"Upcoming Franco-Prussian War game" Topic

Well here I am, a wargamer of several historical periods but never anything between about 1500 and 1900, and facing a game in the Franco-Prussian War.

To give an idea of scale – the ruleset is apparent 'Warfare in the Industrial Age', the force I will be controlling part of consists of two Brigades and the scale is 28mm, 2-4 figures a base with 7 bases making up a regiment. I think we will be assaulting the French while they are installed in/around a town.

We have the 25th Hessians, the 3rd Brigade from the 2nd Division of Guards and some artillery batteries 96lber Breech loaders)

At this point I realise that I havent a clue, wikipedia gives em some basic information on the war but frankly not a lot – well other than the fact that I may be able to giggle at my French counterparts because their machineguns seem likely to be in the wrong place (heck I didn't know the machine had existed then), but their rifles are better than mine.

So I guess Im after some hints to decent online sources about the war. Some comments on what tactics or deployment the Prussians would really have used would be useful. I don't know the system and the numbers Ive been given are thus relatively meaningless – so I'd like to try and use contemporary tactics as a base and see if they work.

So I guess some specific questions that Im trying to answer from any sources people point me at or feel prepared to comment on.
In the real war –
Would the artillery deploy before battle and then be expected not to move?
Were Cavalry considered a frontal assault force, a reserve or flankers?
Did this war consist of shooting lines at range or closing to close range battle – I hesistate to use the 40k phrase of 'assault range' but you may get what Im asked there ;)
Common formations that I might be expected to consider.

Any commentary about this war or sources that I can use much appreciated. Im not really after how to play the game in this ruleset – well unless someone happens to know that historical tactic X fails dismally under those rules – Im just after how contemporary armies operated and Ill try to copy that in the game.

Thanks for any comments
Tim

Agh, no edit – that should be 6lber guns…

Your Guns should out range theirs, Soot them up with Artillery until the are close to breaking. THEN assault with the Infantry.

You need to do some reading…

Michael Howard's "The Franco_Prussian War" is the definitive english source.

Geoffrey Wawro's book is also quite good, though biased against the French. He writes well, just use Howard's book as balance.

For gamers.. I suggest Bruce Wiegel's 1870 rules. The background and OBs are a must… You also need his 1859 book.. Great job on both!

To answer your questions.
1. Arty would deploy with the infantry. Doctrine was to get them up close for maximum effect… until they got shot down. The arty tended later to hang back and bombard. Prussians had the upper hand with their Krupp breechloaders (6pd actually fired a 12lb shell….4pd and 8pd). French arty was outclassed in technology and doctrine.

2. Cavalry was still considered a frontal attack force… though light cav as flankers and skirmishers were certainly used. Several cav charges ended in disaster.. with only Von Bredow's death charge being an unmitigated though costly success (they were only defeated when blown and hit by the French Cav).

3. Both long range shooting (for the French mainly) and close assaults were prevalent. The French rifle was extremely superior to the Prussian. Fights tended to turn into skirmish lines and under 400 yards because of volume of fire. Casualties could be horrible for assaulters..ie. Prussian Guard as St. Privat.

4. Formations. Skirmish lines being fed by company columns.
Line was formed occasionally on a terrain feature. No squares to speak of… Cav was shot down without closing.
Assaults were conducted in company columns, though they tended to be rush forward… hit the dirt… rush forward.

all for now

Joe Collins

Sabre6 has the formula.

>Would the artillery deploy before battle and then be expected not to move?

Between reconaissance and pursuit, the cavalry is a tool of deperation. A cavalry attack might, if you are very likely, desitract them long enough to extract infantry or guns from a sticky situation. After that, they will not be an issue because they will all be dead.

>Were Cavalry considered a frontal assault force, a reserve or flankers?

Decorative and brave. Sometimes they fought with one another, mostly as a spectator sport for the infantry. If the French start with hidden deployment, they will help for recon.

>Did this war consist of shooting lines at range or closing to close range battle – I hesistate to use the 40k phrase of 'assault range' but you may get what Im asked there ;)

The war consisted of hopeless prussian assaults shot to a bloody ruin by french fire before they came into needle-gun range (you do know French infantry weapons had twice the range of prussian?), with the French finally defeated by being flnaked by greater prussian tactical flexibility, or slaughtered by prussian guns firing from outside the effective range of all french weapons.

If you have sufficient cover to get withing 300meters without being exposed to french rifle fire you might win a firefight -- von Molkte thought well of dense terrain for that reason -- but there are combinations of terrain that could really be a problem.

There were battles, late in the war, where both sides stood in the open and fired at each other. They were rare and went badly for everybody.

>Common formations that I might be expected to consider.

Firing line in open order supported by a half-battalion columns was standard. But don't stand out in the open in Chassepot range.

If the ref is smart, the victory conditions will rush you. Otherwise, use your guns to drive his off, then destroy the town around him. Infantry to mop up, cavalry to pursue.

Let me know how it works out.

God, I wish I could type.

