UPDATE.

This weeks update has been written during a brief period of rest while painting the master bathroom and cloakroom !!!!!!! Months of such activity, commissioned by my wife, stretch before me over the coming autumn and winter rather than more pleasant model painting. That said I have this week managed to complete the second of the six Cavalry upgrade batches.  This revision provides a fourth squadron for each Cavalry regiment, so six Regiments are now upgraded with 12 left to go. In addition I have built a batch of 30 caissons which will complete the equipment of the artillery battalions in my third army.

I will publish this weeks book report shortly. While I can take photos of the books with my wife's camera phone, I have yet to master the process of moving images into the "cloud" from which I can then add them to this blog !!!! I am currently waiting for her to do the latest upload.

BOOK REVIEW : THE ZULU WAR JOURNAL.

This is a new book I bought recently in a local antiques centre. The author was a Lieutenant in a British Imperial battalion seconded to the Natal Native Contingent. He was brought up in Natal and spoke Zulu fluently hence his posting.

The book is very interesting in the detail it provides of the first invasion and the aftermath of both Isandalwana and Rorke's Drift. In particular I very much like the descriptions of his preparations to travel to South Africa from England, very much of the period. In that respect there is an interesting section later in the book when the author, with four other officers, went out searching for the missing Zulu King after the battle of Ulundi. Bearing in mind that Zululand was still technically in a state of war with thousands of fully armed Zulu warriors all over the place, these officers went into the wilderness armed with just one rifle and a handful of bullets between them !!!!! At one kraal they visited to seek information on the whereabouts of the King, they were surrounded by thousands of warriors as they interviewed the local Chief. Fortunately for them these particular Zulus had no ill intent.

 However this idea of not needing to carry weapons is a strangely Victorian/Edwardian idea. I have read any number of times about officers on the Western Front, literally in the front line, not bothering to carry weapons. On the same theme I have a number of big game hunting books and I have read of Victorian hunters going into the jungle with only three bullets. The idea being that they will probably only get one shot so a second bullet just in case and a third for emergencies. In all cases mentioned, the writers afterwards consistently wish they had been better armed. In think it demonstrates a state of mind, the innate superiority of the British officer/gentleman class perhaps. Personally in any of these situations I would be armed to the teeth, clearly I am not a gentleman !!!!!!

A splendid book and recommended.

UPDATE.

Once again I have had a busy domestic week with little time for modelling. All I have managed to do is to complete and issue the 34 Heavy Signals and Command trailers and partially paint the second batch of three new Cavalry squadrons. With me starting next week on preparation of the bathrooms ready for the plumber to rebuild  them, I don't expect the next few weeks to be any more productive especially as my wife has scheduled me to start decorating most of the house over the coming months.

If you like the book reviews I am doing each week, please let me know. I always try to draw some lesson or conclusion from each book, please let me know what you think of those conclusions especially if you don't like them !!!!!!!

BOOK REVIEW : RETREAT FROM GETTYSBURG.

This week I have re - read one of my favourite books.

This book is a masterpiece of historical research and is one of the very best on my favourite subject of 19th century logistics. The author describes in amazing detail the retreat of Lee's army after the battle of Gettysburg. For those who may not be familiar with the aftermath of the battle I will just say that the primary reason for Lee's invasion of the North, which culminated in the famous battle, was to forage for supplies in the rich countryside of Pennsylvania. At the time, Virginia, where most of the action had taken place during the first years of the Civil war, was exhausted of supplies and Lee's army was desperate for food, fodder and general supplies. The campaign was therefore undertaken to collect the means to continue the war. In that objective Lee was very successful. During the retreat, Lee's army was proceeded by over 3000 wagon loads of looted supplies together with thousands of cattle, sheep, pigs and horses taken by means of systematic foraging by the Army of Northern Virginia. There is no doubt that these supplies enabled the Confederacy to continue the War into 1864.

The book gives graphic descriptions of these trains of wagons moving south, bearing in mind they were accompanied by yet more thousands of supply, ordnance and ambulance wagons. Just consider if you can, the state of the roads with the dung of over 25,000 horses spread over them let alone all the looted cattle, sheep and pigs!!!! The average horse produces more than 30 to 40 pounds of dung per day, just imagine the following troops marching through that, not something any book ever addresses but a reality to the soldiers of the 19th century. 

The book also covers the slow and cautious advance of the Federal army as it sought to follow up its victory at Gettysburg and bring Lee's army to battle in a effort to stop a successful retreat back to Virginia, in which of course it failed.  At the time Lincoln was highly critical of Meade, the Union commander, for that slow advance. However Meade acted perfectly in a military sense and Lincoln's criticism demonstrates clearly a total lack of understanding of military logistics, something often seen with political leaders throughout history. Meade's Federal army was at the time exhausted after the battle and also desperately short of supplies and ammunition as his supply trains had not caught up with the earlier rapid advance of the army to the Gettysburg battlefield. In addition, Meade was initially unsure of the exact route Lee was taking in retreat. 

Political leaders without military skills only see little flags on maps and are oblivious to the realities of actually fighting an army. In WW2 Hitler demonstrated regularly such a lack of understanding. He even went so far as to stop the production of spare parts in favour of building new  tanks and created new divisions from the limited available manpower rather than reinforcing existing formations just so that he could have more flags on the map. That many of these flags representing divisions often had merely 500 soldiers and 5 tanks  interested him only when they predictably failed to achieve the tasks set for them.

