"What goals for skirmishers at the Grand Tactical level?" Topic

In a previous discussion, it was put forward that skirmish combat basically led to a few different outcomes. I want to talk more about the possible purposes of a skirmish battle.

What were the goals of the army, corps, division and brigade commanders when they sent out large numbers of skirmishers? What were they attempting to accomplish?

Were they hoping to inflict casaulties on the line infantry of the enemy while an attack was closing? Be it their attack or when defending?

Were they hoping to prevent a formed group of soldiers from advancing?

Were they trying to get recon on the enemy position?

Which of these goals were actually accomplished? Were there other goals?

Right now I just have skirmishing being a modifier to a general close combat resolution system that includes musketry and whatnot. I'm simply not giving the players any real decision making power related to skirmishing and am looking to fill that gap in my games.

If you were a player who is basically interested in the army level of command, with some dipping down into corps, division and brigade levels, what would you want to see on a play sheet as options that you can attempt with your soldiers as skirmishers? Would it work if a skirmish phase came up and you could see that you could order entire battallions into skirmish formation and attempt to pin an enemy brigade in place? Or that you could order some light cav to sweep away enemy skirmishers? Or that you could attempt additional spotting checks on enemy positions over hill crests and the like?

My rules are very fast play (basically roll dice and get 6s, roll less dice for negative modifiers, more dice for positive modifiers) and movement is also very simple. I have an alternate activation system with command checks for movement, so perhaps skirmishing could make units not respond to activations to advance as easily? Bases are brigades with divisions being the basic unit that's moved at once.

Skirmishers screen the main force.

Personally, I tend to ignore skirmishers at the grand tactical level and assume they are "factored in " to the battalion vs. battalion combat.

Generally, commanders were only interested in "two levels down", so at grand tactical level, division commanders would only really be interested in brigades and battalions and corps commanders would only be interested in divisions and brigades.

Screen them from? Screen them to accomplish what? And while I have generally been happy with them just being factored in, I keep reading period accounts of army level command forming and directing skirmishers themselves. Sometimes to the point of having massive skirmish formations under their direct command.

A strong skirmish force is also good for buying time. At the scale you are talking about, skirmishers may only be a one turn speed bump, but they represent a brigade (or whatever) shaking out into line, maybe sending their own skirmishers forward to see what they are dealing with, etc.

Screen them from? Screen them to accomplish what?

What does a screen normally do? Prevents the enemy from getting too close so reducing the number of casualties on the line troops.

I keep reading period accounts of army level command forming and directing skirmishers themselves. Sometimes to the point of having massive skirmish formations under their direct command.

Can you identify any specific examples?

Nathaniel:

I am assuming that you mean when large numbers were committed to skirmish actions, where some of the troops would be in support and and in close formation

Salamanca:

Wellington sent out 4000+ against the same number of French to hold some important high ground.

Wellington sent out a large number of companies to drive the French artillery away.

Jena: Large numbers of troops sent to hold or clear woods and villages.

Revolutionary and early empire:

Large numbers sent to engage the enemy with fire, hold them in place and wear them down.

Borodino: The same, hold woods and strategic points where cavalry could not go, as well as cover the front.

Echmhl: French divisions are deployed to defend a forest.

Bautzen: Several battalions of Russians [including all three battalions of the Pavlov Grenadiers] were deployed as skirmishers in woods and villages for the entire day.

Austerlitz: Bragration sent out a jager regiment to find the French front lines in the north during the battle.

Vimiero: Freguson sent out more than a battalion of companies to skirmish with the French, who in turn overwhelmed them, drove them back to where four more companies had to be deployed to cover their retreat. We are talking about an engagement numbering no more than six to ten battalions on a side.

Bussaco: Ney's entire division deploys into skirmishers in attacking the heights as related by Pelet.

I could go on. Obviously, woods and forests, rough terrain were where large numbers of skirmishers were used, but there are cases where they were used in open terrain to harrass the enemy, drive away artillery and/or hold important ground.

Those are exactly the kind of examples I mean.

I'm beginning to see that while it might have been standard procedure to have a portion of a given brigade skirmish to protect that brigade from the enemy or to proceed an attack, it was also relatively common that entire formations would be deployed in skirmish order. Sometimes very, very far away from their parent divisions.

I'm trying to focus on player decision making. To figure out what sort of things they might decide to do with skirmishers beyond the usual screening of an advance (either on the attack or the defense).

I'm leaning towards making a bunch of circular skirmisher markers and allowing players to deploy their dice value of their brigades out in actual skirmish points. So if a player decides a brigade needs to hold a thick wood, they might put down 4 markers in the wood, place the brigade base behind it and indicate it is entirely in skirmish formation with a die marker showing it's dice has been reduced by 4 dice.

