"Ratio of smaller scale to larger scale actions" Topic

Hi Gents,

I'm sure this has probably been touched on before, but I can't find a specific topic while searching.

I'm curious as to the ratio of smaller scale encounters versus full scale battles during the Napoleonic time period. The American Civil War is full of division-sized clashes, but I don't typically see this covered in Napoleonic history.

Is this simply due to the natural focus of historians on large, set-piece battles, or did the logistic/organizational deployment of Napoleonic armies disallow for independent divisional contests?

If they did occur, where they a larger percentage of the overall encounters, or were they rare events, comparatively?

Thank you for any input,
Bob

Having read several diaries/memoirs of participants of the Napoleonic Wars, I would say that smaller actions were far more common than major battles.

Look at the battle reports that Mike Collins posts here. He focuses almost exclusively on small (division per side, usually) actions fought in the run up to Austerlitz, most of which I have never heard of.

I also know that between Jena and Friedland the French and Russians sparred in little actions up and down Poland.

Also, if you look at the 1809 Danube campaign on Wikipedia, there were about a dozen small actions that preceded the Battle of Aspern-Essling.

I think the short answer is that in most campaigns there were lots of these actions before the two sides concentrated for a decisive battle.

^^^That's probably a good answer for most time periods.

That`s right boomstick,

Most of the scenarios that I have posted have been smaller scale.
We tend to think of the big battles of course… but campaigns often have smaller battles leading up to those bigger punctuation marks of history.

To get a definitive perspective on this you need to obtain Digby Smith`s "Napoleonic Wars Data Book" – very useful thing to have with; OOBS, losses, in battles, clashes and skirmishes for 1792 – 1815. It also has comments on most of the more significant actions.

The ACW wasn't much diffrent, really if you look at 4 years of war, the big battles can be counted on two hands. thats it.

For every big battle in the Napoleoinc wars or ACW were was probably 20 smaller battles and dozen more actions.

But why, how? Apart from cavalry screens, did armies just ramble around as a bunch of separate divisions? I always thought they went around in fairly big clumps. Advance guard actions maybe.

Jackson's Valley Campaign is a good example of this. All of the battles are relatively small.

MR,

Napoleonic armies marched fairly dispersed, in order to move "faster". Strung out on a single road the head and tail of the Grande Armee of 1805 would have arrived at any given point almost a week apart. To get there at the same time they took a dozen different roads.

Since no one knew where the big battle would be fought more than a couple days in advance, there was a bit of jockeying for position and contesting choke points and so forth, resulting in actions between fairly large bodies of troops. But usually the defender eventually gave way and kept marching toward concentration. Only when both commander in chiefs agreed to contest a field would the big one begin.

Also, in order to forage, large armies need large amounts of space.

Chandler's Waterloo:The Hundred Days has a map showing the huge spread of the Anglo-Allied and Prussian forces prior to Waterloo. Often smaller corps or divisional sized elements were kept to cover portions along a general line while the main army concentrated elsewhere. For instance, Wellington had forces covering the coastal route through Belgium that never got engaged at Waterloo.

Thanks guys. An interesting aspect of the 'jockeying for position' bits of the campaign. I'd assumed this sort of thing was carried out by the cavalry screens and not really considered they could escalate into division or more sized actions.

Taking the 1805 Campaign as an example, Austerlitz is the "big battle" but there were lots of smaller actions. Without my library and therefore from memory there were smaller actions at Wertigen, Gunzburg, Haslach-Junginen and Elchingen in Bavaria at least and then Durrenstein and a couple of others in the Danube valley before ever the French got as far as Vienna.

As boomstick has mentioned, i`ve taken a bit of an interest in the 1805 campaigns… the next scenario i have coming up is Schongrabern.
Although the rules I`ve written (Grand Manoeuvre) are intended primarily for larger battles, i have found that devising the smaller scenarios quite interesting: battles like Gunzburg (we played several re-fights of Gunzburg and found the tactical options and problems faced by the generals on the day very stimulating) …and there even some really very small clashes like the defence of the Strub and Scharnitz Passes, which I intend one day to turn into scenarios for the game.

