"Unit frontages (Spain)" Topic

What would the relative frontages have been for

- an infantry battalion formed in 3 ranks
- a cavalry squadron in 2 ranks
- a deployed artillery battery

I'm thinking about the French in Spain if that makes any difference to the answer.

From a war gaming perspective I think they should all be roughly the same frontage? Perhaps the artillery would be a little smaller?

Reason : looking at the possibility of using Irregular 2mm at 1:1. Would love to hear from anyone that has tried anything similar previously

Simon

The answer, as always, is 'it depends'.

Unit frontages of a nation's forces would be the same in the Peninsula as anywhere else. What needs to be taken into account are paper strengths contra actual strengths.

Adkin: Waterloo Companion gives the following

for a French battalion in line. 125m (514 all ranks) p195
for a French cavalry squadron in line. 50-60m (113 all ranks) p249

30" per man approx for foot, shoulder to shoulder. Pretty much the same in all armies.

I thought it was 18"-24" for shoulder to shoulder?

At 24" per man shoulder to shoulder a 750 man french battalion will have a frontage of about 160m frontage. You can probably round that down to 150m. That being said, the number of troops in different units could vary quite widley, so you may want to go to a small/medium/large/extra-large system. In the ACW you almost have to round to the nearest 50m or 100m of frontage, because the units had such huge disparities in size, even within a brigade.

Does anyone know if battalion strenghts varied more in Spain than in other theatres due, maybe, to the nature of the fight, detachments and supply?

You can find French & Aliied untis near full strength, others less than half strength.

forwardmarchstudios wrote:

Does anyone know if battalion strengths varied more in Spain than in other theatres due, maybe, to the nature of the fight, detachments and supply?

I once did an analysis of French strengths in the Peninsula. Many of the Regiments originally went with 3 or 4 battalions. As overall strength fell, the number of battalions per Regiment was reduced to 3, 2 or even 1 in order to maintain a minimal battalion strength of over 500.

Cavalry Regiments, of all nations, did the same by reducing the number of squadrons per Regiment to maintain a minimum squadron strength of between 100-140 (average 120).

Rod

for a French battalion in line. 125m (514 all ranks) p195
for a French cavalry squadron in line. 50-60m (113 all ranks) p249

Thanks daubere. This is what I was looking for. So frontage for cavalry would be approx 1m per man?

I have seen threads on TMP explaining clearly that an artillery battery was aprox 80% of an infantry battalion.

So frontage for cavalry would be approx 1m per man?

That is a reasonable rule of thumb. As is ~60-75cm per man for infantry. They cannot stand shoulder to shoulder when firing ;)