That's the sort of thing I'm trying to figure out. As it stands I have sort of a Grande Armee style combat factor for skirmishing and it's just not doing it for me. I did away with a command radius approach and now I'm thinking I need to jetison more from my heavily modified FPGA approach. I think the only thing I have left is that a base is a brigade and that a brigade's strength is the number of dice you roll (which gets reduced as the brigade fights). Though even that I've changed so your target number is always a six and instead modifiers are applied in terms of number of dice rolled. I've already replaced nearly everything including the turn structure.

I also want to get some light infantry in 10mm and put a couple on a penny for each skirmish marker. I think that'll be more fun than trying to jam them infront of my formed lines on my bases. I want something to actually do with them in the game.

Every army had their own SOP in deploying skirmishers, the norm, what a brigade and battalion did as the first and typical deployment.

That isn't the same thing the battalion or brigade could or did do in battle.

Take one battalion, Wallace's 88th at Bussaco. His light company, along with several others are deployed nearly a mile away, with a Captain Engles coming to report on their situation. Wallace sends more 'volunteers' to him. Then later, in advancing on the French and taking fire from French skirmishers in rocks to his flank, deploys three more companies to deal with them. When his 88th finally charges the French column with PART of the 45th, there are only six companies left, a little more than half.

If it was just those skirmishers regularly deployed you wouldn't have Archduke Charles in 1796, Mack in 1800, and Schwartzenburg in 1813 instructing battalion, brigade and divisional commanders not to deploy so many skirmishers. Schwartzenburg specifically indicates whole battalions shouldn't be deployed as skirmishers… The Russian "Day of Battle" instructions in 1812 caution officers not to deploy too many skirmishers. Supposedly, these were armies that 'didn't' skirmish…

If you want to be really true to history, there should be the chance that your subordinates will deploy far more skirmishers, whole battalions, etc. than you might want. One of the reasons for the enemy to deploy skirmishers… goad the other side into deploying more than needed, and weakening the formed troops.

That is exactly what happened at Jena with the first engagements, to such regiments as the Zweiten [Sp?] battalions….

I was pondering a similar question when painting up some French skirmishers the other day.

I was thinking – if these guys are supposed to be some sort of stealth / sniper special forces of the day, then whats with all the garish tall yellow plumes and other bits on the uniform that shout out "I am over here, shoot me, shoot me !"

(I think) one of the primary purposes of these guys is to draw the enemy fire. So they are more akin to kamikaze troops than snipers.

Skirmishers advancing on artillery to draw their fire, and waste good cannon balls and powder, distracting the guns from their primary mission.

Skirmishers advancing on formed troops to get them to shoot back. If your rules reward formed troops firing their 1st volley, then if skirmishers can draw that fire, the 1st volley advantage is lost when the main assault hits home.

Talking rules and game effects :

Valmy to Waterloo does a good job of embedding skirmish capability per battalion into the 'fire discipline' rating for each unit. Well worth a game.

Of all the rulesets I have, R&E (Revolution and Empire) does a fantastic job of handling skirmishers at the Grand Tactical level.

Rough outline of the skirmisher rules in R&E :

- Players play at the Corps level, representing Corps commanders in charge of a few Divisions. Each Division has a series of successive lines of battle (Representing Brigades or their equivalent), plus a Divisional level Reserve formation. The Reserve formation provides resupply and a rallying point, and units in the reserve are sheltered from Divisional fatigue effects during engagements. From this point of view, the game is 'Grand Tactical' in the same sense that you describe.

- There is a Divisional level order to do several turns of Skirmish / Bombard in preparation for an attack. When using this order, the Division will send out a grande-bande skirmish screen to draw the enemy fire.

- The target Division of a grande-bande skirmish attack can try to react by sending extra companies into the skirmish screen to match the attacker. This requires a successful commander action from the target player.

- The skirmish screens shoot it out, excess hits from the winner spill over onto the main body of the losing side.

- Artillery sections that take skirmish hits remain 'screened' for the next turn, and can only fire at the screening skirmish stands. (Very hard to hit)

- Formed troops that take skirmish hits must test against fire discipline, failure = anything from shooting back (loss of 1st volley bonus + battlefield smoke), to taking morale and disorder hits, as well as possible ammo depletion.

- Skirmishers (from both sides) retire to Divisional reserve position after the grande-bande attack, as they are in an ammo depleted state. This means that ALL units that added some companies to the skirmish screen at the players option, have less troops left in the parent formation to take part in the coming assault.

- The Division with a skirmish/bombard order has a pending attack with the bayonet order to follow up the grande-bande attack. Pending orders activate quicker and smoother than other types of orders.

That covers the Grande Bande skirmish option.

