Dragoons -When do we get to see them?

[hoom]

I'm rather troubled that we've seen no sign of Dragoons yet.
We were told months ago that they were already in the game & working properly but there's not been any screenies of them.

I wanna see some video or a screenshot of them dis or re mounting
Likewise with pre-battle dismounting/remounting which is supposed to be making a comeback.

I was really expecting to see these in the Land Battles trailer.

[Fisherking]

What I would like to know more about Dragoons is whether they get three shots at the enemy before the need to reload? (at least while mounted)

I am hoping they did their research thoroughly enough to give them a pair of Horse Pistols.

I am also assuming that they fight in melee with swords or sabers rather than having bayonets for their carbines.

Here I am only guessing, but do they fight as skirmishers as I would figure, or in line using standard infantry tactics?

[Sheogorath]

I recall that most nations issued pretty much ALL cavalry with at least a pistol. Curiaissiers and other heavy cavalry often had more. This was a holdover from the days when pikes were a major presence on the field (although, by the start of ETW they should still be around, if fading from use). A pistol could be fired with a good chance to hit something from juuuuuuuuuust outside the range of a pike.

If we want to talk firepower, Cossacks tended to go into battle with as many as the could carry. The Cossack Guard were allowed EIGHT pistols ;)

I think, for simplicities sake, though, if Dragoons DO have firearms, it will probably only be a carbine. It would probably be quite complicated to give units multiple 'shots' before reloading. As I recall, even the Reiters from MTW2, despite having two pistols, only 'fired' once.

[Fisherking]

I recall that most nations issued pretty much ALL cavalry with at least a pistol. Curiaissiers and other heavy cavalry often had more. This was a holdover from the days when pikes were a major presence on the field (although, by the start of ETW they should still be around, if fading from use). A pistol could be fired with a good chance to hit something from juuuuuuuuuust outside the range of a pike.

If we want to talk firepower, Cossacks tended to go into battle with as many as the could carry. The Cossack Guard were allowed EIGHT pistols ;)

I think, for simplicities sake, though, if Dragoons DO have firearms, it will probably only be a carbine. It would probably be quite complicated to give units multiple 'shots' before reloading. As I recall, even the Reiters from MTW2, despite having two pistols, only 'fired' once.

Wait just a moment!

I don’t know about other armies but they phased out Dragoons in the US Army before they phased out the horse pistol!

The last actual Horse Pistol I know of was the Walker Colt from around 1847. They were phased out when pistols were small enough to be side arms.

To me having Dragoons without Horse Pistols is a little like having Riflemen without Rifles…

Isn’t it where the term Dragooning comes from something to do with a horse pistol up side your head?

The ones from the late 1700s were fully capable of hitting a man at 25 yards. Now that is a great deal short of Musket range but coming up against a man carrying two of these in a charge might be enough to spoil a wonderful afternoon.

If they got the blue print for a bunch of old ships they had better have thought of Horse Pistols.

I can give you a 100% grantee that a Horse Pistol is a whole lot scarier than just about any horse.

Carbines are well and good on the ground, and convenient for carrying on a horse but you just try to reload up there, even at a walk…

I see nothing wrong with your Cossacks having a brace of pistols. If we can have automatic weapons and elephants mounting cannon, then what the heck is wrong with a few horse pistols!

(Horse Pistols were issued in pairs with a holster that draped over the pommel of the saddle)

CA...Horse Pistols...

[Sheogorath]

Oh, I agree. Horse pistols would be quite excellent to have in game...

But I'm just looking at this from CA's point of view. It would probably be a LOT easier to just give dragoons a carbine and leave out the horse pistols, rather than write an addition billion lines of code in order to come up with a scheme to reload and fire those other than having to wait for all the weapons to reload at once before firing again...which would be silly.

[Fisherking]

Auxiliary weapons have been in the game for a while. (so okay, they never work quite right…but we can hope)

I don’t know how much trouble it would be to code them, but if you are taking on the gunpowder era then you should have planed for such things as people with pistols.
People at sea had pistols with bayonets! And a Cutlass! Multiple shots should be accounted for in some fashion. It is a value.
I don’t need to see it animated in a charge…(yet!) give them a value of three…god knows they always load too slow anyway…

By the way, do you think they will make the American Cavalry all John Wayne clones?

