Pavia 1525, this week’s thoughts.

The last blog post on Pavia 1525 was my initial attempt to understand the rough scope of the project. I am now starting to research the battle a little more and as a result, my initial understanding may change. You will see in this post that there have been a number of changes and refinements in how I will approach the battle. Expect these type of details to continue to change for a while as I read more and discuss more with fellow hobbyists. Hence the title of this blog post: Pavia, this week’s thoughts.

Hopefully this evolution will show readers how I go about developing a large battle for a convention and will not be too confusing.

Books

I have purchased two books in the last two weeks. The first is “The Battle of Pavia, 24th February 1525”. This book is by Jean Giono a French Historian and was first published in 1963. The first English translation was published in 1965 and that is the copy I bought. The price was not cheap at $44 including shipping. I received this book in a few days and it is absolutely phenomenal. It has risen into my top three books on the Italian wars. The book has a whole chapter on the troop numbers and detailed movements (although no maps). It also gives a detailed description of the terrain. The Historian is very detailed on his use of primary sources. Unless better information comes to light, I will be using the account of the battle in this book as my main reference.

This book certainly replaces the recently published Helion book as my main source. I don’t want to be too critical of the Helion book, but the account of the battle in that book just never made much sense to me. There did not seem to be any tactical reasons for some of the troop movements that were described. In short, I just don’t believe the account of the battle in the Helion book.

The next book that I have purchased is an Italian book by Luigi Casali and Marco Galandra, “Da Marignano a Pavia. Le guerra Italiane di Francesco I (1515-1525)”. it will be a few weeks until this arrives as it is coming from Italy. It was $31.27, plus shipping, which was a little more expensive due to the international shipping. I am hopeful that this book will give a good account of the battle, but I will review it when it arrives.

Terrain.

One of the main things that I like about the book by Jean Giono is that it describes the terrain and its impact upon the battle. In particular it details the woods, marshes and boggy ground. There were four main woods, as shown in the map below. Wood 1 had very dense undergrowth making it very difficult to navigate. It consisted mainly of black poplar and elder. Wood 2 had drier ground and there was practically no undergrowth except for a few bushes. The trees were oaks, pines, sycamores, with poplars along the banks of the river. Wood 3 was also not too dense. Finally, wood 4 was similar to Wood 1 but the undergrowth was even thicker and the ground more marshy.

Wood 1 made the entry to the park along the East wall almost impossible and the breach in the park wall was made near Port Pescarina. This is my first problem with the Helion book account of the battle.

In future blog posts I will detail how I believe units were deployed and moved during the battle. For now, there are two addition points that I want to make on the terrain for gaming purposes:

1. The Battle of Pavia 1525 took place in February. Other than the few pines, most of the trees would be without leaves. To create an accurate visual spectacle, I need to take this into account when modeling these huge woods. I also need to differentiate between woods that are clear and those that have dense undergrowth. I want to do this differentiation with both the rules and the modeling. As we shall see in future blog posts, these terrain details significantly affected the course of the battle.
2. There were many areas that were marshy or boggy. Again I need to accurately represent them and consider how they affected the battle. If you have ever played rugby on a water logged ground and had to scrum in it, you will know it is very difficult to get a firm grip. This problem gets worse the longer the game goes on as the ground gets churned up. Now imagine this ground with 3000 heavily armored Gendarmes or a 2000 man armored pike block. The units are just not going to be able to get the same grip in a fight as they would on solid ground.

My sketch map of the Battle of Pavia 1525, showing the main woods and other key features.

Troops for the Battle of Pavia 1525.

My understanding of the troops involved in the Battle is evolving and everything is still not clear to me. Below is my latest understanding of Pavia 1525. What is starting to become clear is that the number of arquebusiers that I need is way above the number that I have had to paint for earlier battles. Garigliano had a very low number of arquebusiers. This number increased for the later battles of Ravenna and Bicocca as the Spanish manned the defenses. Pavia shows the change of tactics (particularly by the more forward thinking Spanish) and the number of Arquebusiers is immense – I will need to get painting and I already have a couple of orders placed. The changes during the Italian wars is one of the reasons that the period is so interesting.

The other item that I discovered this week was that the Spanish used some heavy 6′ arquebuses supported by forks. These fired a two ounce ball that could pass through two Gendarmes. There are several credible primary sources that support the use of these weapons. There does seem to be a belief amongst the wargaming community that weapons supported by a fork were not used until at least 1650. I just don’t believe this to be the case from the reading that I have done.

