Napoleonic Wargame Club (NWC)

Hey folks - what is your verdict on French lancers?

Would you rate them as per Chasseurs or Hussars?

How about French dragoons? As per Chasseur morale or Hussars?

Just curious on how folks think on these troop types.

Bill Peters
HPS Napoleonic Scenario Designer (Eckmuhl, Wagram and ... more to come)

[url="http://www.fireandmelee.net"]Fire and Melee Wargame site[/url]

Lancer's I'd see in between Chasseurs and Hussars more on the Chasseurs side.

Dragoon's are Hussars or higher.

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I would place lancers little bit higher then chasseurs. After all lancers were elite troops and French used them at Waterloo to match Scots Grays (Scots used quite big and strong horses and they were probably the finest cavalry in Europe at the time).

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<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by rizvanon</i>
<br />I would place lancers little bit higher then chasseurs. After all lancers were elite troops and French used them at Waterloo to match Scots Grays (Scots used quite big and strong horses and they were probably the finest cavalry in Europe at the time).


<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

All British cavalry not just Scots Greys had big horses, they weren't just on their own in the charge you forget another two regiments of Hvy Dragoons took part and any light cavalry would be a match for blown horses and exhausted men after that charge.

They were highly vulnerable to a counter attack by French cavalry and that is precisely what happened. They were attacked from the front by cuirassiers coming from behind the grand battery, but the fate of the Union Brigade was sealed by Jaquinot's lancers and chasseurs who rode across from the east and cut of the line of retreat.[:(]


Answering the question -

French Lancers would be more rated like Chasseurs than Hussars.

Dragoons more like Chasseurs or in-between them both..

<b><center><font color="red">
Captain
2nd Battlion
95th Regiment of Foot
II Corps
Anglo-Allied Army</font id="red"></center></b>


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Bill,

To answer your 2nd question first, I would rate the morale of French dragoons through 1810 as being on a par with their chasseurs. French dragoons were NOT an elite cavalry force, they were drawn from the same recruitment pool as the chasseurs and simply received slightly bigger horses, helmets and swords rather than sabres[:o)]. Their low esteem is reflected by the fact that, until the capture of the Prussian/Saxon horse farms in 1806, up to a quarter of the dragoon sqds lacked mounts and were brigaded into "foot" rgts. Their battlefield performance was a distinct disappointment in the 1805 Campaign and was only marginally better in 1806-7. Their service in Spain, 1808-13, did serve as a school of VERY hard knocks for the French dragoons and the rgts recalled to Central Europe for the 1813 Campaign were the best cavalry that the French fielded. It should not be forgotten, however, that these "Spanish" rgts were the ONLY veteran cav left after the Russian debacle.[:p]

As to your 1st question, the 6 "French" lancer rgts were converted dragoon rgts, so whatever morale you assign the dragoons should carry over. The 2 line, "Polish" lancer rgts should be rated as per the hussars.

Regards,

Paco

<i>Maréchal M. Francisco Palomo
Prince d'Essling, Grande Duc d'Abrantes et
Comte de Marseille
Commandant - Division de Cavalerie de la Vieille Garde </i>
AdC - <i>Ieré Corps de Armee</i>

Thanks guys. Good info. I would tend to agree with Paco for the most part on the morale ratings but give the dragoons a heavy rating after 1806 due to the remounts available from the Prussians.

Thus:
Dragoons
Pre 1806: morale 4 - Light
1807-1810: morale 4 - Heavy
1811-1815: morale 5 - Heavy

Lancers
Morale 5 - Lancer rating (all values post 1807 of course as they were created after this period of time)

Note on morales: I have decided to reduce morales by one step for all future games and will review the morales in EC and WC as well. I am not sure that the next EC/WC patches will reflect the changes. I do know that we see units taking far too many losses without breaking. Also rallying of French tended to be better than Allies. Once the Allies broke they tended to not rally as quickly. This will be reflected in the Command and Leadership ratings in all future titles. Again, it would depend on the period, army, etc. This is NOT a blanket statement.

I am loathe to reduce the Austrian morales in EC/WC as they have far fewer units as a rule (if you count skirmishers) and the loss of a 1200 man bn. tends to leave a bigger hole than a 700 man Fr. bn. I must admit that its more of a balance issue than trying to be historically accurate BUT I also do not want to violate the latter. Each army had their weak points and for the Austrians the larger bn. concept tended to put too many eggs in one basket. Thus I will review the entire series of games I do or have done with these two concepts in mind.

Bill Peters
HPS Napoleonic Scenario Designer (Eckmuhl, Wagram and ... more to come)

[url="http://www.fireandmelee.net"]Fire and Melee Wargame site[/url]

I would rate lancers with quality a bit lower than chasseurs/dragoons. Why? Because of the new arms. They were transformed from dragoons in 1811 and were given lances and sabres instead of broadswords. There is a great difference between fight on sabres that relies mainly on slashes and on heavy cavalry sword which is best suited for thrusts. Lance is very different from both of them. De Brack mentions that the most common injure in newly formed lancers regiment was broken hand because men were stiking too strong with the lance. If needed I can extend on that but hope you'll agree that a man given new arms he does not know well yet is somewhat less motivated than the one who has good old arm.

