Napoleonic Rules

[Stewart.gibson]

I'll come clean.  I'm a bit of a pedant. Because I cannot count buttons on 10mm figures I have to find another facet to fixate on.

I tend to find myself in the weeds when it comes to unit organizations. This raises questions concerning why many cavalry squadrons have carbine armed flankers. Most battalions have light companies, many have grenadiers.  Units like grenzers have jaegers, sharpshooters etc.  you get the idea

I don't need to be Napoleon, I am more interested in how battalion commanders use these tools. 

All of this to ask.  Any rules out there that provides the players with the opportunity to use these tools while running battles up to diction size?

Stu

[Shecky]

Perhaps General d'Armee would fit the bill? I've not played them but I think they are are geared for division sized forces.

[Stewart.gibson]

Thanks Shecky,

Gd'A is a set we have discussed but not really explored here in town. Several of the 28mm gamers are not satisfied with Black Powder, seeing BP as too generic and are looking for something crunchier. 

I'll take a look though, thanks

Stu

[steve_holmes_11]

I'm not sure, but a division on table raises the question of scale.
Your 12 light cavalry flankers with rifled carbines, or every third man of your skirmish company having a rifle will tend to disappear into the mass of 8-15,000 fighters.

These, and many other details of equipment and quality might be more significant where a couple of patrols cross swords.

[Stewart.gibson]

Steve

Valid points.  I used division but the term is imprecise.  Reading detailed commentary on operations one finds companies of lights, grenadiers and various others pulled from multiple parent units and used on various tasks supporting the advance.   Clearing defiles, masking the flanks of formed units performing reconnaissance and clearing wooded areas are just some of the tasks these tools are used for. 

I guess my question is why these assets are part of regular line formations and under the command of those units' commanders.  Virtually every army includes these tools at the battalion level.  They must have a use in normal ops.  I'm interested in how.  So perhaps actions of 4-5000 per side.  Small division/brigade?

Did I say I was a pedant?

[Ithoriel]

I make no claims to be an expert on the period but as far as I can tell from my reading those specialists are simply merged with their parent unit for major battles.

There are exceptions like the Russian combined grenadier battalions. 

Bear in mind that major battles are very rare and those specialists give their parent units flexibility during the huge tracts of time that they are not fighting a major engagement.

[Stewart.gibson]

And those daily actions are the ones I am most interested in.  The large battles cannot really be recreated realistically on a table.  My opinion of course.

 Gill's narrative of the 1809 campaign is illuminating.  Lead elements of the armies are in almost constant combat with forces ranging from a few companies to a division, sometimes larger.

 It is those narratives that comment on the use of those tools. They are invariably supported by formed units and many escalated from outpost actions to multi battalion, all arms battles several times a day. 

Larger than skirmishes, smaller than Leipzig   but offering a gamer tactical challenges that in my mind really define combat in the era.

I recognize that this is not the highly abstracted battle currently favoured in the hobby.  I'm looking for a different approach, one that places the player in the role of a brigadier/regimental commander. 
 
To be clear, this is not about  refighting Waterloo as Wellington, with 100 battalions on the table and worrying about how the light companies are  deployed.  I'm interested in everyday: meeting engagements, advanced guards, rear guards and LOC protection.   

[Stewart.gibson]

Besides,  Leon makes all of these figures, shutzen, lights, jaegers, grenadiers, cavalry flankers.  Be nice to have a reason to use them for something other than slightly different figures stuck on the end of the battalion's line

 

[Big Insect]

I quite like the Muskets & Marshalls set of rules - they are very simple - designed to play 'old-school' Napoleonics. I think they were used in the 20mm Hinton Hunt demo game that Steve J highlighted (on this very forum) from the Partizan 2021.
Nothing fancy but the ability to play a good fast representational game of old-fashioned toy soldiers.
I'm about to use them for a 20mm Crimea project - they work equally well for that.

http://hintonhunt.blogspot.com/2017/10/muskets-marshals-final-cut.html

[Stewart.gibson]

Hi Big?  Or should I just call you Bug?

