Napoleonic Wargame Club (NWC)

Not much of a game to see but some interesting stuff can be found here, especially under the links to Battles and Periodic Potshots:
http://www.napoleonsims.com/default.htm

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Just a TON of information.

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Ernie Sands
1ère Brigade of 2ème Division de Grosse Cavalerie, Réserve de Cavalerie
de la Grande Armée
President, Colonial Campaigns Club

Under his Napoleonic Artillery section he says this:

"It should be pointed out that an individual human figure can't be made out much beyond a 1000 yards so that these effective ranges matched what could be targeted using just the naked eye."

Well sorry .. they were not aiming for individual men. They were using skip-bouncing type shots at long range with ball. The idea here is that they would see a GROUP of men, easy to pick out at over 1000 yards. Trying to learn how to properly skip the ball into the ranks of soldiers is no mean feat.

But it had nothing to do with aiming a round to hit an individual.

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Generalfeldmarschall Wilhelm Prinz Peters von Dennewitz

3. Husaren-Regiment, Reserve-Kavallerie, Preußischen Armee-Korps

Honarary CO of Garde-Ulanen Regiment, Garde-Grenadier Kavallerie

NWC Founding Member

For Club Games: I prefer the Single Phase mode of play. I prefer to play with the following options OFF:

MDF, VP4LC, NRO, MTD, CMR, PR, MIM, NDM, OMR (ver 4.07)

I guess the point here is the performance of a naked eye and what you can make out, what you can't make out can't be targeted. I doubt that many officers used something to expand their range, surely no battery commander.
Even if we can inflict any damage to them seeing a unit of 3XX men 6km way is pretty silly.

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6 kilometers in the Nap series is 60 hexes, right? 1 kilometer is 10 hexes. And we are talking being on the same elevation.

Also: Visual distance is increased if the shooter is on higher ground than the target. Its something that our games do not take into account.

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Generalfeldmarschall Wilhelm Prinz Peters von Dennewitz

3. Husaren-Regiment, Reserve-Kavallerie, Preußischen Armee-Korps

Honarary CO of Garde-Ulanen Regiment, Garde-Grenadier Kavallerie

NWC Founding Member

For Club Games: I prefer the Single Phase mode of play. I prefer to play with the following options OFF:

MDF, VP4LC, NRO, MTD, CMR, PR, MIM, NDM, OMR (ver 4.07)

Some considerable time (I think Columbus had one!) prior to the Napoleonic wars, most naval officers regularly used telescopes or at least primitive versions of them. It is easy to consider the ease of transfer onto land. Seeing a man at about a kilometre is relatively easy; at 2 kilometres harder. After that a telescope might be needed (if he kept his head down).

Seeing a unit of around 500 or so men marching together wouldn't be too much of a problem out to 4km (provided the ground allowed it) and masses of men could be seen quite well at longer distances (particularly if they moved). Experience would provide the foot, horse, guns differences (movement over the ground). Now add in the telescope... Much easier.

No brigade commander, engineer, artillery commander would be with out one. A general officer without a telescope during the wars would've been an unique bird indeed.

Firing a cannon at a 500 man infantry unit 1.5 to 2km away is still far easier than trying to hit a single person with a cannon ball at a much less distance. Hitting the unit or the man depends a lot more on all of the variables (call it dice) coming together. It still helps to have the guns ranged in when sitting in a defensive position.

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Général Mark Oakford
Duc de Smolensk, Comte d'Autun
Commandant
Réserve de Cavalerie, La Grande Armée