Surgeon Ability

[mcaryf]

I realize that the Surgeon Ability attribute is not currently used but I notice that its values are currently populated. Is it planned that Surgeon ability and these specific values will be used in the near future?

The reason I ask is that I wanted to to give the Cuirassiers some benefit for their armor. The game does not currently have the concept of defensive values for a class of unit so I initially thought of making their wounds less severe hence Surgeon Ability. However, since that is not used yet I am thinking about using Surgeon Ability to have impacts on loss of morale for a Cuiraisser unit suffering wounded and bonus for morale on other nearby units.

It would make sense to do this because most historical writers ascribe some of the impact of the Cuirass on its ability to raise the morale of troops wearing it and other nearby friendly units.

However, I do not want to start using Surgeon Ability for this in my mods if it is about to be used for its original purpose of wounded recovery either during a battle or between linked scenarios.

Regards

Mike

[Saddletank]

My understanding is that surgeon ability affects morale in some way. The higher the surgeon rating the more casualties a unit can withstand before various collapse thresholds are reached - but I could be wrong. I believe it also affects the number of wounded who recover to return to the ranks in carry-over battles.

[mcaryf]

Hi Saddletank

The editor manual which may not be up to date with the latest QB and Ligny releases says in section 3.1.17 that the Surgeon Modifier is not used.

The unitattributes.csv file does have entries against Surgeon ability that have values under both "Surgeon Modifier" and "Morale loss Modifier".

The Waterloo OOB typically has better values (range 6 - 9) for French units as compared with Allied & Prussian under Surgeon Ability and Cuirassers in particular already often have a 9 rating but so do other French elite units so it does not give them any differential.

One further thought about how to distinguish between cavalry types is whether it might be possible to use the Mounted Infantry category possibly for Lancers and to give them associated melee and stab values. I am thinking of a high initial hit chance but a very low stab rate as Lances often embedded themselves and so could not be used again for some time.

Is this a worthwhile area to investigate? I am not actually sure what would mark a unit as being mounted infantry since they are not currently used in Waterloo - can anybody advise.

Regards

Mike

[Jace11]

No idea if it affects anything in the sandbox campaign, but it might...

[mcaryf]

I have been thinking about recovery rates for casualties between battles for use in my campaign scenarios. It seems to me that there could be differential rates for infantry, cavalry and artillery. In particular cavalry might be given a better recovery rate as over half their losses might be attributed to injured horses. Armies typically had remounts with them and there would also be loose horses on the battlefield from both sides where the man had been the casualty. Given their relative sizes to horses I would think cavalrymen might well have an effective recovery rate of the order of 60%. For artillery only about 20% of the manpower had real expertise whilst others were mainly concerned with moving the guns between battles so their effectiveness in battle would not be reduced by some manpower losses thus a 60% recovery rate might also be appropriate whilst half this might be right for infantry varied by whichever side controlled the battlefield at the end.

Regards

Mike

[Saddletank]

It's well known that infantrymen were drafted in to do the hauling work if artillery crews suffered losses but I would imagine this was a battle expediency only and after the fight the infantry returned to their regiments. It is still a way to lower artillery casualties however if you assume its an expedient all armies employ.

I think you need to dig into army stats and source material to learn about remounts. Usually there were remount depots in strategic towns (Napoleon had a major depot in Hamburg in the 1813 campaign) but these depots were effective at a grand strategy level and would not be supplying horses that followed the armies around.

The same applies to infantry replacements who marched from base depots or regimental barracks in tranches.

There was a continuous flow of such replacements, for all arms, going on in an army's rear area as a matter of course and its one reason that lines of communication were so important to protect, and hence was the basis of Napoleon's entire strategy in 1815: to drive the Prussian and Anglo-Allied armies back away from each other down their respective LoCs.

You find in reading about campaigns that it often took about a week to two weeks after a major battle for units to make good losses and only then if the LoC logistics were functioning robustly. In the Low Countries in 1815 I understand the British had *no* replacement troop ability at all. You would need to read up on Dutch-Belgian and Prussian resources. I also suspect the minor states such as Nassau and Brunswick had no ability to replace losses.

Two things come to mind about the above:

1) Battle losses (apart from minor wounds) were recovered slowly, not the next day or the next but after 7 to 14 days - this is too long a time frame for the Belgian campaign

2) LoCs were effective in aiding (1) above but had a restricting factor on an army's ability to move and they had to be protected. In effect the LoC had a *negative* impulse on an army commanders ability of free action.

[con20or]

Norb will have to reply to confirm but from what I remember surgeon stats influence unit re-coup time in the campaign game.

[mcaryf]

Thank you for your various responses, as a result I have decided not to experiment with surgeon ratings both so as not to upset any other use of them and because I think the impact might be minor. One other area I am considering is to try to use the mounted infantry type to give Lancers some distinctive abilities as they had some clear advantages versus artillery and infantry that sword armed cavalry did not. They also should benefit from an advantage with a better first hit versus cavalry but thereafter have a much slower second stab. I hope the melee table can be used to deliver this so I will experiment with that unless someone tells me that some other factors like infantry being in square override those melee settings.

Regards

Mike

[Saddletank]

Are you planning to make this a mod in itself or will it just be a campaign module run by the basic game?

If you plan to mod things there are ways to represent different cavalry types via use of different edged weapon factors.

I personally don't think Napoleonic lancers were any more effective or significantly different to other cavalry weapons and types in the overall context of a large battle, which is what SoW handles. In some small actions or individual events yes, the lance was significantly different to matter, but in battles at division and corps level I don't think its a issue worth pursuing.

[mcaryf]

Hi Saddletank

From what I have read Lancers were particularly feared by artillerymen because against normal cavalry they could actually seek refuge around and even under their guns whereas lancers could still reach them. Equally their weapon had a longer reach than a bayonet so infantry in squares were at more risk.

a French general, i think Durutte, commented about Waterloo that he had not previously realized what an advantage a lancer had over a swordsman. I guess he saw Col Bro's Lancers destroying Ponsonby and his men after they had advanced too far and were already winded.

Regards

Mike