Napoleonic TW!!

[Brother Derfel]

I was sitting on my computer with nout else to do (it wa a Sunday evening, i couldn't go out cos I had college in the morning http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/frown.gif ) when i thought how great would a custom battle be, using only Hand gun, cannon and light cavalry units be?

So i tried it out and it was very fun. There arn't many casualties caused by the hand guns but troops run away quite easily and it is quite a good representation of the age of gunpowder.

I can't wait until CA does Napoleonc TW, i hope they do it soon/

[Knight_Yellow]

i too have tried this but theres 1 problem RAIN i hate it when it rains cos usualy at sumpoint it does rain and also ive noticed that my men sumtimes do better if they charge the enemy instead of shooting, u copuld also try halbrieders and pikemen as i think they where still around in napoleonic times http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

[monkian]

I believe Halbediers/Pikemen acted a type of honour/body guard for officers in Napoleonic times.

[Brother Derfel]

Quote[/b] (monkian @ Dec. 08 2002,11:40)]I believe Halbediers/Pikemen acted a type of honour/body guard for officers in Napoleonic times.
I believe you are refering to the Colour guard. Brithish regiments at this time employed a small group of Seargents armed with half pikes, a cross between a pike and a halberd, to protect the regimental flags or colours. this was more traditional than practical though as the half pike was a clumsy weapon and was usually disscarded once a regiment engaged in combat.

[Brother Derfel]

Quote[/b] (Knight_Yellow @ Dec. 08 2002,10:17)]i too have tried this but theres 1 problem RAIN i hate it when it rains cos usualy at sumpoint it does rain and also ive noticed that my men sumtimes do better if they charge the enemy instead of shooting, u copuld also try halbrieders and pikemen as i think they where still around in napoleonic times http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif
yeah, Rain can be a bit of a dampner (feel free to groan) http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif

As for Pikes and Halberds, the only use of them was a s mentioned above, regiments had stoped using them some years before hand. The only regiments to retain their use were groups of Russian Serfs (called somethin beginig with O that has curently slipt my mind) that were equiped with pikes because they could not afford to supply them with muskets.
The standard armamnet was the musket for all european armies, with a fire rate of about 3 shots per minuite. The British being the fastest as they could fire 4 times a minuite as they were the only army to train with live ammunition.
The real killers on the Napolonic battle feilds were the Cannon, and Napoleon himself was an artillery man. He would ususally deploy his guns in massive batteys of 12 pounders that he called his children and use them in devestating concentrated fire. He would then send in his infantry in massive collums designed to crush the enemy by shear weight of numbers. This tactic was undefeated until the french colum met the British line. The British basicaly formed their men into a 2 o 3 man deep line with as large a frontage as posible and would then subjegate the french to deady rolling volleys with one company firing emediatly after the one before it, keeping up a constant hail of bullets. The french collum would always crumble before it got into combat.
As for cavalry they were mainly used as shock troops by the french and to force infantry into 'squares' a defensive position imune to cavalry but vunerable aaginst cannon.

Tht short Napolonic tactical essay over, i am off to play MTW http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif ...........

[Vlad The Impaler]

i never heard about pikemen/halebardiers in Napoleon's era; they use guns;
teh only unit i recall in that era tha have pikes/halebards is the Papal Guard .is 1800 yrs for God's sake what the hell u can do with halebards?

an Napoleonic TW should have pikes or swords only available for cavalry units such lancers , cuiriasiers or hussars .

[Brother Derfel]

Quote[/b] (Vlad The Impaler @ Dec. 08 2002,14:07)]i never heard about pikemen/halebardiers in Napoleon's era; they use guns;
teh only unit i recall in that era tha have pikes/halebards is the Papal Guard .is 1800 yrs for God's sake what the hell u can do with halebards?

an Napoleonic TW should have pikes or swords only available for cavalry units such lancers , cuiriasiers or hussars .
I forgot about the papal guard.

Yeah, pikes and halberds as i explained were completly obsolete as a weapon used on mass. They were however still used by the Colour guards in regiments, mainly for traditions sake.

But i don't think it should only be limited to cavalry, for as i said their were many units of Russian peasanty armed soely with pikes because they could not afford guns. i think this should be taken into account.

And.. guns were not all that powerful, even in the Napolonic era they had not advanced over much from the handguns of Medival times. The maximum effective range was 300 yrds and that was with a Baker rifle, and you had to be a VERY good shot to hit anything then. it is often believed by many that an army equiped with bows could have caused much more damage than one with muskets.
The only reason that guns were used on mass was because it took a long time to train an archer, but you could give a soldier a musket and in a few weeks he was as proficient as any man with it.
Halberds and pikes were only obsolete because the invention of the socket bayonet meant that Generals could equip their troops with both close quarter weapons and ranged weapons all in one weapon. A halberd would still have been very useful as a weapon as many battles, especialy those around towns, would often end in nothing more than a brawl in which case if you had a halberd you would be lucky. Indeed the Imperial Guard sappers were famed for the fact that they went into battle weilding their axes meant for chopping down trees and breaking through gates. The reason they were not used therefor was merely because it was cheaper and more effective to arm a man with a musket and a bayoney than have half your army musket and the other pike.

God I want Napoleonic TW, please CA if you read this please..........

