"Napoleonic National differences." Topic

I have difficulties to share the view about French cavalry, what made them so well used in battle was Murat, otherwise I cannot see any advantage of them compared to their Allied counterparts.

Murat and Napoleon together, perhaps. He understood combined arms.

@35thOVI
Yes it is true give factors to troops depending only on the presence of historical figures, it's interesting and that changes everything, because in this case the French are superiorly advantaged…
@Erzherzog Johann and 4th Cuirassier
I read that Austro-Hungarian 12Ib pieces correspond to 8Ib pieces and so on, but I don't know why anymore?
@Michman
Very interesting!

I vaguely recall an interesting Wargames Illustrated or Miniature Wargames article many years ago that compared the numbers and positions of the officers and NCOs in Napoleonic infantry battalions. Can't recall the details but the Brits apparently had the highest ratio of officers & NCOs to men. This sort of thing could give some quantifiable justification to the oft derided national characteristics.

French 1810-1814 Army Infantry Battalion Wartime Establishment : total 850
20 Officers – 1 per 36.0 Rankers
--- 1 chef de bataillon (à cheval)
--- 1 capitain adjudant-major (à cheval)
--- 6 capitaines
--- 6 lieutenants
--- 6 sous-lieutenants
86 NCO's – 1 per 8.4 Rankers
--- 2 adjudants sous-officiers
--- 6 sergents-major
--- 24 sergents
--- 6 caporaux-fourriers
--- 48 corporaux
720 Rankers
--- 720 soldats
12 Musiciens
--- 12 tambours
2 Medical
--- 1 aide-chirurgien (officier)
--- 1 chirurgien sous-aide (sous-officier)
6 Train
--- 1 caisson de cartouches d'infanterie avec 3 soldats du train d'équipages
--- 1 caisson du pain avec 3 soldats du train d'équipages
4 Femmes de Troupe
--- 1 vivandière avec chariot
--- 3 blanchisseuses

Russian 1810-1814 Army Infantry Battalion Wartime Establishment : total 800
19 Officers – 1 per 30.3 Rankers
--- 2 Majors (mounted)
--- 1 Adjudant Lieutenant (mounted)
--- 4 Captains or Staff-Capitans
--- 4 Lieutenants
--- 4 Sub-Lieutenants
--- 4 Ensigns
64 NCO's – 1 per 9.0 Rankers
--- 4 1st Sergeants
--- 4 Sergeants Masters-at-Arms
--- 4 Honor-Guard Officer Aspirants
--- 4 Officer Aspirants
--- 24 Corporals
--- 24 Lance Corporals
576 Rankers
--- 576 Soldiers
15 Musiciens
--- 1 Drum Major (NCO)
--- 12 Drummers
--- 2 Fifers
13 Medical
--- 1 Doctor (Officer)
--- 1 Doctor's Assistant (NCO)
--- 1 Doctor's Servant
--- 4 Corpsmen
--- 4 Barber-Surgeons
--- 2 Ambulance Wagons with Drivers
113 Out-of-the-Ranks
--- 1 Clerk (NCO)
--- 4 Artificers
--- 4 Carpenters
--- 2 Gunsmiths
--- 2 Blacksmiths
--- 1 Custodian
--- 12 Provison Wagons with Drivers
--- 12 Equipment Wagons with Drivers
--- 12 Ammunition Caissons with Drivers
--- 32 Commissaries with Carts
--- 27 Officers' Servants with 12 Pack Horses
--- 28 Replacement Soldiers

@Timbo W.

It's true that can play too.

@All.

There is another thing that could have played, during the WAS (1740-1748), the shooting systems were different with the completely outdated volley fire and the more modern platoon fire, what about during the Napoleonic wars?

Firing systems were used?

There must have been different and more effective systems than others?

see discussions about three rank firing thread

@ Timbo W

The 'oft derided national characteristics' are in my experience most likely to be derided by people who have not understood them, but who mistake them for racial characteristics. They then expect a round of applause for objecting to them and enjoy lecturing people who've troubled to understand them.

In fact, if you look at rules that feature national characteristics, they are explicitly a reflection of doctrine, leadership, equipment, training, political factors, expectation of success, etc. The militaries of the time broadly agreed with this approach, and still do. NATO appreciations of Warsaw Pact effectiveness that concluded some WP countries were likely to be less effective than others wasn't a judgment based on ethnicity.

Hence, the view that the Dutch-Belgian troops of 1815 might not be wholly reliable was shared by all sides, including their own. It reflected the fact that until 1814 their country didn't exist, and its geographical counterpart had been a French ally. The view that Spanish troops were poor from 1808 was based mainly on its severe problem of absentee or inept officers. Empirically, where this was the case Spanish troops were easily beaten (all Peninsular battles bar three IIRC); where this was not so, Spanish troops fought as well as any.

