Napoleonic Wargame Club (NWC)

Guys - before we make a few changes to the PDT files I wanted to hear from you guys about the artillery fire values.

Which game has the best artillery fire values?:
NRC
Eckmuhl/Wagram
Waterloo

If you disagree with the ratings for all of the above just say "None of the above."

There is a difference of opinion over which values to use and I felt that the customer should help us decide.

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

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

Hmmm.

I hate the values in Waterloo. The Brit artillery is almost useless unless it is firing cannister into 2000 man stacks.

Wagram/Eckmuhl is good. The only complaint I have is that the Austrian 6 pounders cannot do any damage outside of cavalry charge range, so they are very, very vulnerable. I would like to see their range and damage values slightly increased. My recent experiences with Wagram have been the French line up their artillery and blast away with impunity, out of the effective range of most of the Austrian guns. Of course, if this is historical, thats fine.

I have not played NRC in a while but if memory serves I thought the values were decent. Lethal at short range and firecrackers at long range.

thanks for asking,
Jim P


Austrian Kavalry Reserve

Big time caveat here - this thread is not to win a popularity contest. I am not pitting the work I did against Rich and Charlie.

Its just good to hear from you guys on these issues.

On the ranges -- well from what I have read and the feedback from the guys that know better than me the ranges are accurate enough. The Austrians rarely fired over these ranges FOR EFFECT. Sure the guns on the Rossbach could probably gain further range because of elevation (something that would be nice for the series - think of hitting a golf ball from an elevated tee) but frankly we talked this one over and (alas) the French will continue (historically) to out range the Allies for the most part.

From what I have read about the British artillery it was not one of their stronger arms. You Allies out there can correct me but the amount of powder used in a British gun may have been less than the French but more than the Austrians.

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

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

Hi Bill
I am definetly in favour of Wagram over NRC campaign. The Main French field gun was an 8pdr not a 6pdr. Also unless I am mistaken I recall horse artillery is better up close, perhaps it is a reflection of rate of fire I guess the same logic for the old BG series. But it is well known during the period that the 12pdr was devastating at close range, as was the 8pdr to a lesser extent. Much more than a horse 6pdr or 4pdr.

Sorry I do not have Waterloo I will buy it when your new game is released (soon I hope :-})

Anyhow congrats on your games I see Jim has posted here as well I am playing him at the moment in our 3rd battle of the Wagram series. We were recently e-discussing the artillery issue.

Regards
Capitaine Colin Knox,
4e Comp / 2e Artillerie a Cheval
2e Brigade
3e Division Cavalerie Legere
IIIe Corps
Armee du Nord

I am NOT speaking as an expert, but I don't care for the values of artillery in Waterloo -- when a battery fires at medium range and hits one or two men it seems a bit ridiculous. How does a cannon ball hit one man in either a column or a line?? If the unit is missed I can understand that, but the chance of hitting less than 8 or 10 as it passes through a column about 8 men deep seem rather small and the same reasoning would say that a shell passing through a 3 rank line would likely hit three. I know it could happen, but when 8 guns fire and consistently get 3-6 hits total someting seems out of whack. Even at close range 25 or 30 seems more common than anything larger.

General Theron Lambert
Comte d'Angers et Duc de Montereau
3rd Brigade, 3rd Division
VI Corps
Armee du Rhin
Commandant de la Division de Cavalerie de la Moyenne Garde

Cne Knox,

The French 8 pdr was phase out of service throughout the Nap wars. By 1812 the 6 pdr WAS the main gun in service, sorry.

When considering guns between the different nationalities we need to take into account the different measurement systems of the various countries.

Austrian 6 pdrs were often referred by the French as 5 pdrs because of the difference, and explains the range/effectiveness issue.

The French 8 pdr and the British 9 pdr fired basically the same weight of ball.

Since the French at Waterloo had 6 pdrs, it may be useful to take the Eck/Wag French 8 pdr gun line and use it for Brit 9 pdrs as they should have the same practical effectiveness at the individual gun level.

