Offworlder wrote:Wow! I seem to have unleashed a storm here! Sorry! Still it is nice to here about this period and have suggestions from the Spanish side...
Fern:"The Milicias Provinciales were a sort of trained reservists not very different from the American National Guard. Before the war the Provincial Militia regiments were regarded by the Spanish military as good as the regular regiments, so I think it is correct that Provincial militia units get regular infantry replacements. Their name "MIlicia" is missleading and should not be confused with most low quality, untrained volunteer units (most of them were named "Voluntarios", not militia) created from scratch which should be regarded as true Militia and should get replacements from the militia replacement pool"
Then if that is the case, in the game a shift in replacements should take place. With each Spanish Insurruction option, less militia and more regular reinforcements should be made available. Otherwise, as time goes on, a mass of Spanish divisions would just be made up of badly depleted units.
There were 42 "Regiments" of Milicias provinciales, each one with one battalion, and four "divisions" of Grenadiers taken from the grenadier company of each Milicia Provincial battalion. Each grenadier "Division" had two battalions. The Milicia Provincial battalions had been movilized in December 1804 and had not been demovilized by 1808 yet, so they were as trained and disciplined as regular units as many Spanish historians say (Arteche and the SHM, the Spanish Military Historic Service).
OTOH there were also 114 companies of Milicia Urbana (Urban Militia), which watched the coasts and frontiers, 85 Compañías Fijas (Fixed Companies) and 41 companies of Invalidos Hábiles (disabled people, but still able to serve), but they were not up to strengh and were not well trained. Those units should be regarded as militia.
Fern:"It is a non sense that regional armies could not mix as someone have proposed. AFAIK the Spanish armies were regarded as NATIONAL armies, not regional ones. There was no problem at mixing them."
I wasn't really speaking about what happened historically but on the game situation. Unfortunately the AI puts all the Army HQs in one big superstack, thus negating the positive effects that HQs have on gameplay. My idea is that the provincial armies HQs should be losely affiliated to a certain geographical areas, but forces could be easily transferable, just like in every other scenario. Ex when I play the Coalition side, I always heavily reinforce Blake and use that army as my principal Spanish strike force.
That's true. IIRC after the disaster of Ocaña (1809) there was no central army, but several regional armies. Those armies advanced and withdraw depending on the French pressure and strenght. The French had to cover the whole Spanish territory because any void area left by them was quickly occupied by any of the Spanish armies or one of their subordinated units.
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leure: 