Apart from that, there is detailed treatment on skirmish forces for other parts of the battle. In each case, the unit maintains a set formation, and can send out skirmish companies within long musket range of the base unit.

Skirmish companies can move out beyond this control range and then become independant. Some die-rolling is required to move or recall such independant companies once they are beyond control range. Bonuses apply for better trained troops.

Really good skirmishers that are detached from the main unit can go 'Bold' if the dice roll is high enough … allowing them to advance beyond the enemy base line, and cause havoc in the enemy's rear lines. Think – a single base of the 95th, with Maj Sharpe himself in command, having a palpable effect on a large battle.

Provides a good balance for player decision making in terms of the effect of a dedicated skirmish action. Also provides the opportunity for some gallant storyline development during a game (in the case of independant companies going bold, and performing feats of great valour)

In addition to that, the R&E appendices provide details for each army and period as to how many skirmish companies, and what skirmish doctrine can be used. The appendices are hugely comprehensive – including all the minor states, and far flung regions such as India, USA, Persia, etc, etc.

Looking at where you are at with your rules usage, I would recommend having a go with R&E for the the next step up maybe. They take a while to digest, but I think they would very nicely fill in some of the blanks that you are hitting at the moment, from your descriptions.

They are also modular enough that you can cherry pick whole aspects out of them to apply to your existing gaming.

"If you want to be really true to history, there should be the chance that your subordinates will deploy far more skirmishers, whole battalions, etc. than you might want. One of the reasons for the enemy to deploy skirmishers… goad the other side into deploying more than needed, and weakening the formed troops."

Perhaps a really abstract/simple game will have this as the main effect: skirmishing weakens the formed troops. Some as losses, some as first volley fired/ammo use but mainly as troops fed into the skirmish line. Hmm.

Nathaniel, I think you've hit on something.

For higher level commanders it was also about how many men to commit. Skirmishers could rarely be put back in the ranks, so once committed they were lost to the battle line.

But they could spoil enemy attacks or force the enemy to deplete his battle line in order to first win the skirmish.

They could also be used for "holding offense," keeping enemy formations bogged down while the main attack goes in for a breakthrough elsewhere.

We're talking about the use of thousands, if not tens of thousands of men here. It's definitely something generals got involved in.

Fantastic posts guys. Really great stuff.

I'm thinking I will be adding a skirmish phase to the next game I run for friends (well, after my 10mm is painted up-- although I could break out my existing 1:72 collection, but that's going to be sent to a friend in another city soon, so I probably shouldn't unpack it).

I think I'll do some more reading, but I'm fairly certain I'll be able to come up with a mini skirmish game within the game that will give enjoyable results.

I've got this activation system that basically punishes you if you do non historical formations (like the command radius blob formations people do with games that have command radius) and rewards you with greater efficiency if you move historically by keeping a proper line and moving in order of direction of regulation. I think I might add a penalty to the roll for being skirmished against and failure in that case means the battalions within a brigade send out more skirmishers (converting attack/defense dice into skirmish dice and putting down another skirmish counter or two).

I think the skirmish markers will be more like centres of skirmish activity than miniatures you move around in the movement phase. They'll probably be placed and repositioned under certain circumstances rather than being rolled into the normal movement system. There are likely going to be multiple phases of the game where skirmishers come up as something that needs to be accounted for. Like if a brigade attacks a rocky wood and has to do so in Skirmish. They'll move close during the movement phase and then put out skirmish counters at the edge of the wood (which will be likely occupied by enemy skirmish markers).

I'm beginning to understand that skirmishing is so much more than just screening the line. It's the only way to attack certain terrain, for example.

The challenge will be incorporating all this into a game without bogging it down at all. With young children and other commitments among the various interested players, when I run a game like this it needs to finish in a reasonable amount of time.

In most of the grand tactical games that I've played over the years, using skirmishers added a lot of complications and they really had little effect except to slow the game down. I would just delete them and their special rules from the game. At the grand tactical level, the gamer should be mainly concerned with where to move/commit his divisions & corps to fight the enemy, not where to deploy skirmishers and how many of them to use. I did play a few games of "Napoleon at War" earlier this year and thought that the way it treated skirmishers was the most elegant of any rules set that I've tried, but it is worth noting that NaW is a battalion level rules set, not a grand tactical one.

In most of the grand tactical games that I've played over the years, using skirmishers added a lot of complications and they really had little effect except to slow the game down.

While there are a lot of rules that do indeed slow down when skirmishers are added…without any real effect, I think that is more a problem with the rules and the designer's understanding of how skirmishers worked than anything having to do with history. I know that many designers start with the idea that opposing skirmishers 'negate' each other, and surprise, regardless of the rules, that is what happens.

