"Wheels" Topic

In the rules we use, wheels cost double movement.

I've been thinking (always dangerous & sometimes painful): is this fair? Wouldn't they wheel at a faster pace?

Opinions sought AND heeded.

Intrigued…………trying to think what is the alternative………..skis, sledge, logs? Civilisation's most important invention we are often told……I thought double movement was good thing.

Maybe I too have been thinking too long.

Maybe I will go to tonight's broadcast of the Dead's last tour, for 5 hours in a dark cinema……..

I am under the impression he is talking about units wheeling.

From my experience as a Civil War reenactor, wheeling was slower otherwise the line became disordered.

I've done wheeling in Napoleonic re-enactment and keeping the line straight and unit formed does not lend itself to fast movement.

Remember also, that in a wheel, half of the line is going backwards.

I never wheeled backwards in the drillyard…one side anchors as the pivot. I don't think wheeling in the field would use such a complicated option on unmanicured ground, but I suppose the wheel could pivot on the standards if they are centered.

Mick's got it as far as the rules go: a pivot.

I just had a half memory that it was performed double time by any unit reasonably trained. No?

As an unrepentant rules junkie I'd say 90% of the rules I have read treat wheeling as (a) pivot on the end of the unit, not center and (b) measure the outside arc for distance but at normal speed.

This means, strangely enough, in some rules a unit cannot complete a wheel in one turn! But that's another thread….

@ EC

Exactly. Indeed as a line can't turn 90 degrees (like a column), a battalion needs to wheel for two turns (remember: double distance) or form column, turn 90 degrees, form line. This seems strange.

This is the issue I'd like to address.

From my long-ago Army days, a wheel done by a column always takes longer since the pivot men are basically marking time until the outer files can complete the arc of the circle. The whole formation has to slow down and great care must be taken to keep the alignment along the ranks as they each individually make their wheeling motion. The outer files are also really stepping out in order to keep the rank from bowing backwards. And the longer the ranks are, the slower they'll move during the wheel.

A battalion length line will take much longer to wheel than, while each division or peleton can wheel separately, but all at the same time, at a much quicker pace. Such 18th and early 19th century drill evolutions were very complex.

So half-speed, or even quarter-speed, is what it takes.

Jim

Then there's the American militia system: "Fall out and fall in again over there facing that way".

How can I have been so dim? I seriously thought he meant wheels would impede movement………….

Maybe I will listen to 5 hours of the Dead now…….

That's OK, I thought the same thing until I started to read the responses.

Jim

Yes there is also time lost to give out the order and any other hesitation for making the unit know of the direction change.

Some rules do not penalize the movement but add to the fatigue since amount of double timing etc is present to fulfill the action with minimal impact to the march.

MG

Most nations operated with three march rates: (1) ordinary (approximately 75 paces per minute); (2) quick (approximately 100 paces per minute); and (3) quickest (approximately 120 paces per minute). The exact number of paces per minute (and even the length of pace) varied from nation to nation. Normal maneuvering was carried out at ordinary and quick pace; quick pace being reserved for files 'catching up' with other files moving at ordinary pace.

Wheeling an entire battalion in line would be rare. It would be simpler to carry out the 'prompt' maneuver, where sub-units would break and march via the hypotenuse route to their new location, all at ordinary pace. If I can give an example. A full strength 1808 French battalion (840 all ranks) would have a frontage of 444 feet. Conventional wheeling through 90 degrees required an extreme travel distance of 697 feet [pi x 2 x 444 x 0.25]. Movement via the hypotenuse method required an extreme travel distance of 628 feet [sqrt (444^2 + 444^2)]. The distance would be traversed at ordinary pace.

Wheeling a column through 90 degrees is different. It was simpler to use the prompt maneuver rather than conventional wheeling. The prompt method involved troops quarter facing, moving by file through the quarter circle to the new position and then quarter facing to the original facing. Difficult to explain perhaps. Another way of looking at it is to imagine the column's front as a tangent of a circle, facing the centre of the circle, quarter facing left or right, then moving a quarter of the way around the circle, maintaining the tangent, then quarter facing to face the centre of the circle again.

In any event, it was done at ordinary pace. How many moves it will take in your game will, of course, depend on the rules system time per move scale.

Allan

Thanks, Allan. That is food for thought.

the French could do a "tournez" – then the inner pivot would turn abruptly and continue to march in the desired direction, their next files would follow this movement as quick as possible and would march as quick as possible catch up in the new alignment – aline with the marker and re – establish an unbroken line.
As pointed out, those wheeling was hardly done by a complete battalion but usually by tactical sub units.

Thanks, H-K.

Just thinking aloud, as it has never crossed my mind before, but in gaming terms an infantry unit threatened by or brought into 'frontal' close combat during the wheeling process would be at a disadvantage using the prompt maneuver as against the traditional wheel.

Just a thought.

Allan