"Austrian battalion size for Black Powder" Topic

I'm starting to organize an Austrian force for Black Powder. What would be the correct size of an Austrian infantry battalion?
Thanks,
Jim Ferich

As there is no set scale for Black Powder you can pretty well decide how big your battalions will be. Black Powder uses Large, Standard, Small and Tiny as descriptors for the units. By agreement our group uses 24 figures on 6 stands of 4 for a Standard infantry unit, 8 stands of 4 for a Large unit, 4 stands of 4 for Small and 2 stands of 4 for Tiny. A Large cavalry regiment has 6 stands, a
Standard regiment 4 stands, a small regiment 2 stands and a Tiny regiment 1 stand. As long as your opponent's army is organized similarly, there shouldn't be a problem.

Of course, there is nothing to stop you from picking a figure to man scale, ie 1:20, 1:33 etc. and then using historical organizations. Nevertheless, these then need to be classed as above.

Hope that helps.

Kent

About a third bigger than French is a common choice.
E.g. 24 if French 18, 36 if French 24, 48 if french 36.

I'm with Alcibiades. 24 for standard units and 32 to large. I would assume most Austrian regiments will be large. Best of luck with the project! Please post pics of your progress. Once I finish up with my french I'm going to tackle the Austrians.

Of course battalion strengths varied wildly from regulation. Typically 'Hungarian' battalions should have been about 120 stronger than 'German' but no numbers would survive unchanged after a few weeks on campaign.

At Aspern-Essling, Hungarian Regt IR60 had over 1700 men in two battalions, so about 850 each. IR51 (also Hungarian) had only about 940 in two battalions, so less than 500 in each. IR28 (German) had over 3300 in its three battalions, so averaged about 1100 in each. IR55 had less than 700 across its two battalions. So they could be anything from small (or maybe even tiny (IR51 or IR55)) to standard (IR60) through to large for IR28. Grenadiers and Jagers tended to be in the 600-750 range with one grenadier battalion fielding 523 and another 827. The ADKL battalions tended to start significantly stronger (some at 1000+) than the Jager and Freikorps (300+ – 600). Grenz battalions varied too. 7th Grenz only had about 140, 13th fielded 650. At Gospic, some of the Grenz 3rd (Reserve) Battalions were over 1000 strong. It'll be scenario dependent.

What you want to do as a generic line battalion will be up to you – probably all large, but maybe Hungarian as large, German, Grenz as standard and Jager as standard or small. That's only 1809 I'm thinking of. In 1805 all Austrian line battalions were only 4 companies (one being 1/2 Grenadiers). In that case all standard size would probably be better as a default position.

Cheers,
John

@ John E

In 1805 all Austrian line battalions were only 4 companies (one being 1/2 Grenadiers).

Apparently that may not have been the case. Mack's reform was to switch regiments from three six-company battalions and two grenadier companies (total 20 companies) to five four-company battalions of which one was, as you correctly say, half grenadiers. Previously the grenadiers were converged with those of other regiments to make fungible four- or six-company semi-permanent battalions.

According to Dave Hollins there are grounds, however, for thinking that this reform was only ever enacted by the bit of the army under Mack's command, and that the contingents commanded by Charles and others never implemented it. The same seems also to have been true of the battalion gun reforms.

It's not hard to see why this might not have gone through. Two regiments would go from needing seven battalion commanders to needing ten. Where are they going to come from overnight?

The rules I use fortuitously avoid any problem completely because they base figures by company. So you just have 20 company stands organised into 3.5 or 5 battalions using the same figures.

Black Powder's 4 x 6 configuration matches the company structure of French line battalions post-1808. So you can paint four voltigeurs, four grenadiers, and sixteen fusiliers including a command stand. It makes no odds to gameplay, but it does afford you a bit of painting variety, plus it's obvious from looking at it what size of unit a group of 20 figures is meant to depict.

Likewise you can do 20-figure British units comprising two lights, two grenadiers and sixteen centre company figures. IIRC BP just needs the frontages to be about the same so if you put 20 British into the same space as you'd have 24 French these rules ought to work perfectly well. Portuguese same thing (seven three-figure companies) and so on.

I quite like reflecting the company substructure in some way because pretty well all armies had it and seemed to think it important.

Using Victrix for the ólder´uniforms, and Pery for the ˋlater´uniforms, I organised the Austrian units as:
German line – 28
Hungń line – 32
Grenzers – 32
Grenadier – 24 (4 comps @ 6 figs each- perfect)
Landwehr – 24

This seems to give the visual impression of larger units, without going 'over the top', and budget-wise, it has worked out well.