"Research on Tactical Effects for Napoleonic Warfare" Topic

What I was getting at is that you can take real life impressions but you're still going to have to make a guesstimate, unless it's something that can be measured like your Sherman tank.

Weasel:

The points that I was making is that
1. Whether you are guessing or not, the designer is STILL making a measure of something.

"feeling" and "data" aren't at all mutually exclusive.

2. It is true that there are aspects of art and science in most all creative and discovery efforts, guesstimates and measuring, BUT what are you getting if you are just guessing. Based on what data? When you interpret the data, you are still working from the data.
3. The basic guessing is about probabilities, the chance that something will happen. So, that calls for calculating the probabilities for something happening in 'real life', what is being supposedly mimicked. That can be done.

We can say "Italians lost 20% more battles in Africa than the British" but does that mean Italians have 20% worse morale?

You are mixing apples and oranges there. We aren't talking about the results of entire armies over several campaigns, but much smaller units over the same time period. A person can give whatever reasons they want for the probability, if the odds are that the Italians have and probably will lose 20% more battles.

Well, it can, but does every battalion have a 20% higher chance of breaking? What about every squad? Every soldier?

I'm measuring battalions and brigades. And whether every Italian battalion has the same 20% chance compared to the British… We'd have to test that statistically…right?

WHat if their leader wasn't incompetent? WHat if they have local superiority in a particular battle?

Well, that is where statistics are really handy. Let's say I have 60 battalion engagements, and they lost 30 of those. Do those 30 have any commonalities? How much? Statistics again. It could well be that 100% of the engagements lost, the battalions had identifiably bad leaders. What does that tell you?

Since we can't see their character sheets, at some point you're going to have to take your information and turn it into a +/-1 on a D10.

That's the point, you have to have the probabilities of results represented on that D10 represent the chances of those results in real life/history/the actual battlefield. We can't see their character sheets, but like basketball or football players, we can see their stats, their performance over time.

What if you emphasize one point and I emphasize another? Which one is "feeling" and which one isn't?

I would have to have some idea of what points were taken and why to make that judgement, wouldn't I? At the moment, designers don't offer that information.

With the probabilities I am working with, there will be decisions based on 'feelings', intuition and best guesses. HOWEVER, the parameters for those guesses are going to be far, far narrower and far less significant in game terms with a statistical base to work from.

If I find that out of 40 examples, the average movement through all rough terrain was 1/3 as fast as open, then if I make it 33% through 36% loss in movement, it isn't as big a deal as making 1/2 movement with a much slower movement rate in the first place.

And the information isn't some vague sense of what I've studied over the last twenty years or the last book I read, or what my friend, the Napoleonic Expert said during the game last Saturday. It is based on sources collected that anyone can find.

hiya

McLaddie said

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I've also asked the question: "What did commanders know of unit damage/states, when and how did they know?"

IF commanders only had the vaguest idea of the state of their troops, then maybe we don't have to show damage in many cases.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Phil Barker adopted this idea in his DBA, (to paraphrase) that commanders would have no idea that a unit had suffered a certain number of casualties (perhaps until the next day, if then), but he could see if the unit was routing, advancing and cheering or milling about in hesitancy.

regards

David F Brown

For the micturating musket fans.

The reference I mentioned earlier is on pp24-25, from Jean-Roch Coignet, 96th demi-brigade in Italy, 1800.

'Our musket-barrels were so hot it became impossible to load for fear of igniting the cartridges. There was nothing for it but to into the barrels to cool them, and then dry them by pouring in loose powder and setting it alight unrammed. Then as soon as we could fire again, we retired in good order.'

<later>

'… we had to face in all directions. Battalion fire from echelons formed in the rear, arrested the enemy, but those cursed cartridges would no longer go into our fouled and heated musket barrels. We had to in them again. This caused us to lose time.'

So it sounds like pissing was a curative for both overheated and fouled muskets.

David F Brown

@evilgong

Thanks, I have some doubts if the cooling story is not a camp fire invention – musket test performed by the Bavarian army of that time period, to test if they got too hot by firing and induce self ignition – came to the conclusion that they did not reach this critical temperature.
He is alas not telling, in case the muskets get so hot – where he touched it in the act, one would assume at the end of the barrel to achieve accurate aim – but this spot would have been too hot.

Phil Barker adopted this idea in his DBA, (to paraphrase) that commanders would have no idea that a unit had suffered a certain number of casualties (perhaps until the next day, if then), but he could see if the unit was routing, advancing and cheering or milling about in hesitancy.

David:

Did Phil say that? The DBA and DBM designer's notes I have seen were surprisingly history-free in their explanations.

I am really interested in what 'indicators' commanders had in assessing the combat condition of a unit during battle. For instance, at Austerlitz, when the 4th was routed by Russian cavalry, Napoleon saw them running by and knew they'd been dispersed by cavalry by their behavior…he noted that they kept looking behind them to see if the Russian troopers were following.

Okay, so does ww2 Italians in the desert need to roll on a D10 to pass a morale check?

"Okay, so does ww2 Italians in the desert need to roll on a D10 to pass a morale check?"

No

vW. evilgoing beat me to it. Coignet is referring to the battle of Marengo. According to his story his regiment was placed in an exposed position as a punishment (I can't remember what for), and had to endure prolonged period of fire. A points the firing set the rye/wheat on fire. Hot and dry conditions.

