Wargaming In History - The Peninsular War by Donald Featherstone

Published in 1991 and I've probably had it since then, but only now got around to reading it as part of my ongoing research into wargaming aspects of the Peninsula War.  You'd think this book would be perfect, but initial impressions are less so.

The introduction to the Napoleonic period is too general and should focus specifically on the Peninsula War.  The same applies to the chapters on infantry and cavalry, brief as they are, they cover aspects not relevant to the Peninsula, such as the British cavalry at Waterloo.  What is missing are those things unique about the Peninsula War as distinct from other areas of the Napoleonic Wars.

There are references to wargames rules, but without specifying any rule set, except to a figure scale of 1 to 10 (page 17, rationale being that this is "essential to have correct tactical groupings of companies").  My preferred rules have 1 infantry figure represents 120 men.  So the subsequent discussions are at a lower level than what I game at.

There is a discussion of creating wargame rules, but again for the whole Napoleonic period, however there are mechanisms the author stresses that could be used to create the troop profiles unique to the Peninsula War.  A lot of that feeds into unit characteristics as I know them in Napoleon's Battles.  The author did mention WRG rules and it could be that those rules have generic units (as in veterans are all the same regardless of nationality).  I should go and find my copy of those rules to confirm that but will rely on my vague memory and that the WRG rules cover the whole Horse and Musket period.

The book does provide decent summaries of possibly the major and some minor battles of the Peninsula, but only those that have a British presence.  The author upfront states his bias toward the British army.  You would certainly have to say British troops and the generalship of Wellington was superior.  Unfortunately, some of the maps are too fine in detail to be useful (it is an A5 booklet, and the old way of drawing contours quickly fills in the spaces with clutter).

There are a lot of factors in the Peninsula War that don't readily appear on the tabletop, specifically appalling weather, appalling terrain, frequent surprise attacks (aided by the weather or terrain) and poor intelligence.

One thing (page54) that does intrigue me and would seem to have particular value for campaigns is his idea of Fighting Assessment Charts.

Supply can have additional, obvious effects such as cavalry being poorly horsed or even having to fight dismounted, artillery or infantry being low or out of ammunition.

All in all this book was bit of a disappointment, especially being from such a noted author.

My next book has been inspirational and given me another lead to follow as well.