"Infantry Columns of 1866" Topic

I am new to the Seven Weeks War and i'm getting confused over the difference between Austrian column attacks and Prussian column attacks. Both sides have skirmishers preceding their columns. What makes the Austrian column attacks so bad compared to Prussian, apart from any attempt to close with the Prussians result in being shot to pieces by Prussian "rapid fire"? The Prussian assault columns also seem to also suffer from enemy small arms (though not as badly as going against breeechloaders), as well as from enemy artillery? The Austrians never formed firing lines when defending a position?

The Austrians had formed lines to defend in 1859, and got their clocks cleaned--good weapons, but inadequate training with them, so the volleys rarely did damage to French columns and skirmishers. The Austrians having thought this over, in 1866, it tended to be attack columns all the way as more suitable to a multi-ethnic army, largely illiterate and haphazardly trained. By Sadowa, they were reconsidering, but they hardly had time to retrain the army.

Prussian columns tend to be smaller and more flexible, with more skirmishers and those skirmishers armed with breechloaders. Wouldn't swear to it, but it always feels to me as though Prussian columns were (mostly) a way of getting troops where they could bring firepower to bear while Austrian columns were an effort to close with the bayonet.

One problem is that a lot of this is hard to represent with miniatures when the size of the battles forces a high representation level. If you've only got 12 figures to a battalion, how do you show different types of columns? So you wind up with a Prussian plus one or an Austrian minus one, which isn't really as satisfactory.

So the Prussians are in maneuvering in company columns while the Austrians are in an updated version of battalionmasse? If the Austrians are defending a wood or hill they would still stay in column?

The Austrians had formed lines to defend in 1859, and got their clocks cleaned--good weapons, but inadequate training with them, so the volleys rarely did damage to French columns and skirmishers. The Austrians having thought this over, in 1866, it tended to be attack columns all the way

Yes, BOTH the French and Austrians learned the wrong lessons from 1859.

I was a perfect storm for the Austrians, trying to use French 1859 shock tactics against the far more dispersed Prussians, who were armed with breech loaders. All very unpleasant.

The relative casualty rates, even in successful Austrian attacks, say it all. The Austrians do have excellent artillery though, so make sure any attacks are well prepared and look fir flanks.

Missing the point, Bloodnok. The Austrians aren't trying to defend. All their training and doctrine is to attack. Look at all those corps-size battles. Benedek is trying to reverse that at Koniggratz, but you can see his difficulties there. You can't train an army one way and expect it to fight another.

Out of curiosity did the Saxons, Bavarians or the Germans in the VIII Bundeskorps follow Austrian tactics?

No. They weren't Austrians (an interesting concept in any case, in describing the polyglot Hapsburgh Empire).

Bruce Weigle has a section of his rulebook that works through this question. Although I have never intended to use his rules, his "1866" rule book is essential I think for the scenarios, Orbats and theory on strategy and tactics