At the grand tactical level, the gamer should be mainly concerned with where to move/commit his divisions & corps to fight the enemy, not where to deploy skirmishers and how many of them to use.

I would think the question is whether at the grand tactical level, that is what commanders did…

And if that was true, it would also be true for columns and lines formations, placement of artillery and the use of cavalry…

Divisional stands, anyone?

I like the way DBN handles them. Most stands in the game = 1 brigade. Light infantry can take a double move on the first turn, move more easily through rough ground, have a longer firing range but weaker firepower, are more likely to flee than stand and fight when beaten, etc. Depending on the army, some Light Infantry is always treated as light, better trained troops have the option to deploy in line or skirmish at the start of the battle, then stay that way. So it is a trade off between screening capabilities and line firepower.

Also available are sizable elite Jager Detachments (1 or more battalions), more flexible but more fragile than a whole light brigade, but with a longer range still. And 1 stand of light horse can be committed to the battle as Skirmishing Cavalry for a speedy skirmisher.

They're good for staking claim to tactical positions and providing plinking fire, but will not hold ground if pressed.

This certainly feels like the level of detail a Corps/Army commander would be concerned about. Back in Empire III days, I could never muster enough willing suspension of disbelief to get behind Corps commanders needing to worry about the exact placement of every skirmish company on the field.

This thread isn't about companies skirmishing to protect the rest of their battallions. it's about skirmishing when a higher level commander did take an active role. When entire battallions and brigades were put in skirmish order by their commanders. I suppose it's theoretically possible that a army or corps commander could order a single company into skirmish order for one task or another, but likely if a commander of that level is getting involed with ordering skirmishers around, it's going to be a sizable force of them. Or atleast that's what I'm seeing in the primary sources.

Here's what I'm coming up with so far as things I might include in my next game:

A brigade took a point of damage as a result of skirmishing? Take the damage, but put out a skirmish marker of your own as you reinforce the skirmish line. If you get attacked by skirmishers and they don't roll any hits, you still get a -1 to your activation checks as long as skirmishers are within attack range. Fail an activation check while threatened by skirmishers? Either withdraw or take damage and commit skirmishers to defense.

Some brigades will have a few skirmish tokens they can deploy without having to sacrifice their strength unless they want to skirmish even more.

Want to desolve all the battallions in a brigade into skirmishers for a specific purpose? Take as many points of damage as you have strength dice, place that many skirmish markers where they are to go and put the brigade stand at the desired rallying point where fanions and colours would stay.

Want to recall skirmishers and redress the line? Do a rally order and remove skirmishers and regain lost dice-- assuming they can get back to your formation in a single turn's worth of movement. Sometimes skirmishers got deployed really, really far away from their parent division.

Need to remove/repell skirmishers in open ground quickly? Move light cav into proximity and force them to withdraw.

Want to attack skirmishers holding rough terrain? Move your brigade close enough and deploy you strength in skirmishers to unseat them.

Skirmishers are threatening artillery without nearby skirmishers or cavalry? The artillery can only shoot them or withdraw.

Scouts come within attack range of skirmishers? They're forced to withdraw before making any spotting checks on hidden unit markers.

I really think I can keep this fast and light and still let the players do something neat with the voltigeur miniatures rather than just putting them on bases as a diorama element.

I don't think I'm going to have a separate skirmish phase. I think the effect of skirmishers is going to be spread throughout the turn structure as the types of goals you want to accomplish with them can be varied.

I run a grand tactical game, players give orders to grand tactical formations (divisions in late war armies, brigades in early war Allied armies). Players can decide to disperse more battalions into the skirmish screen and anytime two formations are within combat the two sides roll off for skirmish combat. Results are:

Attacker Results
Skirmishers breakthrough and put hits on Defender
Skirmishing continues with both sides having their skirmish value reduced
Skirmisher value is reduced, skirmishers withdraw, Attacker loses Impetus
Skirmisher value is reduced, skirmishers withdraw, Attacker's formation fatigues

Defender Results
Skirmishers breakthrough and put hits on Attacker
Skirmishing continues with both sides having their skirmish value reduced
Skirmisher value is reduced, skirmishers withdraw, Defender's artillery is screened

In reality the losing skirmishers don't leave but it represents that they are no longer effectively replying to their opponent's skirmishers.

The results range is -15 to 11+.
The formula is (Attacker's value + 1D20) – (Defender's value +1D20)

Cheers,

The Bandit

A fantastic string of posts, many thanks folks, I'll have a lie down and think about adding details like this into my games.

The reason I've decided to allow rallying to return skirmishers to formation is that in my rules you can't rally if you're anywhere near the enemy. And that means the skirmishers too. So it's more likely something that will happen at night falls and into the second day of battle when that happened.