[Sir Beane]

Auxiliary weapons have been in the game for a while. (so okay, they never work quite right…but we can hope)

I don’t know how much trouble it would be to code them, but if you are taking on the gunpowder era then you should have planed for such things as people with pistols.
People at sea had pistols with bayonets! And a Cutlass! Multiple shots should be accounted for in some fashion. It is a value.
I don’t need to see it animated in a charge…(yet!) give them a value of three…god knows they always load too slow anyway…

By the way, do you think they will make the American Cavalry all John Wayne clones?

I think the problem lies in the fact that dragoons should have at least 3 weapons, 4 if you count the two horse pistols. If the carbine is the main weapon and the sword is the auxiliary melee weapon that doesn't leave a slot for the pistols. This is assuming a unit can only have two weapons again, which I think is a reasonable guess.

On a side note I really hope that reloading and preloading weapons makes more sense this time around. I want my cannons to begin loading before the enemy come into range, not rushing to do so once they have.

I also hope cannons stay loaded even if a unit moves or changes target after they have completed the reload animation.

On yet another side note, does anyone else think that the way horses move in the videos so far looks much better and more realistic than previous games?

[geala]

I'm not quite sure what you do expect from dragoons. If they had some horse pistols they should be rather weak with it. In fact real dragoons imho were rather weak as cavalry and rather weak as infantry, what was the reason that they more sooner than later were just another kind of heavy cavalry using shock tactics in battle.

And I think the US dragoons were not realy dragoons but more or less cavalry. Afaik the first 4 regiments rarely had carbines in the beginning in 1776 and the following years. The reformed Continental Dragoons from 1778 were also more or less normal cavalry who fought on horseback. Same with the two regiments dragoons from 1812 to 1815. And when the first mounted regiment after the abandonement of cavalry in the year 1821 was formed in 1833 (1. US Dragoons) it was normal cavalry again. Maybe later on, after the dragoons were renamed "cavalry", they fought more often as dragoons than ever before but this would be beyond E:TW timeframe.

I hope CA will not waste much time with creating very powerful dragoons.

[Oleander Ardens]

On a side note I really hope that reloading and preloading weapons makes more sense this time around. I want my cannons to begin loading before the enemy come into range, not rushing to do so once they have.

I also hope cannons stay loaded even if a unit moves or changes target after they have completed the reload animation.

A very good point. This is a pivotal issue IMHO, just imagine you are hiding your units behind a hill and order them to spring up and .... reload their loaded muskets....

On yet another side note, does anyone else think that the way horses move in the videos so far looks much better and more realistic than previous games?

They doo IMHO

[Fisherking]

I'm not quite sure what you do expect from dragoons. If they had some horse pistols they should be rather weak with it. In fact real dragoons imho were rather weak as cavalry and rather weak as infantry, what was the reason that they more sooner than later were just another kind of heavy cavalry using shock tactics in battle.

And I think the US dragoons were not realy dragoons but more or less cavalry. Afaik the first 4 regiments rarely had carbines in the beginning in 1776 and the following years. The reformed Continental Dragoons from 1778 were also more or less normal cavalry who fought on horseback. Same with the two regiments dragoons from 1812 to 1815. And when the first mounted regiment after the abandonement of cavalry in the year 1821 was formed in 1833 (1. US Dragoons) it was normal cavalry again. Maybe later on, after the dragoons were renamed "cavalry", they fought more often as dragoons than ever before but this would be beyond E:TW timeframe.

I hope CA will not waste much time with creating very powerful dragoons.

A lot of confusion arose when Briton in particular and others in general reclassed their Cavalry as Dragoons. The reason for this was simple and quite mercenary. Dragoons were paid less than Cavalry.

(Aside: it is interesting that politicians and leader often pay men less that are required to have a larger skill set or more hazardous job than those who don’t)

If you think I am asking for Super Dragoons you are much mistaken. I am only looking for them to possess their actual weapons and capabilities. What can be made of them afterwards is up to those using them. A more modern example would be Tanks in 1940. The allies used them in penny packets for infantry support. The Germans used technically inferior models in mass to great effect.

Tactics is an art of using men and equipment to gain the maximum effect against the enemy. Finding new ways to employ units is certainly no crime. In fact that is what tactics is all about.

We will not have the ability to create units of our own design so maximizing the capabilities of those we have should prove the key to victories.

Forest used mounted infantry to good effect in the war between the states, while no one else seemed to use them at all.