"So, How Many Books Would I Need To Buy....." Topic

…..to get a list of division commanders from 1798 to 1815 for the major combatants, along with some idea of how effective they were?

There is a listing I the back of the Napoleon's Battles Rule book. You would need a library to compare and verify the results

Maybe try Nafzigers Orders of Battles. They usually give the names of Divisional Commanders where possible.

link

How many books? All of them, I think.

Get a grip. If you actually want to fight historical battles, and concern yourself with the "effectiveness" of the divisional commanders, you can't limit yourself to the majors. The Kingdom of Italy, Westphalia, Saxony and Bavaria are all contributing in major battles. And sometimes division commanders get killed. So now you need to know how good the brigade commanders would have been as division commanders. And don't forget that people learn--and get old and tired--so the 1798 rating might not be the 1812 rating. You're not only well past what is known today, you're well past what was known to the senior officers of the period.

(I still think that NB chart was drawn up out of a morbid fear that if they didn't play fast and loose with the ratings, someone not French might someday win a game of Napoleon's Battles.)

What you CAN do is note the spread of an effective staff system, and a better articulated army, so that a Prussian 1813 corps can process orders more efficiently than any of the Allies could in 1805. But for that, all you really need is an "old system" and a "new system" rating at each level of command, and a date at which each of the allies caught up. But trying to rate commanders even down to corps level is hopeless and subjective at the same time. For division commanders--grab yourself a harpoon and go whale hunting. There's a big white one out there.

Sorry. Didn't mean to preach. But I don't think this will take you anywhere you'd want to go.

Just a list of division commanders would run well into the hundreds. Even if you got every book ever in print, the info included would be unlikely to answer your question in any coherent fashion.

If I was trying to do what you propose, I would peruse Napoleonic rules sets and see which ones had commander ratings. Buy/beg/borrow what you can. Then move onto board games. Odds are you will only get info on maybe 40% of the total, and what info you find will likely be contradictory.

Even trying to get Corps commander ratings would be challenging.

"General of Division Claude Dubonnet. Promoted to command 2nd Division of L'Armee du Nord, which was in The Batavian Republic on garrison duties, 3 Brumaire 1803 to 17 Germinal 1804. Died in typhus epidemic."

Where would you even start to rate this (fictitious) guy?

Greenfield had a Napoleonic Sourcebook which had them by campaign.

Here's a simpler, in my opinion better, and much more fun system:

Let the players decide. For each commander they assign a rating of Good, average or Poor. If they have, say 12 commanders, give them 3 good, 2 poor, all the rest average. This lets him put good commanders in the part where action is critical, duds to where he expects to do less, just as a real general might do (who else but Jackson gets the flanking command?).

The first time they have to use the commander they roll on a table. This gives the commander's rating for today. Good get +1, Poor get -1 on the die roll. So perhaps your "stud" is having an off day, perhaps your dolt suddenly "figures it out."

I kinda like letting players decide, in theory. But everybody brings Old Guard or Panzergrenadiers or Rangers or Tigers to games, so I'm inclined to not let that happen. :-)

Anyway, thanks to everyone for your input, it's good to know the boundaries I'm dealing with for what I want. Which is to make cards for LFSv3 at least semi-accurate.

I use a simpler system for rating the commanders.

Based on a 10 scale expressed as .1 to 1.

All commanders start with a .7 rating. Which means 70% of the time they historically perform their command tasks and lead their battalions/units into battle and provide leadership, morale benefits, and if leading directly into the point of battle (at the front), a combative benefit.

To the base .7 rating add or subtract up to .2 (maximum) making the range .5 to .9 overall.

Subtractions:
Old age (born before 1740) subtract maximum .1

Losing battlefield record as commander, no experience in commanding divisional formations, fort governor, or political appointment subtract maximum .1

Additions:
Winning battlefield record as commander or veteran of many battles add maximum .1

Major tittles or military awards, generally promoted often and quickly add maximum .1

Commanded cavalry, artillery or was engineer officer add maximum .1

French commander add .1

Special adjustment: Lots and lots of historical commentary on this officer add or subtract .1. This is the only way for an officer or commander to rank with the perfect rating of 1…. above .9.

Using the rating…. I roll at the start of the battle a d10. If the officer rolls equal or less than his rating, the commander on the tabletop has full values. If roll over the determining rating…. then the commander is "indisposed" for that battle (sick, hasn't recovered fully from last wound, inattentive, doesn't lead the troops that day…having a bad day.. whatever you can think up. Effectively means the commander has no direct or indirect impact on the performance of the tabletop units under his command structure. Also any formation order changes from a senior commander take additional time.

Examples…… a typical French commander has .9 so as long as no 10 rolled, that officer good for the battle. An Austrian commander, no experience, maybe old age, political family appointed may be a .6… means 4 times out of 10 he will have no tabletop leadership for his troops but still handles the orders.

As for the number of commander you can list…… several thousands easy. My French list has over 800 divisional named commanders alone, the Austrian list has over 1000 names. Minor state maybe a hundred names. Each named commander has; Full name, most have titles included, portraiture(s) if available, his ratings as Senior commander (Corp level +), Divisional/Brigade level, radius of command influence, Type or branch of service or birth nationality, year of promotion to brigade, then division, then corps or higher, and year of fate (death, retired, left service) if known.

Or use Extra Crispy method…..

LFS has 4 types of commanders:

Gifted
Able
Solid
Poor

These apply to the commander himself and the staff he had. There's also modifiers for their ability to inspire.

These ratings I like to put on the commander's card, along with a picture if available and other useful information to avoid hitting a chart.

TMPWargamerabbit, I'd be interested in speaking with you about this list via PM, if you'd be so kind.

The book is the Napoleonics Sourcebook by Greenhill, not Greenfield. Every battle given from 1792-1815 is listed. The OB includes every Divisional Commander. Many battles would be regarded as minor and not covered in most books.

Most excellent, thank you Rudy

$15 USD on Amazon for Napoleonics Sourcebook by Greenhill? Wow, I was thinking $75. USD I'm happy.

JT… PM sent

Your ranking scale cross referenced to my basic system.

Gifted = 1 or more likely .9 in my ranking.
Able = .8
Solid = .7
Poor = .6 or worse

Basically close to the system I use.

Michael aka WR
link

Interesting.

In LFS, it's basically a requirement that brigade commanders (and above) be on the table; that's the turn mechanism used, drawing a commander's card so the unit can do something. I think your system would work well in a campaign, though, just drop down to the second in command and adjust his rating to match.

JT,
If interested, I have a couple of commander lists posted under the WR tab "Napoleonic rules……" link above. Scroll down the link heavy page till you find the updated commander list (Ver2.0) section and find the (xls) files. Currently have Austria, France, Poland, Saxony and Reichsarmee (1790) posted. The reduced in size portraiture images I use on the scenario rosters to "personalize", they are normally expanded to fit the roster portraiture space (1.5" square). As for the method and use for the numeral values, give me a call…. contact info found under the "About the WR" tab.

Thank you