"Early Balloons" Topic

Re-reading Gunther E. Rothenberg's The Art of Warfare in the Age of Napoleon and was wondering what could have happened if Nap didn't decide to give up balloons as a weapon of warfare. Rothenberg mentions it took 36 to 48 hours to inflate but as with any technology practice and use could have this been speeded up? If a long battle of multiple days the time might not have mattered as much. Also the intelligence was poor but even this would have been figured out in how to improve transmitting and interpret what was seen. Any thoughts and has anybody gamed with one in a early Revolution battle?

Yep….. Used my French republican compagnie d'aeronautiers (balloon unit) in several games.

Wurzburg 1796
Fleurus 1793
A pick up game once and in campaign in Egypt 1799-1801 (assumed the balloon wasn't lost at the battle of the Nile).

Blog article on the model miniature plus some information links:

link

Floating overhead, wine bottle and bread in hand…
WR

Phipps "The Armies of the French Republic" vol. 1 has them being used by the Armée du Nord using ballons during seiges where the time factor was less critical.

The biggest advance would being using coal gas for the lift and the employment of silk for the envelope. With a British maritime blockade how readily avaliable was silk?

Don't forget the 'half mile high club' aspect in creating the model. ;)

I heard somewhere that the ballooners giving joy-rides was a major excuse for them being disbanded.

great model, the aeronautiers were also in Egypt, but failed there, I think that was the end of this highly inovative military unit – then.
They prooved to be very usefull also at sieges.
that one captured at Würzburg 1796 can still be seen at Vienna.

A balloon might have been useful for Napoleon at the Battle of Nations. It was one of the few battles where he was forced to fight on the defensive, and he was in the location for a long enough period. However, in most of his campaigns I think Napoleon's usual style of dynamic, aggressive warfare would make the use of a balloon impractical.

Wargamerabbit I think I might have complemented you on your wonderful balloon on a previous thread. But once more, great work!
I might factor in some rules for an observation balloon when I get round to wargaming Fleurus. Do you use any home-grown rules when you include the balloon in your games?

Great idea Telestic – what if he'd had one at Leipzig, fascinating thought?

My HOTT army has them with Madame Blanchard as the commander!

link

TW,
Thank you again for your supportive comments.
Balloon unit has limited ground movement of 6" per turn. Period pictures show a large group of soldiers holding ropes pulling the balloon in still airs. The balloon unit basically increases the visibility range for determining the enemy forces (we call them commands) since we treat them just like a "senior level" commander for scouting with a lower visibility (weather) chart number (if using chart 4 for ground commander, the balloon uses chart 3 instead, improved weather/visibility). Balloons cannot be used if windy or bad weather. Our visibility rules really come into play with our "hidden movement", block movement, and command deployment rules.

Examples: link and PDF link

Munching on the carrots….

WR

WR that is a cool model. I wonder if they ever thought of lashing it to a wagon and haul it around. But then development of AA artillery would not have been far off.

14 Bore,
Thank you for the nice comment.
Once had an Austrian player fire his 3lb battery at the balloon. He missed…. always would miss but the battery had no other target. Slow day for the Austrian crew it seemed.
Never found any images of a wagon for balloon towing. Always was a "spare platoon" of local infantry. My joke on the table was…."daddy, what did you do in the war…. I walked/towed a big balloon with thirty other guys" grinned the veteran.

Cheers WR

Hi WR,

I just watched all the Youtube video's showing your block and hidden movement rules. Fascinating stuff and very good food for thought, I would recommended viewing to anyone wishing to put hidden troop movement into their rules.
I really liked your concept of using the square grids to determine which units (and what details about the units) the Army Commanders can see. A great thing about this is that I make my battlefields using lots of square carpet tiles. This means I could easily incorporate a similar concept into my own games using the tiles as command squares! Thanks very much for providing the links above.
One more question if I may, do you tend to use these hidden movement/deployment rules in all of your games, or just in games where you think its more appropriate, i.e. encounter battles or historical affairs where visibility was a real issue (i.e. Hohenlinden or Kaiserslautern)?

TW

We tend to use blocks in most of our games if reserves or rear zone forces are involved (present). Historical or pick up games treated the same. Especially on the larger scenario games with larger pools of miniatures. The major driver for their early history use was the simple task of moving the block vs. movement of miniatures in the low activity rear zones. If the table is 4 foot depth, tend to go straight to miniature deployment unless bad visibility. On 6 foot depth tables, the blocks carry the opening movements.

Glad you found some use for the videos. One day I will have the rules formally typed up and posted. Meanwhile, I create the videos to explain the rule concepts and background thoughts etc.

Additional note and a bit off subject: We use the same system for the map movements without the actual wooden block. I draw the maps to scale of 1 foot squares so the same counter found on the wooden block is used on the scenario map if the location is off the predetermined tabletop zone. Our game maps can allow for flanking marches, greater depth than 6 tabletop to be represented. Once the counter enter the determined tabletop square (zone), I transfer the counter into the wooden block for tabletop movements. Hard to lose or miss the wooden block on the tabletop vs. the very small counter by itself.

Example was our Battle of Salamanca game at Bob's in Redondo Beach CA. The table was large and off tabletop map movements were done on the scenario map (which was even larger than the tabletop zone). Here is a copy of then map and the link to the game scenario AAR.

link

If you need to contact me directly, for questions or just clarify something, all the information and contact WR data is found on my blog site. link

Call or email wherever you have a question.

Michael aka WR