plus Teel's battery. In the retreat through Magdalen Mountains Col. Green saved the artillery by assigning a company to pull each gun when the draught animals died. In May 1862 BG Sibley created the 'Valverde Battery', a unit which served with the brigade for the rest of the War. at the war's end the guns, or their successors, were dumped into the Red River.

The Texans never admitted the loss of a gun at Peralta. The five guns of the Valverde Battery were attributed to a gun left in El Paso with a 'damaged axle'. this is unconvincing. I have visited the Magdalen Mountains and cannot believe troops, after manhandling trophy guns through this terrain, would abandon one of their prizes on the road home. The El Paso gun was probably one of the four 12lb mountain howitzers surrendered by Maj. Lynde at Ft. Fillmore.

Henry J. Wirth, Gallup, NM.

Comments on French Tank Tactics

John Houseman's article concerning French Tank Tactics provided often overlooked insight into the doomed 1940 Battle of France. This Battle seems to have a small but growing following among miniature gamers, and the article should prove both helpful and interesting. Since the air doctrine which affected that campaign was the subject of my master's thesis years go I read it with interest. With the usual padding of source material and foot noting John's a, a would make the beginnings of a good thesis. There were, however a couple of weak points, one, seemingly of omission, the other an inaccuracy.

Unless 'read past it the article skipped an unusual feature of French tank design that seriously handicapped tactical combat particularly tank versus tank. That is the one man turret so often criticized by authors. To keep the size of the turret down, probably to permit heavier armor with minimum weight increase French designers built them around the vehicle commander. Thus in action the commander served as a complete anti-tank gun crew while also being responsible for the tactical handling of the vehicle and sometimes the unit. The overall crew, as shown by John Houseman's chart on p. 15 (COURIER 72) for most vehicles was only 2. This made for efficient use of armor plate, but complicated and weakened tactical handling of the tank. Since most W.W.II gamers focus on the skirmish to operational level on the table top this feature would tend to influence rules and tactics.

The other weakness is the statement made on p.18 concerning Air Force Coordination. The first sentence "Cooperation between the Armee de Terre (Army) and the Armee de L'Air (Air Force)was extremely low" is absolutely true. That's what counted in the results. However, the article is mainly on tactical doctrine and the breakdown between that doctrine and the results with respect to armor. The reference to prevailing theories of aerial warfare in Allied circles " as a result of which .."the air commander viewed the primary tasks of the air force as protecting French cities and the strategic bombing of German cities and was largely uninterested in support of ground troops" is both inaccurate and misleading.

First of all, their was no "allied air commander." There was a commander, or "Inspector General" of the Air Army, Vuillemin, who was much concerned with the ground armies. He had commanded a brigade of the "Premier Division Aerien" which decisively employed 20 tactical squadrons against the Germans in Villars Coterets forest in 1918. That effort represented a tactical concentration of airpower similar to the "Sedan Schwerpunckt" of 1940. The RAF command, with the exception of Air Marshall Dowding of Fighter Command, was focused on strategic air attack. Dowding, in opposition, emphasized the primacy of air defense aviation, and succeeded in keeping most of the RAF modern fighters in reserve against the imaginary threat of unescorted German bombers.

When World War II broke out in September of 1939 French air assets included seven squadrons of fighters supporting the ground armies directly, with more in intermediate defense arrangements. Obsolete fighters were concentrated in the defense of French cities where they would be out of range of German fighter aircraft. Most bomber units were in the process of being re-equipped from the large, ugly and obsolete "Multiplaces de Combat" produced in air plans predating 1938 for strategic warfare under the theories of Guilio Douhet . Newer bombers and a cadre of attack aviation were being built up and were to be available for ground attack. The big ugly Marcel Bloch 200 I use in my GUADALAJARA game at HMGS conventions is typical of the strategic bombers in the older plans under the Air Ministries of Pierre Cot.

Plan V of 1938 recognized that unescorted strategic bombers were essentially useless. The focus was primarily on fighters to gain or at least contest air superiority, secondly on ground attack aviation. Unfortunately it is easier to change a tactical or even procurement doctrine than to change an air force. Most French bomber crews were not trained for, and most squadrons not equipped for close support. Moreover, the air and ground armies had lived in increasing isolation from each other for most of 20 years. The mentality which produced our own "HQ Air Command" in the interwar period followed by a separate USAF in the 1947 re-organization (War and Navy Departments to DOD) had taken place even more decisively in France and England a generation earlier with disasterous results.

Actual strategic bombing by French air units seems to have been limited to a couple of single plane raids on Berlin. Most modern aircraft (and at Sedan obsolete aircraft as well) were thrown into the ground battle. However, air forces are not well suited to linear defense and air ground cooperation, considered almost sinful in the RAF takes more preparation than the French had time for. The Armee de L'Air frequently assigned units to support the Armee de Terre which the lafter simply ignored. French air units were trained in camouflage and organized to move, unlike the RAF forward units, most of which were wiped out on the ground (e.g. 60 Wing at Vitry en Artois) while the French had more modern aircraft (if somewhat fewer fighters) at the time of the Armistice than they had on 10 MAY 40 when the Blitzkrieg was launched.

By contrast, the RAF, operating in small numbers at the extreme of its range lost more aircraft than they ever committed at any one time, and the Germans acknowledged wastage of 2,784 damaged or destroyed aircraft.

As it turned out the French severely damaged the Luftwaffe in air to air combat, losing about 30% of their own fighters. The RAF contribution, owing to lack of numerical commitment and lack of training for forward operations (camouflage, dispersion, air defense patrols) was less effective in the fighter combats than is usually supposed. However, the German Luftwaffe dominated the ground battle and was therefore decisive.

With respect to plans and doctrine, John Houseman is absolutely correct, but only for the period up to 1938. The French, as well as the Germans, had noticed among other things that the tactical concentration of Russian aircraft against the Italians in the Gudalajara campaign was much effective than the German strategic bombing of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War.

Pat Condray

Many readers wrote in to say they thouroughly enjoyed this article eve it more interesting and fun for our readers. - Dick Bryant

Likes the Changes

The new header on the pages of The Courier looks nice. I have my doubts about the circles around the page numbers, though. Changes like this from time to time are not a bad idea. I thought the articles on French Tank Tactics, Perspectives of Command, and Tree Trunks of Morgarten were interesting. They seem a bit of a departure from the usual. Perspectives of Command in particular dealt with factors underlying wargaming. I'd like to see more articles like this, explaining some of the whys and hows.

Many of us play with local variations or interpretations of published rules. This sort of article gives us the background to accept or modify rules, or develop new rules of our own, The first published rules I ever saw were Young & Lawford's Charge. These take the time to explain 18th Century warfare in some depth, so you know what the game is simulating.

Perhaps because of printing costs few rules sets seem to do that anymore, which is unfortunate, I think. Another article I liked was Green Valley, the Johnny Reb scenario for New Mexico (close to my neck of the woods). I've been painting ACW figures after visiting 12 or 15 Civil War battlefields in the last year, so I will have to give this a try. By the way, why do Civil War rules always have Southern names (Johnny Reb, JEB, etc)? Finally, Barry Fox's article on the U.S. Navy explained lots of whys and hows and reminded me that some day I'd like to buy some sailing ships.

David Edginton, Layton UT

Thanks for the kind words - we are always trying to find ways to improve The Courier and make it more interesting and fun for readers--Dick Bryant