Agree that a read of one of the reviews of the war would be useful – interesting conflict, a mixture of Napoleanic tactics and advancing technology

As to the questions

1) Agree with ikmjbc3 – artillery tended to deploy up front early on, get shot up – they learned their lesson and then hung back – in addition to technical quality, the Prussians had quantity – the French kept a lot of their artillery in corps or army artillery reserves, which they did not use much – the Prussians deployed more of theirs with divisions and front line units

2) The Europeans still didn't get it that the armee blanche was a dinosaur – cavalry was used for recce and both sides had sizable forces of battle cavalry intended for boot to boot charges, which rarely turned out well – there was a big cavalry fight early at Mars-la-Tour – which as I recall was the last big cavalry battle in Europe – and a series of Death Rides (von Bulow was good at that, doing Death Rides in the Six Weeks War and Franco-Prussian War)

3) The commanders wanted to close in, but technology and common sense often had the soldier go to ground, plus it is a lot easier to go to ground with a breech loader than a rifle musket. As noted, there was a "deadly cone" of fire – the Chassepott kicked like a mule, so a good number of the French fired from the hip, fast and furious – this produced a zone about 600 to 900 metres away that was lethal to be in – as noted, the Prussian Guard discovered this at St. Privat when they advanced in columns

4) Columns were the preferred formation for assault, until they were shot full of holes

Interesting period – I like it – if you play the French, staying just out of needle gun range is great because the Prussians will most surely still be in Chassepott range- just hope they don't get the chance to use all those breech-loading Krupps

"if you play the French"

I think – but I have not tried it – that the French defence has to be fairly active. Certainly if you sit and wait to be cannonaded, you are done for. A lot of "elan" assault-and-be-damned French school of WWI was a response to a failure of passive defence in the FPW.

If you can find a defensive position with sufficient covering terrain that the prussian has to come into chassepot range to engage you with his guns, your are in better shape.

There is a lot of great information in this thread for anyone looking to game the FPW.

I'll just add that from what I know; during a battle, the Prussians would be quick to exploit weaknesses in the French defenses, sending swarms of infantry, at and around holes in the French lines.
If and when they ran into the cone of Chassepot fire, they would stretch out the attack to find a gap.
I think somebody mentioned "Tactical Flexibility" and that's what I'm talking about here.

Also; I have read a lot about the Prussian units/officers marching to the sound of the guns….whether they were ordered to or not.

The German light cavalry, i.e. Uhlans, were better at recon than the French, or were used more for this than the French.

Enjoy your game, let us know how it played out and your observations.
Joe

@lkmjbc3
Is that Michael Howard one subtitled 'The German Invasion of France, 1870-1871'. if so, excellent, Amazon have a stock of them :)

Tim,

Having played both French and Germans in 1870s battles (using Larry Brom's "Chassepot and Needlegun" rules), I can realistically say that all of the above comments are valid.

As a "newbie" Prussian commander, your best bet will be to bombard the French with your artillery while keeping it out of French rifle range. Otherwise your gunners will be killed before they can effect the French. Do NOT use cavalry against steady infantry – they will get slaughtered! Keep them in reserve for pursuit of a broken foe or use them to outflank the French. Although your infantry can fight the French on an even match in a toe-to-toe melee, crossing the "beaten zone" against the French rifles will likely result in destroyed German units. After your artillery really softens up the French, advance in columns behind a thick skirmish line, knowing that you will lose a significant number of troops before you can close.

In actual battles, the Prussians "marching to the sound of the guns" and appearing on the French flanks was what won the battles for them. The Frrench commanders didn't respond as readily as the Prussians and lost their nerve when their flanks were threatened, pulling back when they actually had the Prussians who were facing them beaten. Reading Howard's and Wawro's books will help you understand this.

It is an interesting period in which to game. You can see a couple of battle reports on our group's web site: link . Just click on Pictures of Battles and scroll down to the 19th Century/FPW section.

And a final note. If the gamemaster has the force strengths equal between the French and the Prussians, then the Prussians MUST concentrate all their artillery on one section of the French lines to hammer them before launching a concentrated attack. If the Prussians try to attack everywhere along the lline, then they will be defeated. I've had it happen to me twice in one weekend – it wasn't pleasant.

Let us know what happened.

Jim
link

If you want to win, bombard the French with your artillery then go in with the infantry. If you want to play historically, attack frontally with infantry in attack columns. Once you get your troops mauled enough by the Chassepots, pull them back and bombard with the artillery, then try again with the infantry. Note that if it's historical, the Prussians should receive ever increasing numbers of reinforcements (as they were instructed to "march to the sound of the guns").

If you're the Prussians: bombard, bombard, bombard.
If you're the French: Chassepot fire, Chassepot fire, Chasspot fire.
The only way to realistically recreate what happened in real life occur on the wargame table is to put a turn limit on the game so that the Prussians cannot take their time to soften up the French positions a lot before they attack with their infantry.

Well our game is to be delayed – due to the scouts whose building we use wanting to use it :(

However this gives me time to read up :)

I saw the words Uhlan – apparently I'll have four bases of them (a Battalion it seems), so I think I found my recon in force unit.

Thanks for the comments all.

Just to echo the above, frontal assaults against breechloading rifles were futile, although a massive artillery preparation could help. Much better to find a flank and attack from there having pinned the enemy frontally. Prussian attack formation – skimish lines supported by company columns. French attack formations, battalion columns with skirmishers, but in the FPW they were generally quite static, relying on fire.

The French might find it useful to get out their shovels and starting digging – provides good cover against Prussian artillery.

The Prussians should deploy their guns out of Chassepot range and blast away while the infantry find a flank having disabled their opposite numbers first.

Cavalry – complete waste of time unless used for:

a) recce
b) fighting their opposite numbers
c) running down stragglers – funny how hard wargamers find it to keep their cavary in reserve to polish off a fleeing enemy. I _have_ pulled this off in FPW games, and it is really very satisfying when you do.

How the game pans out really depends on whether it is historical (in which case expect a massive Prussian artillery superiority) or hypothetical.

"complete waste of time unless used for:"

Oh, but they are SO dang pretty.

Oh yes, especially Prussian cuirassiers.

As I said, they do get a chance for glory occasionally, but they need the right situation.

We recently played the action at Elouges (Aug 1914), and with cunning use of ground and a flank attack 9th Lancers routed four German battalions and made it as far as the Germans divisional HQ before going down in a hail of Mauser fire.

Glorious!

The other cavalry got off their horses and dug in, and lasted rather longer.

myrm11,

try this:

link

H.