I have a series of old German books but translated in Dutch(1848) called "Wars in Europe" 1792-1815. These give an overview of campaigns in europe without the campaigns in the Peninsular.
It gives a breakdown of battles etc in:
Field battles: 60 (from Jemappes in 1792 up to Wagram and Waterloo)
big fights: 123 (from the battle of Valmy to quatre bras/wavre in 1815)
fights: 1782
assaults: 269
sieges: 56
blockades: 76
bombardements: 64
capitulations without sieges/blockades: 75
rivercrossings: 20

It gives, I think, some perspectives to the kind of warfare in this period

Very interesting research on that – thanks.

I suppose another way to phrase the question is : To what extent were these Division level fights decisive in the context of a campaign ?

And would they be considered pitched battles to the death, or armed manoeuvrings with limited aims ?

Leading to the question … When gaming a major campaign in the period, how much attention should be paid to any contacts below Corps level ?

The alternatives I can see would be :

A) Ignore anything below Corps strength in the context of a campaign. No fun in that.

B) Fight's on ! Fight every Divisional encounter with a big game of GdB / Lasalle .. fight smaller encounters with a big game of Black Powder, or even Sharpe's Practice. ie – make every contact a big important game.

Thats more fun, but also a lot of work. The 'campaign' may end up getting bogged down with detail, and losing sight of the big objectives.

C) Some sort of game-within-a-game compromise of the above 2 options.

If units below Corps strength do contact on the campaign map, run a quick and dirty DBx style game of an hour or so to determine the outcome of the clash at campaign level. Much more fun.

Supposing that commanders in such a scenario have limited aims, their main objective being to keep their force intact for the big battle, whilst gaining information on the enemy troop size and movements.

Something like :

Determine which side is the attacker and which is the defender. Defender has the option of giving battle, or retiring. If retiring, then the attacking player gets full information on the defender's troop numbers and direction of movement.

If the defender gives battle, then run a short DBx style mini-game with around a dozen elements per side plus a 'general'. Defender chooses terrain, Attacker gets +1 PIPs per bound. Each player can select any combination of elements provided that they exist in the formation that is part of this contact. This represents the advanced guard of the formation, not the whole formation. Play until one side loses – such as loss of general, loss of defender's camp, or 50% of elements lost.

During the mini-game, if a player rolls a natural 6 on the PIP dice, they have the option of fleeing the field during that turn. If they take the option, they suffer no losses at campaign level, but they do retreat on the campaign map, and give away information on troop strength and direction of movement. Keeps some tension in the air, as a player always has a small chance to slip out of the net if things turn bad on the field.

If the mini battle is fought to a decisive conclusion (ie – one side loses the mini-game). The losing side then retreats on the campaign map and gives away information on troop strength.

In addition to this, they suffer the following attrition :

1st Defeat: Loss of all foot artillery, Loss of all militia units or other less than regular troops (Grenz, Landwehr, Cossack … etc). Loss of 1 battalion in each line brigrade engaged. (Guard and Light units, as well as cavalry and horse artillery are spared)

2nd Defeat: 25% loss to all remaining units. (including light infantry, guard units, and cavalry units). Units down to a single battalion before counting this 25% remain as single battalion units.

3rd Defeat: The whole formation deserts, is captured, or otherwise is no longer fit for combat. If within a day's march of another friendly formation, then the owning player may choose 1 sub-unit of that command (a specific regiment for example), resurrect it, and attach the heroic survivors to the other Division / Corps.

Save the 'big games' for the main conflicts at Massive Grand Tactical scale (with the appropriate ruleset), and fight them over a long and intense weekend.

Im really liking the idea of C) above. In particular with the Prussian campaign of 1806, especially after the twin disasters of Jena and Auerstadt, there are a whole series of large capitulations to the French as a result of consecutive defeats on small contacts.

Even during these capitulations, some Prussian regiments almost miraculously evaded capture, and appeared again at close to full strength fighting with the Russians at Eylau in the following year.

I think the above system may give a great way to simulate such a series of events between major battles with a series of interesting tactical exchanges on the gaming table.