TALES FROM A WARGAME SHED
  • Blog
  • Home
  • About me
  • Scenarios and house rules
    • American Civil War scenarios
    • 17th Century scenarios
    • Napoleonic scenarios
  • Periods played
    • Napoleonics
    • 17th Century Eastern Europe
    • ACW
    • Ancients

Blog

Source material for 17th Century Polish campaigns

29/9/2018

5 Comments

 
In a recent blog comment, Neil Burton asked if I could provide some sources for warfare in 17th Century Eastern Europe. I’m afraid most of my detailed sources are in Polish but there are some useful Ospreys and a growing collection of material in English on the Intranet.
Picture
Polish Armies 1569-1696, by Richard Brzezinski, is published in two volumes by Osprey (numbers 184 and 188 in the Men-at-Arms series). Volume one concerns the ‘national’ Polish formations and volume two is about the ‘foreign’ section. The illustrations by Angus McBride are particularly good. These books only suffer from the limitations of the format: while a great introduction, they barely scratch the surface of the wars of this period. Richard Brzezinski wrote another useful book for Osprey in the Warrior series, published in 2006, called Polish Winged Hussar 1576-1775.
Another really helpful source of information are the rules With Fire and Sword, by the Polish company The Wargamer. They provide lots of information about the different troop types as well as campaign backgrounds and tailored orders of battle. I am not attracted to the rules themselves but they are still worth getting for the background material and illustrations.

On the Internet, there is a lot of English language material on Wikipedia. The following links are good starting points and each will take you to several other useful pages, especially about battles.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deluge
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmelnytsky_Uprising
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Northern_War
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Polish_War_(1654-1667)

The following site is dedicated to Polish renaissance warfare.
http://www.jasinski.co.uk/wojna/index.htm

The last site to recommend is the home page of a re-enactment society, which contains a varied mix of useful articles, from dress and equipment to discussions about tactics. I have spent a lot of time on this site and really enjoy searching it.
http://www.kismeta.com/diGrasse/PolishHorseArtillery.htm
Picture
In case you speak Polish, these are books I have picked up for myself in recent years. New titles appear regularly and it is worth entering the name of a battle on Amazon to see what comes up. I found the two books about Cudnów (1660) that way.
i wish this period and theatre was easier to access, since I find it so fascinating. But by looking here and there across the Internet, you will find a great deal of interest.
5 Comments
Neil Burton
1/10/2018 11:51:18 pm

Many thanks for the above . It is really appreciated. Yet again I find the generosity of fellow wargamers to share information humbling , that is lacking in other areas of life ...

Reply
Andy from FOGH link
1/9/2019 07:26:09 pm

Many thanks for the useful links. I’m just embarking on an extension to my TYW collection looking at the war between Sweden and Poland in the 1620s, so this is all useful stuff. I’m putting together forces for Tczew 1627 at the moment. As you say, there is quite a lot if you patiently search with google. I have had to resort to google translate a few times :-).

Reply
Tim
2/9/2019 07:52:40 am

Thanks Andy. I hope the research and army building go well. I’d be interested in any new sites you discover as well as your choice of rules. There is finally a reasonable range to choose from although I think most still require a few tweaks! My current interest is in adapting For King and Parliament to the East for bigger battles but we’ve played some great smaller games with Tercios.

Reply
Andy from FOGH link
17/9/2019 09:12:44 am

Hi Tim, I have decided to start a project page on my blog to record my various sources of info. You can see it here: https://theviaregia.blogspot.com/p/information-for-polish-swedish-wars-of.html

Tim
24/9/2019 01:12:09 pm

Hi Andy, excellent idea. Thanks, there is a lot more to explore from your list. Tim

Reply



Leave a Reply.

      Enter your email address to subscribe to blog updates

    Subscribe to blog alerts

    Archives

    February 2025
    November 2024
    July 2024
    November 2023
    October 2023
    July 2023
    June 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    September 2021
    July 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    January 2019
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    June 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015

    Categories

    All
    6mm Figures
    Absolute Emperor
    ACW
    ADLG
    Ancients
    Battlegroup
    Battle Report
    Blucher
    Bolt Action
    Chain Of Command
    Eastern Renaissance
    Epic 40K
    For King And Parliament
    Games Workshop
    General
    Honour Games
    Infamy! Infamy!
    Lasalle
    Longstreet
    Modelling
    Napoleonics
    Napoleonic Scenarios
    Pickett’s Charge
    Polish Armies
    Rules Review
    Sam Mustafa
    Scenarios
    Scenery
    Sharp Practice
    Shenandoah
    Soldiers Of Napoleon
    Space Hulk
    Sword And Spear
    Tercios
    Too Fat Lardies
    To The Strongest
    Wargame
    Wargame Campaign
    Warhammer
    Warhammer 40K
    Wars Of The Repubic
    What A Tanker
    World War Two

    RSS Feed

  • Blog
  • Home
  • About me
  • Scenarios and house rules
    • American Civil War scenarios
    • 17th Century scenarios
    • Napoleonic scenarios
  • Periods played
    • Napoleonics
    • 17th Century Eastern Europe
    • ACW
    • Ancients