Wednesday, July 9, 2025

Blenheim, Order of Battle, part II: the Imperial Army


Since V&B is a roster-based system I opted to put here directly the roster I prepared for the scenario, beginning with the Prince Eugene Imperial Army. 

In V&B terms these are 19 SP of Infantry, equivalent to 9500 soldiers, 18 SP of Cavalry, equivalent to 9000 horses and 2 SP of Artillery, equivalent to 12 Field pieces: by taking into account the 24 battalion guns of the Prussian brigades we arrive at a total of 18500 rank and file (against the 17924 present at the battle) and 36 guns (against the 37 recorded in the various OoB).



The Army Commander, Field-Marshal Prinz Eugen von Savoy:



here with the two Imperial field batteries:





The Infantry Corps is commanded by the Graf Leopold von Anhalt-Dessau:





It is formed by two divisions: the Prussian division is commanded directly by Anhalt-Dessau: at the left the Fink brigade, at the right the Canitz brigade, both on two bases. Since in the OoB each brigade was formed by battalions from different regiments, I decided to represent a single regiment for each base, choosing the one for which the most details about flags and uniforms are known. The Finck brigade bases accordingly represents the Anhalt-Dessau and Kronprinzen regiments, whereas the Canitz brigade bases represent the Canitz and Leib regiments.  I based my research mainly on the Robert Hall CD and on the articles provided by Kronoskaf together with other sources like the beautiful blog Not By Appointment, a veritable goldmine for lesser-known flags and uniforms.




The Danish division is commanded by the Lt. Gen. Scholten:



On the left the Bielke brigade (Livgardet and Prins Georg regiments) and on the right the Rebsdorff brigade (Sajellandske and Finske regiments).




The Cavalry Corps is commanded by the Prinz Maximilian von Hanover (Braunschweig-Luneburg, indeed):



The Prince also was in command of the first division which is on three brigades. This time for each brigade I chosed two representative regiments and therefore we have from left to right: brigade Natzmer (Prussian Wartensleben and Leibregiment), brigade Függer (Austrian Hanover and Lobkovitz Cuirassiers), brigade Baden-Durlach (Austrian Lymburg Dragoons and Swabian Függer Cuirassiers).




The second division is commanded by the Graf von Würtemberg-Teck 



and is on three brigades too: from the left L’Ostange (Prussian L’Ostange Cuirassiers and Sonsfeld Dragoons), Bibra (Palatine Venningen and Swabian Helmsdorf Cuirassiers), Cusani (Austrian Cusani and Darmstadt Cuirassiers).




The Reserve Cavalry division is represented by two brigades, since I fudged two brigades into one. It is commanded by the Prince De Latour-Valsassina (I didn't find a pictur, or better I was able to find many La Tour-Valsassina, but it seems that none of them was in active military service in 1704) and its brigades are Efferen/Caraffa (Holstein von der Osten Cuirassiers and Wurzburg Fechenbach Dragoons) and Bayreuth (Franconian Brandenburg-Bayreuth Cuirassiers and Auffess Dragoons).



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1 comment:

Unknown said...

It is difficult to comment greatly on the OOB's here as it is in terms of rules I don't know. I suspect this and the other OOB's are largely based on the one on 'Obscure Battles' and other sites. These are generally OK the point of view of which units are in different commands. The unit strengths are largely total guesses & often wildly inaccurate. I am not sure if the sizes are reflected in the OOB. Some of the uniform and flags ae wrong but you seem to have used the excellent Hall series & so you should have the correct one.

The above applies to all the OOB's generally so I won't repeat this.

On this specific OOB the Prussian and Danish infantry can all platoon fire because they are on loan from the Anglo Dutch army. They don't have battalion guns asthey don't exist. I hadn't noticed before but I suspect 'cm' means they can do 'cadenced marching' as mentioned in the rules update. Anhalt Dessau seems to have done some experimentation with his personal regiment, part of Fink's brigade, into 'CM' but with unknown effect. CM was really developed after this war by the Hessians and Anhalt Dessau. There are some suggestions the Swedes could do it at this time but most likely it is not done during this time.

Supporting this wing were 16 3pdr field guns. I will do a full list of artillery on the next comment.