Monday, July 5, 2010

Salamanca Battle: Setup



Planning a historical battle can take more time and effort than one might think. Salamanca is one that is very interesting and large, but hard to recreate. It seems every scenario writer has a different map to use and even cartographers are prone to mistakes. For the last few months, I've devoted many hours of research to making the terrain layout appropriate for the battle.



Using the historical layout was the major hurdle, building a correct order of battle was the other. Although I've used a few foreign units in place of genuine French units, the proportions are overall the same. The French brigades will be ten stands and the British eight. The British heavy cavalry brigade will be ten stands and represent a division. All other cavalry will be 8 stands. The overall numbers are in correct proportions in that the British brigades are more numerous, but not as large. 21 British-Portuguese-Spanish brigades at eight stands each and 16 French brigades of 10 stands each. Two cavalry divisions per side.



Hopefully the battle will commence soon.