Dave
10-27-2003, 21:23
I'm new to this forum and to the Napoleonic mod of MTW. However, I've been a Napoleonic gamer since 1972 and reserached and painted more figures than I can remember.
I've skimmed over the long thread on the Napoleonic Mod and have two observations to make:
1) Please be very careful assigning unit qualities and strength to any and all units that are included in the mod. Ya, we all know what the TO&E says about units, but the facts are that all armies by 1815 were very far from their ideal state and condition. Everything from horses to the so-called veterans and elite troops were in far shorter supply than the theoretical orders of battle would indicate. You almost have to toss out the popular coffee-table type history books as being inadequate except as a source of colour plates.
2) I noticed that someone posted some of images of Prussian unit flags for 1806. Very few of those flags made it through to 1815 -- almost all that did were assigned to the 12 professional regiments. However, very little of the those 12 regiments survived the campaign of 1813 in Saxony. One other thing to note is that the Prussians were big on historical revision during the middle of the 19th century. It's difficult to trust images and paintings from that period when the Hohenzollerns were establishing the justification for their imperial designs. Much of that revisionism survives to this day. When I visited the family chapel where Friederick is entombed the regimental flags ornamenting the place were, for the most part, totally bogus. Again, popular histories seem to fall for the revisionist line every time.
I've skimmed over the long thread on the Napoleonic Mod and have two observations to make:
1) Please be very careful assigning unit qualities and strength to any and all units that are included in the mod. Ya, we all know what the TO&E says about units, but the facts are that all armies by 1815 were very far from their ideal state and condition. Everything from horses to the so-called veterans and elite troops were in far shorter supply than the theoretical orders of battle would indicate. You almost have to toss out the popular coffee-table type history books as being inadequate except as a source of colour plates.
2) I noticed that someone posted some of images of Prussian unit flags for 1806. Very few of those flags made it through to 1815 -- almost all that did were assigned to the 12 professional regiments. However, very little of the those 12 regiments survived the campaign of 1813 in Saxony. One other thing to note is that the Prussians were big on historical revision during the middle of the 19th century. It's difficult to trust images and paintings from that period when the Hohenzollerns were establishing the justification for their imperial designs. Much of that revisionism survives to this day. When I visited the family chapel where Friederick is entombed the regimental flags ornamenting the place were, for the most part, totally bogus. Again, popular histories seem to fall for the revisionist line every time.