Please remember that as the Napoleonic war developed, there was usually a ratio of one light to two line battalions in brigades, as well as independent light regiments/brigades as well as the line units often being able to use their third rank as "skirmishers". Would it be wise to ignore that 3/5 or more of the army had the capability to "skirmish"? It had to be an important component of the warfare.

It`s the ground that counts here – the terrain type will dictate the methods (troop types or order) used by commanders to achieve THEIR goals.

It`s interesting to see that you`re trying to incorporate skirmishing into your grand-tactical rules – they were not always limited to a minor tactical role; they sometimes had a grand-tactical importance.

Was it worth reviving a thread from 2012?

When a battalion is sent as skirmishers a large part of the battalion remains in close order as supports for those in open order.

These might be of interest:
Infantry Skirmishing in the Napoleonic Wars by Peter Hofschröer.
Napoleonic Skirmishing In Practice by Peter Hofschröer.

MIRROR SITE
Infantry Skirmishing in the Napoleonic Wars by Peter Hofschröer.
Napoleonic Skirmishing In Practice by Peter Hofschröer.

Druzhina
19th Century Illustrations of Costume & Soldiers

I didn`t notice the dates of the posts.

People do tend to ask the same kinds of questions here over time though.

Thanks for posting the Hofschroer.

Regards,

Mike.

I wonder if we Napoleonic wargamers and historians have been "ignoring the elephant in the room" with regard to "skirmishers". I wonder if we have been restricting ourselves into a tenet that there are only three types of battle formation: Column, Line and Square and they are close order ways of fighting. "Skirmishing" is something else and everything else and is beneath our attention. It is a minor detail used to provide antenna for the "real" units, somehow connected to the "little war" and corporal's guards in front of the general's tent. Open order fighting gets simplified into just another flavor of "skirmishing" and rule writers boast as to how they are clever enough to find ways to ignore it.

Of course, the French revolutionary wars had masses of armed mobs swarming around the heads of clumsy columns, but this went away once they got established back into the CLS mode.

What I think is that the "close order" mode of reality is wrong and that there was a lot (healthy minority? 40% of shots fired?) of open order/skirmishing activity that took place in broken ground, forests, and the like, which was a continuum of "not-closed ranks" modes of fighting, which ranged from classic "skirmish/picket" lines to multi-battalion fights in broken terrain. These were hard to control, hard to report and run at a lower level of command than the general's tent.

Consider what happened in the Prussian army (or what was left of it) after 1807. They actually had light/skirmish troops in large numbers in the fusiler regiments and embedded schutzen- typical with the ratio of 2 line to 1 fusiler.

Infantry
. . . . . . . . . 2 Guard infantry regiments (2 battalions)
. . . . . . . . . 58 infantry regiments (2 battalions each)
. . . . . . . . . 1 jager regiment (3 battalions)
. . . . . . . . . 27 grenadier battalions
. . . . . . . . . 24 fusilier battalions 

One of the recommendations of the Military Reorganization Commission was to increase the number of "skirmish" capable troops by adding volunteer jager and teaching the third rank of line units to skirmish. That is the direction the experts, who studied what should be the best practice to adopt, chose to take.

1805 Russia had:
13 grenadier regiments (heavy infantry)
84 musketier regiments (line infantry)
22 jäger regiments (light infantry)

In 1811:
14 grenadier regiments
97 infantry regiments
50 jager regiments

In 1813-1815 Russia had:
14 grenadier regiments
57 jäger regiments
97 infantry regiments

and similar for other countries. Note that not only are a third of the regiments generally capable (it theory) to open order combat, but the regular infantry increasingly has its third rank (a third of its combat power) skirmish capable.
Roughly:

2/3 (=6/9) is regular infantry @ 1/3 skirmish cable= 2/9 skirmish capable

1/3 (=3/9) is light infantry

2/9 + 3/9 = 5/9 more than half.

I guess I am wondering, (and trying to open a discussion) as to whether our wargaming rules and practices need to include a much greater attention to the use of open order and open order troops and consider a continuum of practice between mere skirmishers and fairly high pitch non-close order battles.

Now its time to duck out and put on my hard hat and grab the popcorn.

The OP has posed an interesting question. We are very used to viewing skirmish tactics at a micro level, but not so good at appreciating its grand tactical role. In fact skirmishers were used increasingly as the wars progressed as one of the main means of attacking the enemy – this becomes very clear if you read Clausewitz. Apart from their use in broken terrain, their main use was attritional.

Essentially skirmish attacks were a way of wearing down your opponent with a much lower risk, but longer time span, than close order attacks. You might want to do this if you had superior numbers, or if your troops are more replaceable than the enemy's strategically. It's slower but more certain. In the general view, it should be followed up by close order troops attacking with the bayonet, and/or cavalry. But after a good hour or two – not after a quick couple of shots by an elite company!

