*
Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
March 28, 2024, 04:39:15 PM

Login with username, password and session length

Donate

We Appreciate Your Support

Recent

Author Topic: Spanish Tercios  (Read 49548 times)

Offline Arthur

  • Scatterbrained Genius
  • Posts: 2185
Re: Spanish Tercios
« Reply #15 on: June 17, 2019, 09:39:50 PM »
Those look good, any timescale on the release

'Soon' is all the FB page says. I believe the company was looking at a fall release but I don't think a specific and official date was announced anywhere.

Offline Lord Raglan

  • Scatterbrained Genius
  • Posts: 3163
  • Abergavenny
Re: Spanish Tercios
« Reply #16 on: June 17, 2019, 09:42:01 PM »
UK based company?

Offline Arthur

  • Scatterbrained Genius
  • Posts: 2185
Re: Spanish Tercios
« Reply #17 on: June 17, 2019, 09:43:37 PM »
Nope, Spanish. But Empress are their UK stockist.

Offline Lord Raglan

  • Scatterbrained Genius
  • Posts: 3163
  • Abergavenny
Re: Spanish Tercios
« Reply #18 on: June 17, 2019, 09:45:17 PM »
Cool, thanks buddy

Offline marco55

  • Mastermind
  • Posts: 1387
Re: Spanish Tercios
« Reply #19 on: June 17, 2019, 10:48:56 PM »
They originally said late June but didn't commit. They  said they want to get them right before releasing them.Excellent company in every way.
Mark

Offline chema1986

  • Scientist
  • Posts: 444
Re: Spanish Tercios
« Reply #20 on: June 18, 2019, 07:15:44 AM »
They originally said late June but didn't commit. They  said they want to get them right before releasing them.Excellent company in every way.
Mark

Agree!

Offline Cameronian

  • Bookworm
  • Posts: 76
Re: Spanish Tercios
« Reply #21 on: June 18, 2019, 02:54:50 PM »
Certainly look good. 

Thought about putting a tercio together a while back but got put off by the sheer scale of the formation.  Figure ratio was the issue, what to use, 33:1, 50:1?  Too small, it loses the sheer impact of the formation, too large, never complete it.  As it comprised 10 companies of 300 or 250 later, could do it a company at a time I suppose?

In the end I went for the earlier colunella which at half the size at 10:1 still took 150 figures.
"The time has come." The walrus said, "To talk of many things..."

Offline Arthur

  • Scatterbrained Genius
  • Posts: 2185
Re: Spanish Tercios
« Reply #22 on: June 18, 2019, 03:22:43 PM »
Super-large formations are not only unnecessary, they are also incorrect for the period. These figures are sculpted with 1630's and 1640's in mind, i.e a period when the Spanish army no longer used the massive Cuadro de Terreno formation.

Pierre Picouët compiled a chart of the evolution of the Spanish infantry squadrons (i.e battalions) between 1600 and 1660, using Pavel Hrncirik and others as his source. His conclusion is that from the outbreak of the TYW onwards, they kept decreasing steadily in size, from an average of 1,300 men per battalion in 1622 at the battle of Fleurus to around 900/1000 in the late 1630's. By the early 1640's, this figure had fallen below the 1,000 mark, Spanish battalions fielding an average of 750 men at Honnecourt and Rocroi in 1642 and 1643 respectively (other sources give an average of 900 men per battalion for Rocroi), and around 550 at Montijo (1644) and Lens (1648).

This is a far cry from the massive 16th century style cuadro de terreno  so beloved of wargamers. Picouët and Hrncirik both insist that such juggernauts were a thing of the past by the 1620's, the prolongado de gran frente being the preferred battlefield formation for the period. Spanish battalions/infantry squadrons would thus deploy 10 to 12 deep with musketeer mangas (sleeves) on both sides of the pike block. The mangas could also be detached and used separately, giving the Spaniards a tactical flexibility that most people tend to overlook (the opposition between dynamic, tactically progressive Protestants and reactionary Catholics who stubbornly clung to their outdated military doctrine is an oft-repeated chestnut which is absolutely not supported by primary sources)   

So the good news is that you don't need massive Spanish units for the period : depending on the troop scale you are using, 24 to 48 figure squadrons will be perfectly accurate for the TYW.

Offline Lord Raglan

  • Scatterbrained Genius
  • Posts: 3163
  • Abergavenny
Re: Spanish Tercios
« Reply #23 on: June 18, 2019, 03:28:46 PM »
.....and how did spanish tactics continue to evolve up to 1660?
« Last Edit: June 18, 2019, 03:36:51 PM by Lord Raglan »

Offline Arthur

  • Scatterbrained Genius
  • Posts: 2185
Re: Spanish Tercios
« Reply #24 on: June 18, 2019, 03:37:44 PM »
If you can read Spanish, the latest issue of Desperta Ferro, a Spanish military history magazine, has an article on that very subject :

http://www.despertaferro-ediciones.com/revistas/numero/los-tercios-vi-1660-1700/?fbclid=IwAR2obomUZ3q_tpWJBxuvDeZuQTCyZebJ1nw5hk6nVMpZ81bytOOitmh9Vcc

Offline Lord Raglan

  • Scatterbrained Genius
  • Posts: 3163
  • Abergavenny
Re: Spanish Tercios
« Reply #25 on: June 18, 2019, 04:11:03 PM »
If you can read Spanish, the latest issue of Desperta Ferro, a Spanish military history magazine, has an article on that very subject :

http://www.despertaferro-ediciones.com/revistas/numero/los-tercios-vi-1660-1700/?fbclid=IwAR2obomUZ3q_tpWJBxuvDeZuQTCyZebJ1nw5hk6nVMpZ81bytOOitmh9Vcc

does it have puctures?

Offline marco55

  • Mastermind
  • Posts: 1387
Re: Spanish Tercios
« Reply #26 on: June 18, 2019, 04:15:07 PM »
I bought one about Cuba a while back and it's a beautiful magazine but I couldn't read a damn thing! lol
Mark

Offline Arthur

  • Scatterbrained Genius
  • Posts: 2185
Re: Spanish Tercios
« Reply #27 on: June 18, 2019, 05:43:54 PM »
does it have puctures?

Only one diagram showing the organisation of a typical Spanish infantry battalion circa 1685.

If you prefer something in English, try the following link :

http://forum.milua.org/archive/TactiqueUk.htm

Offline Arthur

  • Scatterbrained Genius
  • Posts: 2185
Re: Spanish Tercios
« Reply #28 on: June 18, 2019, 05:47:58 PM »
I bought one about Cuba a while back and it's a beautiful magazine but I couldn't read a damn thing! lol
Mark

I never studied Spanish formally but I found the text pretty easy to understand, even without a dictionary at hand. Then again, I'm a French native speaker, Spanish is a romance language and I also studied latin in my youth, which helps to some extent.

Offline marco55

  • Mastermind
  • Posts: 1387
Re: Spanish Tercios
« Reply #29 on: June 18, 2019, 06:17:25 PM »
New book.