Napoleonic Wargame Club (NWC)

In the current Garde's Challenge game at Borodino I just suffered the heaviest loss to one shot I have ever seen. I had 5 battalions stacked after a melee and the Russians moved a horse battery up, unlimbered and fired and my losses ranged from 80 to 140 with a total loss of over 500 men. Rather incredible....

Marechal Jonathan Thayer
Comte de Vienne
1e/1er Regiment de Chasseurs a Pied de la Vieille Garde
1/11/III
Armee du Nord

Col
Old North State Guard
2/3/III
Army of Northern Virginia

jonathanthayer@bellsouth.net

Hi Jon,

we will teach you to hate (our) russian batteries! [;)]

(rather lucky shot, IMHO, but, well, I've lost 250 men to one shot of russian battery in BG ...)

GM. Pavel Stafa
Kommanduyuschiy Korpusom Rezerva
2-oy Zapadnoy armii EIV

Ouch!

Oberst-Lt Wilhelm Peters
2nd Kuirassiers, Austrian Army

Gentlemen
That does appear to be very bad luck, but bad luck normally improves, just as good luck normally runs out[:D]

Field Marshal Sir "Lucky" Jim (K.G.)
Army Commander
Allied/Dutch Army

"And let my sword not sleep in my hand"

Bad luck brought on by bad deployment, maybe?

If you ordered 2,000 men to squeeze into a space the size of a football field (soccer or US) where direct arty fire could be brought to bear, then I would say it was bad luck. Bad luck for the troops having to follow that order. [:)]

Colonel (ret) Al Amos
1er Dragoons
AdN

I agree that I did have too many men stacked in one hex and I expected losses after their attack. What I thought was a little severe was that a horse battery was able to inflict such damage after moving into position to fire.

Marechal Jonathan Thayer
Comte de Vienne
1e/1er Regiment de Chasseurs a Pied de la Vieille Garde
1/11/III
Armee du Nord

Col
Old North State Guard
2/3/III
Army of Northern Virginia

jonathanthayer@bellsouth.net

I have seen things nearly like that happen regularly at Borodino (HPS) with density modifier and column pass-through. 3-4 big columns in a hex, a nice 12-gun battery, that's 60-80 men per shot per enemy column. Can't say I've seen 500, but 300+ was fairly common.

Général de Division D.S. "Green Horse" Walter
Commandant [url="http://home.arcor.de/dierk_Walter/NWC/3_VI_AdR_Home.htm"]3ème Division[/url], VIème Corps Bavarois, L'Armée du Rhin

Was it that my battery north of Kolocha river, from 2 hexes? [:o)]

GM. Pavel Stafa
Kommanduyuschiy Korpusom Rezerva
2-oy Zapadnoy armii EIV

From one extreme to the next. From "artillery is not powerful enough" to "its too powerful."

Melee results get the same acclaim - from "10 guys stopped my 500 men" to "I would think that 100 men in a village would be able to stop 500 men for at least 15 minutes."

Is there a happy medium? I dont know as I dont go to seances! [:D]

Trying to read Tarot cards about the results wont help either. [;)]

Palm readers will just tell you to go seek therapy for Carpal Tunnel syndrom. [:p]

And magicians are the worst! They will make your PC dissappear without a trace! [8D]

Then you get into the discussion on the size of batteries. The russians have the largest at 12 guns each but their values are reduced when compared to their French counterparts. Then there is on 10 gun battery in the French army in Eckmuhl. After that its the standard 8 gun battery of the French and sometimes Austrians.

After that the 6 gun battery.

Is one Russian 12 gun battery worth two French 6 gun batteries. Well at the point of impact yes but in the long run no. Since ammo is plentiful in this game I would prefer the smaller batteries despite their drop in firepower.

On the other hand with the game's probability to A/I ADF will two batteries of 6lb guns fire as often as ONE 12 gun battery? Probably not. Thus on defense the 12 gun batteries might have an edge but for their ability to present cross fire the two 6 gun batteries are better.

Yes, you can split the Russian batteries in half but then you really lose some punch. After all they are not worth as much as their French counterparts. And if I am not mistaken the halves cannot limber up and move away. You have to put them back together again.

Thus size in the fire equation and fire rating (D for Russian horse guns) coupled with modifiers and so on makes up the total.

Are the results historical?

I tended to go with Dierk and Al on the fire values of my more recent patches. Not that I used them verbatim but if you will note the fire values in Eckmuhl and Wagram were reduced overall and most dramatically at close in range.

I am thinking of increasing the mid range value a bit to more coincide with their line of thinking that this was where they were most lethal.

Add in 10 minute moves and you can fire at 5 hexes, then even if the infantry advances 4 hexes you can limber up the guns and move away.

I suspect Jon that you did hit the upper limits. Just figure that those guys will not have to undergo the Retreat from Moscow! [:D]

Oberst-Lt Wilhelm Peters
2nd Kuirassiers, Austrian Army