Osprey Campaign Series 59 - Vittoria 1813

I started reading this at the same time as I was reading the Donald Featherstone book.  This one was more to my liking.  Only very minor criticism is that the text under the illustrations was a straight repeat from the main body of the text, so nothing new was added.

The book is to the usual Osprey standard, providing photos, reproductions, new artwork and decent maps.  This is no exception.  Some of the authors photos are a little obscure and I have noted this with my own photos.  Black and white does not enhance the quality.  This same is true of the photos that were in the book "Wellington - The Crossing of the Gaves and the Battle of Orthez" that I reviewed back in June (the start of this Napoleonic Peninsula odyssey). 

What I really liked about this book, in contrast to Featherstone, was that its section on wargaming was much better focussed.   It also pointed me in the direction of Paddy Griffith's Napoleonic Wargaming for Fun which I have now purchased and more importantly started reading. 

The tricky thing with wargaming this battle is the allied outflanking move which came as a surprise to the French having traversed terrain that was considered impassable and the subsequent river crossings that involved undefended and defended bridges and fords, combined with the fighting on the other flank in the broken terrain on the hillside.

The outflanking move can be based on unit arrival on the tabletop with perhaps restrictions on French deployment and relocation beforehand.

The river crossings and the fighting in difficult terrain need for further consideration.  The first step will be the refining of the map that I obtained from the book Military Dress of the Peninsula War.