"WSS battlefield tactics book recommendation?" Topic

I read Chandler's book (excellent) but it did not give any details outside of the battalion level of how things worked. Can anyone give recommendations for a book that explains how the two lines actually supported each other and deployed? I assume they did not interpenetrate, then how did one line pull back and another "plug the gap"? how did units disengage? How did they deploy from march formation? how good were they are flanking and reacting to flanking? etc. I appreciate any help. This period has captured my imagination, but the details are murky to me.

If someone's got such a tome, he or she might have two buyers.

Brent Nosworthy, "The Anatomy of Victory, Battle Tactics 1689-1763" includes the WSS in Part I (Linear Warfare 1689-1713). Chapters cover deployment, battle order and grand tactics.

Second Brent's book

thanks all, I'll save up my pennies for that.

For a battalion view chapter 9 of "A Treatise of Military Discipline" By Humphrey Bland is quite informative, and numerous of the editions are available online. I've never been able to work out if there are any differences, but looking at a 2nd and 8th edition, chapter 9 seems very similar. Bits of the rest of it are useful, but bear in mind that the first part is about training men on the parade ground, not how they would form for battle.

You can also learn a lot from "Principles of Military Movements, Chiefly Applied to Infantry – Illustrated by Manoeuvres of the Prussian Troops, and …" by David Dundas (also available online) and his follow up British army regulation. Although it is much later, the British were quite traditional (the American experience excepted) and resistant to change. Dundas is very much a traditionalist. His "Principles…" criticises the then current British practices and praise the Prussian methods from the end of the SYW. The regulations are very much a codification of the discussion in the "Principles…", but with better diagrams and more precise descriptions of manoeuvres.

The parts about lines of several battalions in the later part are more relevant to what you are interested in. You can ignore the close column stuff, that's "new" as in the WSS all deployment was from open columns.

The battalion level stuff shows all the developments in precision and timing that cadence marching and other drill changes brought, but the use of battle lines hadn't (for the British at least) changed much from the WSS and WAS.