The thought experiment one can do is to ask yourself who'd be a better rifleman in 1879 – a British line infantryman, or a Zulu? The answer has exactly nothing to do with ethnicity – literally nothing.

In his Napoleonic Rules saga, Quarrie on pp 84-85 writes:

British infantry is usually referred to as the best in Europe, and there are few who would contest this statement, although it needs qualifying…

…Tremendous esprit de corps coupled with native racial arrogance completed the picture. British soldiers "knew" they were the best in the world, and by God, they'd prove it to the damned Froggies with the sharp end of their bayonets!

Yeah, no ethnicity there.

Meanwhile for the poor Spanish, Quarrie writes:

The Spanish army in the Napoleonic Wars was probably the worst in Europe, so that, despite its size and colorful uniforms, few wargamers can be bothered with it. However since it is impossible to ignore if you are trying to refight any part of the Peninsular Campaign, the following brief notes might be of assistance…

With the exception of one or two high ranking officers such as Castanos and Romana, and a leavening of field officers of mainly Irish extraction, the quality of the officers was appalling: they were vain, arrogant and totally lacking in any concept of "modern" war …

Yes, it's too bad we can't just dispense with that pesky Spanish army, parading around in clown costumes, and concentrate on the British army which is the only one that counted and single-handedly beat the French, while the Spanish flamencoed their way through the Peninsular War. Of course, we'd never admit that out loud, no never.

Also, the Irish, looked down on at home but compared to the Spanish are virtual Übermenschen.

I note that Quarrie seems to believe that British "arrogance" makes them great soldiers but Spanish "arrogance" makes them incompetent.

In fact, racial hierarchy is deep in Quarrie's approach to what is noble in life. He is linked to the Waffen SS revisionism that the SS were a an elite group of brotherly golden boys trying to make the world a better place, secure in their racial superiority and arrogance. Sound familiar from above?

Check out his book "Hitler's Teutonic Knights: SS Panzers in action, Patrick Stephens Ltd, 1986" which conveys the romance, chivalry and ethnic cleansing of one of histories noblest fighting formations.

At least one author includes him in a list of Waffen SS apologists:

Noting Quarrie's works on the Waffen-SS, the military historian S.P. MacKenzie describes him as a popular historian "partially or wholly seduced by the [Waffen-SS] mystique". He connects Quarrie with the contemporary Waffen-SS historical revisionism, first propounded by HIAG, the Waffen-SS lobby group from the 1950–1990s.

HIAG believes in part:

The Waffen-SS was apolitical.
It was elite.
It was innocent of all war crimes or Nazi atrocities.
It was a European army par excellence, the Army of Europe.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HIAG

Timbo, the examination of numbers and placing of Officers was from George Nafziger which he also featured in 'Imperial Bayonets' when it was released back in the 1990s.

4th, you are of course correct but I think the phrase 'National Characteristics' does lead one or two people down a political rabbit hole. If the concept were labelled 'Native Tactical Doctrine' or something similar perhaps…

Paskal

You might want to post this to the Game Design Board.

TMP link

I have the 4 editions of a rule (Les Aigles) written in French (left pages and in English right pages where you have the budgeting of the troops without and with the national characteristics…

Without the national characteristics, a hussar is a hussar and we don't care about his nationality, in fact we only find three classes – militia – regular – elite – and after much discussion and with honesty (if possible), the player decides what is the class of this regiment of hussars according to its behavior during such and such a battle (not forgetting the elite company if it is French regiment, which should always be a notch above – except for the 7th Hussars of Baron de Marbot in 1815 which would not be only elite…) according to his behavior during such and such a battle but also opponents may not agree, so we can't get out of it…

Indeed reading this subject from the beginning, I have the impression that 'National Characteristics' re mainly about chauvinism, even nationalism …

I think 'national characteristics', despite the goal of simply reflecting training, doctrine etc, cannot help but be underpinned, if only subconsciously, by stereotypes. And Quarrie's, as quoted above, were pretty close to the surface. I also recall lines like "the worst in Europe apart from the Spanish" to describe Austrians.

I accept that of course, we can use the basic rules and modify or eliminate the national characteristics, but that doesn't alter the inherent nature of them.

Most significant game wise though was not the 1 factor difference that might apply, but the whole package, including the huge difference in formation changing times.

"Quarrie generally gave reasonable results, although the group I then played with fielded mainly French and British, with a few Russian and Prussian units, so I don't know how Austrians would have got on."

I agree for the most part with this comment – I too have fond memories of some great games, and the first serious wargame I ever saw was in 1976 when my father took me to the local wargaming club playing the Battle of Guildford Courthouse" as a US Bicentennial event, using modified Quarrie.

I can confirm that Austrians did really struggle. Their lower factors for cavalry (post 1808 (-1 for both impact and confused), the slightly slower movement, the much slower formation changing, all added up to a very one sided affair.

