Danish Forces

[Saxon Warrior]

Quote "...evidence must be made..."? Doesn't that say it all?, Making evidence what? Prove what you choose to believe?

Dave.

[barr7430]

Chaps,

don't quite know what is going on here. I am not going to play the heavy handed censor on this despite repeated requests to do so. If there is an internal club disagreement then this is not the place to have it. None of you are doing yourselves any favours here. Several of you have posted many times in the past with no issues whatsoever, so what has suddenly set this off you can deduce for yourselves.
This forum has been opened for nearly four years and we've never had a spat like this on it. I will not be told what to allow or disallow on my own forumthe person who has done this will know who I mean. If you don't like it, don't visit... very simple. I can simply play God in this case.. not my style but if needs be I will.

I hope you can moderate yourselves because quite frankly I am a very busy individual with enough hassle at work without having more when I should be relaxing so please... whatever your differences.... go to the pub, have a pint together and get over it.

[danschorr]

Just a clarification on the Danish cavalry regiments. Yes, the regiments were put together specifically for the auxiliary corps, but they were composed of drafts from the already existing cavalry regiments in Demark, so I'm not certain that one could say that they were the "most inexperienced".

Regards,

Dan

[Churchill]

Hi Dan,

I'm just going off what Michael Mc Nally has wrote in his "Battle of the Boyne 1690" book published by Osprey.I don't know how reliable this account of the battle is, but on P77 he writes of the action that took place at Yellow Island between Tyrconnel's 700 dragoons and the 7,000 Danes.

On the subject of the Caliver CD for the Bavarians.....I'm sorry I have no futher information and you would need to contact Caliver Books.

Regards.......Ray.

[danschorr]

Ray,

I'm not certain either as to his sources for this statement, but 7,000 men sounds like the Danish Corps at full strength. Inexperience is a relative term. At the time of the Boyne, it had been over 20 years, with the exception of the conflict with Holstein-Gottorp 1681-89. since the Danes had been engaged in any real conflict. I would say that all of the Danes were "inexperienced" in actual conflict, whatever that really means. On the other hand, that could be said for most armies of the period. I'm not certain why he singles out the Danish cavalry for being the most inexperienced. He does indicate that it was one regiment of Jacobites versus one Danish Regiment. There may be any number of causes for the failure of the Danes, but inexperience? In what? How experienced was Dongan's Dragoon Regt?

Don't mean to belabor the point.

Regards,

Dan

[Captain of Dragoons]

I wonder if the Danish Horse at the crossing of Yellow Island were hit by the Jacobite Cavalry while at a stand still. Maybe it was something as simple as speed of horse.

cheers
Edward

[Churchill]

Hi Ed,

Thank you for your input.....Yes your probably right in that Tyrconnel must have seen the Danes crossing the river and sent his only two uncommitted horse regiments to intercept them.The Danes must of had very little time to reform once over, but the Danish foot did manage to fire a volley into one of the charging dragoon regiments and repulsed them while the other charged the Danish horse unfortunatly McNally doesn't state which or if it was just one Danish horse regiment or all three, but they scattered and fled back across the river.McNally also states that the horse regiments were raised for Ireland and probably had no combat experience.Unfortunatly I have no information on the dates when Donop's, Juel's and Sehested's horse regiments were raised.
Maybe someone else can help

Regards......Ray.

[hwiccee]

Ok so now the silly stuff has finished here is my take.

But first I should say I am no expert on this earlier sub period and also I don't use these rules.

The first thing to say is that on the Danish army generally, and many other subjects, Dan Schorr is THE expert of experts. So Churchill you ask when the Danish cavalry regiments were formed then I would go with Dan's answer of they were drafts of existing units. He is the guy who will know if anyone does.

I, like Dan, can see no particular reason why the Danes or any of the troops in Ireland woud be Elite because of combat experience. But without detailed knowledge of this war I would guess that some units could count as Elite because of their high status, reputation, etc. Of the Danish units perhaps the Dronningens regiment would qualify as Elite in this way. It was the Queen's regiment and in the WSS at least it had a diferent uniform colour to the rest of the army & was of higher status, etc. All the other units would I think be 'average', 'trained' or whatever it is called in the rules.

On the cavalry the initial post indicates that the Danish cavalry totalled about 800 men. It does not seem very surprising to me that these should lose to 700 enemy cavalry generally.

I do not know what tactics the Danes used at this time but the French style tactics that the Jacobites seem to have used were certainly superior to the other tactics of the war. It is only in the WSS when the Anglo Dutch cavalry reach equality with the Freench and I would guess that the same is true for the Danes.

Also from the limited information I have on this battle it is clear that the Danes were in the process of crossing the river at the time they were attacked. So it is likely that they would be sufering from some degree of handicap from this. This could be slight or anything up to complete disorder.

So it looks to me, without detailed knowledge of the actual incident, that the two groups were roughly equal in numbers. But that the Jacobites would have had an edge because of their better tactics and the disruption that the Danes probably had from crossing the river. Therefore not too surprising that the Jacobites won.

I would be a bit cautious about the scale of the victory achieved as the language used in such matters is often misleading. You often need to look at what, if anything, the defeated party did afterwards to get a real idea of te scale of the defeat.

[Churchill]

Hi Iain,

A very interesting and informitive post.When and where were the first Flintlocks introduced and over what period did they become standard issue.I take it the western europeon armies changed over from the Matchlocks before eastern europeon and asian armies.
The same question concerns the Socket Bayonet.
My other question is when regiments fought oversea's or indeed in a foreign country would they have to wait until returning home before recuiting to build them back up to full strength again or would they recuit foreigner's into the ranks.

Ray.

[Churchill]

Thanks Iain,

As always very helpful.

Regards.......Ray.