Ottoman Armies in early 1700's

[Sandinista]

Can anyone help in pointing me at good reference books/sites for this period? Specifically looking for army composition/organisation - the main area of interest for me is the wars of the 1730s.

I am familiar with the basic history of this period. My initial thoughts are that the armies of the early years of the century would have still been quite effective, but declined rapidly from mid century. I have been looking at Black Powders LAOK supplement but I am not too convinced of their take on the command side of things. Anyone any thoughts on this?

cheers
Ian

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

After discussion with the guys at the club, BP hasn't got Ottomans right at all... Cavalry are graded wrong.

[sunjester]

Lemmy, can you elaborate on this? I've been tempted with an Late 17th/early 18th Ottoman army for BP rather than Spanish for the WSS.

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

I'll have to email him for the details. However when last arguement of kings was published he was absolutely certain that the cavalry was wrong as he'd spent a long time researching it previously...

[Hwiccee]

As a rough guide Ottoman armies of the early 18th century were 50 to 70% cavalry.

Around 10% were elite ‘kapu kulu’ Sipahi cavalry.
Around 10% were skirmishing light cavalry - usually mostly tartar and other allies
The rest of the cavalry were provincial Sipahi cavalry - so30 to 50% maybe
Around 10% to 15% were arnaut provincial musketeers
The bulk of the rest of the infantry were Janissaries - so 20 to 40% maybe.
There could be up to 10% of various other infantry types - but often these were not present at all. These could be mounted musketeer types (these were easily the most common), traditional levy, bow armed troops, etc. Most commonly these were basically support troops which got caught in fighting & they were not intended to be frontline soldiers.

The numbers of light cavalry could vary a lot - basically depending on what was happening with the allies sending them. So for example in the 1735-39 war against the Austrians ad Russians the army would vary depending on foe. So the army fighting the Russians in what was the Tartar area had a lot more Tartars and a lot less of the other types. In contrast the army fighting the Austrians had few light cavalry.

The Ottoman army is very difficult to get right and often not understood too well. I don't know but I would be very surprised if BP has got it right as it generally has no idea even about well known/easy stuff - sorry not a fan

I hope this helps

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Still waiting on a reply, sorry! 

[sunjester]

The Ottoman army is very difficult to get right and often not understood too well. I don't know but I would be very surprised if BP has got it right as it generally has no idea even about well known/easy stuff - sorry not a fan

I hope this helps

I know what you mean, I do like using BP for WSS, with a few house rules. But the armies in "The Last Arguement of Kings" do not seem right to me. They say the lists are for 1700 onwards, but feel more like 1745 onwards to me.

[Hwiccee]

Sunjester: I am afraid I haven't looked at Last Argument of Kings or BP in detail so I can't help you much with details on how to rate things. But they ripped off some of my work then managed to totally mess it up & get it wrong - so I am not confident that they would have more success with something like this. But an Ottoman army for 1700 to circa 1770 should look like an army for the period before 1700. It is only after the 1770's that they start changing to be more like standard European armies.

[Sandinista]

A couple of downloads found on Red Sash Games site in the games support files
http://www.redsashgames.com

[sunjester]

Thanks for all the comments guys.

Sandinista, some interesting stuff there, I've downloaded files to read properly when I have more time.

I was planning to use Pendraken's 16th Century Ottomans for most of my forces, I've a reasonable ammount of stuff on the appearance of the army, I'm more interested in how to amend the troops types for BP.