Coignet is a rollicking good read, and probably wouldn't let the truth get in the way of a good story. It has also been very widely read, so is the source of many a story. But this anecdote sounds authentic to me.

Sorry McLaddie – I didn't mean to suggest that you were off topic… because you most certainly weren't. I was… being set off on a train of thought by other posters, and lacking the discipline to put it somewhere more relevant.

Your project sounds very interesting, and will certainly help make sense of things.

If my speculation is to be more than an the basis for than an interesting game mechanism I will have to think of ways that make it testable against data. I'm some way off that. I'm coming at the modelling problem from a different angle -that of finding rational explanations for decisions people took in battle – and then using ideas drawn from that to develop wargames mechanisms. Testing against data comes later, which makes you some way ahead of me.

Season's greetings!

That was supposed to read "WHAT does italians have to roll"but since excessive consumption of post-Christmas pie has affected my typing, feel free to point and laugh :-)

matthewgreen:

Sorry I misunderstood.

I'm coming at the modelling problem from a different angle -that of finding rational explanations for decisions people took in battle – and then using ideas drawn from that to develop wargames mechanisms. Testing against data comes later, which makes you some way ahead of me.

Luckily there are lots of explanations for decisions from military men, both for specific events and general considerations. Of course, there is a good deal of debate between military men about such 'rational decisions.'

"Luckily there are lots of explanations for decisions from military men, both for specific events and general considerations. Of course, there is a good deal of debate between military men about such 'rational decisions.' "

There was also a lot of deliberate obfuscation to evade responsibility for defeats or magnify the glory of a victory. This included inflating the size of enemy forces, while understating one's own numbers.

There was also a lot of deliberate obfuscation to evade responsibility for defeats or magnify the glory of a victory. This included inflating the size of enemy forces, while understating one's own numbers.

Yeah, but those are 'rational'…

Whirlwind,

Coincidently enough, just like McLaddie, I've been doing extensive research for a book about quantifying (using real numbers) Napoleonic Warfare. My focus is on 'Move-Shoot-Communicate' and on the individual Army's (National) Doctrine that encompasses those tactical aspects.

Here's a sample of some of the research I've conducted on 'MOVE'. Hopefully, you'll find this information useful and thought provoking.

***************************************
ANALYSIS Of INFANTRY MARCHING RATES.

1. The US Army conducted a series of experiments back in 1964, which they reported out on in June 1965 pertaining to the ability of Infantrymen to conduct a 10 mile march over different terrain types, under several different combat loads (i.e. weight of individual equipment) ranging from 15 to 45 lbs.

2."The measurement situation originally proposed for research purposes was a group performance test in which an infantry squad (11 men) would move a total distance of 10 miles. Movement was to be both along roads and over cross-country trails."

3. "The cross-country test setting was an approximately rectangular-shaped, dirt track which measures 1046 feet, or .198 miles. The course started with a downgrade for
118 feet, then a steep upgrade for 102 feet, then a level portion for 444 feet, next a steep downgrade for 274 feet, then an upgrade for 148 feet, and finally a level portion for 10 feet."

4. "Subjects were started individually on the course in a staggered starting sequence. They were required to make 51 traversals of the course--for a distance of ten miles--without stopping. This was a self-paced test situation, and the subjects were instructed to complete the 51 laps as quickly as possible. To minimize unconscious pacing, the number of individuals on the track was limited to four--two moving in one direction, and the other two moving in the opposite direction." Soldiers were instructed to complete this march at their best sustainable speed. Basically, marching with no rest breaks.

RESULTS:
1. The results were classified into three (3) basic terrain types: Road, Cross-country and Hilly.

2. The report provided the following results of Soldiers conducting 10 mile, sustained marches under a 30 lbs. Soldier load:
- Sustained, flat road rate 3.3 mph(5808yd).
- Sustained flat cross-country rate 3.0 mph(5280yd).
- Sustained hilly rate 2.76 mph (4858yd).

**********************************************

YES, you could consider these results as the 'Optimal Case, under Laboratory conditions'. Which is actually "GOOD". Because any additional factors you might consider would only serve to degrade these values. Factors such as weather and fatigue.

Regards,

Analsim

@ Analsim

So with a 60lb load and 19th century equipment 2mph would seem to be a reasonable speed on averagely non-flat terrain?

I wonder how fast a woman could do it? Did the march rate of wives, cantinieres and sutleresses inhibit unit rates or were they on mules with the baggage train?

Andrew Roberts' biography of Napoleon quotes him as having worked out that his armies marched twice as fast as Caesar's legions. I forget where the cite was from. Interesting claim if true.

4th Cuirassier,

S.L.A. Marshal wrote a less well known book for the USMC called "A Soldier's Load". In which he detailed and established the average Roman Soldiers load at 65-75 lbs.

Guess what the 'Modern 21st Century Soldier's Load' is?

65-75lbs! Some time allot more depending on Mission requirements and other acts of God, nature and fortunes of war.

So, with your comments and all the other minutia thrown in, it's still worth while to have at least one stake in the ground, like the one I provided above, from which we can all pivot upon. ;^)

Regards,…Analsim

Thanks Analsim,

I have read and enjoyed SLA Marshal's "A Soldier's Load". Within limits, I am happy to accept some things as relatively universal.