"Cavalry squadrons or by regiments in Napoleonic Wargames?" Topic

Hi gents:

I´m currently developeing a new (yes, one more!) Napoleonic ruleset at Divisional Level: you the gamer are the Divisional commander.

All is more or less clear for the infantry rules, so I have to start with the troopers and this is the first question: have I move by Squadrons or by Regiments?

Infantry move by Battalions of 24 miniatures some bigger, some smaller, and ocasionally by small units of 6-12 miniatures in skirmish.

Waiting for your opinion

Sorry about the title: it is a mistake: "Cavalry squadrons or Regiments…" I meant

At that level I would say Squadron.

"The Squadron is to Cavalry as the Battalion is to Infantry". Or something along those lines supposedly said by the man himself!

If your basic unit of manoeuvre for Infantry is the battalion, then your equivalent Cavalry unit is the squadron.

At that level a Squadron will probably be 1-2 stands.

24 figure Battalion is @ 1:30 so a Squadron would be @ 4 figures

The figure to man scale might be different than for infantry, so we could have squadrons of 6 to 12 figures, isn´t it?

Unless a stand represents a company or a squadron (regardless of the number of figures on it), your figure ratio should be the same for both foot and mounted.

Well, the rules for Infantry are more or less: You can form the battalions with one or more "companies" of 6 figures
If you only have a company, then it must operate in skirmish all the game.
If you have 2 companies, you choose to operate both in skirmish or formed.
With three or more companies the battalion must be formed (though some battalion can send some companies in skirmish.

The term "company" is generic: a British company is smaller than other countries´ companies.

The "company" for cavalry is three figures. One or more form a "squadron/regiment"

If I call the cavalry unit "squadron", then the maximum companies it could have might be 4, if 1 figure is more or less 20 troopers (60 to 240 sabres)

Could it be correct?

For play at 1:25 or 1:30 I have been using 3 to 4 stands. With the stands 2 per.
Typically they fought in 2 squadrons battle groups/division, for small sqdns of the Allies with 6-8 sqdn regiments ( 3-4 fig sqdn for allies units) or do to depleted large sqdns being coupled.
Otherwise , 6-8 fig for large sqdns.
This has worked well and is historical.

MG

Just some semi-random thoughts, to contribute to your rules as you form them, not to criticise ….

When you say the gamer is the "Divisional Commander", for the French, Russians and bunch of other nations that usually means either a cavalry division (sometimes with horse artillery) or an infantry division (almost always with artillery). It usually does *not* mean a mixed force of all arms.

For examples ….

French 3rd Infantry Division 1812
- 5 battalions of light infantry (with 4 light artillery pieces)
- 13 battalions of line infantry (with 10 light artillery pieces)
- 1 foot artillery company (8 pieces)
- 1 horse artillery company (6 pieces)
- 2 artillery train companies (to move the guns and ammunition)
- 1 sapper company
- 2 military train companies (to move supplies)
- 1 section of gendarmes (about 10 gendarmes)

Russian 3rd Infantry Division 1812
- 4 battalions of jäger (includes integral "military train")
- 8 battalions of (heavy) infantry (includes integral "military train")
- 2 battalions of combined grenadiers (includes integral "military train")
- 1 battery artillery company (12 heavy pieces, includes integral "artillery train")
- 2 foot artillery companies (24 pieces, includes integral "artillery train")
- 1 Cossack "hundred" (about 100 Cossacks, usually attached)

If you want to start creating special combined arms task forces (for example by attaching jäger to light cavalry units – or by attaching light cavalry to infantry formations), usually you would be creating commands of about brigade size. And heavy cavalry (cuirassiers, carabiniers à cheval) would be pretty rare in such formations.

For examples ….

general-major Melissino's detachment, created from elements of the Russian 3rd Reserver Observation Army:
- 2 battalions of combined grenadiers
- 2 battalions of jäger
- 4 squadrons of dragoons
- 4 squadrons of hussars
- 1/2 horse artillery company (6 pieces)

I would have to look this up to get it exactly correct, but Davout made similar detachments to spearhead his corps, this one under the command of the colonel Bourdesoulle of the 3e chasseurs à cheval :
- 3 or 4 battalions of infantry (with 4 light artillery pieces)
- 1 company of sappers
- 1/2 company of foot artillery (4 pieces)
- 1/2 artillery train company
- 4 squadrons of chasseurs à cheval

===================================================

There are other tactical formations you can chose from, if – for example – it makes basing more convenient ….
If you want to bulk up the cavalry, you could field them by division = 2 squadrons
If you want to spread out the cavalry, you could field them by company (French) or platoon (Russian) = 1/2 squadron

If you want to bulk up the infantry, there were late-period tactical formations smaller than a brigade, i.e.. of 2-3 battalions, in use – but these were not too consistent country-to-country.
If you want to spread out the infantry, you could field them by division = 2 pelotons = 1/3 battalion (late French, non-Guard) or = 1/4 battalion (Russian, early French, French Guard)

- Sasha

For the Austrians that would mean a total cavalry availability of :

7 regts of Chevaux Légers of 6 squadrons of 6 figs each, totalling 36 figs/regt.
Same for the 2 Uhlan regts and 12 Huzard regts.