Thanks for the link to the blog.  Nicely done figures and interesting battle reports.  I did poke around looking for a link to the rules. Unfortunately I did not find them.  I also had a look at Wargames Vault but no joy there either.  Do you know where I might be able to find more info?

I must admit that despite being old school myself I am not a fan of old school rules. More concerned about unit frontages than figure counts and also not enamoured by figure removal.  That said these rules appear to give a good game.

Thanks again for the link to the blog.  If you have a link to the rules I would appreciate reading them.

Stu

[flamingpig0]

I quite like the Muskets & Marshalls set of rules - they are very simple - designed to play 'old-school' Napoleonics. I think they were used in the 20mm Hinton Hunt demo game that Steve J highlighted (on this very forum) from the Partizan 2021.
Nothing fancy but the ability to play a good fast representational game of old-fashioned toy soldiers.
I'm about to use them for a 20mm Crimea project - they work equally well for that.

http://hintonhunt.blogspot.com/2017/10/muskets-marshals-final-cut.html

I played with them a few years back and really struggled with the simultaneous movement it uses

[Big Insect]

Hi Big?  Or should I just call you Bug?
Thanks for the link to the blog.  Nicely done figures and interesting battle reports.  I did poke around looking for a link to the rules. Unfortunately I did not find them.  I also had a look at Wargames Vault but no joy there either.  Do you know where I might be able to find more info?

Hi Stu

If you email the author of the blog - he is also the author of the rules - he is very happy to send you a personal copy of M&M (for free). You just need to 'flatter' him a bit    He took down the download link for the rules as it was being abused by somebody who was selling the rules commercially! If that doesn't work - message me personally & I'll ping you a copy. But by getting them directly from the author you'll be on his list so he can also send you any updates.
The rules are very simple and you might need a bit of 'coaching' to get used to them - but I really like the combat mechanism. I've thought about 'borrowing' it for some of my other rules. I'm a great 'collector' of gaming mechanisms.

Cheers
Mark

[steve_holmes_11]

Steve

Valid points.  I used division but the term is imprecise.  Reading detailed commentary on operations one finds companies of lights, grenadiers and various others pulled from multiple parent units and used on various tasks supporting the advance.  Clearing defiles, masking the flanks of formed units performing reconnaissance and clearing wooded areas are just some of the tasks these tools are used for. 

I guess my question is why these assets are part of regular line formations and under the command of those units' commanders.  Virtually every army includes these tools at the battalion level.  They must have a use in normal ops.  I'm interested in how.  So perhaps actions of 4-5000 per side.  Small division/brigade?

Did I say I was a pedant?

If I understood your question correctly, these represent an early attempt at scalable capability.


If you're commanding an army, you've the capability to create or designate an avantgarde or scouting corps.
If you're commanding a division, you'll send your light infantry brigade, or light cavalry for that function.
And if you're a battalion on a special op, you have your light company.

In the days before the Corps, when units operated in ad-hoc brigades, similar things were done. But they generally involved combining light or grenadier companies - a bit fiddly (Inflexible) in the face of the enemy.

[Stewart.gibson]

If I understood your question correctly, these represent an early attempt at scalable capability.

That makes sense.  Was it an administrative choice in French army that was quickly adopted by many others?  It may well be that by making these specialist capabilities part of every battalion, the tools were available for Regiment/brigade/division commanders simply by "borrowing" those assets from battalions for specific missions. 

Reading how battalion sizes and structures changed over the 25 years between 1790 and 1815, and how in some cases nations reverted to older structures indicates to me that a fair amount of tactical experimentation was ongoing. To put it in modern terms, an exercise in Lessons Learned. Yes, there was a fair bit of how can I create more battalions out of what I have, but that is not seen in several armies, the Austrians in particular.