Never one to go along with the view of the masses, I will be deploying some of these heavy arquebuses on the Spanish side. I just need to figure out how to make them as there are no suitable figures. My ideas for making these figures is a subject for a future blog post. I do still believe that the majority of the arquebuses were the lighter ones, but I will have 20-30 of the heavier ones on the battlefield.

1) French troops for Pavia 1525.

• Light Cavalry commanded by Charles Tiercelin. There were 2000 men which at the 25:1 figure ratio means that I need 80 figures. About 700 were Albanians, so I can use the 32 Stradiots that I have. I have another 32 mounted shot figures which I will use to represent the light cavalry. This means that I will need about another 16 figures. I do have about 24 more unpainted mounted shot from SteelFist so I have enough figures for these. An 80 figure light cavalry command will make a great battle.
• Swiss Pike commanded by Florange. There are various estimates of the amount of Swiss in the command of Florange. 3,000 seems about right. I have seen mention of two blocks so that would give 1,500 in each block, so I could represent these by two blocks of 64 figures. I easily have enough troops for these blocks. There is also reference to 4 culverins.
• Infantry of the Duke of Alencon and the troops of Medici. This is one area where I need more information on the number of infantry. I have seen numbers as high as 10,000men or 400 figures. I suspect the final number is a little lower. I also need more details on the composition. I have 96 French Crossbow, 72 French pike and 96 Italian shot, so I have the basis of this force.
• Black Band Landsknechts. There were about 5,000 men or 200 figures. A pike block of 144 figures with around 50 arquebusiers in support would seem about right here. This keeps the arquebusiers are 25% of the total.
• Men at Arms. Reports state 1,200. The more I investigate, the more I believe that this number is lances and not men. When I view tapestries and paintings of the battle, the sheer number of mounted knights supports the theory that this is lances. Now the next issue is how many men are in a lance. I have seen arguments of as high as six or eight. I don’t think that is the question. The question for me is how many mounted fighting men were in a lance. I am not worried about dismounted squires and the like. I am happy to represent a lance by one Gendarme and two mounted knights (or Archers), giving three figures per lance. The 1200 lances would therefore be represented by 144 figures. I have a lot of mounted knights, but with the Spanish ones, I am suspecting that I need another 80-100 figures. 144 mounted French knights will be an impressive sight. They will all be SteelFist figures.
• Swiss at the Five Chapels. Again there is some discrepancies in the number but I estimate around 5,000. I am struggling as whether to use two 100 figure pike blocks or to use some units with halbards and swords for more close in fighting. Either way, I should have enough figures.
• Artillery – I will go into details on the amount and locations of the artillery in future.

Imperial troops for Pavia 1525

• Men at Arms. There are reports of 800, again I will assumes that these are lances, giving 2,400 men. This number will mean that I need 96 mounted armored figures.
• Landsknechts of Frundsburg and Mark Sith. There are reports of around 12,000 men which would be 480 figures. If we assume that 25% are shot this would mean 120 shot and 360 pike. I imagine having two pike blocks each with 166 pike and 30 shot. The remaining 60 shot would then be deployed as a separate group given to the Marquis del Vasto to seize the Castello Mirabello. I need to calculate how many more Landsknechts that I would need to paint, but it could be a fair number.
• Arquebusiers of the Marquis del Vasto. The battle description says there were 3,000 lightly equipped arquebusiers in this group that raced to the Castello Mirabello. They consisted of Spanish, Italian and German. This would be 120 figures.However, we need to remember that 60 of these have been contributed from the Landsknechts, so I need another 60 figures. I am currently painting these figures. It should be noted that these are not the heavy arquebusiers discussed earlier.
• Light Horse of Charles de Lanoy. There were 1,500 light horse or 60 figures. I have 32 Jinetes at the moment and have just ordered another 30.
• Spanish foot. I believe that there were around 6,000 additional Spanish foot but I need to confirm this number; this would mean 240 figures. I would represent this with 150 Spanish pike and sword which I already have, 120 arquebusiers (I have about 100) and about 30 heavy arquebusiers which I need to model.
• Garrison at Pavia under Antonio de Leyva. This garrison is about 9000 men which is composed of about 3,000 Spanish and 6,000 Landsknechts. There are also about 200 dismounted knights. I will represent these by 120 Spanish arquebusiers, 240 Landsknecht with a combination of sword, shot and halbards (I just don’t think that they would be pike) and 10 SteelFist dismounted knights. The majority of these figures would be new figures.

The Battle of Pavia 1525 – today’s conclusion.

I am starting to get more of a feel of the battle. Future posts will cover the unit locations and movements during the battle of Pavia 1525