So you get the classic tension between the British and French. The British have smaller quantities of more cohesive, but less replaceable men. So typically they want to keep the skirmishing short and get stuck in quickly. The French are the opposite. They want to provoke the Brits into a premature counterattack.

Grand Tactical rules like GA miss this dimension completely. There skirmishing is not a realistic alternative to going in up close and personal. It relies on throwing 6s. It is actually rather pointless.

In my rules (in draft) a skirmish attack is an alternative to a close order attack. It causes less damage, but with a smaller likelihood of dramatic failure. You will always cause cause damage and you will always suffer it. And the difference between good and not so good troops is not the damage they cause, but how quickly they burn out.

Actually its quite a difficult thing to do this properly – it's no wonder so many rules ignore it.

Skirmisher use in wargames is treated in the exact same opposite of artillery even though the tactical role of preparing the target for later assault were the same. I think in games it has more to do with impatience with the process and a desire to get to the nitty gritty in a hurry. Artillery at long range is usually too potent and skirmishers just get minimized.

My father once commented in one of our games (Featherstone rules) when another was moaning about the lack of artillery in the British OOB: "Your light troops ARE your artillery!"

I think too our idea of close order lines, really is overly compressed. I expect that the battleline shook itself out a bit to allow individual fire (probably to the chagrin of the officers) that meant that even a "line" looked a lot more like a what we might think a skirmish line did, rather than touching shoulders.

1968billsfan >

I wonder if we Napoleonic wargamers and historians have been "ignoring the elephant in the room" with regard to "skirmishers".

Good point, and its quite odd really, since if you start at the beginning of the evolution of napoleonic wargaming rules (with von Reisswitz), you see a distinct de-evolution away from skirmishing tactics.

Looking at the original Kriegsspiel rules, around half of the rules concerning infantry has to do with handling infantry skirmishers that are an integral part of a close order battalion.

As a general rule of thumb in Kriegsspiel – troops in skirmish order do the killing, and close order formations take and hold ground at bayonet point. Balancing these roles at the battalion level is one of the players most important decision points in terms of gameplay.

There is very little in the rules about any sort of rock-paper-scissors relationship between columns, lines and squares.

These observations of how infantry performed on the Napoleonic battlefield is the opinion of professional soldiers who were commanding troops on those same battlefields being gamed … all whilst dodging real cannonballs.

I know these Prussian staff guys were not pro game designers or anything, but all things considered …. its pretty hard to ignore their opinions as being anything but well qualified.

I guess I am wondering, (and trying to open a discussion) as to whether our wargaming rules and practices need to include a much greater attention to the use of open order and open order troops and consider a continuum of practice between mere skirmishers and fairly high pitch non-close order battles.

Not a bad plan !

Just from my own experience, stepping back to the source (of gaming rules) has been very worthwhile.

I wonder if we Napoleonic wargamers and historians have been "ignoring the elephant in the room" with regard to "skirmishers".

Looking at years of Napoleonic and even ACW wargames, I think that has been the case, often for the same reasons the actual commanders tried to ignore or reduce their use.

1. It's messy, very flexible and mutable compared to formed troops.

2. It is slow and attritional, but usually costs a lot of troops in one way or another.

3. While it rarely happened, most commanders *hoped* that they could send out 'just enough' skirmishers to neutralize the enemy. The enemy rarely complied, particularly if they were French. At Bussaco, for instance, Crauwfurd and Loison kept upping the skrimishers on their side until Craufurd had deployed half of his division as skirmishers and Loison had countered by deploying at least 4 battalions as skirmishers in countering him.

4. Skirmish deployments weakened the formed troops. Loison's Divisional column could muster only four to five battalions to attack Craufurd.

5. Skirmishing--how many troops would be deployed was a concern of corps and army commanders. For instance, at Jena, Napoleon gave specific orders on how many skirmishers to deploy on the day of battle.

In his Memoirs of Massena's Portuguese campaign, one of his staff Pelet stated after watching Ney'd Division fight as skrimishers all day: [And remember he's French. He does give his opinion about the use of skirmishers in battle.]

p. 182-183

"Thus the day passed, skirmishing and losing men uselessly. I cannot express how much aversion I have always had for skirmishing. It is difficult to imagine how much it costs in casualties or, as one my day—drop by drop. Two new attacks against the position, just like the first, would not have been more deadly. I could not resist saying a few words. The skirmishing ended on our side and the enemy started it again. As a matter of fact, it was extremely difficult to stop bickering except by withdrawing our troops, and this was not without inconvenience for either advantageous terrain or the morale of the army. However, I do not think skirmishing can be allowed for its own sake in any case, unless it is to prepare attacks, cover movements, or momentarily detain the enemy at one point while they are being attacked or outmaneuvered at another."

