Sword and Rifle

The 2004 Bull Run Grudge Match

DanDare — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 06:45:29 +0000

In 2004 the players known as Danny, Ekrommen, and Shiloh1 played the Bull Run scenario at TowerGames.com. Danny took command of the Confederates while Ekrommen and Shiloh1 took command of the Union forces. Following are two accounts of the battle from the opposing commander in chiefs.

Shiloh1′s point of view of the battle, for the Union

This battle seemed to inch forward, with each army tensely aware of the other, a nervous dance for position and then an explosion of relentless, unmitigated butchery where victory teetered in the balance right up to the final shot.

Our battleplan was to first concentrate our forces, then attack all out. This strategy hinged on a consolidation of the 1st and 2nd divisions on the hill above the Stone Bridge. This required our first division to arrive on the field, the 2nd, to move swiftly to that hill, to be in a position to both safeguard the crossing by the other division and to shell defenders on the east side of Henry Hill.

The enemy pushed his forward brigades far to the north in an apparent attempt to disrupt the 2nd Division’s advance. Instead, Bartow’s brigade walked into a quick encirclement. After receiving fire from all sides, Bartow took the sensible course and surrendered his brigade, preferring life with a loser’s reputation over death with glory. They don’t teach that at war college. .....

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Matilda: The Humble “Rattle Can” That Saved Europe

Chris — Sun, 10 Oct 2010 15:27:23 +0000

Hitler pussied out at Arras in April 1940 when he’d won it all.

In 1940 as the German army raced across the fields of France, overrunning allied positions, ripping through supply lines and straining to reach the coast, the head of the German Army, Mr. Hitler, was in Berlin sweating. Guderian’s panzers were off the leash and he might lose them all. Or so his fear-wracked mind thought.

You see, at heart Hitler was still a little corporal. He loved to dream he was a great military leader, but in reality he merely had the best High Command at his disposal who made him look good. As the war went on, and he injected himself more into the decision making, as the orders were more Hitler’s and less his Generals, the more the wheels fell off the German Army. .....

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Line Or Column: Which Is Better?

Chris — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 14:40:09 +0000

A tactical analysis of which formation is better, and in what circumstances

By Mark Coomber.

It is the question that military commanders and historians have argued over for decades; the line has firepower, the column has brute force. The column favoured by Napoleon, against the line used by the Duke of Wellington. Yet the conclusion decided by the result of The Battle of Waterloo (1815) could be questioned by other confrontations like Jena (1806) and Austerlitz (1805). .....

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Leonidas and his 11,000 (not 300)

George Bisset — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 15:00:30 +0000

Tactical Analysis of the Battle of Thermopylae

By George Bisset.

The Battle of Thermopylae can be viewed as a noble legend ending with the sacrifice of Leonidas and 3,000 of his men, many more than the 300 Spartan “Equals” of the Hippeis. It’s possible Leonidas thought of the battle as a Roman act of “devotio”, a willing human sacrifice in battle to gain the favor of the gods.

This article looks at the finer points of the battle from the perspective of a complicated and interesting military problem of the campaign to defend Greece from the Persian invasion. It was part of a joint naval and land operation intended to delay the extremely large Persian army and fleet. Today it’s generally thought the paper strength of the Persian army was 250,000 men while the fleet was 1,200 fighting ships. It was preceded by a failed attempt by the Athenians and Spartans to do the same thing at the less formidable pass of Tempe with a similarly sized army and navy that withdrew by sea after they were bypassed by the Persians. .....

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Proof Burnside was an Idiot

Chris — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 18:06:45 +0000

Every now and again the idiocy of General Burnside is debated here and there. Was he good, or a complete buffoon? Was he misunderstood or do most people accurately assess him as having the leadership skills of a hamster?

Chris Wilkins sheds some light on this General of the American Civil War.

I am for the latter; he was a complete buffoon who should never have been given command of men and who got many of them killed because of his ineptitude. Worse than that, at Antietam he could have easily crushed Lee’s army and ended the war three years earlier.

This is not open for debate. I have conclusive proof this was the case. Plus his blunder was readily recognised by those who fought under or against him on the day. .....

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Jackson’s “Foot Cavalry” in the Shenandoah

Chris — Sun, 28 Mar 2010 15:27:13 +0000

Jackson’s Valley Campaign, 26^th February to 17^th June, 1862

By Chris Wilkins

The Valley Campaign was one of the smaller actions of the American Civil War where the numbers of troops were small and the battles were not big. It was also characterised by long marches of Jackson’s “Foot Cavalry”.

In February of 1862, the Union invaded the Shenandoah Valley with 30,000 troops under the command of Banks.

At the Start the Army of the Shenandoah under the command of Jackson consisted of 4,000 infantry, 600 cavalry and 24 guns. Later this increased to 15,000 when Johnson and Ewell joined him.

By the time the campaign finished Jackson had summarily defeated a force four times his size, about 60,000 men; Fremont with 15,000 troops, Banks with 30,000 troops and McDowell, stationed at or near Fredericksburg, with 20,000 troops. .....

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Bastogne – A Tour

Chris — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 12:26:43 +0000

Travelling through and around the small Belgium town it’s hard to picture the fighting as it occurred in the winter of 1944.

By Chris Wilkins and his camera.

Countryside outside Bastogne

It is a very pleasant town, surrounded by rolling hills covered in green and cows.

Countryside near Margeret

What is perhaps even more surprising are the small villages that are furiously fought over in the Battle of Bastogne at Tower Games. The villages are not very big, don’t have any shops to speak of and, really, aren’t much of anything.

Village of Foy

They are a half a dozen houses that are all close to each other but certainly nothing that impressive in terms of good defensive terrain against hordes of German armour. .....

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The Grande Start

admin — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 14:31:57 +0000

This is the start of “Sword and Rifle”, the official online magazine for Tower Games.

Here we are going to have historical articles, reviews of books, games and even Tower Games battles, commentary, and scenarios to do with just about any wargame you can think of. Yes, this is mainly about Tower Games and associated military history, but we are interested in just about anything military we can get our hands on.

And if you want to submit your work to us, please submit away. We will put it up and send you money (i.e. roylaties) when people come to read it. Why? Because the articles will be locked and people will have to pay to read them.

Enjoy.