More modern rules still deal with variability through use of categories like elite, veteran, raw, conscript etc, and sometimes have a brief section, for example limiting early Austrians to linear tactics, or constraining the use of coordinated mass cavalry or artillery formations. This is reasonable, Smola's mass battery at Aspern-Essling notwithstanding. Arguably, if the rules then define all of one nation's troops as whatever the poorest category is called, you could argue that it's national characteristics by stealth. But at least it isn't hard wired into the rules.

Cheers,
John

Paskal:

"I read that Austro-Hungarian 12Ib pieces correspond to 8Ib pieces and so on, but I don't know why anymore?"

An Austrian 6pdr was equivalent to 5 French pounds evidently, but that's only one consideration. Austrian powder was superior apparently, and in some tests, their accuracy was also higher than others tested (although I don't think that included French). There are cases of Austrian artillery outshooting French, which can happen without 'national characteristics' penalising Austrians, but is very unlikely if NCs apply. I think there needs to be a very strong case before you start penalising the capacity of an entire nation's artillery (or any other arm).

This site link tends to talk up whatever particular topic is at hand, in this case Austrian artillery, but still it is interesting to see a collection of 'good news' stories about the Austrian artillery, which certainly count against the idea of giving them an across the board penalty.

Cheers,
John

I am wondering if taking this concept to such lengths may take the game out of it to some extent, with two players more likely to game to a foregone conclusion based on these assigned limitations from history. Not to mention the amount of reference guides needed to play. I like history, but I also like the "what if" aspect of gaming. Letting a player decide to concentrate some Austrian artillery is not that much of a stretch, and may make for more interesting play. Certainly there is a place for national characteristics, but more than a 3-4 per army does not sound like much fun, IMO.

Even the few bonuses that CLS gave to the French and British caused quite a bit of imbalance not just in play but also everyone favored axquiring the French/Prussians and the British armies to the detriment of every other nation.

That's why Vietmeyer had to extend the line volley fire bonuses to British allied troops like the Portuguese and the column charge bonus to non French allies like their etranger regiments, and the Bavarians, Neapolitans, Italians etc.

We are coming out of a period where it was considered natural to ascribe behavioral characteristics to people based on the stereotypes created. A lot of it was propaganda. Take for instance the British racial superiority. Interesting how in most of the Napoleonic contests they were in without a good general (most of them), they went nowhere in particular. How many Spanish armies surrendered wholesale or succumbed to bloody diarrhea? Where's the Quarrie plus factor for stronger Spanish intestinal fortitude?

I agree with Erzherzog Johann, such accounts are just simply not read because they are published in German and the general knowledge is derived by what's available in English. There we read all the time how wonderfull the French Army was, it is deducted that the other armies must be bad, reading accounts to the other side of the coin show a much more blanced view.

@Erzherzog Johann:
The huge difference in formation change times is indeed as you write very significant and is therefore taken into account in "the eagles".
I don't know where, I read that Austro-Hungarian 12Ib pieces correspond to 8Ib pieces and so on and I don't know why anymore?"And anyway, this is not a topic about the Austrian artillery of 1792-1814.

Paskal, it is when you give NC tot Austrians based on that

@ Erzherzog Johann

I can confirm that Austrians did really struggle. Their lower factors for cavalry (post 1808 (-1 for both impact and confused), the slightly slower movement, the much slower formation changing, all added up to a very one sided affair.

I suspected as much – you had something similar with the Landwehr who formed a third of my Prussian infantry. They took IIRC 1.5 moves to form square from column, and three moves to do so from line. 1.5 moves plus charge bonus was 58cm for light cavalry. This meant that a unit of, say, French lancers that was within 58cm of a column of Landwehr could charge and destroy them before they had time to form square. The table we generally played on was only about 120cm by 210cm to begin with, so there was one cavalry unit or another within 58cm of my Landwehr in almost every battle.

I strongly suspected at the time that whoever developed these rules could not have playtested them for armies other than French, Russian and British. If you had any of those, the differences were largely incremental – although interestingly given Quarrie's supposed biases the British were the worst of the three. They had no really heavy cavalry, British rifles had a fire factor of 0 (less than Austrian line), and there was no bonus for 2-deep fire.

A lot of people who object to national characteristics are in many cases arguing for them but for them to be given a different label. Quarrie said that – for formation changing purposes – you should count pre-1812 Prussians as Austrians, pre-1808 Portuguese as Spanish but post-1808 as British, and so on. So these were not immutable, but furthermore, if he'd labelled these rates as Slow, Medium, Fast, instead of Austrian/Spanish, Prussian, and French, presumably nobody would object? – unless there's someone out there who really does think there was no difference in the battlefield performance of French versus Spanish troops. Perhaps there is, but it can't be anyone who knows anything about either of them. Empirically, it should be hard for a Spanish army to win battles against the French, because they almost never did so. Yet you never see a set of rules which says -1 for absentee officers, another -1 for pay arrears, another -1 because someone embezzled the ammunition fund. Instead they say things like green, seasoned, veteran, elite – which don't map to or reflect that army's actual characteristics.

