HPS NB vs. Battleground

[JasonC]

Cavalry charges out of nowhere that caught infantry before it formed square run from one end of the Napoleonic wars to the other and decide more than a few major battles. D'Erlons entire corps, anyone? A dumb thing to object to...

[jonnymacbrown]

"Cavalry charges out of nowhere that caught infantry before it formed square run from one end of the Napoleonic wars to the other and decide more than a few major battles. D'Erlons entire corps, anyone? A dumb thing to object to..."

You don't understand the issues Jason. jonny ;)

[FM WarB]

In HPS Waterloo should d'Erlon's Corps advance against the ridge in brigade stacks in line formation with the optional line pass through fire rule on this would approximate what happened. The British heavy cavalry could charge them without needing the added movement in phased play.

D'Erlon's infantry were pretty much beaten by enemy artillery and infantry fire and their own clumsy formations before they were attacked by the British cavalry. The British cavalry did not come from nowhere; they were right behind the ridge.

Phased play gives the offense three straight cracks in a row. Offensive fire, Melee and Defensive fire. Add the cavalry "mechanized movement phase" and single turn HPS gives defense a better chance than BG phased play.

[JasonC]

They weren't in line. A few deployed to it later at the ridge, most hadn't.

They broke the front of Picton's division, pretty much. Most one can say is a few of the best Brit battalions were still standing and they had disordered the front rank of the French infantry, which crucially prevented them from getting to square. But if the Brit cavalry hadn't charged, and hadn't "rolled boxcars", the Brits would not have held. D'Erlons was just getting started, had some to stay all day, and was supported by his own cavalry to exploit.

There is a reason Wellington called Waterloo the nearest run thing you ever saw in your life, and it wasn't that all the Brits had to do was fight in line against those silly stupid French in their silly stupid columns. That's all utter rot.

The Brit cavalry didn't just hit one or two stacks in game terms, either. They rode halfway across the valley, broke a supporting Cuirassier division, 3/4 of a corps of infantry, and rode through the grand battery. They were then broken in return by French light cavalry. This happened very very quickly - about 3 minutes to get through the French infantry for example.

As for where they were, hardly "right behind the ridge" - that is where the entire fight took place. The Brit infantry was right behind the ridge crest - the cavalry were more like at the bottom of it. Then they were clear across the valley at the base of the ridge D'Erlon had started out from. Then they were scattered by the French countercharges and back behind their own ridge again.

And no that didn't take 3 hours either. Disordered cavalry moves 300 yards in 15 minutes in HPS. Try duplicating that series of positions for the Brit heavy cavalry, disordering on the charge, and see how long in takes you. Even without a single Frenchman in the way.

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jonnymac - I've played full Waterloo to completion in Wellington's Victory the board game and in BG Waterloo - several times. I think I understand what cavalry did and does in those systems. And no, I don't think it unrealistic in the slightest, that charging cavalry moves a long way in a short span of time. It did in real life, too.

The only thing needed is no road movement bonus in a turn you are going to melee - for infantry or cavalry. That is really about it. Cutting the range of charging cavalry to 600 yards on the other hand, is silly. That is 1.4 mph, half a walking pace of a man on foot. 1400 yards in 15 minutes, which is what you get with 15 MPs for cavalry and double moves for a charge allowed, is all of 3.2 mph. In other words, a walk. Naturally it represents 2-3 times that speed trotting or cantering in "your half" of the turn - but it is still a very low figure for charging cavalry. Halving it is not realism; more like neutering.

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Here is the way to attack with D'Erlon.

There are 4 divisions side to side along the frontage.
The second division has 3 line regiments, the rest 4. The other regiment of 2e is light and sends a skirmish wave ahead of the whole formation (while also fighting for the farm etc).
Put each of the other regiments in one hex, 2 battalions stacked in each, with their skirmish companies immediately ahead of them to screen them. Put the regiments in every other hex; skirmishers cover the intervals between them.
Each division has 2 of these regiments up, and 2 back behind them. In the case of the 2e division, just one trailing line regiment; the parent units of the lights can go back with them but aren't meant to engage as a line regiment.

The Brits call what is approaching them 4 big columns because that is what each division looks like deployed this way, with its skirmish screens out. Inside, there are little 2 by 2 "squares" of regimental columns inside each of those "big columns".

A heavy cavalry division supports as a third line behind the line of infantry regiments. The corps light cavalry as well, toward the right.

