"Column of attack" Topic

I played a game the other week in which our side was decisively beaten by a compact divisional sized column of attack formation two regiments wide and eight deep that penetrated our line at the double. I don't do much wargaming these days but it struck me as odd that such formation was permitted in a set of ACW rules. I have had an interest in the ACW for a long time but cannot recall any battles where such a close order French style attack column was used. Does anyone know of any civil war battles where these Napoleonic tactics were employed.

The attack on the Mule Shoe at Spotsylvania made by Hancock's II Corp was a massive assault made by 20,000 men formed on a narrow front and up to 40 ranks deep in places.

This attack was inspired be Upton's attack 2 days earlier made with 12 regiments formed 3 regiments wide, 4 deep. Upton's attack was successful and Grant ordered Hancock to make his attack with an entire corp.

At Cold Harbor there were divisional size attacks made by brigades with individual regiments formed in column of divisions (2 companies wide, 5 companies deep) with 4 or 5 of these regiments in this formation formed one behind the other.

Assaults were made during the siege of Petersburg were made in a similar fashion to Cold Harbor, including the final attack that broke through the lines to end the siege.

The problem with such formations was that while they did have impetus, the amount of firepower poured into their ranks was often enough to stop the head of these columns dead in their tracks and forcing the attack to faulter.

Kim

The initial Confederate formation at Shiloh was about as close as I can come to French Napoleonic formations being used. Upton's attacks were really designed to allow for an assault force and an exploitation force much more like modern tactics. Upton realized that most assaults failed because the initial penetrating force became to disorganized to exploit their gains.

Longstreet's attack on the 2nd day at Chickamauga was a column of brigades, 5 lines (10 ranks) deep, each line about 100 paces behind the 1 in front.

At Gettysburg, 2 July, the entire federal 2nd Corps was formed into an attack column facing Gettysburg and behind Cemetery Ridge, as Meade believed that Less was going to bring his main attack there, just as he done to the federals at Chancellorsville just 2 months earlier.

Fortunately, that same formation allowed Meade to begin to extract 2nd Corps and begin sending it down towards the Round Tops to reinforce 3rd Corps when Longstreet's attack came in.

What rules set were you using?

The Confederate initial deployments at Shiloh were Brigades formed into a single line, with other Brigades formed, single lines, adjacent to them, so a single Division was spread out as far as it could possibly go.
This is completely opposite to the Napoleonic "Column of Attack"

Confederate battle plan at Shiloh changed from Johnston's pre-battle order to Beauregard's commanding on the field. You can see the planned attack which was four corps (nearly two miles) deep versus the actual attack in this NPS map:

PDF link

Even through the original formation wasn't implemented, I understand Polk and Hardee's corps each attacked in multiple lines of units across a division-sized frontage, leading to intermingling of units at the end of the first day of battle.

As they say a picture is worth a thousand words

This is a picture of a Pennsylvania Regiment in Column of Companies If this were an assault it is easy to see the companies bunching up into a solid company

Thank you for your interesting responses, there are a lot of knowledgeable people on this forum.
From my own reading I think that the reason column of attack was rarely used was that rifled muskets would cause too many casualties during the advance to contact phase. On reflection the rules seemed to allow for this as one of my brigades forming up similarly to attack the column in the flank was severely handled by 6 batteries of artillery . In the wargame context the formation makes a lot of sense as such large narrow frontage formations can absorb the casualties without affecting morale . A column 2 brigades wide would be fired on by a line at half effect compared with line versus line so would more than likely close to contact. Perhaps the circumstances in this game were ideal for such an attack as our centre brigade collapsed after sustaining fire from over 2 divisions worth of artillery fire, some at close range. I think the main issue was the speed of the advance made at the double that was permitted in the rules. The rate of movement allowed the whole mass of troops to pass through our line completely unopposed. I don't believe that civil war battles used dense columns in the French style, they would have been regiments or companies formed up with spacing between each formation. As the spacing would need to be maintained to stop the units disordering I see no reason why such a formation would advance any faster than a unit in line formation. I don't want to mention the name of the rules as I am probably wrong in my assumptions, I only bring it up as a point for consideration.

A narrower formation can advance faster because it has less need to pause to maintain or correct alignment of various parts of the front. Any formation can only advance at the pace of its slowest component.

Don, you can ponder on the truth of that statement next time you stand in a moving queue at the airport.

Wargamer,

Most sets of rules come nowhere close to reflecting the true rate of troop movements given time and distance scales. This has pervaded rules for nearly 50 years and is simply propagated from one rules set to another with blind faith cloning and no basis in reality.

