Friday, 28 June 2019

The Battle of Carrickfergus 21 February 1760

As mentioned in the previous posting Battle of Carrickfergus was a French invasion of Northern Ireland during the Seven Years War one of the most interesting aspects of this action was that three of the regiments involved had actually been involved in operations in British North America on the French side we had the Regiment going and going to be both of which had served in the Garrison of Louisbourg during the siege of 1758 and the 62nd regiments which is served in the siege of Quebec in 1759 furthermore this campaign is very easily adapted to the wargaming table due to its small size and also to the fact that I have most of the figures already in order to fight the battle within Wargames Illustrated magazine (July 2019) the figures used are from the author's collection however within my own collection I have better suited civilian type militia figures for the Seven Years War. Which at 1/72 scale it really doesn't matter the style of clothing however the Caps being worn or probably better than Irish Rebels have 1798 where the newer style clothing started to come in at the end of the 18th century as well there are several armed civilian types I have in my collection in metal from rafm miniatures.



The French force for the battle
Carrickfergus with castle and garrison
The Irish Loyalist Militia man the walls.
Defending their homes against a foreign invasion 
French begin  advance
They begin to try to breach the walls
My son Ian and I played out this game as we hadn't had a Black Powder game together in some time. In this game, he acted as the British-Irish commander while I took the French.
The French troops attempted to bombard the town. In the process, they were successful in taking out most of the Royal and Royal Irish Artillery. However, as the French Infantry advanced, the Irish militia held firm better than their historic counterparts. The British Grenadiers actually broke morale several times! Quite the scandal! 
However, in the end, despite the French breaking over the forward wall of the town, they could not overcome the defenders. They quickly departed the area before being defeated in detail.


Thursday, 27 June 2019

War games Illustrated issue 381 July 2019 3 18th century campaigns

This issue consists of invasion scenarios with which cover the period of my Irish Highlander blog we have the Battle of carrickfergus 1760 the French attack on Ulster there's also the American invasion of Canada 1775 there is also the  Civil War of 1793 in Revolutionary War France.

I have previously done some of the 1775 invasion of Canada but this one adds to it.
I have the figures of this period so let's party!