This formation fights by fire just fine. There is nothing "clumsy" about it, either, especially compared to a long string of battalions in line - way clumsier. And it is actually quite ready to form rows of squares at musket shot intervals from each other (as the 4e division on the right actually managed to do) - in principle.

In the event, the front row of regiments were disordered from the fight with the Brit infantry or exactly in the middle of deploying to line, at the moment the Brit cavalry hit them. Then front line regiments routed after melee defeat by the cavalry, and rout contagion from their running carried away most of the second rank, and left any bits that didn't run disordered and thus again unable to make it to square. The rightmost division made to to square and beat off all attacks.

It was still an outlier successful result among cavalry charges. Murat's at Eylau did as much and against a force of comparable scale, but used a lot more cavalry to do it, and took considerably longer as well.

[FM WarB]

Jason,
The ideal formation in game terms you describe for d'Erlon is not that which he used in the battle. See Adkin, The Waterloo Companion, pp. 195, 343-345 and 412; Barbero, The Battle, pp 124-125; Chandler, The Campaigns of Napoleon, pp. 351, 1076-77; and Weller, Wellington at Waterloo, p. 95 for descriptions of d'Erlon's infantry battalions deployed in line, one behind another. You actually would have to be able to stack eight bns in a single hex to get Donzelot and Marcognet's divisions into their division columns by battalion.

We apparently disagree, as when the BG games first came out I argued that cavalry was too strong in the game. I believe that the HPS game engine changes, along with oobs that have cavalry in squadrons, not regiments addresses the issue of cav being too strong to my satisfaction.
Warren

[JasonC]

I deny it. I claim that none of the sources you mention had the slightest idea either how French infantry formations worked nor of the flexible meaning of the terms used to describe them.

Column meant anything that had one of anything behind another of the same scale. Line meant anything that had similar subformations beside each other. Division meant both a unit above a brigade and any formation split into 2 equal halves deployed beside each other. Moreover, everyone from Napoleon on down used analogy to how a battalion deployed its companies in various standard formations, to describe all larger formations - to the point of calling a formation of 6 corps arranged in operational marches "a battalion square".

The only thing eyewitnesses relate with clarity is that the formations were 20 ranks deep. Which is exactly the aggregate depth of the formation I described above. And that visually they formed 4 giant integrated columns, column here in the sense of deeper than line formations with dressed front. Which fits my description. Moreover, several eyewitnesses explain that the front line French infantry were in the act of deploying further into line when the British cavalry struck them. Which makes no sense whatever if they supposedly already were in line.

The term used by the French to describe the formation was column of divisions by battalion. Column of divisions at the battalion scale meant each battalion was divided into 2 equal halves ("division" in the second sense) and these divisions were placed next to each other, each as a 3 deep column of companies, each in turn (as always) in 3 rank line. I claim the analogous meaning for a division scale formation was each division divided into 2 equal halves, each deployed beside each other, with their next level subunit - regiments - in column one behind the other. In this analogy the brigades of the division correspond to the half-battalions ("division" in the second sense) of a battalion-level formation of companiesa, and regiments (next level down) correspond to companies. It is an analogy exactly similar to Napoleon speaking of 6 corps as being in "battalion square". It is a "column of divisions" in the battalion-level sense raised 2 echelon levels in scale.

I claim each division was in such a formation, with the divisions themselves in line beside one another. The frontage of the whole therefore 8 regiments, with another 8 behind them. We know the whole formation was 20 ranks deep, and a regiment deployed in full column is instead 18 ranks deep on its own. A regiment deployed in column of divisions, however, is only 9 ranks deep, and this is the obvious reason why the whole was 20 ranks deep front to back. (The extra 2 are due to rank closers etc).

Chandler in particular is hopeless on such a point. He claims the attack was unsupported by cavalry. Then says cavalry ought to go first (lol). Then overlooks the Hanoverians having been cut up by the blown Cuirassiers, who were hit first by the British charge on the French left before the infantry was and which didn't get there because they were having a picnic. He ignores the fact that another Cuirassier division supported in rear and the French lights on the right rear. He ignores the fact that as supports they practically destroyed the British cavalry for what it did to the infantry and its overextending itself. That is kind of what "supported" means. He repeats the myth of Highlanders riding stirrups in the Grey's charge, a piece of Scots all getting confused. He says the French infantry "fought like lions" when eyewitnesses say they broke and began running before the Brit cavalry actually reached them. In short, there isn't a line Chandler writes about the subject that can be trusted to be accurate rather than myth peddling.

