"The purpose of a limber in a wargame... " Topic

…is to take up space on the road and interfere with the player's ability to shift units hither and yon, willie nillie.
Discuss.

As a GM, I approve of limbers for that very reason. As a player, not so much. Flames of Liberty will have limbers.

I used to be pretty limber at one time. Long ago.

Dan

Relative to the ground scale, do limbers take up too much room in a lot of rule sets?

Who is supposed to carry the ammo for the guns. Is a gun limbered (so it can't fire) or unlimbered if there is only a gun and crew. Also, it makes the artillery look good in the game .

We regularly play Empire and Age of Reason. No limbers in those games, and frankly I think that's a loss.

Heck, I like their looks! And in AWI games, you don't need that many.

I like the looks of the, the room they take up and get in the way. I need lots more. Lots.

As mention d game scale and troop scale is key. The era is also key. Napoleonic use would be different than AmRev use. This is based on in the AmRev, the limbers were civilian owned, rentals lol, so they left the battlefield once they were deposited at the gun position rather than put in a park area.

In game design the time frame used is vital. The length of time needed to limber or unlimbers would require a large number of turns if it is 1 minute per turn.

But as we are 'Historical" The Limbers are important for the space they take up and as a target.

They also indicate whether or not a gun is prepared to fire. Taking up too much space is a matter of ground scale, and may be different depending on whether the guns are limbered or unlimbered. Depth of an artillery unit "in battery" was probably fairly constant--but how much space an artillery unit takes up on a road is very much a function of the number of guns.

OO-RAH!

It's heartening to read so many posters who "get it!"

The question about game scale is, I think, rather missing the point. While one model limber would actually represent just one only in a 1:1 scale game, the fact is that Batteries are not "units" unless fully represented as possible.

I think a lot of us--especially back when not everything was available such profusion as today--started with just a few gun models on the table, and for a game that worked. Yet we also quibbled back and forth about the proper frontages and space occupied by Infantry and Cavalry units. Eventually we came to understand that cannon are not like machine guns that take up relatively little space for their effect.

In the rules we write at TVAG, Batteries are supposed to be represented by a gun with limber as surely as with crew. And, depending on the ground scale, Batteries might consist of two or three gun/limber sets, and a caisson, possibly even with another wagon!

As long as we even pretend to be "historical" or "realistic" with our toy soldiers, there's no escaping the need for making Artillery take as much necessary space as we can represent.

TVAG

I have always had all the limbers etc. Many years ago there was a gamer in our group that hated them on the table and the primary complaint was -- "they get in the way of movement."
EXACTLY!!!

Regards
Russ Dunaway

I am not too sure they actually do take up too much space- gun batteries deployed with a great depth with limbers, caissons and reserve ammunition stood many tens of meters to the rear of the actual guns. Besides a gun model without a limber looks almost as stupid as a cavalryman minus his horse.

Unless all of your arty is dug in, you need the "tow trucks" to move your guns around… ;-)

Here's half of a 28mm Russian heavy battery @ 1:56 ground scale. link

(Extra caissons and wagons that would have been further back not displayed)

I agree with including limbers. Now, do I have limbers for all of my horse and musket artillery – not by a long shot, but I do have some.

Here's an example of the area a battery takes from Der Alte Fritz's Journal. link

Jim

I have over 80 batteries, maybe 7 limbers, 4 ammo caissons.
Criminal really

see previos link concerning artillery battery frontages and depths in the Acw it confirms what has been said here through many exmples

link

Limbers provide an unambiguous means of determining readiness to fire; also help to represent the relatively large area that an artillery battery and supporting vehicles would occupy. I've even added limbers to my "On to Richmond" armies, though not required by the rules.

They make things look right. Self-propelled artillery in the age of horse and musket warfare looks horrible.

All my artillery have them.

Tom

As above, real military units are encumbered with tons of baggage and take up lots and lots of space. They need all that baggage to operate effectively, but the transport gets in the way of other stuff.

That is why a Prussian Corps in 1866 occupied 50km of roadspace, although you could jam the infantry component in column of fours into around 6km of road space. All the rest are wagons and artillery limbers.

To blow up dramatically when hit by the enemy, of course!

That seems to mean that an artillery stand representing 6 guns plus limber and caissons would take up around 100 yards deep with a 90 yard front. A ground scale of 60 yards to the inch would have that battery 'stand' be about 1/12 inches by 2 inches, give or take.

I know that guns could be set at standardized distances, particularly when limbers were supposed to be able to move inbetween them, but depending on the needs of the moment they could be spaced less or more than the noted 11-14 yards.

So, the important aspect besides indicating limbered or unlimbered status is the area that a battery would fill on the battlefield---and obviously, limbered and moving on a road, the battery would be very narrow and loooong.

For me, one limber team per battery of 3 or 4 gun models is quite adequate to represent the space taken up by a deployed battery. I mount my 15/18mm Napoleonic artillery pieces on 40 x 40 bases. My usual rules use a ground scale of around 1mm to a metre, so a three model gun battery, representing 9 actual guns, occupies a frontage of around 120 metres and depth of 40 metres. Throw in a 6 horse limber piece, on a 40 mm wide base and total depth is around 100mm (100 metres on ground) which is plenty big enough to provide a serious obstacle to movement of other troops.

My Imagi-Nation artillery is usually in 'grand battery' so a couple of limbers at each edge denotes a no-go area. Yes, they get in the way. I work with it.

I rather like the cluttered look. It's something to help fill up the dead space on the battle field once battle has commenced.

While the rule of thumb that limbers do indeed cause "mobility friction" it should not be seen as a universal factor.

Especially from the 19th century onward great efforts were made to make artillery as mobile as possible to increase tactical flexibility and allow them to follow up rather than simply sit on a splendid position.

With modern, rapid fire guns with increased range and accuracy the ability to move became even more important and artillery units became masters of setting up guns in minutes if not seconds when necessary or skedaddle in the same amount of time.

So most pre 7-years war artillery should be almost impossible to move, except for light pieces and some exceptional or specially trained artillery (Swedish and French artillery in their respective periods for example)

Greater mobility if the need arises in the Napoleonic period and then a game of getting increasingly efficient from the 1850's onward unless we are talking about siege artillery or some of the slower pupils like the Ottomans and the Chinese.

How many have played in games where they or one of their fellows deployed a battery on a bridge? Peter Guilder did an excellent article about the need for limbers back in one of the "Wargames World" issues of WI. They certainly create problems for the players that many players would rather not have! Road blocks, for example.

The "movement" I, and I think others were referring to here was the movement of other troops on the field, not the batteries themselves.
Moving a Calvary regiment along the rear of your guns, not so fast and easy with all the limbers etc in the way and where they belong.

Regards
Russ Dunaway