Napoleonic Wargame Club (NWC)

Is this that you've got brigades in line next to eachother or you've got a big unit wich you can extend to the left or right flank?

2e luitenant
Maarten Roggeveen
Battaillon Jagers No27
1e brigade, 2de divisie
1e Corps
Anglo-Allied Army
[img]C:\Documents%20and%20Settings\maarten\Mijn%20documenten\Mijn%20afbeeldingen\dutchcoaarms.bmp[/img]

The latter.

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[url="http://home.arcor.de/dierk_walter/NWC/2nd_Dragoons.htm"][/url]
Maj. Gen. D.S. "Green Horse" Walter
~ 2nd Dragoons (Royal Scots Greys) ~
2nd (Union) Brigade, Anglo-Allied Cavalry Corps
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~ 3rd (Prince of Wales's) Dragoon Guards ~
[url="http://www.geocities.com/militaireacademie/"][/url]
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<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by D.S. Walter</i>
<br />The latter.

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[url="http://home.arcor.de/dierk_walter/NWC/2nd_Dragoons.htm"][/url]
Maj. Gen. D.S. "Green Horse" Walter
~ 2nd Dragoons (Royal Scots Greys) ~
2nd (Union) Brigade, Anglo-Allied Cavalry Corps
----------
~ 3rd (Prince of Wales's) Dragoon Guards ~
[url="http://www.geocities.com/militaireacademie/"][/url]
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<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
Sir do you mean the last one?

2e luitenant
Maarten Roggeveen
Battaillon Jagers No27
1e brigade, 2de divisie
1e Corps
Anglo-Allied Army
[img]C:\Documents%20and%20Settings\maarten\Mijn%20documenten\Mijn%20afbeeldingen\dutchcoaarms.bmp[/img]

Maarten,

Yes he does.[:)]

Col Mike Ellwood
Konig Regt
1 Bde, 22 Div
VII Saxon Corps, ADR

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Mike Ellwood</i>
<br />Maarten,

Yes he does.[:)]

Col Mike Ellwood
Konig Regt
1 Bde, 22 Div
VII Saxon Corps, ADR
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
Mine English is not good. But do you mean with the latter the latest?[xx(]

2e luitenant
Maarten Roggeveen
Battaillon Jagers No27
1e brigade, 2de divisie
1e Corps
Anglo-Allied Army
[img]C:\Documents%20and%20Settings\maarten\Mijn%20documenten\Mijn%20afbeeldingen\dutchcoaarms.bmp[/img]

Extended Line: There are two cases where Extended Line exists:

Battalians that used a 2 rank line (Jagers for Austria, British troops, etc.) had a wider frontage PERIOD. The use of Extended Line in the game is actually incorrect. These nations that used 2 rank line and were over 400-500 men should have a counter that automatically extends into a second hex.

Battalians that used a 3 rank line and which have over 700-800 men should also extend into a second hex automatically and not by player choice.

The extended line is a GAME FEATURE. Historically the unit didnt split into two halves. It didnt have two line formations it used.

Essentially everytime you put a unit into line that meets the qualifications above (if you want to be historical that is) it should be put into extended line if you want to be historical in your gaming.

Now the downside - its two units. It should be ONE unit and both should suffer the penalties together of ROUT, Melee loss, Disorder, etc. They should not separate into two distinct parts.

Extended line for this series dates back to the older Battleground Games (BGW, etc) by Talonsoft, programmed by John Tiller and probably something the Jim Rose or someone else wanted. Its truly a shame that we cant have the unit remain as ONE.

So if you want to be historically correct all of us should be extending the lines of any unit in our games that CAN do it.

But I personally dont recommend the use of Extended Line unless you are VERY good at this series. Its tempting to do but once you go into Extended Line and one part of the unit routs you will not be able to change formation again until BOTH parts of the unit are in Good order (not routed or disordered) and they must be adjacent to each other.

The benefits of Extended Line:

1. More firepower.
2. Covers more ground. Extra ZOCs as a result to help stop the enemy advance.

The disadvantages of Extended Line:

1. Not flexible.
2. Its too easy to lose unit cohesion.
3. When you recombine the fatigue is not averaged - the new fatigue level is that of the part that has the highest value.

Example: part 1 of the unit has 700 fatigue but part 2 only has 89. Your new fatigue level is 700.