There was not much decent information about the Austrian army in the 1970s – the Albert Seaton Osprey was terrible and almost completely failed to discuss them; it was full of Austrian history from 1400 AD and had pictures of Austrian cuirasses of 1852. Quarrie had never come across Rawkins, unfortunately. If you were looking at the outcome of battles they fought, they looked pretty bad. A few years ago we had a discussion on here of why Austrian march rates were so poor – in 1809, for example, they managed 6 miles a day for the first two days, then had to stop. Hollins was around and popped up to explain that the roads were terrible, rain etc – but he could not explain why they suddenly managed to march so much faster when retreating, and why the French marched three times as fast on exactly the same roads.

A lot of people who object to national characteristics are in many cases arguing for them but for them to be given a different label.

No, "a lot of people object to national characteristics" that emanate from a love of Aryan racial hierarchy.

In CLS, Vietmeyer give the British a +1 firing factor not because they are of British genetic stock but because they were the only nation at the time to always drill with live ammunition.
He also gave the Russians a plus factor for staying power under combat because that is how they behaved.

Meanwhile Mr Quarrie says about the Russians that they were massively stupid and completely lacking in initiative; that once given an order, they try to fulfill it even when it became obvious that the goal of the order no longer applied.

Mr Quarrie also talks about the Neapolitans being the worst army in Europe but although we know they had high desertion rates, are there a lot of examples of them not fighting when they had to?

Portuguese troops are treated a little better and make actual soldiers once given good angle-saxon officers to show them how superior warrior castes make war.

It's like a scene from Fawlty Towers with Manuel made to look like a useless buffoon in need of direction from the know-it-all Basil.

Meanwhile the Danes and the Swedes have excellent fighting qualities (Gee, why would Quarrie say this?), he even writes off the poor performance reputation of Swedish troops as due to Bernadotte's suspiciously French interference.

So, yes, combat characteristics matter depending on the spirit with which they're given.

unless there's someone out there who really does think there was no difference in the battlefield performance of French versus Spanish troops. Perhaps there is, but it can't be anyone who knows anything about either of them. Empirically, it should be hard for a Spanish army to win battles against the French, because they almost never did so.

One cannot use this as an excuse to condemn a nation's soldiers to always perform poorly. The Spanish regulars performed well early in the war, the volunteers were a mixed bag but are, well, militia. They should be classed according to their basic quality with a chance to surprise their commander. What's the point of fighting with the Spanish if they're guaranteed to run away because they historically did? That's not stimulating wargaming, it's more like engaging in that joke about WW1 wargaming being about rolling a bowling ball over the figures, then spraying them with mustard colored paint and then hammering the remainder to simulate trench warfare.

Another thing about Bruce Quarrie. In his Osprey Warrior Series book on them, he equates the Waffen SS with the British Commandos and US Army Rangers but omits the political and racial indoctrination the SS received. That isnt a small difference but what made the Anglo American units brave men risking everything for freedom and democracy and what made the Waffen SS vicious fanatics bent on eliminating everyone else for their own benefit. I find the comparison particularly telling and self serving, not to mention outrageously offensive.

Now if someone doesn't realize they're being taken in by an SS apologist, I can understand being naive and being duped.I can even forgive both author and reader a certain bent or admiration for the subject matter. But when the evidence ceases to be an enthusiastic tickle and instead becomes a tooth loosening slap across the chops; and that reader stubbornly doubles down…well.

The whole point of wargaming is to have a decent game. Some basic national characteristics are fine. Quarrie wants me to count pre 1808 Portuguese as Spanish? But post 1808 as British? This way lies madness…. Why make it so crazy to track? Keep it simple. You are gaming.

Yea the Spanish lost a lot, but what if I commanded? That's the whole point! And, I don't want to be Archduke Charles. I want to replace or at least advise him and change history! It's fun!

Cheer !

We learn things on this topic, now for more clarification, I would like those who like this topic, to make a "copy / paste" of my tables below and that you attribute the national characteristics that you find fair and if possible without forgetting any belligerents of the Napoleonic wars including the Swedes, the Portuguese, the Spaniards, etc… and the Dutch-Belgians, the Nassauvians, the Hanoverians and the Brunswickers in 1815…

FRENCH
+ 1 On morale if fighting an offensive battle.
+ 1 In melee if French Infantry.
+ 1 On morale if French cavalry charging.
+ 1 Added to dice result resultwhen French artillery roll for casualties caused.

BRITISH
+ 1 On morale if fighting an defensive battle.
+ 1 In melee if French Infantry in line or square.
+ 1 Added to dice result resultwhen British artillery roll for casualties.