Most accounts also neatly overlook the infantry fight that preceeded the Brit cavalry charge and how it was actually going. The Brits were not winning it. Picton was killed. The front line of allied battalions had already broken. The second was standing, and the French infantry were in musket fire contact, and some subformations in second line were attempting to deploy further.

The charge was particularly well timed in that respect. There isn't the slightest truth to the pretense that the French formation was failing due to artillery fire or the fight with the allied infantry alone. Quite the reverse actually. But they were caught at just the right moment by just the right arm. And their numbers did not suffice to counter that - the most fundamental fact about Napoleonic era tactics is that they practically never did, and the paper scissors rock of combined arms relationships dominated numbers. Which doesn't happen nearly enough in HPS, but did in BG.

Cavalry was not overpowered in the BG system. If anything, there wasn't enough outright morale failure just for being in a charge threat zone and not in square - which in the real deal was often enough to cause outright rout, not just disorder or failure to make it to square. (The VP points for cavalry were also ludicruous and still are, but fortunately are editable. Unchanged they practically prohibit all cavalry attacks on anything but enemy cavalry. Which needless to say does not reflect the era reality). Moreover, the surround melees characteristic of the system before the soft ZOC etc "reforms" of HPS, were also decidedly realistic.

The Brit cavalry took 3000 French prisoners in the course of their charge. In the BG system, that sort of thing actually happened. In HPS, not so much...

[jonnymacbrown]

"And no, I don't think it unrealistic in the slightest, that charging cavalry moves a long way in a short span of time. It did in real life, too.The only thing needed is no road movement bonus in a turn you are going to melee - for infantry or cavalry. That is really about it."

Yes that was my big problem with BG, the road movement combined with charge, for a 1500 yard charge.

"Cutting the range of charging cavalry to 600 yards on the other hand, is silly. That is 1.4 mph, half a walking pace of a man on foot. 1400 yards in 15 minutes, which is what you get with 15 MPs for cavalry and double moves for a charge allowed, is all of 3.2 mph. In other words, a walk. Naturally it represents 2-3 times that speed trotting or cantering in "your half" of the turn - but it is still a very low figure for charging cavalry. Halving it is not realism; more like neutering."

In Wellington's Victory I recall those charge zones were 600 yards. That's about how far a normal horse can run full out before getting winded. The longest sprint for thoroughbred horses is 6 furlongs or about 1300 yards but that's with a really light weight jock, on a leveled track and they do it once a day. Cavalry horses are carrying a fully armed man, charging on an uneven field, being shot at after standing around a battlefield all day, not being pampered in a paddock. People move slower on a battlefield and so do horses methinks. Thanks for your analysis. You should have come into this discussion earlier Jason. jonny

[FM WarB]

[quote='JasonC' pid='327856' dateline='1281671721']
[quote]I deny it. I claim that none of the sources you mention had the slightest idea either how French infantry formations worked nor of the flexible meaning of the terms used to describe them.[/quote]

I agree that when discussing tactics it is important to get the definitions of terms correct. Perhaps these sources are ignorant, but I doubt it.

[quote]Division meant both a unit above a brigade and any formation split into 2 equal halves deployed beside each other.[/quote]

Hoping that Nafziger, Imperial Bayonettes and Nofi, The Waterloo Campaign are not as ignorant as the other sources I refer to, they state that a "division" within a battalion is two companies, not a half battalion. Thus a french battalion in 1815 has three divisions.

[quote]The term used by the French to describe the formation was column of divisions by battalion. Column of divisions at the battalion scale meant each battalion was divided into 2 equal halves[/quote]

The term for a battalion column on a two company (division) frontage is column of battalions by division. A column of divisions by battalion is a column with the battalions in line.

You misuse terms in your description of tactical formations. This to me invalidates your "claims" and I feel no need to refute them point by point.

[FM WarB]

The term for a battalion column on a two company (division) frontage is column of battalions by division.

Clarification: Battalion column by divisions refers to a single battalion with three divisions (two companies each) arrayed one behind the other.

When referring to a division, a division with its battalions in that formation is a column of battalions by division. The two brigades of a division could be side by side or behind one another.

A column of divisions by battalion has the divisions with their battalions in line behind one another.

After all this definition effort, I am beginning to believe the mistaken/misunderstood order theory!
d/Erlon's Corps was not a paragon of military efficiency in this campaign.