I have always used my "Pickett's Charge Rule" to determine if there is any real thought put into a rules set. Given the average distance from the CSA attack stepping off point to the Union lines was approximately 3/4 of a mile, and that is took around 20 to 22 minutes to reach the enemy lines, we can see how close rules are to reality. All regiments for the attack where formed in battle line.

3/4 of a mile (1320 yards)in 20 minutes gives us a pace of 66 yards per minute. The standard march step for infantry for this type of attack would have been at 80 paces a minute. A pace is presumed to be 30 inches (2 1/2 feet). That's 200 feet per minute, or right at 66 yards per minute.

So if you then assume that time for the maneuver took up to 22 minutes, then that is only a 10% increase to allow for wheeling of the lines, dressing the lines, crossing obstacles, etc. Still doing 60 yards a minute even with that. At that rate, you are moving at an average of 2 miles per hour to cover the distance.

It is well known that infantry in a marching column 4 wide, moving on a good road, would average 2 1/2 miles per hour. So infantry moving and maneuvering in battle line is about 20% less this rate. How many rules reflect that? Most are way less.

Say your game rules are around 50 yards to an inch (approximately 36 inches to a mile) and a turn is supposed to represent 20 minutes of real time. If so, than you should be able to make Pickett's Charge to get within around 100 yards of the enemy in a single turn. This would be correct in terms of time since the whole attack from start to finish of the actual attack was over in less than one hour. If your rules can do that than they are pretty accurate. Sadly most are not.

As to Don's comment, it's not entirely correct. An individual solider can march at the same rate in any formation. From my days of marching at military school, I know that rather than having formations slow down for those trying to keep up and stay in ranks during maneuver's, instead, the NCO's simply ordered the trailing men to "Pick it Up!" and move at a very quick pace (jog) to catch up with the unit.

The time to dress ranks is far less than most perceive as noted by the time it took Pickett to close on the enemy which did take into account the wheeling of the attack line and dressing the ranks. The time for doing so is minimal in the real world when you are pressed for time.

So back to the rules time and distance. 20 minute turns, 50 yards per inch, a march column should move around 30 inches per turn, once it is on the march. A unit in battle line should be able to move over open ground around 80% of that speed, so should be about 24 inches per turn.

While there is a difference, it should not be significant. A regiment on a single or two company front might be slightly better on average moving than a battle line, but certainly not significant. Terrain would have a greater impact, though most game rules exaggerate this as well.

Kim

Wargamer, there is a significant difference between a battalion (regimental) column, and a brigade or division one. In the former, the regiment is normally in either a "column of companies," which is one company wide, that company in a line formation, or a "column of divisions," in which the battalion is two companies wide, each of which is also in a line formation. In both cases, the interval (distance) between the lines (each of which has two ranks plus file closers) is about 10-30 yards, depending upon whether the column is "at full distance" (i.e. the width of a company or division), half distance, or closed in mass. Of course, the former two vary depending on the size the the companies.

A brigade column consists of a column of regiments, each of which is usually in a single line of battle (two ranks plus a line of file closers), although it can also be formed with the regiments in the various types of column formations described above. The intervals are usually somewhat greater, around 40-100 yards.

A division column is, as might be expected, just the same thing on a higher level, with the divison formed with the brigades one behind the other, usually with each brigade in a single line, or a column of regiments in some cases, especially for the rearmost brigade(s) which are considered a reserve.

It is even possible to have a corps column, with the divisions one behind the other, although this was less common, and the much greater intervals means that in effect there is less direct coordination between them. Beauregard's formation for the Army of Mississippi at Shiloh was in fact a column of corps, with the entire army arranged one corps behind the other. Since the brigades and divisions of each corps were in single lines, this spread them out in the heavily wooded terrain and led to a breakdown in command control.

All of these types of columns were used in various combinations at different times and places during the war. Regimental columns were most often used when assaulting fortifications, or operating in densely wooded terrain where enemy rifle and artillery fire was less effective. If one walks down the Federal line at Chickamauga, for example, he will find that the markers denoting the right and left flanks of most of the regiments are about the width of a single company, showing that these regiments were in columns of companies or columns of divisions. The Federal attack on Cheatham's Hill at Kennesaw Mountain was made by two brigades, each in a column of regiments. Upton's attempt to use very large columns at the Mule Shoe at Spotsylvania, and various attempts by Sherman's army to use brigade or division columns during the Atlanta campaign, proved largely unsuccessful because the wooded terrain tended to disrupt the command control between the succeeding lines, and the leading regiments or brigades were already repulsed before the rear ones could advance far enough forward to support them.

The use of dense, deep infantry columns never did prove to work as well as expected during the Civil War, but the theory remained and was still in use as late as the First World War. It was only when troops became motorized, as during the German blitzkrieg in World War II that deep column penetrations on a narrow front became practical.