RUSSIAN 1805-1814
+ 2 On morale if fighting an defensive battle.
+ 1 On morale if Infantry in melee whilst in column formation.
- 1 On morale if infantry in melee in any other formation.
+ 1 On morale if cavalry charging.
+ 2 On morale if Cossacks pursuing disorganized enemy.
- 2 On morale if Cossacks fighting organized troops.

AUSTRIAN 1805-1814
+ 1 On morale if fighting an defensive battle.
- 1 Added to dice result resultwhen austrian artillery roll for casualties.(At equal caliber Austrian guns are less powerful.)

LATE PRUSSIAN 1813-1815
+ 1 On morale if fighting an offensive battle.
+ 1 On morale if Infantry in melee whilst in column formation.
- 1 On morale if infantry in melee in any other formation.
+ 1 On morale if cavalry charging.

Hi Paskal

It's not really feasible to extract Quarrie type national characteristics into the type of table you've set out. Also, his are not really "national" characteristics at all, i.e. there are differences between Confederation Germans and Prussian Germans, and between Italians from the Kingdom or Italy versus those of the Kingdom of Naples.

What I have done below is take the various characteristics that he does assign. Broadly, they are applied separately to Movement rate, Formation Change, Fire effectiveness, Melee, and Morale. I've omitted Control as everyone's the same except British cavalry, who are hooligans. There are three grades – Below Average, Average, Above Average – which here I've called C, B, and A, respectively.

Logically enough the commonest rating is Average. Quelle surprise. There are 42 Bs, 17 As and 16 Cs.

The default ratings are for 'seasoned' troops, i.e. trained and not conscripts, but not veteran either. Troops who become veteran, or whose troop type is so by definition (eg guardsmen), would generally be or become one grade or even two grades better than that indicated here. Native Americans are one level better in melee. Militia and green troops are one level worse. Troops with rifles are generally about one level better at firing.

Troops become 'seasoned' after one campaign battle. Seasoned troops become veteran after three. The upgrades this experience confers generally apply only to fire and morale.

Some change as the armies changed, eg Portugal and Prussia.

You could refine this further between infantry, cavalry and artillery, and he did, but this is to give an idea.

So with that in mind, we have this.

Nationality : Mvmt / Formation / Fire / Melee / Morale
Austria : C / C / B / B / B
Britain : B / B / A / B / A
Conf. Rhine : A / A / B / B / B
Italy : A / A / B / B / B
France : A / A / B / B / B
Poland : A / A / B / A / B
Portugal (to 1809) : C / C / C / C / B
Portugal (1810-14) : B / B / B / B / A
Prussia (to 1807) : C / C / B / B / B
Prussia (1812-15) : B / B / B / B / B
Spain : C / C / C / C / B
Naples : C / C / C / C / B
Russia : B / B / B / A / A
Scandinavia : B / B / B / B / A
USA : B / B / A / B / A

If you convert these ratings into rough total scores by counting a C as 1, a B as 2 and an A as 3, then order the nationality by score, you get the following ranking:

Poland : 13
USA : 12
Russia : 12
Italy : 12
France : 12
Conf. Rhine : 12
Britain : 12
Scandinavia : 11
Portugal (1810-14) : 11
Prussia (1812-15) : 10
Prussia (to 1807) : 8
Austria : 8
Spain : 6
Portugal (to 1809) : 6
Naples : 6

…for whatever that's worth.

@ 4th Cuirassier:
Thank you transcribed this in a table like mine above. thank you.
@ all :
Some people write that only 2 national characteristics would suffice per country, what do you think and which ones would you choose?

Well, since you asked to nice -

You list

FRENCH
+ 1 On morale if fighting an offensive battle.
+ 1 In melee if French Infantry.
+ 1 On morale if French cavalry charging.
+ 1 Added to dice result result when French artillery roll for casualties caused.

- I think giving the French a +1 for charging – infantry or cavalry – is probably fair; plus should have some command bonus for coordinating attacks with different units given the French command structure

You list

BRITISH
+ 1 On morale if fighting an defensive battle.
+ 1 In melee if French Infantry in line or square.
+ 1 Added to dice result result when British artillery roll for casualties.

Fair enough for the bonuses – one thing you might want is to factor in the British cavalry's unfortunate penchant for uncontrolled advances – the best mounted, worst led cavalry in Europe got themselves into trouble more than once by just not knowing when to stop charging

You list

RUSSIAN 1805-1814
+ 2 On morale if fighting an defensive battle.
+ 1 On morale if Infantry in melee whilst in column formation.
- 1 On morale if infantry in melee in any other formation.
+ 1 On morale if cavalry charging.
+ 2 On morale if Cossacks pursuing disorganized enemy.
- 2 On morale if Cossacks fighting organized troops.

