Anton:
Numbering of Cav: Bowden does this. I used his numbering and he must have had good reason to use it. Goetz did not use a numbering system but I do not plan on changing this. I contacted Mr. Bowden about it this is what he had to say:
"In the 1970s and 1980s when I was gathering documents for the Austerlitz book, the way I got Russian documents was through a very long and tedious process working with the military attache at the Soviet Embassy in Washington DC. I recall that it took over 6 years to complete the process. All my docs came via that pipeline and was replicated in the Austerlitz book as it was presented to me."
So Anton: the information he used were from Russian sources!
But its not a huge issue. If you dont like it, copy the OBs and the scenarios, rename them, change the OB name in the scenario and then change whatever you like about the OBs.
Grenadiers: Bowden considered them elites as well but here I differ with him: there was one grenadier bn. per Musketeer regiment and when combined together with other grenadiers they were a good unit but not particularly noteworthy. Their musketeer counterparts often performed just as well. The Russian grenader REGIMENTS (named) had two fusilier bns. and one grenadier bn. They were not as good as the French elites. They were not as flexible nor at Austerlitz did they perform particularly well either. You will note that I gave the Pavlov grenadiers a better rating than the rest. But by and large the Russian grenadier was in name only. Yes, better soldiers but I disagree with Bowden. They were not elite. I only rate the Guards as elite and then they were not as good as the French Old Guard for instance.
Dragoon: I quote Bowden:
"the dragoons were officered by men of lower class" they were a second class cavalry unit when compared to the average dragoon of Europe. There is no way I am going to rate them as good as the Austrians!
"Possessing smaller, weaker animals ..." (than the cuirassiers)
They were not up to the standards of the European dragoons and certainly not the British dragoons! Definitely not as good as a Prussian dragoon of this period.
The French cavalry suffered from a lack of good horses as well but yet seemed to hold their own very well against your Russians.
I will consider making an exception to this for the St. Petersburg DR as you mention they were valorous. But frankly speaking, the rest of them were not up to the standards of the rest of the Europeans.
Artillery: I went by my sources. I recently went over the composition of a Russian battery but in the case of 1805 I know that guns were lost along the way from the Danube valley to Austerlitz. Thus what was once a 12 gun battery was now only 8-10 guns. The mud made movement for artillery in particular very difficult.
Paco may be able to chime in with some comments as well as he and I poured over the OBs together. He was absolutely invaluable when it came to spotting mistakes I had made in the OBs.
Changes I will make: morale, names, weapon type.
Changes I will not make: strengths, composition of batteries (such as breaking them down into different sized companies)
I simply would not have the time to go back and give all of the Russians a company number. You will note I didnt do this with the Austrians either yet they had a distinct battery number too!
Finally, I wont overly argue my reasons why I chose to rate a unit. Too much was put into this game to go back and change it all again (as I have done in the past). None of us will ever agree on the ratings. I think that pretty much sums up my feelings on the topic. Its just not worth raising the blood pressure over ...
[;)]
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)
NWC
Login
FAQ
</center>
