The Paraguayan War was both chronologically and technologically contemporary with the American Civil War, the Italian Unification Wars, and to some extent the Crimean War. Therefore any rules covering these periods can be used. Since many battles involved attacks on earthworks, any rules used should cover field fortifications. Fire tables should take into account the wide variety of firearms used, most Allied being percussion rifled muskets, while the Paraguayans were usually armed with smoothbore flintlocks. While the rifle was in almost all instances superior, it should be remembered that the .75 caliber smoothbores could be devastating at close range. In the area of morale, most of the Allies would rate much like their equivalents in the American Civil War. The regulars for the most part would be fairly steady and fairly hard to rout. The Volunteer and National Guards would vary from very good to pretty bad. I will admit to not knowing how each battalion should be rated; that would take a massive amount of research. One way to get around this problem might be to use a system some board games use for untried units; their morale is unknown until they engage in combat, then a roll of the dice compared to a morale table is used to yield a morale rating. The morale of the Paraguayan Army on the other hand would be uniformly superb. indeed this would be one of the distinguishing characteristics of the war; it should be virtually impossible to rout a Paraguayan unit. The Paraguayan Army employed asysternwhereby each leader was directly and totally responsible for those under him down to each private in a squad being responsible for his mess-mate's behavior. It is easy to see why slackers usually found themselves on the receiving end of swift justice. it would be a grave mistake to assume that Paraguayan morale and elan was built on fear. Far from it, the rank and file almost worshiped Lopez and their country. In tactics, it would seem that the "Napoleonic" styles of the early days of the American Civil War tended to prevail throughout the Paraguayan War. Cavalry mounted actions would appear to have been more commonplace than in the Civil War. More Paraguayan War 1865-70 Background Major Battles of the War Paraguayan Uniforms and Army Brazillian Uniforms and Army Argentinian Uniforms and Army Uruguay and Naval Aspects Wargaming Applications Back to Table of Contents -- Courier Vol. VII #2 To Courier List of Issues To MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1986 by The Courier Publishing Company. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com