Fair enough but you might want some sort of penalty for shooting – the average Russian soldier in peacetime might fire their weapon a couple of times a year; I an not sure I would give the Cossacks a +2 against a disorganized enemy; maybe +1 because any kind of serious resistance tended to result in a swift redeployment of the Cossacks to the rear

You list

AUSTRIAN 1805-1814
+ 1 On morale if fighting an defensive battle.
- 1 Added to dice result result when austrian artillery roll for casualties.(At equal caliber Austrian guns are less powerful.)

Fair enough for the morale -not so for the guns; Austrian artillery was pretty good. One thing they did not do well was coordinate units; Austrian cavalry more than once came to grief because regiments could not coordinate when to attack together; some sort of negative bonus to the command orders perhaps? Maybe have to roll for each unit separately?

You list

LATE PRUSSIAN 1813-1815
+ 1 On morale if fighting an offensive battle.
+ 1 On morale if Infantry in melee whilst in column formation.
- 1 On morale if infantry in melee in any other formation.
+ 1 On morale if cavalry charging.

Seems fair enough although I don't know that late war Prussian cavalry were all that much better than anyone else's

For the Spanish, I would certainly knock down command rolls; for the infantry you might want to introduce a random factor into quality to be determined when they first make contact with an enemy; die roll for example to determine if they were Raw/Militia grade (more common), Trained (less common), Regular (less common), Elite (really less common)

For the Portuguese I would use the British ratings more or less

I've posted thoughts on national characteristics before, but the scenario-specific consideration mentioned above is often overlooked in terms of generalisations. Why are the troops involved in this situation?

Are they volunteers or conscripted?
Is this engagement coming after a run of heavy defeats or capping a successful campaign?
What's the pay/food situation? If they're allied troops (possibly reluctant) how does their senior partner view them and are the troops aware of this?
Are they fighting on home turf or have they stagnated in garrison towns for months, far from home and subject to a cycle of banditry and reprisals?

As for Bruce Quarrie, whilst I have most of his wargaming books I tend to use them for nostalgia and visual inspiration, like most rules of this era, written with limited resources in English and lacking the collaboration of ideas currently possible. There is some good stuff in there though, i enjoyed the Tank Battles in Miniature series in particular.

I'm sure S.P. MacKenzie (from Au Pas de Charge's wikipedia page), had his reasons for picking up on the Waffen SS revisionsim angle, although I'd appreciate more context for that quote. There's a degree of writing what sells if you're a small publisher and for decades the fighting qualities Heer and SS have fascinated people in both academic and popular culture.

That, I'm sure, was amplified by a lot of post-war interviewing of former German senior officers, selling their own stories to their captors. As ever, if there are complaints about how long it took to achieve final victory with vast resources, then it becomes more defensible when the narrative is that you were fighting 12 foot tall supermen.

Oh, and you've also re-armed West Germany and found 'consultants' to defend against the Warsaw Pact, have a stack of former Nazis running your space race and need people on board with the idea that all the wrong 'uns were tried at Nuremberg.

I mean, it could be that Bruce was an outlier, simply obsessed with the idea of noble Nazis, but I think it's more complicated than that.

@Frederick,

Well done!

@La Belle Ruffian,

We are looking for generally accepted national characteristics, not circumstantial ones.

If you have any ideas do what Frederick and others did before him.

Paskal – most of the suggestions in this thread are already circumstantial (named general commanding, defensive/offensive battle?), but I posted a thread on this subject more than year ago.

I don't think a simplistic list of factors is necessarily helpful in understanding battles in this time, given the variety, but you can read a range of thoughts (if you choose) here link

Thanks

@ LBR

Your point about writing what sells is spot on – and, as with Hofschroer's execrable Waterloo books, it's a mistake to assume the author decides the title. The publisher will change it if it helps sales. David Crane's (not very good) 2015 Went The Day Well has had its original title changed to Witnessing Waterloo, probably because nobody knew what it was about.

If covering German forces of WW2 makes you a Nazi sympathiser, the same must logically be true of figure and equipment manufacturers, making what sells. That will come as a surprise to Airfix, Revell, and Tamiya to name but three Aryan-loving apologists.

I do find it quite odd that there can be a point of view that all troops of this era were of fundamentally identical capability. If this were true, then we know as their leaders did not that the various reorganisations undertaken by the Portuguese, Austrian, Russian and Prussian armies were complete and total wastes of time. They can have made no difference whatsoever to the fighting qualities of their troops, since these are the same regardless.

Had the benighted racists who led these armies reorganised them instead around anachronistic 21st-century political prejudices, rather than stupidly changing their doctrine, drill, and organisation, it wouldn't have made their armies any better. It is impossible for any army to be any better than any other. But they would have hated their opponents in a kinder, less heteronormatively cisgendered way, and whenever we rewatch Waterloo we would be treated to Rod Steiger saying "But we will match them with our pronouns".

Well, some rules now seem to create an overall stat for a formation, taking into account numerical strength and training. So a battalion's resistance to breaking might be a combination of all those things that were teased out in national characteristics in earlier (read Quarrie) systems. Most now do have some kind of command/order system to reflect the sluggishness of some armies.

