Category: Strategy & Tactics
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How To Read Three Gettysburg Books At Once
Sometimes books just go together well, doing in tandem what each individually is incapable of alone. This definitely applies to the three books I’ll be discussing today. Bradley Gottfried’s books The Maps of Gettysburg and Brigades of Gettysburg obviously can be used together. Throw in Larry Tagg’s The Generals of Gettysburg and you have a […]
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Small Unit Combat Reconsidered (and Analyzed)
Speaking of stumbling, I came across a very interesting study on Civil War small unit combat effectiveness by Mark C. Barloon that I haven’t seen cited before. In this Ph.D. thesis Barloon attempts to use various types of statistical analysis to draw some conclusions about regimental-level combat performance. Here’s the abstract: Historians often emphasize the […]
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Captured!
In his seminal book Battle Tactics of the Civil War, author Paddy Griffith talks about the value of what he calls “tactical snippets”—excerpts from letters, reports, books, etc. that show something of the tactics in use at the time. Whereas he confined himself mainly to the line of battle, I prefer the skirmish line. Here’s […]
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Rifle pits
When reading about battles we frequently come across references to rifle pits, usually strung out in a line across the battlefield, often in front of a defensive position. The immediate tactical purpose was to screen the front and provide warning of and harassment to an approaching enemy force. Fine, but what did a rifle pit […]
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Osprey Publishing
Those of us in the miniature wargaming hobby are very well aware of the British book publisher, Osprey. Based in Oxford, the company was originally created as a subsidiary of a tea company that had packaged trading cards of military aircraft with their tea products. The cards’ artist proposed a series of books on warplanes, […]
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HPS Releases Campaign Antietam and Mexican-American War
HPS Simulations today released the latest title in their Civil War Battles series, Campaign Antietam, along with Mexican-American War, a title which should be of some interest to Civil War wargamers. The games are selling initially at an introductory rate of $39.95, but will eventually revert to the standard price of $49.95. Details on Antietam […]
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Savas Beatie Planning a Civil War Atlas Series
Is publisher Savas Beatie planning a Civil War Atlas series based on The Maps of Gettysburg? It certainly looks that way to me after I stumbled on a post on Ted Savas’ blog A Publisher’s Perspective. This is very good news in my opinion. Ted goes on to mention The Maps of Chickamauga as a […]