"WSS French Dragoons: Did They Ever Fight While Mounted?" Topic

Greetings, all.

I must admit that my knowledge of the War of the Spanish Succession is very limited and I'm hoping that someone can answer this question for me. I recall reading somewhere that during this period, in general, dragoons were beginning to be used more often as cavalry instead of mounted infantry.

I know that many French dragoons fought on foot at Blenheim because disease among the horses had created a shortage of usable mounts. When there wasn't a shortage of horses, are there any battles in which the dragoons fought while mounted?

The reason I ask is that there is a set of rules I'm considering using for this period that essentially doesn't allow dragoons (regardless of nationality) to charge or otherwise act as regular cavalry and they must dismount to be of much use. To me, this seems too restrictive, but I'd like to know if there is any historical justification for my misgivings regarding the rules as written.

Thanks for your help!

Regards,

Patrick

Swedish Dragoons charged just like horse did. In fact Dragoons were the units that were usually held in reserve to reinforce the "heavy" horse by most nations. Some nations of course had better Dragoons then others. In principle the French Grenadiers a Cheval and the Mousquetaires were technically raised as Dragoons, but they were elite guard heavy cavalry by the time of the WSS.

Patrick,

I, personally, wouldn't use those rules. Try something more realistic. Blenheim was, well, Blenheim but try looking at the other battles that took place and you'll see that Dragoons on all sides joined in mounted combat with other Dragoons and Horse on numerous occasions.

Let me recommend Beneath the Lily Banners by Barry Hilton. It is a great rule set, very fun, very playable, and very good. You can find it at On Military Manners here in the States or you can go to the League of Augsburg web site and order there if you are in Europe.

Here is a second recommendation for BLB by Barry Hilton.

Dragoons would fight either way, but according to what I've read they would not alter that deployment after the battle started. No mounting/dismounting during play.

"Dragoons would fight either way, but according to what I've read they would not alter that deployment after the battle started. No mounting/dismounting during play."

At Ramillies the French and Spanish dragoons dismounted to try to dislodge the Dutch from the village on the French right.

And apparently some Allied dragoons dismounted to reinforce the Dutch in the village.

My complaint as well. You cannot use them as either/or formations. Once the dispositions were given, they are one or the other, never both.

Ignoring for the moment the differences among dragoon regiments and nationalities, it might be reasonable to allow a 'generic' WSS dragoon regiment to dismount (but not remount) one time in a battle. Additional restrictions could be used, e.g., not allowed if the unit was engaged, and/or only allowed if ordered by a high level commander.

@ NCC1717

Your comment is pretty much in line with what I've been thinking. I'm really just thinking about tweaking the dragoon rules a bit and not throwing out the whole rule book.

The rules set I'm thinking of using is a WSS variant based on Neil Thomas's basic rules engine used in his various wargaming books. I haven't played this particular set of rules yet but, after reading them several times, they seem like they'll be fairly bloody and decisive. If this is the case, it may be unlikely that dragoons would do a lot of mounting/dismounting during the course of a game because, once committed to combat, they'll be too chewed up afterward to do much running around on the battlefield.

Dragoons should be allowed to fight mounted or dismounted and may dismount for a fight then remount later if the horses are still there.
However most armies used their dragoons as normal cavalry by this period, the French being the exception, they seemed to use theirs in the traditional role, often dismounting for action, can't think of an action where they fought on horseback but i'm sure they did sometimes.

The French had more than enough traditional cavalry with only a few dragoon regiments in the normal OdB.
Dragoons were often placed on the flanks of normal cavalry formations.
The set of rules is wrong and why make restrictions like that anyway.

How would one base the dismounted dragoons. As skirmishers or close order infantry?