Taking that one more step leads me to wargamimg practise today. I do not pretend to be a wargaming guru but I have seen rules that determine supply situations and troop moral on the basis of a throw of the dice. How can that possibly  reflect the real thing?? Every General in history knows that logistics are 90% of fighting a battle or campaign. No tactical manoeuvre plan survives contact with the enemy but having sufficient ammunition, food and fodder or fuel is absolutely critical to success. No campaign has ever been won by an army that is starving or without ammunition or does not have fodder or fuel to manoeuvre. Does anyone disagree, please let me know, such a discussion would be very welcome please.

This weeks update is brief because I have only had a little modelling time. This is due to pressure of domestic activities including planning work for the complete refurbishment of our three bathrooms. Of course that has led to demands for new flooring and repainting of most of the house. Now it seems to be leading to a new kitchen, the theory being that we may as well do it all together and get the mess over and done all in one go !!!!!!!!!! My wife's theory, not mine, I hasten to add. In addition,  my Mum's flat  has now been sold so we need to complete clearance over the coming weeks.
Anyway, this week I have only managed to complete construction of the 34 Command and Signals heavy house trailers as well as another three squadrons of Cavalry. I hope, in the coming week, to get these all painted, unless of course I have to look at more catalogues of toilets and sinks !!!!!!!

BOOKS.

THE ARMY OF ROBERT. E. LEE

This weeks book is a re-read from my library. A good basic book clearly describing the Army of Northern Virginia with some interesting pen pictures of the most prominent Confederate Generals too.Quite a lot of detail on  organisation and structure without the usual over attention to the various battles and campaigns that normally attend this type of book. I have never understood why books purporting to address the organisation etc of a military unit seem to also try to cover all the battles and campaigns of that unit. Those are usually far better dealt with in other books specifically written on those matters.
Some may not know that Arlington National Cemetery is actually on the former estate of Robert E Lee very near Washington DC. The estate was seized by the Federal government early in the war and originally used to bury the Northern dead from the opening battles of the war.

This week has been rather short of modelling time due to a busy domestic agenda. My youngest daughter has been visiting this week and I have also been busy with ongoing tasks relating to my Mums flat which has just been sold, rather quicker than anticipated actually. In consequence I have had to restart contents clearing activities, which, on the advice of the estate agents, had been on hold to make the property look more homely for prospective buyers.
That said I did manage to spend almost three hours  shelving the 500 plus soldiers recently repainted for the 19 Command battalions together with the 34 command and signals vehicles also completed last week. I have also made an early start on construction of the next batch of three Cavalry squadrons and have even prepared the bodies for 34 heavy Command and Signals trailers to go with the vehicles mentioned above.

BOOKS.

THE LOGISTICS OF MOBILIZING AND SUPPLYING THE UNION ARMY DURING THE INITIAL STAGES OF THE CIVIL WAR

This week I have read two books. That is not to say I have increased my read speed as one of the books is quite small.

This book was written as a thesis by an unnamed student and published by one of the many American Civil War research groups. The title caught my eye scrolling through Amazon a couple of years ago. Having  read it again my conclusion remains " good effort but not much original material". The book is a typical thesis in that there is a great deal of repetition, summarising and conclusions, all targeted on the methodology rather than the actual material. The content is all based on secondary rather than primary sources. It also only really addresses two areas, namely recruitment and provision of small arms. That said its interesting but could have been so much more.

My second read this week is more interesting.

A SUBALTERNS ODYSSEY

This is another autobiography by an artillery Lieutenant  in World war One. The author served from 1915 until badly wounded in 1917. There is a lot of interesting material about the daily demands on subalterns in artillery batteries including some unusually horrific descriptions of the results of German counter battery fire. The author survived his injuries and went on to serve throughout the 1920s and again during World War Two. This is clearly a case of a soldier who not only coped well with the horrors of war but actually, according to his son's foreword,  " I have no doubt he enjoyed the war."

Finally, as you may have noticed from elsewhere in my blog, I have a passion for numbers, that being the case, I have just counted the number of books I have, 703 so far. Of those about 180 are on the First World War, almost 70 on WW2 and over 60 on the Vietnam war. I have about 40 on big game hunting, mainly man eater hunting including all the books written by the famous Jim Corbett.  The rest of my library comprises books about the US Civil War, Indian Mutiny, Boar War, Napoleonic Wars, both land and sea, The Crimea, Victorian engineering and social history with a smattering of woodworking books and assorted odds and ends. My tastes cannot be described as broad  !!!!!!!!!

I have enjoyed a reasonable week of "play" time I am pleased to say. During the week I have finished the batch of 34 Command and Signals wagons. I have also completed the repainting of a little over 500 Command battalion soldiers to enable the revised structure of the 19 various Command battalions. In addition I have made an early start on another three Cavalry squadrons and have collected up the soldiers in the 12 Medical battalions that require repainting to enact the changes in those battalions. There are also another 132 new soldiers needed to complete that particular reorganisation. I also finally managed to complete and publish the post on construction of forge wagons, I hope that is of interest.
The next big decision I am facing is whether to maintain my dedicated Heavy Weapons battalions or issue a company of those weapons to each and every infantry battalion and convert the Heavy weapons battalions to line infantry. If I enact the change it will result in a large increase in the overall number of heavy weapons but I will clearly lose the ability to concentrate heavy weapons on the battlefield. Over the years my solo wargaming has consistently supported the concentration of heavy weapons in dedicated battalions so I have to carefully consider this matter to ensure I end up with the best tactical structure for the army.
Any views and comments would be welcome please.