I would say the the documented relative unresponsiveness of some Austrian formations was more due to these command issues than an innate (or doctrinal) inability to form a square. Quarrie was clearly unaware of the Battalion Masse formation used extensively by the Austrians from the War of 1809 onward. The Austrians didn't take all day forming a square, their generals sometimes took all day finishing their lunch before responding to a crisis (I'm looking at you Hiller).

So then you have the issue of whether, since we, as players, are the general, we should be penalised by the behaviour of the historical general we're standing in for. That's a different question that can be answered validly either way.

If covering German forces of WW2 makes you a Nazi sympathiser, the same must logically be true of figure and equipment manufacturers, making what sells. That will come as a surprise to Airfix, Revell, and Tamiya to name but three Aryan-loving apologists.

I dont see this claim being made. I don't even think writing about the Waffen SS over and over and over and over again to the tune of two dozen or so books makes one a Nazi Sympathizer. I dont even think writing love letters to the SS and their knightly purity necessarily makes you a Nazi sympathizer but when the same author starts to talk about racial superiority, racial purity and intrinsic ethnic stupidity in order to rate the quality of soldiers by nation, I do wonder if his is the most objective template for national troop qualities.

I think as enthusiasts we want publishers to have specialty books about military topics, even controversial ones, and we want soldier/model makers to reproduce vehicles, figures etc, that certainly doesnt make them "Aryan Loving Apologists" any more than publishing the works of a man like Peter Hofschroer who went to prison for possessing child porn doesnt make his history suspect or that the continued sale of his books mean that the publishers endorse underage pornography.

However, if Airfix, Revell and Tamiya made two dozen Waffen SS sets for every one set of British paras, then we might start to question whether someone in the marketing department doesn't come to work in a waffenfrock on a BMW with side car.

Umm, this:

Your point about writing what sells is spot on – and, as with Hofschroer's execrable Waterloo books, it's a mistake to assume the author decides the title.

And then, this:

I'm sure S.P. MacKenzie (from Au Pas de Charge's wikipedia page), had his reasons for picking up on the Waffen SS revisionsim angle, although I'd appreciate more context for that quote. There's a degree of writing what sells if you're a small publisher and for decades the fighting qualities Heer and SS have fascinated people in both academic and popular culture.

Oh it's not my Wiki page, old boy, it belongs to the public. And surely we can appreciate that I've established some evidence as opposed to someone who continually asserts Peter Hofschroer lies or constantly attempts to delegitimize his research because of his private troubles providing neither shreds of evidence nor patches of proof.

Out of curiosity, I visited the amazon.com Peter Hofschroer page and it seems like the reviews of his books are mostly positive. There was this exception by a certain Schlockhorror reviewer:

Yet another dodgy Hofschroer book:

This book tells the story of how William Siborne funded and built a model of the battle of the Waterloo, and when it confines itself to that it's just fine. Unfortunately, this is Peter Hofschroer, who is currently doing time on 16 criminal charges. So you just know that it's going to fall apart at some point, and it quickly does.

What his criminal charges have to do with his story falling apart is a mystery to me. Maybe it makes sense to an extremely, virulently judgmental person?

Hofschroer is on a mission to take the credit for Waterloo from the Duke of Wellington and to give it to the Prussians.

Maybe Hofschrorer knew Quarrie?

To that end, he is a serial abuser of sources. So his Waterloo book, for example, claims Wellington received and did not act on a crucial message in the morning, based on something he has read in a German-language archive. In fact, the source he cites puts that timeline forward as a hypothesis, analyses it, then concludes by dismissing it. You do not find this acknowledged by Hofschroer, who misrepresents the hypothesis as being the conclusion. When he cites a primary source, therefore, you cannot rely on its being honestly used, and this fault comes up over and over again in this partial and thus very unreliable work…

Serial abuser of sources? Based on what? Oh, he was a serial abuser of child porn so we can speculate that he abuses everything. Clever.

What German source? What primary source? What source at all?

Misrepresents the hypothesis as a conclusion? Is that similar to when someone asserts that because Napoleon lost Waterloo it proves he never couldve won? Or, that Napoleon knew he could never have won in the Peninsula because he never went back? It's perfectly logical and like an egg it's both round and pointy.

I particularly like this:

The attempts here to misrepresent and mislead are more egregious because we cannot as easily check the source ourselves.

Sooo, we can't check the source not because it isnt cited but because we cant read it or get at it but no matter, it's gotta be false because we don't like the author's conclusion.

Hofschroer has libelled and judicially harassed many people in his time, including Wellington, other historians, his family, the police, and the judge who conducted his libel trial. He has also been sectioned for mental illness and is currently in jail for child pornography […] All that would warn you not to trust his assertions or judgment, but anyone knowledgeable on this era will spot the nonsense with which the book is littered and must regretfully conclude his work to be of no value \.

