Welington is beaten Prussians too late

[Little Powell]

Please don't be too extreme with this. It's fun to have Vandamme arrive. What about a 33 percent chance of arrival? I suggest that anything less than a 25 percent chance is too low. Thanks.

Agree 100%, it's a very nice to have chance that Grouchy arrive. Please don't touch this option!

Right now it's about a 40% chance.

Think of it like a 10 sided dice roll. On 4 sides of the dice, Grouchy shows up.. But each of the 4 sides represents a different time he shows up. The other 6 sides, the battle plays out historically.

Edit - Right now, as in currently slated for the next patch.

[mcaryf]

Hi Little Powell

If you have the time to do it it would be good if you could change where he shows up as the current position is clearly impossible as he and the Prussians would have had to pass through each other! Looking at the commands available in the Editor it seems as if you could actually make the start locations variable for both Grouchy and the Prussians. If you had, say, 4 possible entrance locations/times for the Prussians and another independent 4 for Grouchy that gives 16 variations from those two events on their own let alone any other moves by Wellington or Napoleon.

Regards

Mike

[Jean Lafitte]

At Waterloo if D'Erlon's attack had succeeded there would have been time to drive Wellington away and then move to the defile at Lasnes and trap the Prussians on very poor ground.

Regards

Mike

It's just my own humble opinion, but, D'Erlon's attack had no chance to succeed. Those troops were attacking a larger force -- a whole corps supported by Wellington's corps-sized Reserve. Not only that but the British Army brigades were better, man for man, than most of the troops in D'Erlon's Corps.

D'Erlon's corps would have needed expert support from plenty of horse artillery and cavalry to have a chance.

I think that Robert E. Lee had a better chance to win at Gettysburg than Nappy did at Waterloo. Lee had a chance to take Cemetery Hill on the First Day. Nappy started out with no chance to capture and hold any portion of Wellington's line. Wellington was too good to be beaten by a poorly coordinated slightly larger force.

Welly was too good a general and the British soldier himself was too good to be beaten by anything less than a much larger force that perfectly executed a combined arms attack. The British soldier in 1815 was a well-trained soldier. Napoleon's 1805 army was one of the best trained fighting forces ever known, but, over the years, Nappy seems to have neglected proper emphasis on training and drilling his soldiers. That was one of his weaknesses. Nappy's 1815 soldiers were not nearly as good as his 1805 soldiers.

So, it's going to be tough to create a realistic AND balanced Battle of Waterloo scenario.

[mcaryf]

Hi Jean
The British component in Wellington's army was only about 1/3 in fact he had more German speaking troops than he had English speakers and that was without the Prussians! The majority of his Peninsular veterans had gone to fight the Americans. Quite a few of his troops had previously fought for Napoleon so he was unsure about their loyalty. He was not sure that the Prussians would be able to get to the battlefield as he must have known that Napoleon had other troops (Grouchy) that could be interdicting them. If Wellington did not know the Prussians would come then even more so his own troops would be unsure. By the end of the battle over 10,000 of Wellington's troops had deserted and were in the Forest of Soignee behind the lines. D'Erlon's corps was turned back but it cost Wellington his heavy cavalry and his other casualties were not light including a whole unit ridden down by French Cuirassiers who did accompany the attack. A lot of Naploeon's troops were wasted at Hougoumonmt so there are better options to explore in the historic variant. In my version of the historic scenario I am trying to make it so that a large part of Wellington's army will withdraw if Mont St Jean is taken. That will give a victory possibility to the French player and it is what could have happened. I have taken MSJ several times as the French in my testing but unfortunately I did not have the right commands in the battle script to cause the Dutch/Belgian troops to withdraw. I am testing the new version of my mod at the moment but it does not look as if I will capture MSJ this time! I might make a variant where Napoleon only has to capture Wellington's position at the Elm Tree for, say, 5 minutes.

As far as the game's overall design is concerned it would be better if there were more space to the East so that the Prussians could be held back further away in better defensive ground by Lobau. That was the best option at the time for Napoleon and if Grouchy had heard even closer fighting perhaps he would have intervened there. If the Prussians were ambushed in the defile at Lasne they could have had major problems as they could not deploy.

At the Battle of Ligny under 70,000 French defeated over 80,000 Prussians and would have crushed them if D'Erlon had not been called away by Ney. Napoleon's poor health at Waterloo was undoubtedly a factor and the battle was not well handled by Ney.

Regards

Mike

[Jean Lafitte]

Yes, Wellington himself said that it was a near run thing. He didn't have the luxury of viewing the event from far away and with benefit of years of historical analysis.

I don't mean to imply that it was an easy win. Wellington and his soldiers had to earn it.

Could someone begin a new thread about comparing the training of and the non-commissioned officers of Wellington's 1815 Army and Napoleon's 1815 Army? From what I have learned, the British NCOs played a large role in building the quality of the British soldier. I don't think that the French had developed the role of the NCO to any great extent. But, I'd like to read a discussion of these issues. I know that we have a lot of knowledge in our SOWWL community.

[Little Powell]

If you have the time to do it it would be good if you could change where he shows up as the current position is clearly impossible as he and the Prussians would have had to pass through each other!

Actually, if Grouchy arrives, it means that after Blucher left Wavre, the remaining Prussians weren't able to hold off Grouchy and he pursued Blucher to Waterloo. Grouchy arrives to the Northeast from the Ohain rd, while Blucher arrived east of Plancenoit. I don't have the map in front of me, but there was a minor road that ran from the Ohain rd, to Plancenoit.

[mcaryf]

Hi Little Powell

That only makes senses if you forget about the other two Prussian Corps which were following Bulow/Blucher numbering about 50,000 men about 30,000 of whom did actually get to the battle before it finished. There would have been a continuous series of columns of Prussians moving between Wavre and the Waterloo battlefield since 3 am that morning. Grouchy could only have got to the battle if he headed West towards Waterloo travelling parallel to the Prussians to the North of him rather than continuing South towards Wavre which is what he actually did. Hence he should appear below the Prussians on the SE corner of the map not the NE.

Regards

Mike

[Jean Lafitte]

Hi Little Powell

That only makes senses if you forget about the other two Prussian Corps which were following Bulow/Blucher numbering about 50,000 men about 30,000 of whom did actually get to the battle before it finished. There would have been a continuous series of columns of Prussians moving between Wavre and the Waterloo battlefield since 3 am that morning. Grouchy could only have got to the battle if he headed West towards Waterloo travelling parallel to the Prussians to the North of him rather than continuing South towards Wavre which is what he actually did. Hence he should appear below the Prussians on the SE corner of the map not the NE.

Regards

Mike

If I remember the old game Waterloo Napoleon's Last Battle correctly, there was a chance for Grouchy's forces to arrive on the battlefield, and, they did indeed enter on the Southeast corner of the mapboard, not the Northeast.

[Little Powell]

You guys are relentless. This is a fictional variant, after all.

Ok, I'll get him on the South East corner. I just thought it was interesting having him on the North East because he can attack Wellington's forces to the West of him, OR Blucher to the South. At the South East corner, he has to attack Blucher, unless you want to march him clear around to the West to join up with Napoleon.

[Saddletank]

Why don't you have 2 variants LP, one with Grouchy in the NE and one in the SE? Heck, why not one with him in the S near Rossomme?

If there wasn't a battle of Wavre and the other Prussian corps didn't interfere with Grouchy's march who is to say where he might have arrived? For Grouchy to be there at all means the other Prussian corps have gone far away beyond any reach of halting him so behind IV Corps there need not be a continuous procession of columns.