I haven't had much opportunity to use arty in Waterloo, as the three campaigns I've fought has seen my opponents being overrun by a very aggressive cavalry advance the first day [8D], so I can't really say with set of arty factors I prefer.



Colonel Al Amos
1erè Brigade Commandant
2ème Division de Dragons

Adding to what Al has to say ...

Kevin Kiley's work "Artillery of the Napoleonic Wars 1792-1815" published by Greenhill Books is a very good reference for this period as is "With Musket, Cannon and Sword" by Brent Nosworthy and of course there are others as well such as Bowden's book on the 1809 campaign (which is very hard to find at times) which discusses the Austrian (mis) use of powder for their guns vs. the French. There may be alot of myths about the period but this one is no myth. Now note, rarely were the French able to pick a distance just out of the range of the Austrian guns as we do in our games. However, we cant do anything about historical accuracy and this practice in our games is always going to abound.

Some additional thoughts ...

1. I have noted that the LOS in our games allows for alot of overhead fire and I am going to note this to Rich for the next round of updates. By increasing the height of the "man" in the game you create some deadzones. On the other hand you also cut out alot of artillery fire. We dont have "plowthrough" fire by ball in the game (basically when you fire at a unit the ball goes through it and causes residual casualties) except where it impacts multiple units in the SAME hex. So for me this change would have a dual purpose BUT it is in the next game I release and was found in testing to help alot of the unhistorical fire where you see artillery fire on a unit 8 hexes away while it happens to have an enemy infantry unit adjacent to the target. As the game cannot model "the guns fell silent as the infantry advanced to the enemy lines" during their opponent's phase (meaning the advance is in progress but the ADF fires the guns whenever you bat an eyelash) I felt that changing the height of villages, woods, men, and even buildings allows for less unhistorical fire. Note: you STILL get overhead fire but you have to leave an intervening hex at least in most cases and of course the amount of intervening hexes gets higher as the range gets longer.

2. Al and Dierk brought up some time back that the mid range actually needs to get beefed up and the short range cut down. Now really this on the average is probably true. However, the other factor was formation. If the infantry was in column then the ball (longer range) was more effective but at closer range the grape was not (spread). We mentioned in those discussions that artillerymen usually didnt wait until the unit was at point blank range and then fire. This is for movies mainly. They fired at about 50 - 100m which would allow for a bit of spread for grape. Now there may be some that would argue that BALL was used against dense targets as the artillery officers for the most part were usually bright chaps. Thus my idea is to INCREASE the mid range a bit in TESTING and play around with it a bit. Leave the long range alone. Maybe decrease the short range a TAD.

3. The values that Rich and Charlie are using are adequate. I think that less of the game is decided over point blank firing and more on the use of combined arms and the timing of attacks ... and WHEN to attack. Yes, in some cases the French can just pack up on Turn 1 and just march forward but any good player can foil most of the overly aggressive players.

So to summarize the above three points: overhead fire was a bit too unhistorical so its been toned down a tad in our next title, the values of artillery have remained the same but I am thinking of beefing up the midrange just a tad, and the Waterloo game is an absolute bottom range I believe from which to work from but testing and our playing here has found that our series does not have the weaker values of the (more modern) ACW series. Austrian artillery is cutting me to shreads in a test game of Aspern-Essling with Dean Beecham. Along with the great firepower of his lines.

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

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

Hi Colonel Amos
My sources say different 8pdr vs 6pdr can you give me yours so I can study it. It seems a pretty subjective debate. Years ago a friend of mine asked the Musuem le armee in Paris (sorry spelling may be wrong) and they sent copies of the Osprey Men at Arms book we already had, Entitled Napoleons Artillery. Most interesting that they did not seem to know, anyhow look forward to hearing from you

Regards
Colin Knox
ADN

Kiley on pg 131 of his artillery book pretty much agrees that the older series of guns were retired to arsenals or to secondary theaters such as Spain or Italy later in the wars.

