Limbering Up?

Having just finished painting 10 trucks, I started musing on the average wargamer's disdain for things that don't shoot. It wasn't just that. I was reading more about the RCW campaigns in the Don region. These are dominated by fast moving cavalry formations. Well, I say dominated. Perhaps not, but large cavalry units were important, and they were supported by the famous Tchanka MG carts and also by mobile, horse drawn, artillery batteries.

Any how, I was thinking how reluctant wargamers are to spend money on limbers, especially I guess the horse drawn variety. They take up a lot of space, they aren't cheap, and you can cheat by just turning the guns round. Also for some periods they are hard to get. And of course, some styles of figures -  such as my favourite 1/72 scale - often give you fewer limbers than guns in each box. I'm a bit of a sucker for a limber in 15mm, now and then, if I can get them. I'm a bit light on them with some forces. My Pacific War figures are completely devoid of them. I really should correct that at some point, probably by using FPW period versions.

As I said, I can be a sucker for a limber. I went big for my Great War Brits.


The limbers should have six horses, but Minifigs did the caissons separately, so I cheated by reducing the draught teams to four horses and transferring the spares to the spare caissons I'd bought. I need to revisit these, however, as when I did them no one made the 4.5" howitzer, until Irregular added one to the RUG range after some serious prompting. And I could get a steam tractor to pull tha60 pdr too.

I've got quite a few with my British late 19th century colonials as well.


I stuck with keeping the six horses in the limber. Okay, so I should probably be using oxen for some of these, but these were from Minifigs and affordable. You'll see that I don't do anything with the guns to have a towed and non-towed version. One of the MNG, Phil Steele, does clever stuff with shims of magnetic material and duplicate bases to make them look more convincing.


I have four of these, as well as a good selection of screw guns on pack mules.

The reason I like them for this period is because in "Science v Pluck" style games it is more fun if the British have a lot of baggage train to deal with. And the limbers take up a lot of space. Try getting them in a square.

However, back to where I can in on this one. I don't have a lot of RCW limbers for my forces. Well, technically I don't have any. I've got four Crimean War Russian limbers, pressed into service because the person who gave them to me swore they were RCW Russian limbers. Well, the crews are in flat caps and are wearing great coats, so who is to say yea or nay to them.


They are a little large for WW1 caissons, but they do the job.


I have four of them, but I expect to be deploying quite a few cavalry brigades, and it looks like they often had a horse artillery battery attached, at least in the Red Army. Consequently I'm probably going to need a few more, so I've just popped an order off the Mr Pig for some of his Russian WW1 four horse limbers. This is a bit of an act of faith, as I can't find a picture of the model anywhere, not even on the Peter Pig page.

And I added some extra bits and pieces, like some replacement heads. And mortars. And some "empty" horses, with horse holders. And some dead bodies.

So much for the RCW project being a quick and easy supplement type thing.

Going to try and get my armoured train on the table this Tuesday. That should be fun. Trying to decided if I need another one or not.




Comments

  1. Love them. Do you think it's a question of not-shooty bits, or not-mechanically-supported bits?

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    1. Definitely things that don't kill the enemy bits.

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  2. I have limbers for my SCW onwards games, ditto trucks as tows. For my planned RCW games I have also just ordered some limbers for my horse artillery. For 19thC games in contrast I tend not to use too many as they take up too much room for the rules I use. Also I tend to go for two horses per limber, purely to keep the bases to a manageable size.

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    1. Good to see I'm not the only one. I am seriously think g about getting some Pacific War limbets now. Only thing holding me back is the lack of space in my storage boxes.

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  3. Ooh, six horse limber, very generous! Being something of a cheapskate, for 15mm I just bought a bunch of Battlefront panje carts (with two horses), painted them a sort of muddy green/grey/brown and now they get used as generic horse carts or artillery limbers for the entire period 1914 to 1945. Their huge advantage is that they don't take up much storage space, and I can fit one of them plus a based artillery piece comfortably in a single Hexon hex.

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    1. As I said the 6 horse jobbies were bought for a specific purpose, and are supposed to take up floor space. I wouldn't do it again. I think 4 horses looks right, but I accept that it is handy on a grid based game if stuff fits in the spaces. And being a hypocrite I habitually wheel out the 2 horse "Waterloo French Artillery" limbers in 20mm.

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  4. For me it is a matter of cost. As a retired soldier and military historian I know how much space the “non-shooting” stuff takes up on a battlefield-it’s great that you are replicating that. Beautiful job.
    Neil

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    1. The thing with the cost argument is that if you go to a show and see what wargamers will spend money on, and then hear what people say about their lead mountains it isn't a matter of cost, in the big picture. If people concentrated on a project and finished it before rushing off to buy the next big box set they're never going to paint then they'd be able to afford limbers.

