Napoleonic Wargame Club (NWC)

<font face="Comic Sans MS"><font size="3"><font color="yellow">I do not recall seeing this particular subject come up in the past, so, I will ask. In reviewing the PDT, I noted that the 9lb foot and 9lb horse guns have different values. Likewise with the non-Prussian 6lb foot and horse. The difference in maximum range I can understand, with horse guns being lighter due to shorter barrels, but at ranges 1 & 2, the horse guns are more powerful. As a matter of fact, the 6lb horse is as powerful as a 12lb gun, and the 9lb horse is more powerful than the 12lb gun. Why is this so? This makes no sense to me, since they would be firing the same projectiles as the foot battery guns, and neither of them should be more powerful than a 12lb gun.</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 wasn't aware that horse guns have shorter barrels, but if they do, there would be your explanation. At short ranges they would fire canister, and a shorter barrel means a wider cone, i.e. the projectiles spread out more, cover a wider area, kill or maim more people. Make sense?

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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, 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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Good point Dierk, and this cone of fire is why cannister is overrated.

Many folks think that at point blank range you have a good chance of stopping a charge but in fact its the disordering of a unit at further range that was more effective.

I don't play Waterloo much so never noted this. But if in fact they were shorter that would account for Rich and Charlie using those values.

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!

I think this is a hangover from Battleground. The idea being that horse artillery due to it's tactical flexibility was more capable in close. There are some examples of this in history actually. Was it Mercer at Waterloo who blasted the French cavalry to a stand still by double shotting his guns.

Bill I am not sure that Canister was as ineffective as you say. Most of the times I think tactically the infantry would avoid a run right into the head of the guns and would move slightly to the flanks.

Canisters fan out effect was designed to counter this problem and allow the gunners some better close in defense. But I would say a direct frontal assault of an artillery battery at close range would produce some pretty horrendous casualties. This was certainly the case at Borodino for example.

At Wagram there was a lot of space to manuever this tends to counter the artillery threat once units got close also I think the Austrian artillery was some of the worst trained of the Napoleonic wars.

Borodino was more of a bottleneck situation hence the massive casualties that day that exceeded even the Somme as a proportion of combatants.

The close in use of artillery often proved quite decisive in the N wars. The unveiling of the French 12pdr battery at one point on the Pratzen is one possible example, or the French artillery at Friedland and the Russian grand battery at Eylau. The latter virtually eradicated an entire corp that stumbled out of the mist to be in front of a 70 odd gun battery.

I believe in HPS it is to easy to frontly assault batteries mainly because the attacking force should really have an automatic morale check for such action and this does not occur.

A historical example of this is the French assaulting the great redoubt at Borodino. They had to try numerous times before finally succeeding. The effort was pretty huge and included using massed cavalry.

I recall the redoubt was garrissoned by only 18 guns I may be incorrect on that. Compare that to the resources the French tossed against it and you get an idea as to how effective artillery close in could be.

At Waterloo there can be no doubt had the French pushed forward more artillery with their cavarly assault they would have done some pretty terrible damage. As it stands I think it was only 1 horse battery that got forward and it's effect was devastating.

This decisive influence of artillery up close at Waterloo is further illustrated when the Le Haye Farmhouse fell and Ney brought a battery up into close range threatening the British centre. At this point the whole allied line wavered and it was really the moment that prompted Wellington to describe the battle as 'a near run thing'.

Artillery was the decisive weapon I think in the Napoleonic wars and prompted N to say 'it is with artillery we make war'

I am happy with its representation on offense in HPS but on defense I believe it is lacking not so much due to casualites it inflicts (assuming it fires) but more due to the lack of morale test on the attacker

Just my 5 cents Bill.

Salute








General de Brigade Knox
Grand Duc d'Austerlitz et Comte de Argentan



Escadron Mamelouks
Chasseurs a'Cheval
Division de Cavalerie la Vieille Garde.





CO. 1er Brigade, II Heavy Cavalry Division, Reserve Cavalry.
http://www.aspire.co.nz/colinknoxnwc.htm

The melee routine has all of this built in actually.

I used to think that it was the result of hand to hand combat but its not.

For example: if the Attacker loses this reflects that they stopped to fire.

If they Disorder while attempting to melee that probably should lead to them not being able to melee. An option allowing for this would be nice.

No, I am not saying that cannister was NOT effective but just not as effective as it is thought to be. Certainly not enough to STOP most melees from happening. Again, I think it should all come down to some sort of Disorder option.

Another thing: folks told me sometime back that guns were too easy to take. Actually this can be tweaked in the PDT file for the value for artillery guns for melee. Here are the various values for each game:

Eckmuhl/Wagram: 20/gun
NRC/Waterloo: 8/gun
Jena: 30/gun
Austerlitz: 40/gun

Quite a variance I would say.

Ok, what this all means (is that Rich H. and I should standardize a bit on this!) is that if you have 8 guns in a hex that they are worth 160 men in EC/WC, 64 men in NRC/Waterloo, 240 men in Jena and 320 men in Austerlitz.

If you have 12 guns just take those figures and increase by half. So for Austerlitz its 480 which is why in that title its harder to take out guns in a melee than in other games.

So if you increase the melee value of artillery it helps them to survive a melee. But there should never be a guarantee that they will stop a 500 man bn. for instance.



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 Colin Knox</i>
<br />Artillery was the decisive weapon I think in the Napoleonic wars and prompted N to say 'it is with artillery we make war'

I am happy with its representation on offense in HPS but on defense I believe it is lacking not so much due to casualites it inflicts (assuming it fires) but more due to the lack of morale test on the attacker<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Very well said – I think there was a lot more respect for artillery in old Battleground series than in HPS.

