Questions on the Wars between 1700 and 1721

[Charles XII]

Hello together,

I´m just thinking to have a closer look at the period metioned above but before starting I would like to know if it is worth the work. So it would be very helpful if you could answer the following.

1. Were there battles in the WSS of a more modest size? Not the big ones that the well known englishman fought, something more similar in size to the contemporary battles of the GNW

2. Was there just one battle during the Jacobite Rebellion of 1715 or can someone name further actions (sieges, skirmishes etc.)?

3. Can someone name usefull books on partisan warfare during the WSS?

The first questions so far and thanks for all answers in advance.

Charles XII

[conflans]

I'm not sure what you mean by small; however, Ekeren (1703), Speyerbach (1703) and Catiglione (1706) are certainly smaller than the classic Blenheim, Oudernarde, Ramilles, Malplaquet foursome. The Rampjaar blog has some interesting material on Ekeren while Robert Hall has a nice article on Speyerbach which appeared in an issue of the Pike and Shot Journal. If you read French, Pelet and Vault's "Memoires Militaires Relatifs A La Succession D'Espagne sous Louis XIV" is a very good source. Many volumes can be found online. Not being fluent, I use it with Babelfish and get by. I hope this is a little help; however, more educated minds than mine will probably be posting. Good luck.

[hwiccee]

I would echo what conflans says in that it depends on what you mean by 'modest battles' and 'GNW sized battles'. Poltava and many of the other battles featuring the Russians had at least one large army- the Russians.

But as conflans has already suggested there are a lot of WSS battles which are smaller than the big 4 battles Marlborough fought. Most of these other battles have smaller armies than the Russians often used and a lot are more like 'typical' GNW battles - 15 to 20 battalions a side or smaller. There are a lot of smaller battles in Germany, Italy and Spain/Portugal with all kinds of army sizes. Unfortunately information on them can be difficult to find, especially in English and especially without specialist books.

[Charles XII]

Thanks for the answers, maybe its true and my question was not that clear so I will try it the other way round.

I thought about gaming in the said era under the pretext that I can use a rule set similiar to Warhammer English Civil War/Warhammer Ancient Battles. I know these rulesets are not perfect and not that funny compared to BLB but they have two advantages I like:
1. Casaulties can be removed by single models and thus unit strength can be represented more accuratly.
2. Skirmishers can be much better represented as my main gaming level would be battalion level, thus there are a lot of raiding, skirmishing and ambush scenarios to do.

This leads me to what I am looking for: An era with lots of smaller actions but also some potentially bigger actions (5-15 Btl./10-20 Sqd.). Also I like actions very much which includes civilians, as they seem to be a little bit underrepresented in gaming while in real life they had an impact on military operations (Just think of De Lorge in South-West Germany in 1693, he had 60.000 men there but after crossing the Rhine he needed to detache nearly a third of them to guard his rear against the "Schnapphäne" [ and two Sqd. of Hussars sent by the Markgraf]).

I think the theater of operations that would suit best would be the war in Ireland 1688-1691, but I was wondering if something similar could not be realised with a theme that (in a broad scope) includes France, Sweden and Germany.

So I hope this clears it up a little bit.

Greetings Charles XII