Fire by rank vs Platoon fire

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Originally Posted by Didz

Hoom is absolutely correct. The whole point of platoon fire was that the right hand platoon fired again as soon as it was loaded. French eyewitness accounts reported that the platoon fire from a British Regiment seemed to flow along the line from its right as each platoon fired in sequence.

However, the firing was continuous the right hand platoon fired again as soon as it was ready, even if all the platoons had not yet completed their first volley. Thus in a large battalion there might be two waves of fire progressing along the line.

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That's the exact description I have in my mind.

Rippling up and down the line is a continuous level of fire. After the first volley no one can really see anything so there is a much greater level of suppression (as FK has stated) rather than the selection of targets.

It should also produce a steady level of casualties over the course of a few minutes of fire and certainly no less than rank fire.

With better soldier animation and implementation, we should see this work in the next patch or two.

The basics are there already.

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Hoom is absolutely correct. The whole point of platoon fire was that the right hand platoon fired again as soon as it was loaded. French eyewitness accounts reported that the platoon fire from a British Regiment seemed to flow along the line from its right as each platoon fired in sequence.

However, the firing was continuous the right hand platoon fired again as soon as it was ready, even if all the platoons had not yet completed their first volley. Thus in a large battalion there might be two waves of fire progressing along the line.

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That's the exact description I have in my mind.

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So in next patches i would prefer a "prussian" variant. Platoon fire in the prussian army started at both ends, rolling to the middle of the regiment (Leopold I. von Anhalt-Dessau).

(Source: Fighting Techniques of the Early Modern World: Equipment, Combat Skills, and Tactics by Christer Jorgensen)

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Originally Posted by AussieGiant

With better soldier animation and implementation, we should see this work in the next patch or two.

The basics are there already.

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I wish, you wish, but if I have seen one thing in the previous games, it's that CA's handling of unit mechanics seems a bit stiff, there should be more dynamic in it, in other words, I hope but doubt it.
For example the engine is unable to make four ranks fire by rank, with platoon fire your unit has to stop marching, form up, then spread out, then shoot, why can't they already stop marching in the spread-out state? That would save a lot of time and probably make them more effective already.
The thing about starting a second wave sounds great but that would be like running two behaviour routines per unit or so and somehow my gut feeling says we won't get that from CA, just like fire by rank doesn't work if the target unit is so far sideways that the soldier at the other end of the first rank does not turn to fire on them, from what I've seen that completely turns off the fire by rank thing and the first rank will reload standing until they can fire again while the rest of the formation is idle.

Of course I'd hope CA would prove me wrong and change that but then they couldn't even make pikemen work properly after RTW... :sweatdrop:
I don't want to sound like a CA basher, they make great games but that doesn't mean there is nothing to criticize about them, for a good example of what I would call dynamic, look at the formation routines AoE games have had since AoE2, give them a short route and they advance in line, give them a long route and thay march in a column, either way they will wind around obstacles like a snake etc. I haven't seen anything as dynamic as that in CA games so far. Could be optimizations due to the far higher number of soldiers involved but we got dual and quad cores now(which the game didn't really take full advantage of last time I checked) so there should be some power to make some changes in that direction, could be optional like desynchronized animations were in RTW.

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Originally Posted by AussieGiant

After the first volley no one can really see anything so there is a much greater level of suppression (as FK has stated) rather than the selection of targets.

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Although there are eywitness accounts of platoon officers/sergeants directing the fire of their platoons, indeed one of the advantages of platoon fire was that it could be directed at local targets of opportunity or greatest threat. Given that a battalion of 600 men had a frontage of about 120 yards and that visibility was probably less than 30 or so after the first few volleys the ability to direct fire locally rather than just firing into the smoke did have advantages even if you only directed the volley at the other sides mussle flashes.

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Originally Posted by AussieGiant

It should also produce a steady level of casualties over the course of a few minutes of fire and certainly no less than rank fire.

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I would have thought it would produce a higher level of casualties in fact. Fire by rank has the disadvantage of being centrally controlled from the centre of the battalion, which as already stated could be 120 yards long. Therefore, the timing of the fire would be very difficult to judge, particularly if you can only see 30 yards through the smoke. If the enemy do not oblige you by coming at you head on in the centre of your line the chances are that a large volume of each ranks volley will be wasted firing into thin air.

Add to that the fact by implication firing by rank would have needed a greater degree of control and the drill for performing it would added to the delay between the timing of each volley.

BTW: I was interested to read that in fact, when firing by ranks the third (rear rank) actually fired first, and nobody fired until the first and second ranks had already got their heads out of the way. So, the sequequence must have been 'front rank kneel>third rank step to the right>Present>3rd Rank Fire>2nd Rank Fire>1st Rank Fire>All Stand>Reload>Front Rank Kneel>Third Rank step to the Right>Present...and so on. The obvious danger of having the front rank fire first is that in the excitment of battle having discharged their muskets they might stand to try and reload and the French noted that they were losing a lot of men from the front rank getting their heads blown off by men from the 3rd.

Certainly platoon fire could be a little more deadly due to localised orders to fire at what was presented. As you mentioned Didz, the worst you could do was aim at the muzzel flashes.

Most of what I've read in first hand accounts talks about a white smoke filled haze which simply meant pouring as much fire into the general vacinity of the enemy as possible.

Gusts of wind could of course create patches of visibility and enough of it would create a fairly visible enemy. Many accounts don't indicate this happened too often though.

I hope you are right Husar in that CA can get animations and these types of issues sorted out.

I ran a few custom battles the other day on normal with a platoon fire guard unit and a line infantry unit. The trend seems to be the fire-by-rank unit outgunning and causing more casualties on the first 2 volleys, but the constant losses they are taking makes them start redressing their lines sooner than the guard unit, and on volley 3 casualties are roughly even. By volley 4 the line infantry is losing too much firepower from casualties and by volley 5 they're usually around 40 casualties more than the guard unit and soon routs.

Try again with 300 strong units.

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Originally Posted by Marquis of Roland

I ran a few custom battles the other day on normal with a platoon fire guard unit and a line infantry unit. The trend seems to be the fire-by-rank unit outgunning and causing more casualties on the first 2 volleys, but the constant losses they are taking makes them start redressing their lines sooner than the guard unit, and on volley 3 casualties are roughly even. By volley 4 the line infantry is losing too much firepower from casualties and by volley 5 they're usually around 40 casualties more than the guard unit and soon routs.

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hmmm very interesting.

I'm sure the CA guy that is responsible for this working in the game is going; "~:doh: it's not like we didn't put ANY thought into it!"
:balloon2:

I'd be careful drawing any conclusion from that. Line units just don't have the stats to go toe to toe with a guards unit in any case, irrespective of whether the guards are using rank or platoon fire.

I had a unit of guards defending its section of the line loose against one unit of militia. That militia unit shot my precious guards to pieces. It might be that it was the VH bonus for the AI, but was not a fine moment for my guards.