We should also remember that skirmishing tends not to feature highly in battlefield memoirs – more dramatic clashes between formed troops takes over. Another reason it gets overlooked.

There is an interesting reflection in Rory Muir's book on Salamanca (perhaps my favourite book for the whole era). There's a bit of a blank patch in the eye witness accounts (after Leith's attack foundered, I think). British authors have filled this gap with copperplate accounts of exchanges of musketry between bodies of formed troops, because they assumed that this must have been what was going on. In fact it is far more likely that this period was filled by skirmish exchanges.

Excellent observation on Kriegspiel Steve64. It seems the whole column line obsession with infantry tactics was mainly restricted to British observers. I think that is because the strong cohesion of British infantry made the decisive close-order encounter that many theorists dreamed of a more practical reality. They could also afford to get tangled in skirmishing less – though in the Light Division they had some of the most capable skirmishers on the field – which proved important in Bussaco.

You forgot to mention that unless a British unit was involved in a battle, it wasn't a Napoleonic War battle.

huh???

Just a comment, made because I am (in my old age) starting to get a feeling that most of our postings here are biased by the large number of British posters and historians and the large amount of literature available to them- while many sources in other languages are not available. I think that the Brit's did do a good study of what the French were successful in and how to counter it. They countered the French with a lot of light and rifle troops and defensive positioning to negative the effect of large amounts of skirmishers and open order preliminary attacks to precede concentrated attacks. BUT they used a lot of allied troops for scouting and broken terrain fighting and development and saved the trained veteran shock troops for the final attacks and defenses. This didn't get much press or credit and the lack of reporting and understanding, I think, twists our understanding of the amount of open order fighting. In foreign battlefields there were no or only singular British observers, so the majority of the Napoleonic war is underrepresented in the data that shapes our understanding.

Besides, the British always fire at plus two.

I'm with 1968billsfan here (disclosure: I'm British). British (and dare I suggest many other English-speaking?) wargamers have become obsessed with a particular narrative that involves British and French troops. This has given them an unbalanced way of regarding the wars.

The attitude for me was summed up by a throwaway statement by the great historian Oman, repeated countlessly, that aggressive French infantry tactics had allowed the French armies to overcome Austrian, Russian and Prussian armies – but couldn't handle the Brits. That's very lazy analysis. Go through all the major battles that won the French dominance, and you will see that the French struggled on the attack. their greatest tactical triumphs (especially Auerstadt) were gained by gritty and expert defence. They won through superior strategic and grand tactical leadership – using superior numbers at the critical point.

I value TMP because so many contributors use Austrian, Prussian and Russian sources to throw light on matters.

But most gamers are still stuck on the idea that infantry combat wasmostly between bodies of close order troops trading volleys and going in with the bayonet. Much, if not most, combat was the exchange of fire between troops in open order – even if the dramatic and decisive events came from close order exchanges.

I couldn't agree more. As I have said before, the focus on the Peninsula fostered by the heavily Anglo-centric nature of Napoleonic wargaming has given the hobby a very warped view of the period. The Peninsula was nothing more than a strategic sideshow, and was a theatre characterized by a tactical battlefield environment foreign to the rest of the great continental wars. It should be practically its own sub-period, but instead it has become a major driver in how we game the period as a whole.

I would love to see rules that unashamedly concentrate on getting the continental wars right (which is enough of a job with the four major powers and the changes they went through over twenty years), and treating the Peninsula with an addendum for optional rules. But oh I can hear the howls!

Cheers,

Christopher

To be truthful, most of the English authors I have read, look beyond the Peninsula as well and it is my opinion that the matter of the affairs on the Peninsula were not conducted tactically in that much different a fashion from elsewhere. Not so many forces involved in the big fights but in the small ones such as with Eugene in Italy, it seems much the same. Artillery scarcity seems to be the major difference.

I do see certain criticisms of the anglephone authors that strike me as rather more nationalistic in their vehemence than the authors they slag. Oman made some mistakes, but his work remains to this day of high standard and there has been plenty of authors who have pointed out his mistakes from Anglophone camp. I think the problem has gone away.

So, what rules give acknowledgement to the use of open order?

Mine do Alex,
loose files/open and extended orders are possible for battalions both light and line …as well as skirmishing companies, third ranks and grand bandes.
grandmanoeuvre.co.uk
See the article "about skirmishers" in the blog.

Game mechanic is to reduce the chance for artillery to properly estimate an accurate distance to the front of the battalion unit. So reduce the chance to hit.

