Waterways in Sweden

Author: Oerjan Ohlson

Lists affected:

Norse Viking and Leidang

Mediaeval Scandinavian

Synopsis/Proposal:

Make Waterways non-compulsory terrain for all Swedish armies in Sweden after 1060 AD

Justification:

Most of the known battles (1) fought in Sweden during the medieval period (2) were not fought in the immediate vicinity (defined as "less than 3 km", ie. one standard DBM table width) of the sea or a lake large enough to count as a DBM "Waterway".

In addition, while many Swedish lakes are large enough to qualify as DBM "Waterways", most (maybe all) of them were inaccessible to what DBM classifies as "ships" unless those ships had been built on the shores of that lake or had been transported overland to it (and I haven't seen any sources which mention this happening). Lakes Vänern, Vättern and Hjälmaren (number 1, 2 and 4 in size) certainly were; lake Mälaren (number 3 in size) appears to have been as well - at least I haven't been able to find any mention of cogs or similar large ships operating on Mälaren.

I don't know how to handle this in DBM - while invaders certainly could (and often did) march along the shores of these huge lakes, they couldn't bring their sea-going navies with them there!

This proposal does not cover Swedish armies Sweden prior to 1060 AD, nor Swedish armies in Finland at any time, nor Norwegian or Danish armies. This is simply because the data I have doesn't cover those other areas and periods :-/

(1) Listed eg. in Medeltidens Svenska Krig by Ulf Sundberg, ISBN 91-89080-26-2

(2) The Swedish "medieval period" is usually counted from Olof Skötkonung being baptised at the spring of Husaby ca. 1060 AD until the coronation of Gustav Vasa in 1523 AD. Note that this does *not* coincide with European "medieval period"!