Worst regiment in history

[Pansarskott]

I've had this problem as well...I played the whole battle of Waterloo scenario as the allied and one off my Brunswick-regiments was caught in line and charged by french lancers from behind. I was certain the whole batallion would be butcherd, but to my surprise, they only lost 10 men before the french broke off the attack.

I then did a little experiment. I played a couple of custom battles and let my infantry get charged by cavalry. EVERY time, the infantry losses are between 5 and 60. In my opinion way to light.

[Squid_UK]

I am inclined to agree with Saddletank. From what I've read melee was the exception rather than the rule. Units either ran away or their charges faltered. This is the opposite of what I see in SOWWL. I really hope that can be modded. Even when cavalry did hit home it could be difficult to cause catastrophic casualties. Of course there were exceptions to the rule where bloody melees did occur but that doesn't mean they were the norm.

[Saddletank]

I was certain the whole batallion would be butcherd, but to my surprise, they only lost 10 men before the french broke off the attack.

I then did a little experiment. I played a couple of custom battles and let my infantry get charged by cavalry. EVERY time, the infantry losses are between 5 and 60. In my opinion way to light.

When cavalry break off early its usually because they are fatigued or their morale isn't as high as the target.

You should pound enemy infantry with guns for a good long while (around 20-30 minutes) then send in the cavalry. Better still use inf and cav together to pin them in square then use musketry to shatter them. You'll see some real butchering then. I see this quite often in the game, cavalry hitting infantry as they break with slaughter on the scale of Albuera.

[mitra76]

>Again In a melee(and it was a melee) that not a single british trooper got in a lucky hit is impossible

Well is not like this happen always but losses are concentrated on the first hits and durign the retreat phase; from a alghoritmical point of view numbers are numbers: if two units are similar in values without a net advantange of one over the other the possibilities of a successful hit are not high, you cannot transform a wrong result in a good result for simulate losses, also because the check is sprite against sprite so the losses are not a generated percentage of total respect total.

[mitra76]

I then did a little experiment. I played a couple of custom battles and let my infantry get charged by cavalry. EVERY time, the infantry losses are between 5 and 60. In my opinion way to light.

This is a effect of contact of sprite against sprite: cavalry sprite need to near the infantry sprite for hit him; because the charge speed like retreat speed is a randomic average for sprite between march and run speed in order to generate the dispersion effect, so sometime cavalry cannot reach a sufficient number of infantry sprites during the pursuit especially if placed on line so with a big part of them out of direct path (a direct frontal hit in the middle generate more losses than a hit on one of line flanks). I set between the "features to do\try" for Norb to try to evaluate the use of mid point speed at place of march speed as inferior limit in order to increase the average speed of charge, but the sides effects are all to evaluate.

[Gunfreak]

Infantry meles were rare, mostly happend in towns and buildt up areas.

Cavalery meles were common, happend alot in most battles.

Nobody know how many % actualy fought, how many just ran away before contact or how many "fake fought" But it's obvous real bloodies meles were common not the exception.

[Gunfreak]

Well given the concentartion of muskets and guns thats not that strange. Many battle had 20% max cav some as low as 10% And those wound stantsitcs have been used for both Napoleonic and ACW and if I remebmer correctly it ignores actualy dead. Few would survive the actual stabbing of a bayonett. But again, the bayonett was only used in close quarter fights. And those were always of smaller scales then the main battle.

There are many refrences of fighing in the town and wounded beeing bayonettet do death, or beeing nailed to a wall by bayonets.
¨
Infantry rearly got mawled by cav, only if caught out of square or it brakes, and even then infantry learned that they could lay down and avoid the sabers and swords(sadly some forgot they were attacked by lancers and so got stabbed)

Cavalry meles were no were near as bloody as close range firefights (that happend in all battles often)

This explanes why wounds from sword was much lower. But if you have 15K cavalry and 80K infantry and 200 guns, ofcoruse cavarly vs cavarly is going to be much rarer and on much smaller scale.

I can't remember that many cavalry meles in movies. Atleat not any that show that much fighting.

In arn and kingdom of heaven we bearly see cav vs cav, and that are knights.

Trying to remebmer any movie that actualy show cavalry vs cavalry in the horse and musket period...

Even waterloo dosn't actualy show meles, only lots of cav running and lookig epic then getting shgot by guns and muskets(oh except for a few stabbed by lances in the back)

If there is anything Hollywood is guilty of in movies with war horses it's showing them galloping a mile...

[Saddletank]

But it's obvous real bloodies meles were common not the exception.

Again, I don't think anyone is disputing your point, but you've changed your argument from "no melee should have 0 casualties on one side" to "bloody melees were common".

No-one is disagreeing with the second assertion, however I am disagreeing with your first.

Regarding wounds, if you treat a large enough sample, this statistic is valid when applied to the killed as well. In addition there's accounts from Waterloo itself of people surviving several bayonet and lance thrusts because the cut did not hit a vital place.

You're misunderstanding Dr Larre's statistics. The % of mounted troops to infantry is irrelevant since he counted sword and bayonet wounds, not just cavalry weapon wounds. His statistics indicate that melee was much less common on Napoleonic battlefields than combat by firepower.

Also, we're drifting well off your original point now. You said that a melee with 0 losses on one side isn't right. I'm only disagreeing with that, nothing else.

[Gunfreak]

Real meles can't have zero on one side, I still stand by this, my dragoons fought a good while, they did not run right away.

So yes, in that type of mele it's statisticly impossbile that not a single french got killed or wounded.

And no I don't missunderstand his statistics, number of infantry with sword are low(mostly officers, those infantry that did have swords perferd to use the bayonet) and I've explended by infantry meles were rare.

So again it stands, as infantry almost never used mele weapons, the vast majority of mele wounds would be from cavalry. and the cavalry was much less numerous.

Infantry almost never fought meles except in towns and defences like redoubts.

[Saddletank]

I give up. You don't understand how statistics work.

I think its easily possible for a melee to last a while with 0 casualties on one side. It's not very probable, but I think it could happen. It's never wise to say never when dealing with history.

And with that I shall bid you adieu and depart this fascinating thread.