This applies for both french chevaux-legers regiments and russian lancers transformed from dragoons (Siberian, Orenbourg, Yambourg etc.)

Also I would say after 1812 all the french cavalry regiments had very low quality except the ones that came from Spain. And the reason is not only in a huge number of raw recruits. The most important thing is the quality of horses. They were not tought well. And most important they were not very good in charging. J. Dennisson "Attacks were often carried out on a trot" But excuse me, that's not charge! Give them cossacks status and make them unable to charge.

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<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Kosyanenko</i>
<br />Also I would say after 1812 all the french cavalry regiments had very low quality except the ones that came from Spain. And the reason is not only in a huge number of raw recruits. The most important thing is the quality of horses. They were not tought well. And most important they were not very good in charging. J. Dennisson "Attacks were often carried out on a trot" But excuse me, that's not charge! Give them cossacks status and make them unable to charge.
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

GM Kosyanenko raises a very good point (The generally poor quality of French cavalry during the 1813 Campaign), but he doesn't go far enough. EVERY army's cavalry was a shadow of its previous state by 1813. For one, after 20 years of nearly continuous warfare, the European stocks of horseflesh had been severely depleted all across the continent. Moreover, many countries (Prussia being a prime example) simply couldn't afford to replace/train new troopers to make good the losses they'd suffered in the preceding decades of war. This is what gave rise to the increasing reliance on Lw or "militia" cavalry by both the Prussians and Austrians, for instance. For their part, the Russians sustained equally devastating losses while pursuing the French in their retreat from the <i>Rodina</i>.

With that in mind, anyone developing scenarios/games for the 1813-14 period should carefully consider what morale and/or rating they assign to each army's cavalry. (Is a cuirassier still "heavy" when forced to ride broken down nags[:o)]?)

Regards,

Paco

<i>Maréchal M. Francisco Palomo
Prince d'Essling, Grande Duc d'Abrantes et
Comte de Marseille
Commandant - Division de Cavalerie de la Vieille Garde </i>
AdC - <i>Ieré Corps de Armee</i>

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">They were transformed from dragoons in 1811 and were given lances and sabres instead of broadswords.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Funny [:D]
In French for exemple Dragon, cuirassiers, lanciers and Hussards have sabre... Sometimes they are called Heavy Cavalry Sabre ("sabre de grosse cavalerie") for the 2 first and Light Cavalry Sabre ("sabre de cavalerie legere") for the others.


<font color="green"> <b>Général de Division David Guégan Comte de Toulon, Duc de Nimes</b>
Co 11eme division
III Corps, AdN
Co Division d'Infanterie de la Jeune Garde, Garde Impériale


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<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by davidguegan</i>
<br /><blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">They were transformed from dragoons in 1811 and were given lances and sabres instead of broadswords.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Funny [:D]
In French for exemple Dragon, cuirassiers, lanciers and Hussards have sabre... Sometimes they are called Heavy Cavalry Sabre ("sabre de grosse cavalerie") for the 2 first and Light Cavalry Sabre ("sabre de cavalerie legere") for the others.


<font color="green"> <b>Général de Division David Guégan Comte de Toulon, Duc de Nimes</b>
Co 11eme division
III Corps, AdN
Co Division d'Infanterie de la Jeune Garde, Garde Impériale


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<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

My understanding was that one was a cutting weapon while the other was for sticking those cute British hussars in the tummy.

Bill Peters
HPS Napoleonic Scenario Designer (Eckmuhl, Wagram and ... more to come)

[url="http://www.fireandmelee.net"]Fire and Melee Wargame site[/url]

Yes one was straight and the other curved [:D]

<font color="green"> <b>Général de Division David Guégan Comte de Toulon, Duc de Nimes</b>
Co 11eme division
III Corps, AdN
Co Division d'Infanterie de la Jeune Garde, Garde Impériale


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Sirs,
If all the cavalry stunk up the place by 1813, my solution would be to lower the charge bonus for the cavalry. Instead of 4X vs infantry reduce it to 3X or 2X. For really crummy cavalry make them cossack equivalent. The effect on game play, along with the reduced morale, would make them fairly useless (especially when you factor in the VPs of losses) against anything but disordered infantry in the flank/rear.

My two cents as a ops analysist...

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I Corp Commander
AdN

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Glyn Hargreaves</i>
All British cavalry not just Scots Greys had big horses, they weren't just on their own in the charge you forget another two regiments of Hvy Dragoons took part <hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote"> Quite so, all our heavies are of the highest quality and stature, not just the ones in the famous picture[:D]. The Union Brigade was a devastating weapon - if handled correctly[B)]

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