      At least that's what I think.

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  5. Correct limbers are certainly hard to find for quite a few periods and many ranges seem to ignore them completely. One reason I like 6mm and 10mm is that 4 or 6 horse teams don't take up so much space. Irregular do a useful generic four horse team. If you want mechanical traction for your WW1 Brits the Bergman files cover most of what you might need in 1:100 if you can get them printed.

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    1. I was also looking at my 6mm early Great War armies. That tip on the Irregular limbers is helpful.

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    2. They also do a 6mm field gun and limber in the SCW range which came in handy for my early war soviets. From H&R the waggons in many of the earlier ranges are worth looking at, the Roman ox cart and baggabe mules set is rather nice.

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    3. I see Pete does 6mm British & German limbers for WW1. I missed that as I was looking at the French, and he hasn't got one in that range.

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    4. GWF22 French 75mm field gun with crew, limber and team (1) from Irregular, or FR03 - Horse Drawn 75mm Gun (3 teams each of 4 horses , 1 limber, 1 gun) from H&R.

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    5. I'm already heavily in on Baccus. Are they compatible?

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    6. Unfortunately I don't have any Baccus - I had intended to ask you whether they were compatible with H&R. Newer H&R are bulkier than the older ones. I suspect that for draught horses, limbers and waggons differences might be less apparent than for infantry.

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    7. I'm the other way round. I'm a bit shy on mixing ranges these days, after me experience with Lancashire Games and the 18mm tall 15mm figures I bought that are completely incompatible with Irregular. It's funny, because I don't really have issues with mixing 1/72 plastics from different manufacturers.

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    8. At least some 18mm stuff is described as such now, making it easier to avoid.

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    9. Yes, but is it "true" 18mm??

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  6. Graham, I could create an entire post in reply to your limbering reflections weighing both pros and cons. Cost may be an issue to some since many rules treat limbers and trains as auxiliary "nice to haves" but not required for play. On a limited budget, one may aim for the largest bang for the buck. Your point about Lead Pile size is a good one and represents a misallocation of resources when scarcity exists.

    What do I do? In my collections where guns are more mobile on the battlefield and the ground scale is greater (more room to maneuver), I field limbers. Where guns are less mobile or driven by civilians, I do not. For example, no limbers for my 30mm ECW, 25mm Great Italian Wars, 25mm Spanish-American War projects but limbers for my 25mm Napoleonics.


    I field limbers for all of my various 15mm Napoleonics projects, all having 6-horse teams. The 15mm Franco-Austrian collection has limbers for all and they are 6-horse teams too. The 10mm ACW collection fields 6-horse teams for every gun. My SYW collection does not field limbers . While the SYW falls under the category of "less mobile in battle" I occasionally consider fielding limbers.


    My take-away is that it is good to field limbers for the table but I do not enjoy painting them.

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    1. Your rule of thumb about mobility is a good one, and I'm close to it for quite a few of my armies. The standouts are my early Great War 6mm collections and my 1879 Pacific War collections.

      Next up: Should we have spare horses and horse holders for dragoons?

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    2. Easy! When dragoons or cavalry can fight dismounted, I field a stand of riderless horses and a horse holder for each unit.

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    3. I don't - yet. I usually turn them round in a circle and replace some of them with infantry bases. It isn't exactly the same thing as limbers, but you can clearly see what is happening. Plus, not everyone does suitable horses and holders.

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    4. Were there many instances of dragoons dismounting for action, remounting and then redeploying elsewhere in the same battle? If they mostly arrive mounted and then deploy and remain on foot then the empty horses are nice to have but not essential. In a similar fashion, some rules just remove the truck models when lorried infantry dismount.

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    5. I don't know about many, but Okey certainly does at Naseby. Russian cavalry seems to, as well. With them the issue us also fear of losing their horses, so where you dismount and leave your horses is important.

      I always leave the trucks on the table.

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  7. I think that it's marvellous that you have gone so 'big' on limbers Graham. One per battery (or whatever a gun base is) is ideal. That said I have only a handful painted at present and will be a long way from 1:1 when I eventually do. The lack is chiefly due to completing the combat units first. Officers usually come next and then 'extras'. Space on the table can be a problem, but we just move them out of the way, dont' we? Like we do with those annoying trees, haha!
    Regards, James

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    1. Thanks. It is something I can do, so why not? One per battery is probably fine for most games. I don't know about moving them out of the way. Artillery positions cam take up a lot of room. Perhaps they should be inconvenient to make you think twice about where you are deploying your guns. But, yeah. Move trees. And buildings.

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