Napoleonic Wargame Club (NWC)

<font face="Comic Sans MS"><font size="3"><font color="yellow">I have finally joined the 21st Century, and gotten my first HPS Napoleonic game. One of the first things I always do with a new game is examine the weapons tables in the PDT. In this case I found 2 things that puzzle me, and I am hoping someone can provide the reason for the numbers being what they are. 1) I can understand the shorter range, but why do the 9lb horse, and 6lb horse guns have greater firepower at range 1 and 2 than their foot counterparts? Is this perhaps to simulate their getting into action faster, so they can get more shots off? 2) Why does the British Musket have greater firepower than the other muskets? Is this due to a technological superiority of the weapon, or perhaps due to the effects of the British tactic of "Rolling Fire"</font id="Comic Sans MS"></font id="size3"></font id="yellow">

<font color="yellow">2nd Lieutenant Willie Davis
Light Bn Luneburg</font id="yellow">

I think the British musket values mainly reflect high discipline and steadiness and the holding back of fire until the range was very close, therefore giving a big increase in effectiveness. It is possibly also an abstract way of simulating the brutal British bayonet charge which often followed a volley and which would break the enemy. This ability isn't otherwise factored into the melee values so perhaps the increased firepower also simulates the morale effect of this instead.[?]

<center>[url="http://homepage.ntlworld.com/a.r.barlow/nwc/nwc_personal_record.htm"]Major General Antony Barlow[/url]
~ [url="http://home.scarlet.be/~tsh40803/AAA/Brit.html"]2nd British (Union) Brigade, Cavalry Division, II Corps, Anglo-Allied Army[/url] ~
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~ [url="http://home.scarlet.be/~tsh40803/AAA/BritGuardHorse.html"]4th (Royal Irish) Dragoon Guards[/url] ~
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Well for one that British actually shot their weapons in practice. The Brown Bess was not a better musket than the rest of the Continental armies' weapon. It was just that the British actually did some training with a musket and from what I have heard it was daily or something along those lines. 1 shot per man per day.

I have always wanted the First Fire benefit in all of our musket games. EAW has it and its correct. The first shot from a musket was more deadly than the rest. Not by a great margin but especially when held for in-close fire.

Colonel Bill Peters, 17th Dragoons, III Corps, French Army
HPS Napoleonic Scenario Designer (Eckmuhl, Wagram, Jena-Auerstaedt, Austerlitz and ... more to come)
Swiss-Swedish Army CinC, Musket and Cannon Game Club - Come over and see what we are all about!

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Bill Peters</i>
I have always wanted the First Fire benefit in all of our musket games. EAW has it and its correct. The first shot from a musket was more deadly than the rest. Not by a great margin but especially when held for in-close fire.
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Might be that this is more of a factor with 5 minute turns (EAW) than with 10 or 15 minute turns ... [?]

<center>
[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, Cavalry Division, Anglo-Allied II Corps
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~ 3rd (Prince of Wales's) Dragoon Guards ~
[url="http://home.scarlet.be/~tsh40803/AAA/BritGuardHorse.html"][/url]
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An increased in effect for the first volley would be a great thing to be able to achieve within the game but Im not sure how that would work with auto def fire?[?]

It would be great to be able to choose and have that up your sleeve at the tactical level for sure! Something I'd love to see.

Col Mike Ellwood
Commander Officer
3rd Dragoon Division
Reserve Cavalry

I really think it might be hard to justify with 10 or even 15 minutes turns. Even in 10 minutes, good infantry would fire minimum 20 volleys from smoothbores, but more likely 30. Thus a bonus for the first, and only the first, shot within even a 10-minute turn could not justifyably be higher than 1/20 = 5% of the standard effectiveness. You'd hardly notice.

Edit: Just to elaborate, that +5% would mean that you consider that first volley a full 100% more effective than the following ones. If it's only 50% as effective, the increase would only be 2.5% over the course of a 10 minute turn.
For a 15 minute turn, and seeing how 3 volleys per minute are more likely realistic for good infantry, even a 100% bonus for the first volley would result only in a 1/45 increase of the standard effectiveness, or 2.22%. If it's only 50%, obviously, the figure would go down to 1.11%. Whatever the calculation, the effect would be so negligible as to hardly warrant the trouble of introducing it into the game.

<center>
[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, Cavalry Division, Anglo-Allied II Corps
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~ 3rd (Prince of Wales's) Dragoon Guards ~
[url="http://home.scarlet.be/~tsh40803/AAA/BritGuardHorse.html"][/url]
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Very true Dierk. Probably something that is not worth pursuing for sure. (and there are other ideas more worthy anyway)

Colonel Bill Peters, 17th Dragoons, III Corps, French Army
HPS Napoleonic Scenario Designer (Eckmuhl, Wagram, Jena-Auerstaedt, Austerlitz and ... more to come)
Swiss-Swedish Army CinC, Musket and Cannon Game Club - Come over and see what we are all about!

We can go into the enth detail if you want to justify not having it but as the game is an abstract and I feel the first volley effect is something definitely a factor at the tactical level it is not such a bad thing to include.
Yes i agree if you break it down to the 10-15min turn it should have little effect but its not so much the casualty effect alone but the moral and instant casualty shock of an effective and controlled first volly. Something that was unlikely to be able to be repeated within a battle unless troops are disengaged re-ordered, weapons re-ordered and confidence is maintained.
So basically i think it is a nice abstract touch to include for a tactical aspect of the game. It would give fresh troops an added factor late in a game too!

Col Mike Ellwood
Commander Officer
3rd Dragoon Division
Reserve Cavalry

Well it could be argued that on occasions it only took ONE well executed and murderous volley from close range (followed by a bayonet charge) to break an enemy and that would be the first volley fired. So in a sense Mike does has a point... Whether it could be usefully implemented in the game is debatable though...

<center>[url="http://homepage.ntlworld.com/a.r.barlow/nwc/nwc_personal_record.htm"]Major General Antony Barlow[/url]
~ [url="http://home.scarlet.be/~tsh40803/AAA/Brit.html"]2nd British (Union) Brigade, Cavalry Division, II Corps, Anglo-Allied Army[/url] ~
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~ [url="http://home.scarlet.be/~tsh40803/AAA/BritGuardHorse.html"]4th (Royal Irish) Dragoon Guards[/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 Antony Barlow</i>
<br />Well it could be argued that on occasions it only took ONE well executed and murderous volley from close range (followed by a bayonet charge) to break an enemy and that would be the first volley fired.
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But isn't that rather a moral factor? I think one might say that these "occasional" first volleys that break a unit are already represented within the game by the odd chance that even a good unit routs the first time it's being fired upon.

<center>
[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, Cavalry Division, Anglo-Allied II Corps
----------
~ 3rd (Prince of Wales's) Dragoon Guards ~
[url="http://home.scarlet.be/~tsh40803/AAA/BritGuardHorse.html"][/url]
</center>