8 Cuirassiers regts. of 4 squadrons of 6 figs each, totalling 24 figs/regt
Same for the 6 Dragoons regts.

Also….so how will this rule set be different better than or address some missing element than say Gen d Brig or Carnage & Glory-which are appropriate for this level of play?

MG

This is a TMP regular, and opinion seems to divide. My view is that to reflect contemporary accounts of the conduct of battles, you would need squadrons as your basic unit – which create problems for rules that simply treat cavalry as a rather special type of infantry (i.e. try to apply the same casualty mechanisms) as the units are much smaller.

Pairs of squadrons, as suggested by Sasha, is a perfectly acceptable compromise.

When you say Divisional level I assume you mean that the player takes the part of a Divisional General in the which case the obvious comments is as per above – divisions were rarely all 3 arms combined.

If using your rules I could command a cavalry division then I would definitely suggest "by squadron" as the unit of manouver.

Of course if your rules could also allow an infantry division to have some attached assets from Corp – a light cavalry regiment or two, then again I would say "by squadron" would be fun.

Wow! What a lot of feedback!

Thank you very much to everybody.

Some thought from me now ;)

The scope of the rules is to be a division commander, as said.

The wargamers and collector have a logical mixture of figures of infantry, cavalry and artillery. We want to play games with all of our figures, but if I am in the rol of an Infantry division commander, how can I also command a brigade of Light Cavalry?

Command control is the way to introduce it, I think: The control over the cavalry brigade is not absolute: the player doesn´t know exactly when they will arrive, the range that they will engage enemy forces,…

That is the way I´m working.

About the cavalry unit, I will try with the squadron and I will let you know how it works, if you want.

Other rules are good enough for this scale, of course. Is more the personal preferences that push me to do this task.

I desing rulesets with several premises in mind:

The display on the table is the first and more important aspect of a miniatures game for me, so I try to avoid:

Markers on the table
Paperwork
Loooong list of Charts and modifiers

I try to replace the complicated charts with dice, d6, by the way. The other polyhedron are obscure to me!

But I don´t like to roll an exagerated ammount of dice: only the number of them that I can hold in one hand: never more than 12 D6´s!

So from here, and with all of this factors in mind, I try to assamble a ruleset enjoyable and with the spirit of the Era I want to play.

Sorry for the long speech, by the way.

Dear 2nd of May,

These are some good principles to go by if designing a simple game, but sometimes the odds are longer than 5/1 and adding dice together doesn`t give proper representation of the real probabilities. But nevermind, this is just a little hobby-horse of mine right now!
It is a question of scale and the type of game that you want.

In his remark "the squadron will be to the cavalry what the battalion is for infantry", Napoleon, however was not advocating the isolated use of individual squadrons of cavalry; unless of course a smaller force was more suited to the mission, he actually massed cavalry where it was possible.

I believe he is referring to the manoeuvre of grand bodies in battle arrays and lines – regulation – very basic stuff and nothing to do with delegation in command or giving squadrons entirely separate missions from their parent bodies.

@ MichaelCollinsHimself:

Thank you for you opinion.

I like simple games that with easy tools permit solve complex situations.

Visual spectacle is essential.

About Cavalry "squadrons" vs "regiments", I try to decide what is the basic tactical unit: We will play with Infantry battalions, Artillery batteries and Cavalry "squadrons". Or …"and Cavalry regiments"?

That is the main reason of my question.

I know that isolated squadrons, or isolated battalions, are not the correct way to represent the Napoleonic Era on our tables. I emphasize what I name "grandtactical formations" in the game.

In last night playtesting of the infantry rules, we test the Donzelot´s Divisional formation at Waterloo, or the Ordre Mixte, Anchored line …

We try all of this formations be practical without a lot of unnatural special rules for each of them.

What is your opinion?

I focus on the Peninsular War, and all my cavalry are in "squadrons," with a lot of flexibility in forming "regiments."

The French in particular, during the war, had a great deal of change, with "provisional regiments," some with squadrons from 3 or 4 different regiments; and even one of hussars with companies from up to 8 different regiments! It was rare to find any French regiment with more than 3 squadrons in Spain, and many had only 2.

The French Dragoon division at Albuera may have had only 10 squadrons of the 4th, 20th and 26th (under Bron); 14th, 17th and 27th (under Bouvier des Eclaz), totaling 1970 men. At 1:30, that's 66 "toys," 6.6 per squadron.

