Phase 2 of my 1817-18 Chilean Project is the Assault on Talcahuano (6 Dec 1817)
Phase 2a: Patriot
By phase 2 I’ll already have all the Argentines I need for Talcahuano, so it is just a matter of adding the Chilean units to the Patriots.
| Origin | Name | Flag | Stands | Figures | Figures | Comments | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Men | Horses | Guns | Total | ||||||
| Chilean | General Bernardo O’Higgins | – | 1 | 3 | 3 | 6 | PS-014 General O’Higgins | ||
| Chilean | Artillery (4lb) | – | 11 | 22 | 11 | 33 |
PS-021 Chile Artillery Crew PRNS-012 4lbr Field Gun (Long Barrel) (2 guns) |
||
| Chilean | Caballeria Cazadores de la Escolta Directorial | – | 6 | 12 | 12 | 24 | Have to add epaulettes to … 2 x PS003 Argentina Granadero a Caballo Cavalry (shako/command) 2 x PS002 Argentina Granadero a Caballo Cavalry (shako/saber) |
2 Squadrons | |
| Chilean | 1st Infantry Battalion | 
|
8 | 24 | 24 | PSU-003 Chile Infantry 1817-1823 UNIT PACK | |||
| Chilean | 2nd Infantry Battalion |
|
8 | 24 | 24 | PSU-003 Chile Infantry 1817-1823 UNIT PACK | Use this unit for the Chilean National Guard Battalion. They had the same uniform and flag, and the two units didn’t appear in the same battle, so I only need one. The 2nd Battalion appears in more scenarios. | ||
| Chilean | 3rd Infantry Battalion |
|
8 | 24 | 24 | PSU-003 Chile Infantry 1817-1823 UNIT PACK | |||
| Chilean | Engineers | – | 1 | 3 | 3 | 1808 Spanish Fusiliers from Battle Honours | Wore a bicorn | ||
I am using a slightly different Orbat to Fletcher (2005) based on thoughts on the Cazadores a Caballo and Artillery in 1817-18:
| Current Orbat | Suggested replacement |
|---|---|
| 2 Squadrons Chilean Cazadores a Caballo (246-regular) | 2 Squadrons Chilean Caballeria Cazadores de la Escolta Directorial (246-regular) |
| 1 Artillery Battery 6x6lbrs (regular) | 1 Chilean Artillery Battery 6x4lbrs (regular) |
Phase 2b: Royalists
The Royalists in the Talcahuano scenario comprise guns plus the Los Angeles Regiment. And a lot of both. The Los Angeles Regiment is meant to deploy as 9×100 + 4 x 200 contingents. I’ve opted to use an amalgamation of units for Lost Angeles rather than building one huge unit. I was going to use the Arequipa Regiment but John Fletcher, when hinting about new research, suggested I use the Conception Regiment instead.
| Origin | Name | Flag | Stands | Figures | Figures | Comments | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Men | Horses | Guns | Total | ||||||
| American | Fortress Guns | 26 | 104 | 26 | 130 | Not sure yet | |||
| American | Conception Regiment | 8 | 24 | 24 | Fantassin EN-17 Spanish Infantry with French Style Shako; Fantassin EN-22a Spanish Infantry Command (shako) | Blue uniform. | |||
Fortifications
Liberators lists:
- 8 battery positions
- 2 redoubts
- 2 parapets (I assume these are the funny symbols with the sort of spiky V on the map including the one on El Morro)
- 2 castles (San Augustin, Galvez ?)
- Trench and moat line
I assume earth works for everything. Less sure about the “Castles”.
The intrenchments (sic) thrown up at Talcahuano by the royalists were formidable, when the feeble means of attack are taken into consideration. The ditch on the land side of the town was ten feet deep, and fourteen wide at the top, with a parapet, and here and there a small battery of heavy ordnance.
On the 1st of December, 1817, the patriots, led by the brave Las Heras, advanced boldly to the assault; behaved nobly; and suffered severely; but they were repulsed; for the Spaniards, who fight well behind walls, were better disciplined than their opponents, amongst whom most of the officers were killed or wounded.
From Diego Barros Arana, History-general of Chile: Pt. 8. Securing the independence of (p. 160-164). Available on-line. The translation is rough and by Google.
In this strip of land, easily removable soft in especially its width, about 1500 meters, the realists had drawn their first line of defense. Since early 1816, Col. Miguel Maria Atero injenieros had begun to open there, at the foot of the heights that make up the peninsula, stretching out a wide gap between one i anotherport besides running alongside a work Talcahuano advanced strong cover from which you could beat the flank the plain immediately to the pit.
Ordoñez, displaying a great activity, making his soldiers to work as man ia useful i could pick up in Concepcion in neighboring fields, had contracted since mid-February to increase ia strengthen defenses. He continued to effect the opening i deepening the trench, taking advantage of clearings to form parapets behind him i sent out a number of angles projecting bastions of the field, temporary buildings, but quite solid.
Ordoñez distributed over thirty pieces of artillery. This trench, which cut all way through the lowlands in the heights of the peninsula, next to Talcahuano had a drawbridge, easily defensible, that served to make field trips to neighboring i remove the horses to graze the lowlands. More de.esa back online, i on the dominating heights overlooking the plain i immediately completed the work of three well-armored redoubts, from which they could raise the alarm in case of any attack, plus i break the fires on the attackers.
The highest of the land or the sight of a good map sujiere the observer. P. Lesson, so called esc traveler, naturalist of the expedition’s scientific Coquille, describing the bay of Talcahuano and Concepcion (because it is designated the two names interchangeably), reads: “This country is among Concepcion Talcahuano i flat, swampy, salt i plants that grow in large numbers, attesting to the sea connected the bottom of the bay of Concepcion to the port of San Vicente i she has not retired but recently. peninsula Talcahuano (or Tumbes), then, was then an island separated from mainland by a stretch of water about two miles wide, i this surface, dried hoi i day transformed into salt marshes, covered with other plants i salicornes of organization entirely at sea.
These positions were much more formidable since Ordoñez was the owner of the sea, at your service i had two real warships, the frigate Vengeance coberjia i la Sebastiana i three other armed military vessels (44). These vessels, guarding against any project that peninsula landing the Patriots at some point she maintained communication between Talcahuano i the coast of Arauco, which as i Chiloé Valdivia, were held by the royalists, i could provide i foodstuffs other resources. Ordonez, who was in Talcahuano over forty pieces of artillery of regular service, that i could get out of his squad sailors sea i some officers useful in these jobs, some armed gunboats had that kept a strict vigilance on the bay that were i ready to go to where they are. You need either to upset the Patriots in points away from the plaza, and to direct their fire upon them if they attempted a formal assault.
The study of this situation the greatest Arcos sujirió a plan of attack i highly risky adventure, but deemed the only practicable. It consisted in the evening landed three hundred men to choose on the western side of the peninsula of Tumbes. At dawn, would throw the heights to attack the stronghold of the Sentinel, while all the patriot army showed up in front of the fortified Linca to call the attention of the enemy to try temarla i by the weakest points. O’Higgins, who found serious drawbacks to this plan of attack, paid, however, giving their approval in a way apparently is other leaders. Consequently, they began to build in neighbouring forests Hualpen five large rafts, each capable of holding seventy men, to transport them to be made by the soldiers landing on the peninsula of Tumbes (45).