It is evident from detailed narratives that availability led to use, at all levels.  So the static 6 company, French 4 base battalion organization is a game mechanism.  Not that they did not fight like that when masses of troops were on the field, but in everyday operations those tools were put to use for a host of missions.

Were Austrian and other's battalions hampered by not having intrinsic Grenadier companies?   In 1809 Charles grouped the Austrian Grenadiers into battalions and attached those to reserve corps that served more as an Austrian Guard than anything else. It appears that French Grenadier companies were used to cover battalions advancing through a defile.  They were also used to cover battalions that were retiring.  Did Austrian units suffer because they lacked this capability?  Did they use other unit elements?  Did it influence rates of advance and aggression?

I'm am currently exploring this issue.  The ultimate aim is to build an understanding of how, when and by whom these tools were used for something other than looking pretty on a battalion's flank.  While cavalry have limited numbers of flankers, often used for patrols and piquets, I have read one narrative that details how a cavalry action was decided when flankers from several squadrons were detailed to work around the flank of an enemy cavalry force.  Was that common?  You don't hear of it at Libertwolkwitz where dozens of squadrons were in action. Did it happen and became too granular a detail to report?  Hard to know.

The interest comes from two aspects of Napoleonic gaming that I dislike.  Most rules focus on large battles that typically end up with two rows of units facing off on opposite sides of a billiard table that typically is far too small. The other is, as Last Hussar put it, the lack of wargame table difference.  I believe that the latter is due to the generic nature of the rules.  That is driven by trying to fit (insert major battle here) on a war-games table and having battalions as generic blocks that must only be able to form three formations, line, square and column.

Dogmatic pedant mode off...

Stu






[/quote]

[Stewart.gibson]

I guess the best thing for me to do would be to explain the ultimate goal.

I am looking to find/create a set of rules, closer to a simulation without the baggage typically perceived to accompany that goal. I'm not interested in maneuvering companies through complex drill movements on a table top.  Did enough of that in uniform to understand that is is a boring way to spend time. How will that approach get to the core realities of battles?  Subordinate leaders can and do manage that minutae without interference from above.

I have a set of goals in mind and I'll list them here.

a. Portray battalions as something other than generic blocks
b. Make time and space calculations critical to game play.
c. Make battlefield intelligence critical to game play.
d. Represent battlefields with more depth than width to capture the mobility of all arms on the battlefield.
e. Increase the amount of terrain on the battlefield and make that terrain critical to operations.
f. Explore line of sight limitations (incorporate the undulations and dead ground common everywhere) see battlefield intelligence above.
g. Make the tactical situation part of an operational framework, perhaps by a pregame order of march or  off map reserve deployment definition.
h. Use command and control capabilities inherent in national formations as tools needed to manage battlefield resources.  Detachments etc.
i. Make the players responsible for tactical decisions.  No roll the die to from square when the enemy cavalry appears.  The player is responsible for tactical awareness.  That's part of what the tools are for!
j. Friction but not random turn based friction.  Once an action is initiated, military units will continue until the mission is achieved or is no longer achievable.
k. Forces 3-10 battalions/squadrons/batteries in size
l. Basing that reflects the internal organizations and frontages of the forces involved.
m. Time scale that allows for all units present to complete the most complex of formation changes.  That may mean that certain Armies may have the ability to complete multiple tasks in a turn.  Particularly in the early napoleonic wars period.
n. Generic tools not intended for specific historical actions, more as a way for players to refight tactical problems. I cannot rule out use for refighting historical actions as I hope that the outcome has a high degree of historical fidelity.
o.  A combat system that reflects period reality.  That is the main reason that the battlefield requires sufficient depth. IF! the system reflects attrition it will be via accumulated hits rather than figure removal.

This laundry list is just random musings. I am researching the key drivers of the idea, organizations and detailed campaign narratives providing the necessary examples.  That said, I have pestered my local gamers with this for more than two decades and it is time to get off the soapbox and do the laundry!

Back to my original question. 

I'm hoping that I don't have to reinvent the wheel.  Anybody seen anything like this?

Stu