[Vlad The Impaler]

yes Brother Derfel but i don recall any unit of russian soldiers armed with pikes/halebards in any napoleonic battle

[Katasaki Hirojima]

The days of pikes were in the 15-17 hundreds, when gun technology was limited. This is a era well represented by a game called Cossacks. I wish they'd do a TW game on the era Cossacks portrays, as do alot of cossacks fans 0o;

[Vlad The Impaler]

well i dont see any reason fot pikes representend in an napoleonic game; the soldier have bayonettes at that time and the gun with bayonette is the normal result in evolution after the pike/arquebuses combo from 15-17 centuries as Katasaki Hirojima said ;

[Gregoshi]

This is a reply from Alastair II in the EH:

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I have done a large amount of reading on these wars, and I'd like to correct some statements made in the referenced topic.
Napoleon did not use 12-pounders as his sole ranged weapon. He did engage in firefights frequently, especially when using light infantry and cavalry.
It is said that his genius was his ability to sense the progression of a battle and to know the exact place to apply overwhelming force, which could come in the form of the Old Guard (a force composed of the best of the best veterans), cannon loaded with canister shot (a form of ammunition that was short-ranged and extremely lethal to infantry), or heavy cavalry. This had nothing to do with his use of infantry, which, as said above, he did not make the mistake of using purely as columns. The use of that strategy was the reason for the lack of success of the pre-Napoleonic French Revolutionary generals.
Napoleon himself preferred a "mixed" strategy, mixed between the stiff, cumbersome lines of the British and Prussians and the chaotic skirmishing and columns of the Revolutionary French.

Why am I telling you all of this? Because IMO, this serves as a template for a much-improved TW (and this time it really IS total war, since Napoleon was actually able to destroy the enemy army almost totally, as Clausewitz said). In this TW, the amount of discipline of formations could be determined by the commander, by the amount of training the troops recieve, and their fatigue. The Napoleonic era, IMO, has many aspects to it that are lacking in European or Japanese medieval warfare and that would fall in line well with the tactical depth and relative (stress relative, since they didn't REALLY have that much discipline in medieval times) realism that CA is famed for.
I hope this will come to the favorable attention of some CA members (as well as Guild promoters )

Alastair
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[monkian]

Ah- I stand corrected- Colour Guard it is then boys http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

[Brother Derfel]

Quote[/b] (Vlad The Impaler @ Dec. 09 2002,07:02)]well i dont see any reason fot pikes representend in an napoleonic game; the soldier have bayonettes at that time and the gun with bayonette is the normal result in evolution after the pike/arquebuses combo from 15-17 centuries as Katasaki Hirojima said ;
I wa mearly stating an Historical fact. I have now had time to look these units up, and their name were 'Opelchenie', or Militiamen as everyone else would call them http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif
Albeit, they did not always use pikes, and would use muskets when they were available, but they did use Pikes on several occasions and in numbers. The battle of Borodino is a good example of a battle when the Militia units used Pikes and i can recomend an excelent book by F, G Hourtoulle, 'Borodino The Moskova' published by HC that documents this very well.

I am not saying that all armie of the Napolonic warsshould have a unit availabe that can carry pike, but the Russians I belive should have the choice of an inexpensive but poorly trained unit that can.

[Brother Derfel]

Quote[/b] (Katasaki Hirojima @ Dec. 08 2002,22:14)]The days of pikes were in the 15-17 hundreds, when gun technology was limited. This is a era well represented by a game called Cossacks. I wish they'd do a TW game on the era Cossacks portrays, as do alot of cossacks fans 0o;
Yeah, i have Cossaks it is a very good game. I also wargame both the perios covered by this game as well as the Napoleonic wars with miniature figurines and have done extensive research into the warfare and uniforms of both periods (although 15-17 hundreds see several differnt era's of warfare realy)and would like a Tw game for both.
please try and understand i am NOT saying that there should be Pike/Halberd units in a TW napoleonic game, I was mearly stating the fact that a ver minute number of regiments occasionaly did use them, but to no great effect.

[Brother Derfel]

Quote[/b] (Gregoshi @ Dec. 09 2002,11:20)]This is a reply from Alastair II in the EH:

------
I have done a large amount of reading on these wars, and I'd like to correct some statements made in the referenced topic.
Napoleon did not use 12-pounders as his sole ranged weapon. He did engage in firefights frequently, especially when using light infantry and cavalry.
It is said that his genius was his ability to sense the progression of a battle and to know the exact place to apply overwhelming force, which could come in the form of the Old Guard (a force composed of the best of the best veterans), cannon loaded with canister shot (a form of ammunition that was short-ranged and extremely lethal to infantry), or heavy cavalry. This had nothing to do with his use of infantry, which, as said above, he did not make the mistake of using purely as columns. The use of that strategy was the reason for the lack of success of the pre-Napoleonic French Revolutionary generals.
Napoleon himself preferred a "mixed" strategy, mixed between the stiff, cumbersome lines of the British and Prussians and the chaotic skirmishing and columns of the Revolutionary French.

Why am I telling you all of this? Because IMO, this serves as a template for a much-improved TW (and this time it really IS total war, since Napoleon was actually able to destroy the enemy army almost totally, as Clausewitz said). In this TW, the amount of discipline of formations could be determined by the commander, by the amount of training the troops recieve, and their fatigue. The Napoleonic era, IMO, has many aspects to it that are lacking in European or Japanese medieval warfare and that would fall in line well with the tactical depth and relative (stress relative, since they didn't REALLY have that much discipline in medieval times) realism that CA is famed for.
I hope this will come to the favorable attention of some CA members (as well as Guild promoters )

Alastair
------
This is an excelent overview of Napoleon's tactics, and basicaly what i was trying to get across in my own half arsed and muddled up way. I agree entirely with what Alistair has said.