4. Low ammo will apply to BOTH parts when you recombine.

As I said before the parts should remain as ONE unit. They should PIVOT when changing facing and it should cost MORE to do a facing change for these units. They also should disorder easier when on the move while in Extended Line.

Something else: large units while in COLUMN should have an extended Column. They should have a counter/base that takes up two hexes.

And this also should apply to GUNS as well. After all you CAN go into Extended Line with guns.

Colonel Bill Peters
Armee du Rhin - V Corps, Cavalerie du V Corps, 20ème légère Brigade de Cavalerie, 13ème Hussar Regiment
HPS Napoleonic Scenario Designer (Eckmuhl, Wagram, Jena-Auerstaedt and ... more to come)

Ok thank you Bill.[:D]

2e luitenant
Maarten Roggeveen
Battaillon Jagers No27
1e brigade, 2de divisie
1e Corps
Anglo-Allied Army
[img]C:\Documents%20and%20Settings\maarten\Mijn%20documenten\Mijn%20afbeeldingen\dutchcoaarms.bmp[/img]

And some notes on frontages: Al Amos and others have contributed alot in the past on this topic. Here is my take:

Each man takes up about 24-30 inches. The units packed in the men on the parade ground but in actual battlefield practice the distance between men would increase slightly.

But I will use those numbers to show when a unit should have to use Extended Line.

Here are some widths for each size battalian. First lets establish the width for ONE RANK in order to achieve Extended Line.

Each hex is 100 meters. Lets use one meter as our measure for each man. I measured myself and the value was 63.5 cm from shoulder to shoulder but naturally when swinging things around men tend to separate to avoid getting hit - even if they bring UP the musket to fire it there is the swinging of the backpack as the face to the side to fire. So I will use the value of 70 cms as some men were much larger than myself. And frankly that is a generous amount. It should probably be larger.

So basically one rank of 142 men would could essentially take up 100 meters in line formation.

So actually Extended Line should be thus:

284 men for two rank lines
436 men for three rank lines

But again, we can be generous. Lets say that the figure of 60 cm could be attained if men in the rank would step slightly to the REAR to reload. With this in mind the numbers are such:

330 men for two rank lines
500 men for three rank lines

Now lets look at the HPS game values for Extended Line:

Waterloo/NRC:
600 men for two rank lines
800 men for three rank lines

Eckmuhl/Wagram:
600 men for two rank lines
900 men for three rank lines

Jena:
300 men for two rank lines
500 men for three rank lines

So actually based on the numbers I used above, Jena comes the closest to portraying unit frontages.

Now here are some unit frontages for sample units in the game using the figures from Jena:

1000 men - 2 rank line - 3.5 hexes (example: large Guard bns. from Waterloo)

1000 men - 3 rank line - 2.3 hexes (example: average French bn. from the 1809 period)

So as you can see if you use an extended line with a large 2-rank battalian it could conceivably take up MORE frontage.

This is something to consider when you think of the French OG attack at Waterloo when faced by some of the British units. It must have been quite an impressive frontage of muskets that they ran into.

And even if you reduce my numbers a tad you still will run into much wider frontages than what Eckmuhl or NRC allows.

The only answer to my argument is that men would pull back out of their own rank to perform tasks. But what about when the bn. was lined up in formation, shoulder to shoulder? [;)]

Its pretty hard to get away from the fact that our numbers in the older games probably need to be reduced to portray actual frontages. And that in order for the British and other nations to get the FULL benefit of firepower (in Extended Line) that they will have to extend the frontage ...

But one argument to such a change might be that the hex frontages are flexible. For instance, would you want to penalize a bn. that takes up 120 meters and make it go into Extended Line because its just slightly over the hex frontage as portrayed in the game?

Going back to my comment in my earlier response: if we could get ONE-UNIT extended line then I would LOVE to use the formation. You could get a better firepower while allowing for more frontage as well.

Units in EL should disorder easier from movement (due to trying to keep such a long line from falling apart while moving). But they should not be two parts. Er, like today's response! [:D]

Colonel Bill Peters
Armee du Rhin - V Corps, Cavalerie du V Corps, 20ème légère Brigade de Cavalerie, 13ème Hussar Regiment
HPS Napoleonic Scenario Designer (Eckmuhl, Wagram, Jena-Auerstaedt and ... more to come)