Any gamer who does the French in Spain, and does not have 66 French dragoon figures, is shirking his duty! Oh, wait! I only have 62!!! But I WANT to have 18 squadrons of 8 each! (I should live so long!) I like having squadrons of 8 for the French.

For gaming "fun," I can see allowing a composite light cavalry regiment made up of a squadron of the Vistula lancers (in the center); 2nd Hussars (behind the Vistulas); 10th Chasseurs (to the right of the Vistulas; and 26th Chasseurs (to the left of the Vistulas) – which is supposed to be the way to use lancers, flanked by light cavalry to protect their flanks. It allows for a tiny representation of Albuera, without using thousands of figures!

My French infantry are at 36 figures each, and the cavalry in squadrons of 5, 6 or 8.

I have a composite Spanish cavalry regiment in bicorns, dark blue – Rey, Reina and Alcantara – 5 each, 15 figures. Also a dragoon "regiment" in yellow – two in bicorns, one in "Raupenhelm." Again, 15 figures.

My Portuguese number only 12 – 3 "Squadrons" of 4 each.

My British are 5 men each of the 7th, 10th, 15th and 18th hussars in early tall fur cap.

My Heavies are 6 figures from four different regiments. One in bicorns, one in "watering caps," 2 in the late war leather helmet.

On the infantry side in Spain, one can field a "division" of six infantry Battalions (4th,7th, 9th Duchy of Warsaw) with "sections" of guns – 2, 4, 6, your choice. The "German Division" could be 9 battalions in 3 "brigades." Baden and Hessen would have their own guns, and the Dutch would have a "battery" of horse guns. "Classic" French divisions could be as large as 12 battalions.

British varied. 4th Division 5 or 6 British, 5 Portuguese. 2nd Division all British, larger. Spanish often 7 battalions up.

GdeP

Thank you, GdP, for your contribution.
Have you some sort of blog or website with pictures of your collection?
I envy your dedication!

I definitely will try the game by squadrons.

I´ll let you know

Cavalry operated in regiments and brigades with formations including line and column just like the infantry. There are many examples in Waterloo Letters and drill manuals of cavalry operating in column with the frontage of a squadron or even a half squadron. Some of these examples describe moving forward in column of half-squadron and then deploying the regiment into line to charge the enemy.

The use of columns (squadron or otherwise) was to enable cavalry to move from a reserve position through the crowded battle line and engage the enemy. However you represent the squadrons you should allow interpenetration with infantry and artillery (with some risk of disorder).

One problem will be the figures. A horse is three times deeper than it is wide. A squadron of 120 riders in two ranks will have a frontage of 60m metres and a depth of 9 metres (and you could allow another 6 metres for the rank of NCO and file closers). That is a ratio of 4 to 1 so the squadron base needs to have the width of four times the depth of the horse.

If you accept that the base also includes an interval between sucessive squadrons then you can reduce the ratio to a frontage of twice the horse depth which is not so bad. If the column is at full distance then the interval between each squadron should be tha same as the frontage of a squadron. This will allow the squadrons to wheel to a flank without colliding with the squadron ahead.

Columns could deploy either on the head of the column or to a flank by wheeling the squadrons. It was usual for the rightmost squadron to lead the regiment so that when it deployed the ramaining squadrons would take their place to the left of this leading squadron. Again with the right squadron leading then the regiment would form line facing left by wheeling each squadron to the left. To do otherwise would result in "inversion" of the line which was seen as a bad move as there would be reduced control by the officers and NCOs and would make any rallying much more difficult.

If you have a look at the video here

TMP link

just as the captions roll (3:20)you will see two weak squadrons in column at less than full distance (the interval looks like half the frontage so this would be half-distance)

I must say that I agree with your general approach – I too have tried to achieve a representation that is based on simple mechanics.

How did you get on with your infantry tests?

@MichaelCollinsHimself:

Not bad at all!
Next Saturday (tomorrow) more, with skirmishers, support and more complex situations.

If you read Spanish, I could send you a rough beta to have a look.

It will be available in English in some more days.

Great
Many thanks for the offer, but I fear that I will struggle with googletranslate !
Could you post the English translation to me at contact@grandmanoeuvre.co.uk please ?

Of course I´ll do!

At this time I`m adding cavalry reactions to fire and combat to my C19th rules – I`ve already looked at infantry behaviours.

I mention this because I`m retaining something of my Napoleonic rules for cavalry reactions to fire as it became increasingly difficult to use on the battlefield with more effective rifled and breech-loading weapons.

I`m going cautiously here, because I am adding fire effects to assault reactions, whereas before in my Napoleonic rules, I simply have "combat" for when units come within a given range. So I`m trying to add more but at the same time retain simplicity in play… I`ll post you some more about that later.