"French battalion frontage" Topic

What was the frontage of a French Napoleonic unit in Line? My google skills are terrible and I can't find anything that list it specifically.

Thanks,
Steve

Depends on how strong. But at 22" per man in the front rank, you won't be off by anything material just doing the maths.

600 men in 3 ranks = 200*22= 4400" = 367 feet.

There was a fourth rank of officers and NCOs that may have reduced that frontage, but equally, there may have been small intervals between the companies that extended it again, so I'd go with Mr. Crispy's figure.

The 4th rank wasn't shoulder-to-shoulder, more like if they extended their arms they might be able to hold hands.

Forbes' drawings of ACW firing lines show the file closers doing that.

For the later bataillon of 6 compagnies …
60 toises was the typical measure, I think – 10 toises per peloton, 6 pelotons, no extra gaps between pelotons
That would be ….
10 toises = 19.5 meters = 64 English feet
60 toises = 117 meters = 384 English feet

I French pouce (translated as "inch") = 2.71 cm = 1.07 English inches
22 French pouces (translated as "inches") = 60 cm = 23.5 English inches

The frontage of a peloton was typically 32 fils (wherein soldats and caporaux were found, the fourriers and higher ranks as file closers to the rear, as was noted).

You will see that this measure breaks easily in half (demi-peloton of 16 fils) and so on down to a column with a frontage of 4 fils.

Amicalement.

May as well say 100 yards, take into account sickness etc, plus its easy to scale.

Sotnik,

I remember a similar discussion to this several years ago but I don't remember where. It might even have been in a magazine.

The argument was to the effect that not even Napoleonic man could fit into a 22 inch frontage and it was pointed out that English/French measurements were not quite the same.

Anyway, the conclusion was that for all practical wargaming purposes a frontage of 24 inches per file was good enough, or 60cm per file if the ground scale of the rules was metric.

The actual frontage of a peleton depended on its strength which might not be the same as the establishment for all kinds of reasons but as I remember it was said that peletons were usually equalised and that two ranks were used to extend the front when the unit was reduced to a situation where three ranks could not present a sufficient frontage.

Bill