"so how does napoleonic skirmishing actually work?" Topic

I don't mean skirmishing as in "200 men spread out in front of the battalions", I mean skirmishing as in "my 8 guys are taking on 7 of your guys in this orchard".

I know people play skirmish games for this period. My question is this:

Musket fire is extremely inaccurate even at relatively close range. Do you just increase the chances of hitting to make it more fun, or is it all about the other guy running away ?

I don't think when folks play Skirmish games, they are actually gaming two skirmish lines firing at each other. Skirmish gaming just refers to the use of a small number of individually mounted figures.
Usually it is the objective that makes the game. Some examples are: such as fighting over a supply source such as a cow or some chickens, or maybe trying to capture an officer and his aides who have become lost, or maybe to sides trying to secure a river crossing for the main body.
So it's not so much about just firing at each other, but also, getting somewhere and doing something. Often involving meleeing as opposed to just shooting

Check out "Song of Drums and Shakos" from Ganesha Games for a very excellent Napoleonic skirmish game. Like Chris Palmer says, it is the scenarios and objectives that define the skirmish, but SDS does a great job of making it fast and fun too.

Thanks.

I was meaning in the context of two small groups each trying to achieve some sort of objective. But they'll presumably still be shooting at each other at some point during the game.

There's also: Green Jackets & Voltiguers that covers Napoleonic skirmish. link

Napoleonic skirmish is wide open for mission possibilities. One could game a skirmish in the battle line – might be a good starter for a campaign.

I think the Sharpe novels inspired much of what amounts to Napoleonic Skirmish.

At the short ranges during a typical 'skirmish' game it's perfectly possible to hit and kill a man with a smoothbore weapon. They weren't *that* inaccurate!

-Will

Me and my friend made a set of rules where you roll a D6 and that is the number of action you get where you move, shoot ,reload, melee and so fore so if you roll a 5 you can do one of the action with 5 different figs but each player only does 1 action and then the other player does one action until all action are done the fun part is the player with the lowest actions goes first. shooting you roll 2D6 needed a number to hit with mods if you hit the person hit rolls 2d6 needed a number to pass if you tie you hit the ground need morale check, fail by 2 you run 2D6 away and need to pass morale if you fail by 3 your dead we played Nap,ACW,FIW with these rules with 4 players and about 20 figs.

Remember at small scale like this, men had chance to aim, rather than firing by rote.

Any episode of 'Sharpe' with its cast of dozens will give an idea of how skirmish games in the Napoleonic era might work.

Smoothbore muskets are plenty accurate up to 100 yards, if your criteria is putting a ball into the body of a standing soldier. see link At 100yards the weapon is not the problem but rather the ability to see and aim. Do the experiment of standing 100 yards from a person, extending your arm and seeing how much of your thumb is needed to cover the view of that person.

The inaccuracy of smoothbores is more predicated on hitting something at a longer range, which is due to different factors.

The muzzle velocity of the smoothbore was about 1000 fps (the speed of sound is ~1250fps), so for short ranges, there is not of drop in the projectile. For longer ranges the following comes into play. A round ball has very little mass for its cross sectional area and it is a terrible ballistic shape- both ind pushing air out of the way and dragging a vacumn behind. It loses energy to the air resistance quickly and (since the mass doesn't change), it slows down quickly. Therefore at ranges longer than 100 yards, it takes a long time to move out. Since gravity is an acceleration, the downward fall of the ball increases as the SQUARE of the time that it has been traveling (A point not well understood by most people). At longer range and longer time of flight it is traveling downward like a rocket and dropping from the sky, sort of. Therefore to hit anything on the ground at a longer range, you have to fling it exactly the right angle into the sky in order to get it to drop down to the ground at the right range.

Other problems for the military smoothbore are poor windage (with varying velocity and direction influenced by last bounce off the bore, curving flight due to unknown spinning of the ball and variable powder (amounts, quality and packing). Despite all these, most current shooters would maintain that even without sights and patched balls, you should be able to hit somebody most of the time at a skirmish range of 50 yards.

I don't think any skirmish game has anything but a loose connection to real skirmishing…they are just an excuse to have a game with 30 figures (rather than an excuse to have a game with 3,000).

One thing simple convention that isn't present in any Napoleonic skirmish game I've seen is the practice of pairing. Troops, regardless of their numbers or mission, operated in pairs, one always having his musket loaded while the other was firing. Usually it was a file in a line that made up a pair. That is why the Legere, Prussian Jagers and Fusiliers, Russian Jagers all formed in two ranks when preparing to act as skirmishers. [The Russians at one point had the Jagers forming in three ranks with three men operating as a team, but then returned to two men per file.]

