Wednesday 6 May 2009

A couple of fantastic trips..

A couple of fantastic trips out recently..

...I had the day off a week or so ago for my first solo trip - the fishing road was wielded in anger (caught nothing but I did get to reacquaint myself with rag worms - blechhh!). Most importantly a lot of confidence was built up; I can handle the boat on my own, and especially under sail... bodes well for a longer trip later in the summer. Even better though, I also caught my first brief sight of one of the colony of seals in the harbour - there's only 15 or so, but amazing to see one...

Distance: 6 miles
Wind: light (force 1 or 2)

The trip referred to above, however, was on bank holiday Monday. Not good tides as the high was at 8 in the morning, and at best I can only sail from two to three hours either side of that before the mud takes over from the water! Either way I dragged littl'est person from her pit at 7 for company, and we were motoring for the main channel by 8... very light winds at that time of the morning, but with a full flask of tea, and some good chat with my youngest and the time just flew by. Ace day....



Distance: 6 miles (20.5 miles year to date)
Wind: v. light (force 1 just 2 at times)

5 comments:

  1. The unit looks good . . . were French squadrons only 50 strong?

    Sounds like a great day with your youngest. Quality time indeed.


    -- Jeff

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  2. What rules do you use for WSS ?

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  3. Jeff - that's a cracking question... & according to my trusty Chandler there's no definitive answer. What he says is that the squadron was not really a formal organisation, it was an ad hoc grouping of troops of horse. It varied between 2 & 4 troops, and the numbers in the troops varied but were about the 50 strong. In the French army though they organised by company rather than troop and these comprised about 30-40 men - with 3 or 4 companies to the squadron, 3 squadrons to the regiment.

    Best guess, if the numbers quoted are correct, I would say that on the day St. Pouange probably numbered three companies but as was typical in a war/campaign situation were very understrength..

    David - I use a (free) set written by a chap called Will McNally for the Seven Years War, but modified by me for the WSS. All the details of where to get them, and the modifications, are on my WSS project page - there's a link from mt main blog page, or go to

    http://steve-the-wargamer-wss.blogspot.com/

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  4. Steve,
    Nice looking figures as always. The French horse were feared throughout Europe before Blenheim and should have a look of martial superiority that vanishes after the battle.
    I also agree with your assessment on squadrons. The downside to that is then trying to assess how many troopers there were when all the obs give a number of men and a number of squadrons but not broken down by regiment. I try and stick to a 6 figure squadron for my horse so that each regiment has three.
    Try a lure for the fishing rather than lug worms. Lug worms work for beach casting but out in open water fish are attracted to bright flashy things more.

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  5. Very nice little unit. Unlike you I hate painting horses so the cavalry contingents in my armies are always below what they should be. Perhaps 15mm cvalry may be quicker as there is a lot less horse to paint!

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