When I first tried HPS - I felt artillery was hardly doing any damage and was also very vulnerable and ineffective on defense (due to Automatic Defense fire). I am glad that artillery FP was increased in the recent HPS titles however I feel there might be still more room for improvement.

Artillery surely should to do more morale damage -so in fact any other arm should eg. musket, bayonet - which is kind of related to the grand issue of having unhistorical high casualties in HPS battles.

HPS soldiers are just too deadly and too tough while in reality battles were won by breaking the enemy’s morale not just killing everyone.

I wish we could have some improvements in this area tp avoid a complex house rules like H&R.


Major Alexey Tartyshev
Moscow Grenadiers Regiment
2nd Grenadier Division
8th Infantry Corps
2nd Army of the West (NWC)

Again, you have to consider the role of artillery. And even with grand batteries they did not stop the advance of an army. Napoleon/Ney formed grand batteries at Waterloo and they did not bother the British.

The same can be said of the 1813 campaign as well. Frankly the forming of the grand battery robbed the units of artillery support.

MacDonald's ranks were hit hard at Wagram due to round shot and not canister. Its one of the better remembered instances of a grand battery firing on a massed group of men. And that was the dreaded Hollow Square that he formed to help keep the men in formation.

One wonders how the GB would have fared against the 1805 French marching up in skirmish and column/line formation with adequate gaps between the troops. Still would have caused casualties but would not have stopped them cold.

I was told by several that the value for cavalry being increased in a charge was good as the HPS cavalry takes alot of incidental losses and gets whittled down very quickly (am seeing this in our MP Austerlitz game) by artillery and infantry fire. So the move to 4/5x was justified.

If you consider that the artillery can limber up and move away before an enemy can come into contact with them in the 10 min. move system then really you get to cause damage AND at the same time escape to a better location.

In the end you have to use the terrain to your advantage as well as proper troop placement.

Suggestion: for anyone wanting to see how a player can do this: let Tomasz play the Prussians in Jena. Probably no better player exists in the club on how to setup an artillery cordon of fire.

Good luck trying to take HIS guns! [:D]

Its one reason why I am in the French army! (HINT HINT HINT!)

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!

Gents,

Several key areas have been discussed here which I totally agree with and is a major weakness of the HPS system:

1. Moral Effect on units charging to melee - It is almost automatic that you can ensure a melee goes in and is successful. This is wrong and there should be a test that STOPS units doing a FRONTAL melee attack. Very few actual frontal attack melees were resolved IN THE OPEN by hand to hand contact. MOST were resolved by the steadiness of the DEFENDER!! I HATE to say it but even the L'Guard was stopped in this way in the end [:(!]. I want the ability of a non disordered inf unit to stop by fire an attacker of ANY strength. And if they do not then the chance that result will mean they could rout prior to the attack hitting home (both rout in place and be meleed as sush or rout away and out of melee contact). This goes for attacking Cav as well but obviously ONLY if the inf get its best volley away and the cav moral test is a low one.

2. Artillery effects - the number of factors that go into this subject are numerous and varied in such a way that it would be extremely difficult to please all. The horse battery barrels were not necesarily shorter to get better close in effect but were mainly lighter in the size of the gun and its carriage. Also the time and space a unit had to cover the ground would have an effect espeically if the unit was not loaded with cannister and its attackers could get to it with the bty firing only one shot of roundshot and no cannister. Cannister was deadly from hvy arty out to even 400m - but if the guns were spread widely then if you got within 50m the effect was actually reduced (frotage able to be covered by the blast was actually less!) It was the ability to fire the appropriate ammo at the appropriate range in the approprite conditions with MULTIPLE shots that had the best effect (ground condition, , skill and experience of the crews, quality and steadiness of the tgt are all major impacted factors as well!). These vast number of factors and conditions must be hard to replicate Im sure (although not impossible Im also sure [;)] ). The same factors still hold true today in the use of artillery.

3. The element of Surprise is missing - Is it possible to have a system where if a unit gets a huge increase in its threat factor in one turn it could be considered 'surprised' and a moral check with an additional 'threat' factor to replicate the surprise is added?
Is it possible that the threat factors are only calculated on units that are visible to the threatened unit (360 degrees of course not just frontal)? As unseen enemy have little effect on a unit once in action - it is only the immediate area around them they focus on once in the 'fog' of battle (both visually and mentally). Just a thought [:D]

On #1. Well like I said, melees take that into account. They are not hand to hand. And I just lost two key melees in Austerlitz where I had the numbers on the infantry. If I had been stopped in the melee that reflects what you saying. The Defender stopped me with fire or my men stopped to 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!

I like that point of view on melee Bill it makes sense, after all the game is an abstract representation. Also its great you made the artillery and cav stronger.

I will add like Bill says if you setup properly in HPS the artillery is very deadly. The Auto defesive fire is good because it allows you to dominate an area of the field with your batteries. In BG you would have to wait until they were adjacent to fire at the enemy.

I prefer HPS to BG any day.

Bill one note though in a tourney game I am playing under the Jena engine I meleed a arty/inf stack and lost but still destroyed all of the guns as the engine seems to assign the casualties to the guns first. I have seen this before. Perhaps this could be adjusted and your argument about the 'abstract melee' would be more robust.

General de Brigade Knox
Grand Duc d'Austerlitz et Comte de Argentan



Escadron Mamelouks
Chasseurs a'Cheval
Division de Cavalerie la Vieille Garde.





CO. 1er Brigade, II Heavy Cavalry Division, Reserve Cavalry.
http://www.aspire.co.nz/colinknoxnwc.htm