Hello there,
I'm putting together French and Allied armies for the WSS. Not working with any particular OOB but looking more towards the early part of the war rather than later, so Blenheim and Ramillies are the two I've been looking at mostly.
What I'm after is ideas for which units would be classed as raw under the BLB rules. I was reading an old article by Barry about putting on a big battle and for the armies he said 15% should be raw, that seems a sensible percentage but which units? My initial thought was to look at new regiments that had been raised at the beginning of the war. The French army expanded considerably and the info is fairly easy to find. The British army (I know it wouldn't be called British until 1707) added a fair few new regiments as well and the Dutch too. The description of drilled troops in the rules says they may be trained but lacking battlefield experience so I guess it could be argued that these new regiments aren't raw though.
second thought for the Allied army was to look at the subsidy and allied troops instead but some of these thought very well.
The battle accounts don't often go into much detail about the performance of individual regiments.
Would be interested in peoples views, many thanks, Simon

Hi Simon,

Long time no see on the forum...if you click on this link it will take you to my Blenheim OOB thread and my roster of british regiments at the battle.
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1311&start=120
Barry was kind enough to explain to me which regiments could be classed better than others.
Usually the age of the regiment tell's you that it's been in more action's than a newly formed regiment.
During the War in Ireland 1690-1691 you could class some of the english regiments as "Raw", but by the time of the Nine Years War and indeed the WSS all these regiments had battle experience.

Hope that helps,

Ray.

Hi Ray,
Many thanks for your reply. I've rekindled my interest in the WSS and have returned to visiting the forum.

Interestingly, following the peace of Ryswyck a large part of the army was disbanded only for a load of new regiments to be raised again when the WSS started. The ones raised in 1702 are;

Farringtons
Saundersons
Villiers
Fox's
Morduant's
Holt's
Shannon's
Huntingdon's
Lucas's
Mountjoy's
Stringer's
Mohun's
Temple's
Meredith's
Cooke's

As you know, Merediths regt of foot fought at Blenheim and later became the 37th foot.
Best wishes, Simon

Wouldn't another way to consider that is when the regiment was last recruited, and how much had to be replaced?

A regiment that is much cut up, even if restored to strength, is not like to be the same for a while, especially if it lost heavily in officers and NCOs.

Rob,
That would be a good way too but the problem is finding that kind of detail for individual regiments,
Best wishes,
Simon