Light infantry in Skirmish Order

[Lord Ashram]

If I may...

Way back when we worked on Napoleonic Total War 1 (based on the MTW engine) we did have to tackle skirmishers.

The problem, as people have mentioned, was that if you used the range of the weapons as the determining factor for the skirmishers, then they behaved just like regular troops, instead of in the way they were actually used... to probe, and to harass and annoy infantry in line while out of effective range of a volley of musketfire.

After a long time of sticking with the technical data, eventually I changed the range of skirmishers to be EVER so slightly more than line infantry. Not much; just enough to enable skirmishers to engage line infantry at a range where they wouldn't cause many casualties, but the line infantry couldn't fire back (in my mind, they could in theory fire back, but it would be so ineffective no commander would do it.) While this seems, at first, wrong, it ends up having a bigger, and more proper, impact; namely, if you are commanding a bunch of line infantry standing around and skirmishers are at your front harassing you, you are left with the three options real commanders had; either advance your lines to engage them effectively, thus forcing them to run away, deploying your own skirmishers to protect your lines, or simply sit there and take casualties that may not be like "big full on firefight" casualties, but enough that it picks away at the effectiveness of your unit over time.

While people who are stuck on the idea of "numbers must represent the technical aspects of the weapon" may not like this solution, if you are able to look beyond the strict and literal translations of the ranges and such you will find that you can actually and in a subtle way engineer the tactics of the age into the game using what you have available.

Oh, and if you DO do this, you may want to make the skirmish-capable units smaller... maybe a sixth or a tenth of a full unit, to represent that it is a company of skirmishers from a battalion. That is one effective way to make sure people don't use skirmish-capable units (with that slightly greater range) as their main battle line... they just cannot stand up to the fight, but rather must be managed carefully, and eventually pulled back when the fight starts in earnest.

[Jack ONeill]

Ash,

Bang on! Unfortunately, the game engine does not allow for really small units to be effectively removed from a larger Battalion. That is one of the reasons Gunship put the French Light Companies together in Converged Voltiguer Battalions. Yes, your right with us on the "slightly longer range" aspect. As discussed, I found that some of the skirmisher units had the longer range muskets. Good deal. As soon as Gunship gives us the nod, I'll adjust the Bavarians in all the OOBs to have the longer range weapons.

Jack B)

[gunship24]

You can go ahead and edit whatever, I will most likely update the download at some point with the new ideas. I didnt know that much about Bavarian infantry tactics so I left them with the regular musket. The idea would be that all light battalions should be able to skirmish and line battalions cant. This is a weigh up between historical accuracy and gameplay. Since the smallest unit is the battalion it is sensible to make the whole battlion skirmish rather than the company system which doesnt exist. I am brewing up some ideas of sprite ratio 3:1 company level scenario's.

[Jack ONeill]

Gun,

Thanks. That's where we came out, too.

Jack B)

[Leatherneck24]

I just like watching the men march and set up for battle and sending order to the Bavarian army. I actually just got interested in the Bavarian military in the last 5 years. I picked up some good books on them and tried my best to read everything on them. Also I found theminiaturepage the napoleonic dicussion forum very helping on learning about the infantry itself. I put a link to their light infantry on another forum. Many of the men who write the books like James Arnold, John Gill, and others actually post of the forum. If you have any questions they will be very helpful. Also George Nafziger has a great book on their army and tactics it is a small book but pretty good.

I recently got really into the battalion level tactics. Just wanted to mention and I doubt you can add this into the game but the Bavarians were very well know for being surprised on outpost duty. A lot of their casualties in the 1806 campaign game from outpost clashes where they were completely surprised at times. They were so bad at outpost duty French infantry at times had to be posted near them to do the job and or double the outpost strength. Also they were well known for being slower marchers than the usual infantry.

Also James Arnolds Triumph 1807 just came out which is the second book from Crisis on the snows. Very exciting and amazing book.

[Jack ONeill]

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LN,

I know, the pagantry is just amazing to watch. Yes, I know those names - I have Nafziger's book on the 1812 Russian Campaign. Met him at a party in D.C. years ago, some Military function. Great guy. Insanely knowledgeable.

I think outpost stuff is possible but would literally require a seperate Mod in and of itself. One-to-One scale, which IS possible.

And for those of us who can't get enough cool screenshots... :laugh:

Jack B)

[Jack ONeill]

Pics are -

Top - Von Emde's Brigade moving forward against the Franco/Bavarian left flank.

Bottom - Seriously close range firefight. 30 yards, "whites of their eyes" action. These two units slugged it out for about 5-6 minutes, neither side giving an inch. Never a thought to charging with the Bayonet. Hot Work! (Musket ranges reduced to 100 yards yards here.)

En Avant!

Jack B)

[Saddletank]

Apologies for digging up such an old topic, but I wanted to ask if anything was decided on this. I fully agree with Lord Ashern that his solution to replicate skirmish tactics is the way to do it; I firmly beleive in designing wargame rules that have the correct effect and result rather than giving every unit the exactly correct technical statistics/numbers and hoping you get the right result. Frequently, I have found, you don't.

Thing is, in TW your unit will halt when it comes into maximum musket range and start shooting, so the system of having skirmishers with a 25 yard range advantage works for that game. In SoW there is no way to order a unit to just enter its maximum range, stop and commence a firefight. I know there is the range to nearest enemy data that shows top left but in the name of realism I turn it off as it seems a huge cheat to me.

My skirmishers should be skilled enough to judge ranges when I on my computer screen can't, so I'm asking, it it possible to have an order button that says "advance into maximum musket range"? That would be very useful for skirmish units.

[KG_Soldier]

If a regiment isn't tc'd, it will stop when it gets into rifle range. It's a tactic I often use: give a regiment in line a very short movement order and they will halt when they come into range.

[Jack ONeill]

Yes, I work it that way, too, both with Line Troops and Skirmish units - the short move order.

Tank - most infantry will halt and open fire as soon as they are in range of the enemy. Periodically, they will continue to advance closer than minimum range, then halt. What I have found is typically, they get closer because they can't SEE the enemy beforehand. WE can see them, but maybe not the lads on the Battleline. Just a thought.

Jack B)