Napoleonic Wargame Club (NWC)

Question: I am assuming that when a regular infantry battalion melees to destroy a bridge they achieve this not by shooting it or sticking it with bayonets. I would guess that they have axes to chop it up. Therefore is stands to reason that a regular infantry battalion on the other team would also have axes to repair said bridge. So should bridge repair be limited to pioneers? I ask this as I am playing my first Austerlitz game, at Ulm, and my very talented opponent has so far destroyed two bridges and so far I only have 2 pioneer units on the map. The way this looks to play out is that we will end up with two armies facing each other from opposite sides of the river with me, The French, very unlikely to force a crossing given the amount of time it takes for pioneers to repair bridges. I just don't believe that several thousand troops would sit idle waiting of 50 pioneers to show up.

Marechal Jonathan Thayer
Duc de Saalfeld et Prince de Friedland
1/10/III
Armee du Nord




jonathanthayer@bellsouth.net

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Jon Thayer</i>
<br />Question: I am assuming that when a regular infantry battalion melees to destroy a bridge they achieve this not by shooting it or sticking it with bayonets. I would guess that they have axes to chop it up.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Actually the bridges were usually destroyed by burning them. It requires generally the burning material like straw, branches and tar. Using them didn't require any tools.

Hence, no. Such an ability of troops does not necessaryly imply their ability to rebuild bridges.

On the other hand there are numerous examples when bridges were rebuilt by nonengineer units. The case of Toefelbrucke being the most difficult of them (and apparently the most difficult river crossing of the era). So, yes, units probably ought to have such an ability. What should it look like - I don't know.

<center></center>
<center><b>Eyo Imperatorskogo Velichestva Leib-Kirassirskogo polku
General-Adjutant Anton Valeryevich Kosyanenko
Commander of the Second Army of the West </b></center>

The Pioneer type (P) in the OB file cannot form square. It also cannot detach a skirmisher.

So I could code every unit to be a "P" type but then it would cause other issues.

What scenario are you playing? Give me the scenario file name and I will take a look at it.

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, Austerlitz and ... more to come)
Not the President of the Musket and Cannon Club

The scenario is from the campaign and it involves the encirclement of Ulm. I don't really mind that they get destroyed except that it, in my opinion, seems to disrupt the flow of the game. In my case in the current scenario I have the choice of massing at the destroyed bridge and waiting on 95 men to repair it or I can "chase" crossings down the river to Ulm. I guess this can all be atributed to this being a game and the Austrians know the French are coming. As good as our "fog of war" is there is really no way around that part of it. And now that I have thought about it more even if regular infantry could rebuild them it would still take several hours which is a long time in a 10 minute turn game. Oh well...

Marechal Jonathan Thayer
Duc de Saalfeld et Prince de Friedland
1/10/III
Armee du Nord




jonathanthayer@bellsouth.net

Well frankly the French have the numbers in these Ulm situations so its not a huge issue. There are plenty of crossing locations on the map. I made sure of that. There is no way that the Austrians can interdict the entire length of the river.

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, Austerlitz and ... more to come)
Not the President of the Musket and Cannon Club

Many bridges were very important to the local economy, and armies knew that, also they realized they may need that bridge again, so they would just remove the planking and pile them up on the 'wrong' side of the river for the enemy. Pioneer units would have the tools and supplies (nails, etc) to replace them, something regular infantry units probably would not have with them.

Colonel Al Amos
1ère Brigade Commandant, 2ème Division de Dragons "Gare aux Dragons!"
Ier Corps de Réserve de Cavalerie "Vae Victis!"
L'Armée du Nord