"Squares were tiny artillery targets" Topic

interesting I picked up kriegspiel the war game written and used by the men who fought the Napoleonic wars and they have no difference in effect on a battalion in any formation. and only +25% if two battalion are in column or lines in the same range band.

Hughes book Firepower which one should get to start one's journey down the rabbit hole of combat results he states that at range the differences of hit rate and causalities make line and square the same effect. Chapter on it and pictures.

JCFrog wrote:

Most columns were not compact formations at all.

The British normally used quarter distance columns for advancing when the deployment was to be made on the head of the column (close, open and half distance columns were also used at times for various reasons). These quarter distance columns occupied almost the exact footprint of a battalion square, so their vulnerability to artillery was very similar. Therefore the various British comments on the vulnerability of columns to artillery applies equally to squares.

Close columns were potentially even more vulnerable, even though they took up even less ground (in depth). At El Bodon, the 5th and 77th regiment formed open squares from quarter distance columns while the 83rd regiment formed a solid square from a close column. The brigade commander, John Colville, noted that just one shell falling in the mass formed by the 83rd caused 23 casualties:

[The square] of the 83rd being formed from close column and not as the others were, which would have given it a larger area, received a shell which killed and wounded 23 people.

The squares in the photographs are open squares.

@ McLaddie
The advantage of going after squares with horse artillery is that you can open up with canister from close range. At Eylau, Wagram, Borodino and Waterloo the grand batteries were foot artillery, positioned around 600 yards from the enemy line. They didn't move throughout the battle. It is these that I suggest might have had a lot of trouble hitting a target the size of an infantry square at their usual range. Apart from anything else, the time required to lay the piece accurately on the smaller target between gaps in the smoke would have reduced rates of fire significantly.

4th Cuirassier:

The question was whether artillery targeting squares was done and/or realistic. I was using the horse artillery as an example of the purposeful use of artillery against squares…large or small. Having said that, foot artillery did move during battles. Lots and lots of examples of that. Pick a battle, any battle including Eylau, Wagram an Waterloo. For instance, forming up the grand battery at Wagram required moving a lot of artillery from someplace else, a good portion having been engaged elsewhere.

link is of interest.

Thanks, McLaddie.