The Waterloo OB in Hofschroer's book does not include any 8lb guns for the French.

I would be interested to see any French OB for Waterloo that has 8lb guns in it this late in the wars.

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

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

"It seems a pretty subjective debate."

Not really facts are facts. I believe there is a report compiled by the English after Waterloo of all the captured French ordenance, and not one 8 pdr (if I recall correctly) was listed.

As for sources, here is a short list. Sorry, I no longer have my book collection anymore, and my HD has crashed several times over the years, so most of my research materisl has been lost.

Nafiziger's books, Bowden's books, Army oobs found at Nafziger's site, Geert's excellent site

http://home.wanadoo.nl/g.vanuythoven/home.htm

HPS' Campaigns Waterloo, NRC, Wagram and Eckmuhl OOBs (all were extensively researched), "Empires, Eagles and Lions", the website Napoleon Series, to name a few.

(yeah, yeah no original source listed specifically, sorry, others in this club will be more than happy to supplement this list with properly referenced primary source material.)

The French introduced a new arty system in 1805 which took several years to fully implement. By Nap's invasion of Russia in 1812 the main army was armed with equipment prescribed by this new system. Secondary theaters and the main army, after the losses sustained in Russia, still used older systems, but in 1815 the new stuff was back. Faulty memory but wasn't the system called XII? I'm getting forgetful. *sigh*

Since Napoleon considered Spain a secondary front the older Gribevial (sp?) system of 8pdrs and 4 pdrs was used there. As this is where the English mainly fought, English historians drew conclussions that the entire French army was equipped as they were in Spain. These conclussions persisted over the years and greatly influenced Napoleonic wargaming in the '60's, but over the past 40 years new research has improved our knowledge of the era.



Colonel Al Amos
1erè Brigade Commandant
2ème Division de Dragons

Al
I stand corrected certainly what your saying seems to make sense the only reason I said it was subjective is that I have several books that offer different facts.
Happy to bow to your expertise.

OH PS thanks for the info I have read extensively on the period but this is new to me. I must admit a lot of my reading is british authors so what you are saying about spain stacks up.

Kind Regards
Colin Knox
ADN

Colin,

No worries. Most of us grew up reading the Chandler, Oman, and Maude. Their works are great, but the material available today to historians may not have been as accessible to them (internet, removal of iron curtain, etc, etc), so thier assesments of the Nap era may not be as accurate as they thought. (but then, I'm sure ours isn't dead on either. [;)])

BTW, the new system was the An XI system. Here is a link from The Napoleon Series ( http://www.napoleon-series.org/ ) that covers it.

Here is a link to Greenhill Books from The Napoleon Series ( http://www.napoleon-series.org/ ). The list isn't exhaustive of the books out there on the subject, but it's a good one to start with, and one can use it to go to the local library with. Inter-Library Lending is a God's send in that regard. I've read over half of that list. [;)]

Colonel Al Amos
1erè Brigade Commandant
2ème Division de Dragons

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Theron Lambert</i>
<br />I am NOT speaking as an expert, but I don't care for the values of artillery in Waterloo -- when a battery fires at medium range and hits one or two men it seems a bit ridiculous. How does a cannon ball hit one man in either a column or a line?? If the unit is missed I can understand that, but the chance of hitting less than 8 or 10 as it passes through a column about 8 men deep seem rather small and the same reasoning would say that a shell passing through a 3 rank line would likely hit three. I know it could happen, but when 8 guns fire and consistently get 3-6 hits total someting seems out of whack. Even at close range 25 or 30 seems more common than anything larger.

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

I don't know man...in the getting started scenario I am playing now against another guy I got the following 2 results with 9 lb batteries:

600 yards - 13 casualties
300 yards - 22 casualties

Those don't seem to be cheese results to me...



Maréchal Hamilton, Baron d'Barbancon
21st Division
VII Corps, ADR

Saxon Leib-Garde, de la Jeune Garde, Garde Impériale