Tuesday, 30 May 2017

A Shipfull Of Soldiers






Even now, not all of the problems with the landing at Portland have been examined. We will now look into another new one - the simple matter of ship count.






Reality

During the landings in the Crimea, the British made use of 78 ships of various types in order to land 31 battalions of infantry, ten squadrons of cavalry, ten batteries of horse or field artillery and nine siege batteries. On average each battalion of infantry took one transport (with some especially large transports fitting two battalions and some small transports taking half a battalion) and with the fleet including plenty of supplies for an extended campaign (and transport, wagons and so on).

In real Union amphibious operations or movements, the rule was similar for infantry (roughly one transport per regiment or half regiment)





BROS

During the landing at Portland, TFSmith has "more than two score" transports (i.e. more than forty), in order to land nine battalions, no cavalry and four batteries.
With a "Crimean" level of filling, 39 ships (half the number at the Crimean landing) should suffice to carry 15 battalions of infantry, one brigade of cavalry and nine batteries - TFSmith is overestimating the number of ships required by around 70%, even before allowing for how the initial Portland operation is not intended to be an extended siege and so there should be no need for much in the way of wagon transport.


Later, it is mentioned that "the movement of the 30,000 British and colonial troops of Pennefather’s Army of New Brunswick, their artillery, horses, mules, oxen, wagons, and stores from Nova Scotia and New Brunswick south to Maine had required the assembly of a fleet of more than 130 vessels, ranging from Atlantic liners and packets to coastal steamers, tugs, barges, and sailing craft of almost every size, shape, and description".

A copy of the Crimean landing conducted with "more than 130" vessels should allow for the landing, pro rata, of 5/3 of the strength that landed at Eupatoria. This would be 52 battalions of infantry, seventeen cavalry squadrons, seventeen field or horse batteries, fifteen siege batteries and full transport for all units; instead, Pennefather's army contains 27 battalions of infantry, eight squadrons of cavalry and an unspecified quantity of artillery (in three divisional establishments, which would at most be four batteries each) and is smaller than the Eupatoria landing force. (Though he claims it is "actually larger"). It also does not finish arriving until some time in August, as compared to the Eupatoria force which took a week to get ashore (interrupted by a storm), re-organize, coordinate with allies, and march to the Alma river to fight a battle.

During the 1861 section of the timeline, however, Burnside easily makes a landing in the space of a few hours with his own previously assembled transports. This fifteen-regiment operation uses 27 transports total.

Very roughly speaking, a British soldier takes up three times as much space as a Union soldier. This is presumably one of the cheat codes.

6 comments:

  1. Personally I like to use The Port Royal Expedition as an illustration for the amphibious capabilities of the United States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Port_Royal#Federal_army_and_navy
    Discounting Warships, and dedicated Colliers and Ammunition ships, leaves 35 Troop Transports for 12,653 men. Or 362 per ship.
    (That the Union Fleet defeated 2 Forts with some 45 guns in a single day, without one Ironclad, is also a point of interest)
    TFSmith has at best massively exaggerated US Amphibious capabilities and substantially downgraded the British. In fact he seems to have completely inverted the relative positions?

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    1. The Port Royal one also included a lot of naval stores, so it's not really directly comparable. But everything seems to indicate that the British in BROS underperform both their own and the Union's historical abilities.

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    2. To be fair the Port Royal Expedition also included 25 separate supply ships, in addition to the troop transports (And 17 Warships, all wooden-hulled)

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    3. I think your count of troop transports is off by two at least - you missed the two ships that escorted the supply vessels. (33 troop transports + 17 warships main body, 25 warships + 2 escorts first wave, total 77)

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    4. Which would make 383 men per Troopship?
      (Which is still little more than a third of a British Battalion)

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    5. The British had about that many men per transport ship as well at Calamita Bay - the point is that you need to identify whether you're counting "per transport ship" or "per specifically identified troop ship". I think the most we can tell from the data you have is that the army AND their supply train etc. occupied 33 ships.
      If we knew the precise ships which were or were not loaded with actual troops we'd know better, but my estimation is that on average a US regiment would take up two ships or one particularly large one. Same as the British.

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