The War for Ireland: 1913-1923

I received this book yesterday and have already plowed through about half its pages.  For someone looking to get a good "feel" for the ten year period the title covers, this is probably a good book to start with.  Illustrated with color maps and black and white photos, Peter Cottrell has edited an easy to read book that strays from offering opinions and stays on the facts.  I am no Ireland expert, nor will I claim to ever be, so my opinion of the book may be off kilter a bit, but I have this title to be a straightforward account and a solid starting point for my understanding of The Troubles.  It will not give the reader many details useful for gaming scenarios, it will not delve into minutia relative to skirmishes and battles and the forces and weapons involved in same, but it will provide a chronological history and biographical background on the major players.  This allows the reader to understand how the Easter Rising led into the War of Independence, and how those who fought side by side in these earlier conflicts were later rivals during the Civil War.

The War for Ireland: 1913-1923.  Peter Cottrell (editor).  Osprey Publishing, 2009.  Hardcover, 248 pages.

Putting Things Together

It's been a few days since my last post.  I find that sometimes life gets in the way of gaming, which I am sure we all suffer from.  This past weekend I went backpacking, and am still catching up a bit from that.

I have received a lot of comments on the blog thus far, and from those comments I have a lot of info to sift and sort through.  I am eager to receive my Liberation Miniatures order so I can start painting figures and start hosting some small games.  Using Force on Force will make things a bit easier as many of my gaming buddies are somewhat familiar with those rules.  Currently, in 15mm, I am working on a few projects* that all have Ambush Alley/Force on Force as the rules of choice, so expanding into this period using Force on Force is a natural progression.  There has been some mention of Irish Wars ratings already appearing on the Ambush Alley blog, I will have to check into those soon.

There have also been some comments pointing me towards more realistic Irish terrain.  Looks like I will need to not use my fir trees and add some additional deciduous types to the mix.  No worries there, easy enough to do.  Otherwise, once I have added a few buildings, I am pretty happy with what I have, mostly using the ESLO products I bought on eBay.

Next post should be a bit more on unit ratings within Force on Force for this period.  I hope to get that post up over the next few days.  My goal for this blog is to keep it fresh with new posts at least once a week, but we'll have to see how much real life interferes with that!

* - U.S. Marines in Iraq, 2003 (Generation Kill themed); West Germans in Africa, late 1970s (after the Flight 181 rescue); Second Barbary War, 1815; Somalia, 1993 (Black Hawk Down); Sci-Fi using the old Traveller/Striker 15mm figures and set during the Fifth Frontier War.  Check my Ambushed in the Alley blog for information on these projects.

Pictures of Terrain

As promised, a few pictures of my predominately ESLOTerrain (there are some Terrain Guy pieces as well).  What you see is about one fourth of all the pieces, there are a lot more walls, fields, hills, trees, roads, stream, and base pieces to add.

To me, the green really gives me (in my feeble mind) what Ireland looks like (in terms of greenery).  Perhaps some of the Irish visitors to the blog can confirm!

I'll let the pictures do the talking for now...

Small Arms of the Anglo-Irish Wars

Based on the figures that Liberation Miniatures currently offers, the following are the primary small arms used by all sides during the Anglo-Irish Wars.  Due to the wide variety of pistols used and their functional similarities, particularly within the context of the various miniatures rules I plan to use, I am not going to detail those weapons.



Lee-Enfield No. 1 Mk. III

Typically the Irish and their foes used the SMLE as their primary rifled long arm.  Being fairly easy to obtain, these weapons were available in large numbers, as was the .303 inch round that the SMLE used.  Small numbers of Gewehr 98s were also used, but being of a different calibre round, and coming from other countries, widespread use of the Mauser never occured.  Its performance would be similar to the SMLE, although there are many who prefer Mausers over the British standard rifle.



MP 18 (Bergmann)

The Bergmann submachine gun made its appearance during the later years of the period covered by this blog.  Having served in the later stages of the Great War, it proved to be an excellent weapon, both in trench and later in urban and guerrilla warfare.  The small dimensions of the Bergmann made it easy to carry and use in what we now term as close quarter combat.

Lewis Gun

The Lewis Gun was the great equalizer.  A unit that had the Lewis Gun within its ranks had a weapon that could put out a solid volume of fire.  In today's world it would be the equivalent of the squad automatic weapon or light support weapon.  Typically the Lewis Gun was crewed by a two man team, but could be handled by a single man if necessary.  While the Lewis Gun could have a 97 round drum magazine, the 47 round drum version was far more common.

Some basic stats:

Gewehr 98 - 7.92mm round, 5 round magazine, effective range 550 yards.

Lewis Automatic Machine Gun - .303 inch round, 47 round magazine, effective range 880 yards.

Maschinenpistole 18 (Bergmann) - 9mm round, 32 round drum, 20, 30, or 50 round box

Short Magazine Lee-Enfield (SMLE) - .303 inch round, 10 round magazine, effective range 550 yards.

Another After Action Report From The Guild

Seeing the lovely after action report on the Battle of Tullygavan Church on The Guild website, I decided to register on that forum and see what else I could find that was Anglo-Irish Wars related.  Piers Brand has another reports that is just crackin', this time called Election Night Special - The Road to Tralee, Ireland 1922.  Love the Bristol!  Again, the figures are from the collection of Brian Walsh.

This time Piers has some ratings for the Irish included, which will help me along my Anglo-Irish Wars path if I decide to use Force on Force.