"New Military Historical Research Article" Topic

I have put a new article on the Military Historical Research section of my website. It's title is "Obstacle Avoidance Drills", which were similar for all Nations. Amongst other things, the article explains the reasons why columns could move faster than lines.

The article can be seen here:

link

It probably is mainly applicable to Napoleonic tactics, but many of the drills started in in 18th Century, so I have cross-posted it to that Discussion Forum as well.

Rod

Looks Very Interesting, could you also post it as a downloadable .pdf document?

I just love the opening sentence. If the rest of your work is even remotely to this standard……you must be tempted to pick up the pen once more. This is very publishable….and far better than "The Second to Last, Penultimate, but most Sinister, Secret, Betrayal of Waterloo" that dominates bookshelves at present.

A great and well written article. It is most useful for the gamer to understand why rules regarding pace and the types of formations are written they way they are.

Thank you for sharing article here.

Andrew,

Thanks for your comment, but I am not sure how to post it as a downloadable PDF document.

Rod

Excellent article. Clear and well written. Bravo!

"opening, closing, floating, will take place, and disorder will arise"

I suppose that opening is a gap between elements; whereas closing is elements getting squashed together.

Floating must be elements advancing or falling behind the rest of the line

Deadhead,

Well, you can see most of my work in the Military Historical Research section of my website.

link

The Military Historical Research section has the following articles:

These are:

Published articles:

Authorised Establishments of the British Army 1802-1815 – based on original research in National Archives, published as pair of articles (total 18,000 words) for Journal of Society of Army Historical Research in 2009.

Napoleonic Infantry March Rates – original article published in First Empire magazine in 1994.

Squares and Oblongs – original article published in Age of Napoleon magazine in 1997.

Other unpublished original research:

British Army Converged Light Companies during the Napoleonic Wars. I was thinking of offering this as an article for the Journal of Society of Army Historical Research, but it needs more work to determine missing names of the converged light battalion commanders.

Extracts from unfinished book on Napoleonic Tactics:

Basic Formations and Movement Drills.

Obstacle Avoidance Drills.

Napoleonic Infantry Battalion Structures.

Napoleonic Artillery.

Infantry Battalion Field Strengths during the Napoleonic War.

Cavalry Squadron Field Strengths during the Napoleonic War.

Rod

Rod,
Excellent article – as always.
Thank you!

Andrew,
You could try this :
https://www.printfriendly.com
(no endorsement, I just found it now, seemed to work OK and is free)
or, for Macs, use the "print to pdf" feature of Firefox or Safari.

So far I have only read "squares and oblongs"…absolutely fascinating……highly recommended.

Yes, Rod. Thanks for drawing our attention to all this great work on your part.

Rod's articles are excellent as is his website generally.