Napoleonic Wargame Club (NWC)

Thanks, Mike.
You have understood us good, and we agree.
Vive le Tondu!

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Général de Brigade Christian Rizo

Dear NWC memebrs

Interesting discussion! I believe that I would also have agree with Anton and others who say that Cossacks should not be singled out for any further special restrictions. I also agree with Todd's suggestion that squadrons or half-squadrons of cavalry should all be treated as skirmishers in that melees against them could be conducted before any embedded melee phase.

Cossacks certainly did have an organic military culture about them that made them act more as scout, skirmisher, or guerrilla units by and large. Then again, as has been noted here, the exceptions to this rule are numerous enough to allow us to assume that they could indeed function as battlefield cavalry in all sorts of circumstances. As for the comment about the possible unreliability of sources "from only one aspect" [Russian sources] that describe the battlefield exploits of cossacks against formed troops, I would like to add that absolutely all sources are biased, but all have something valuable we can glean from them, and that the number of Russian accounts attesting to cossacks' battlefield role against formed troops should not be discounted until "vetted" by other sources (instead, why not consider such accounts reliable until disproved?). I believe the restrictions placed on cossacks already do a very good job of limiting their ability to act as battlefield cavalry unless grouped in large numbers: a good approximation of what happened in reality.

I have no problem with saying that melee attacks against isolated squadrons or half-squadrons of cavalry should be allowed at any point, as long as this rule would cover all cavalry units. After all, why should a 50-man chasseur squadron be allowed to stop a 2,000-man stack of infantry, while a cossack unit of similar strength not be allowed to do so?

A sidenote: as to Ghengis' question "Why would the Tsar make arrangements to field over 32,000 "useless" light cavalry?" The answer, as far as I can tell, lies less in their battlefield effectiveness, then in the fact that the Tsar did not have to spend any state funds to raise these regiments: they were self-organized and equipped.