Groups were organized in fours, six, eight etc. around this pairing. In a skirmish line, the pair operated as a file, one man forward, one back.

generally, when foraging or any other skirmish-type action, horns were used to communicate, but the regulating file often was used too as men would be too spread out to hear an officer's voice.

Flintloque depicts this by having figures activate in pairs. It is up to the player whether or not to use those activations to have figures support one another but that is the intent.

In my designs it is always best to operate in pairs with one fellow with a loaded weapon just in case, but again the practice is not forced on the player.

Bob

"One thing simple convention that isn't present in any Napoleonic skirmish game I've seen is the practice of pairing."

You get exactly he same thing in more modern periods, support weapons (tripod MGs, mortars etc) generally work best in pairs as one can keep firng while the other clears stoppages or whatever, but in our games they get scattered around the battlefield like confetti.

An actual clash of skirmish lines might make an interesting game.

Are there any historycal records of those small skirmish?
I agree with christot that most premodern skirmish games just look like a mini battle with ten men units instead of hundred men units. Like a reenacment battle. I suspect that most of those encounters would be just two lines blazing each other, something that would be very oring in the tabletop

Are there any historycal records of those small skirmish?
I agree with christot that most premodern skirmish games just look like a mini battle with ten men units instead of hundred men units. Like a reenacment battle. I suspect that most of those encounters would be just two lines blazing each other, something that would be very boring in the tabletop

McLaddie

Paddy Griffiths skirmish game, will force you to pair due to the reloading rules.

Are there any historical records of those small skirmish?

Oh, yeah. In many memoirs and books like Rory Muir's 'Experience and Tactics in the Napoleonic Wars." The Chapter on light infantry gives several instances.

Ktravlos and MartinR. Thanks. I hadn't seen them.

The Rifles seemed to have written quite a bit about their activities. There are several good books on the units as whole as well as individual diaries available.

One of the officers in the Corunna campaign wrote a fine memoir that details a number of cavalry skirmishers. Name escapes me at the mo.

Really any memoir by participant Colonels or lower rank will likely have some such anecdotes in it.

Finally Antoine Fortune De Brack wrote a wonderful treatise on the handling of light cavalry that is available free on line or for minimal cost in other formats. "Light Cavalry Outpost Duties" that provides many reasons *why* skirmishes might be fought.

For example raiding a post office to intercept the mail, kidnapping a notable or guide from an area held by the enemy, intercepting a foraging party and all that sort of thing.

Bob

Besides Sharpe, the "Napoleon's Sons" series has some scenario potential.

Thanks gang. Lots of useful stuff here.

I agree with christot that most premodern skirmish games just look like a mini battle with ten men units instead of hundred men units.

Absolutely not. 'Skirmishes' or 'Actions' (to use the Renaissance term) used different tactics then larger battles, this was recognized through out history. They weren't fought as mini-Waterloos with battle lines of 10 men.

Note that we're not really talking about skirmishers in a larger battle here (which was yet another permutation of tactics), but events where the number of combatants was as most a few dozen.

-Will

Weasel,

Musket fire is extremely inaccurate even at relatively close range. Do you just increase the chances of hitting to make it more fun, or is it all about the other guy running away ?

I think it would be more accurate (pardon the pun) to say that smooth bore musket fire could be extremely inaccurate. I own and shoot a replica 45 cal 1777 Kentucky Long Rifle, and with it's modern smithing and modern casting of the ball, plus the greased patch, it is highly accurate out to 200 yds. But my buddy Jack, who owns a 54 cal percussion Hawkins, also has a beat up musket from god knows what era. Supposedly it's 75 cal, but we have checked the inside of the barrel and it's warped. Not true straight sides at all. Which got us thinking, would that have been typical of the 17th and 18th centuries? Mass production of weapons and ammunition with good quality control is probably a modern mind set.

So, yes, today we can hit human sized targets with modern replicas out to good distances, by I certainly wouldn't want to bet my life on a weapon and ammunition from the 17th century. Though if were me back then, and I knew anything about shooting straight, you bet I would be going through all my ammo to check for decently fitting ball.

Kevin

Riflemen shoot with a loud "bang", Frenchmen fall down shot with a loud "ouch". Credits roll and Sharpe walks away into the sunset.

That's skirmishing.

You have forgotten the bit where Sharpe is grievously wounded but manages to finish off the main baddie in a grueling hand to hand fight. Then Harpy applies leaches to the wound and says "God Save Ireland"!

Not THAT is Napoleonic Skirmishing…

Yeah … I missed those bits, thanks. But you also missed out the female interest when he steals the Colonels wife.