"Prussian Tactics?" Topic

I would like to use Beneath the Lilly Banners with my 15mm SYW Prussians and Austrians until I get my GNW armies painted . But I need to change a few details in the rule and need to know the Prussian tactical docterin. Did they rely on fire power of platoon firing or were they keen to close to bayonet contact, or at least the threat of of it. I need to know the same for the Austrians too. I have had the 2 SYW armies for years but only had one game with them in the past.

Both sides would have relied almost exclusively on firepower to defeat an enemy. Cold steel wasn't normally used until the opponent was breaking, unless you were assaulting a fortified locale, such as a town, field fortifications, or a breach in a city's defenses.

Jim

Actually, at the start of his career King Fritz believed strongly in push of bayonet, and made his army fight a few battles that way. He got his pom-poms shot off doing that at Prague in particular, and changed his views.

I believe that Frederick also contemplated arming a portion of his infantry with pikes early on in the SYW given his love of the bayonet. As Zippy said Prague was disastrous to say the least and the pike idea went out the door.

This is what I was wondering about. He admired Charles XII and his military feats. So I was wondering what is the typical Prussian tactic or does it indeed break into early and late war tactics?

the french at the time, who faced the prussians, thought it was their speed of movement rather than their firepower which mattered – even going so far as to comment that while they reloaded very quickly, they hardly hit anyhing more than they would have had they been at the same speed as everyone else their aim was so poor.

when you look at fredericks battles, expecially in the 7YW, what he does is let the enemy fix their position, and then march right around that position to the point he intended on attacking – often on the corner or even a point in the rear.

By marching far faster and more determinedly than the semi fixed opponents, he was then able to avoid most of the defending army, and concentrate his best troops at the point of attack.

Local superiority then determined who broke through there, rather than any inherent troop superiority.

and the reaction was to develop a method of defense based on digging in and, from the austrians in particular, a method of attack based on multiple converging points of attack (e.g. hochstadt) which prevented Fred from taking troops to the threatened area to reenforce it for – again – local superiority.

the recurring theme of this local superority at the point of attack emphasises to me that his men were not that much better at fighting, as he never seemed to attempt simple face to face even numbers attacks if he could at all avoid it, which is what you would expect if his men were that much better at shooting.

the contrast with 1805-06 Napoleon is striking, where he would attempt strategic superiority, but make tactical attacks head on with a pretty even ratio of numbers while using the superior numbers he had accrued to try to flank and encircle for a total army destruction.

Note that the severity of Fred's drill was all about keeping them in the ranks under fire and marching fast and in formation.

rapid reloading was an intimidation, I think – along with the much more rapid manoever – and his reputation.

plus he had the best charging cavalry by the 7YW, which would win the cavalry fight and then pursue for the dramatic victories.

of course, the notion that the prussians could out shoot everyone is so ingrained now, attempting to suggest that the evidence for it is not as strong as it needs to be to be true – and largely based on 'instruction' taken from Prussians after the wars (when fred would laugh at them for learining the wrong things) is a bit pointless.
we want to see prussians as firepower dominant, for some reason.

Applying the loose and rather general distinction of fire or bayonet to Prussian 7YW tactics will lead to a completely false understanding. You don't see Prussians closing the enemy with leveled muskets attempting to decide the issue in close combat. All Prussian tactics was about fire combat. Firing or avoiding to fire. Truth is that during the early 1750's Frederick and his Potsdam general suite adopted the idea that it is better to close in without firing, but keeping up the advance with shouldered muskets. This idea was borne out of the observation that attacking infantry firing would take much more fire till it arrived at the decisive distance that would cause the enemy to break and give way as opposed to infantry that would close in fast without firing. The Prussian theory behind all this was that all it was about was to get your lads so close to the enemy that they would break and run away. Firing only delayed the outcome to their understanding, and cost you a lot more men. The May 1757 battle of Prague revealed that this was an altogether false theory. Prussians were left shell shocked by their 10.000 plus casualties, turned deeply religious in the event and closed in to the enemy with lots of fire preferably commencing from 300 plus paces for the reminder of the war and ever after.

Cheers,
Christian
crogges7ywarmies.blogspot.com

It is more complex than this, Prussian 7YW officers experienced that units opened fire too early, when they started firing officers lost control und units fired till the cartridge box was empty and did neither advance nor retreat, firing in close order was regarded as waste of ammunition.

To avoid all this – the attack without firing was introduced.

It speaks of the high discipline of the Prussian Army at Prague that it pressed the attack home – with the well known results, that one can win a battle by that – but is ruining the army very quickly.

The next approach was to soften up the enemy – by controlled fire (which did not exist) and artillery fire.

In the end – a stalemate in fire fight and loss of manoeuvre – was the result.

An old Prussian Officer writes about the Prussians in the 7YW :

One started to fire with pelotons, two, three fired well, but then a common burning started and the usual fire where each who finished loading pulls the trigger, files and ranks are intermingling, the front rank is not even able to kneel down, even if they intended to, and the officers from below up to the generals cannot do anything any longer with this mass, but have to wait till they will move forward or backwards.
(Jany, page 47)

Gaudi, another eye witness writes about the Prussians of the 7YW :

Who will think back will have difficulties to remember that in a battle or action to have witnessed that at firing the first rank will have knelt down or did do this constantly, despite such a thing happens constantly on the drill ground, but they kept standing as the rear ranks. There one witnessed this at those troops who rightly were classed as being the best taught and disciplined, so the thought to kneel down in action must be un natural.
(Jany, page 47)

Tempelhoff another veteran writes :

The Bataillenfeuer (feux de bataille) as the fire at will was typically was called replaced in the hitherto battle in the end the drilled art. Then everybody fired who could fire and wanted to and everybody as often as he was capable without giving a damn about his neighbour or front man.
(Jany page 46 / 47)