The Battle of Spring Pool wood, 1912

  As FLW is in the process of being rewritten, we have been doing some play tests.  The new 2022 edition will keep all the mechanisms of the original, but it will be situated in the Wellsian world of 1911 and 1912 - the background to the original.  The first scenario we played was the 'other scenario' (the first being Hook's Farm) that is mentioned in Little Wars...

We go into greater depth here, and look at HGW’s experiment with game a based on the Boer War where a mounted infantry army fought a dismounted army.  This is the much larger battle mentioned in Little Wars – and here in FLW it is presented in the style of ‘Duffer’s Drift’ – which was one of the key military text books that came out of the Boer War experience.

 

HG described this scenario as follows. 

 

“One good Fight to a Finish game we tried as follows: We made the Country, tossed for choice, and then drew curtains across the middle of the field. Each player then selected his force from the available soldiers in this way: he counted infantry as 1 each, cavalry as 1-1/2, and a gun as 10, and, taking whatever he liked in whatever position he liked, he made up a total of 150. He could, for instance, choose 100 infantry and 5 guns, or 100 cavalry and no guns, or 60 infantry, 40 cavalry, and 3 guns. In the result, a Boer-like cavalry force of 80 with 3 guns suffered defeat at the hands of 110 infantry with 4.”  Little Wars, 1913

 

Many people have recreated Hook’s Farm, and it really is a must – but the above game is a fascinating exercise and uses much larger forces.  It was first replayed as a lawn game in Gloucester with Boers versus British – and as in the original, the Boers were soundly defeated.

 

 It was replayed as a Floor Game (indoors) in two versions as part of the play testing for this new edition. It was set as a British army Field Day in 1912.

 

The Armies were formed as follows.

 

Army Red – the Mounted Infantry (Boer type) force (General Backsight Forethought)

 

1^st Brigade

3 x Regiments of 12

2^nd Brigade

3 x Regiments of 12

     HQ and Scouts                 8

     Artillery x 3

Total                       80

 

Army Blue (Dismounted) force (General Leisurely Trundle)

 

1^st Brigade

3 x Regiments of 20

2^nd Brigade

2 x Regiments of 20

     HQ and Scouts    10

     Artillery x 4

Total                       110

 

 

British and Empire forces are used. 

 

Terrain – the map below gives a simple landscape based upon the 1908 map of Winstanley, near Wigan. The Spring Pool wood is the site of my own childhood home (within the walls of the Winstanley estate) where I first played Little Wars in the garden.  The terrain is laid out in the style of Salisbury Plain or the South African Veldt – with Kopje’s (hills), woods and the Estate buildings as the objective.

The initial moves were played online, using the map and wooden counters.