Prussian in 1813 used groups of men to harass French advances on their positions. There is a famous drawing of these men in action. These groups were better called semi-skirmishers and the entire battalion was deployed and not just a single company.

For Corps level operations the screening would have been a cavalry function more than infantry. IMHO.

These groups were better called semi-skirmishers and the entire battalion was deployed and not just a single company.

Semi-skirmishers? Are you using the Empire term? Why that term?

I believe it is an Empire game term Bill… I`m only guessing, but perhaps it refers to units that are in extended order.

I'd be guessing too Mike, which is why I asked. I think it's a lame term, all the same.

I think in the Empire Universe semi-skirmishers are a denser formation that true skirmishers, which consequently required less training.

In practice what this probably means is fewer men in the reserve lines and more up front firing.

I'm not a fan of Empire, nor of this terminology – but the depth of organisation in a skirmish line is worth modelling in tactical rules. There is the world of difference between a grande bande and and organised chain of skirmishers with one or more sets of reserves in lines behind them.

Bill,

This was discussed a few years back on the Empire board:

TMP link

Shane Devries ("Defiant") provides a description of semi-skirmishing:

"Semi-Skirmishers – These are the units which are "usually" less adept or able in ability to skirmish and rated as such by Scott and his fellow designers. These units may have been also true skirmishers of their time but I feel Scott and his designers felt that their ability as skirmishers was below par with other units they felt were much more adept and flexible in this role. Also, I feel that due to this lesser ability they are less capable of being deployed in an extended "full" skirmisher deployment role because the ability to control them would have been considered too difficult. Therefore Scott decided to only give them the ability to "semi-skirmish". "

So, it`s nothing to do with the formation adopted.

Art (bless him), just weighed in with the following:

"As for Semi-skirmishers, I have done away with them. Historically they do not exist, and I do not feel they reflect anything historically."

Mike:
Yep, remember the discussion. Just checking with Rudy to see if he was using Empire terminology or had something else in mind. Sort of like what does 'command radius' mean in THIS game?

""Semi-Skirmishers – These are the units which are "usually" less adept or able in ability to skirmish and rated as such by Scott and his fellow designers. These units may have been also true skirmishers of their time but I feel Scott and his designers felt that their ability as skirmishers was below par with other units they felt were much more adept and flexible in this role. Also, I feel that due to this lesser ability they are less capable of being deployed in an extended "full" skirmisher deployment role because the ability to control them would have been considered too difficult. Therefore Scott decided to only give them the ability to "semi-skirmish". "

In what historical context would those be seen and how to be used??

It is down to command and control and fire discipline again

I am wondering what frontage a battalion in open order would cover. Might this be found by comparing unit position and covering on a historical battle map and the number of troops? There must be some established period publications on this- KriegSpeil might be one. Would this be used in broken ground or also in open ground? With the restraint of closed-formation, elbow-to-elbow packing would there be a wider arc of fire? Did closed order line, change to an open order in practice when they changed over to the "battlefire" mode of firing?

A Practical Guide for the Light Infantry Officer Cooper (1806):

Loose files: 6 inches apart.

Open Order: two feet between each file.

Extended order: two paces (or any other regulated at the discretion of the Commanding Officer)…

His guidelines for firing in extended order applied the usual skirmisher method (alternate firing in pairs) to the men in each of the two ranks.

Thank you Michael Collins Himself.

I have published in another thread, figures and calculation for a division column approaching a close order line as to the number of muskets that could fire at various ranges of approach as well as the angle of fire and the actual firing distance. This generated quite a bit of related and unrelated follow-on comments, and a major challenge was that my suggested 45 degree angle (+/- 22.5) for firing was much too generous and the angle was close to zero, except for a single 33(?) +/- 1 degree angle where muskets could be poked thru the next file spacing.

What is clear is that under this restriction, a column approaching a line would throw out nearly the same firepower as it received (one was moving), excepting the taking of nearby divisions forward with a wheel to put in flanking fire. Whether this could be done in a battle situation with skirmishers, smoke, multiple approaching columns, not being sure exactly where a column would strike and without disrupting the defending unit…. Not so sure.

However, if the file spacing is increased from touching to 6" or 24" the situation is different. There should be no problem with firing with a 45 degree arc. Doing alternate firing would have the rear solider step forward to fire. Loading would be quicker and better with more room. There would be an acceptable reduction in density of firing but not very much. I was estimating a 40 man company in close order to be 92' wide. With 6" more space between files it would be 122' wide and have 82% of the firing density. But the oblique fire from adjacent units would add in and give more total lead on target. With a 2' spacing the company would be 172' wide and have 53% the fire density. I will do a little trigonomatry workup in the next couple of days.

Anticipating the result, why would any line NOT operate with the 6" spacing?