If I were a betting man, I'd guess that Schlockhorror really wants to bad mouth the author and get people not to read his books. Wonder what he's afraid of? We are told that the fact that the author has unrelated criminal issues are proof that he is lying about something that the reviewer also personally finds threatening. The review does seem to have helped 14 people though.

link

I note that there are no complained of sources cited and the reviewer pretends that Wellington and the British government and British authors never downplay something by omission or punish people without leaving a smoking gun. Remember conspiracies are a two way street. If Hofschrorer is bent on taking away Wellington's victory, then perhaps Wellington and the British Crown conspired to sinkhole poor Siborne's diorama?

Thus, you might want more information on Mackenzie's book but maybe it isnt a good idea to start questioning his motivations for pegging Quarrie as a Nazi sympathizer. At a minimum there is an author postulating something on Quarrie's own words, not gross, unsubstantiated claims that Mr. Quarrie's research isn't good because he is a Waffen SS fan, no claims and insinuations that his private life calls his writing and thought into question, no claims that he is lying without demonstrating the nature of the errors or falsehoods.

At least he won't be able to sue for defamation . . .

At least he won't be able to sue for defamation . . .

Quarrie? I understand he is in Valhalla.

Yes, we, as players, are the general of the army that we play, so we will have to be penalized by the historical training of this army, for the sake of national characteristics.

For the national characteristics if such exist, presumably yes, but for the general himself, when that's now you? Are you 'being' Napoleon, or Bernadotte or whoever, so affected by his above or below average ability, or are you being you, seeing if you're as good as or better than him? There is a case to be made either way.

So if the 'national characteristics' of an army – slowness to respond, poor morale etc are due to the commander's ability, you need to decide if reflecting that is down to you or to the abilities of a model of the actual general.

Most rules still have gradations of troop quality. Assigning those correctly might be enough.

Cheers,
John

Johann, I also raised the issue earlier of the player being in command, not the historical general. I am not going to play a game as Hiller. My interest is to see how Austrians do with my dashing and daring self in command. Otherwise I am not going to want to play. It's a game.

But if Hiller's staff was glacially slow in implementing his decisions would you still want to play with some sort of negative effect resulting from it?

You have to play the armies with all their historical advantages and disadvantages, this is what national characteristics are for..

But not using weather conditions, morale effects, logistical problems, fatigue issues etc?

It's just my preference. Yes some traits are fine for flavor. I know the Austrians will be slow. Things like this, rates of fire, subcommanders with obvious historical defects, fine. But I want to command within those characteristics, not play by being someone else.

We make compromises. How many people have figures on thick bases carrying their own shrubs and making your troops9 scale feet tall? Anyone using 54mm buildings and structures? Most of us play on a flat earth table with defined, detached hills. There is no dead ground. What kind of standards do you use to represent what battlefield features?

So, I am really just giving my opinion on playability preferences.

Yes, in the end, my preference is for broad brush categorisation of troops (ie an Austrian or French unit may be assessed as essentially the same, allowing for size, effectiveness of skirmishers (contentious in itself I know), and try to get the issues reflected at the command level. So Hiller might have been hopeless but I'm not Hiller, I'm hopeless in my own idiosyncratic way… But as Murvihill points out, Hiller's inefficient staff aren't me, so some mechanism to reflect that seems useful and fair.

So my position is:
No to national characteristics at troop level, but yes to the rules having categories that troops drop into.

I'm OK with having to "be" Hiller in a scenario where we're replaying an actual battle, but more important is a command rule that reflects relative efficiencies without making the game unplayable for certain armies. (Often this sort of rule over-penalises the less efficient army IMO.)

Cheers,
John

Each to their own, obviously, but when you come to the Napoleonic period, probably the first thing you notice is the French army's frankly remarkable track record of battlefield success. Regardless of who was in command, French armies ran rings round pretty well everyone else. They were tactically more adroit and also exceptionally fast-moving on the march.

The second thing you notice is that tactically speaking, the British army and its battlefield allies were a complete, 180 degree exception to this rule. Whether commanded by Abercrombie, Stuart, Moore, or Wellington, they consistently defeated their French adversaries. The campaign was quite often completely half-baked, but that's not the same thing.

When you investigate further, you find that the Austrians were generally beaten, unless commanded by the Archduke Charles and / or it was 1809. You further find that whether in 1807, 1812 or 1812-15 the Prussians were always beaten unless they significantly outnumbered the French and / or had a more effective ally on the field. They often still lost anyway, but they never won without these. Russians were remarkably resilient and caked with artillery, but it didn't help them win a lot of battles. There is something of an argument that the allies suffered from being coalitions, which is always harder. But then again none performed any differently when alone, and the French were usually a coalition too and it didn't hinder them; so maybe not.

And so on.

Sooooo, a ruleset that doesn't reflect this is, for my money, omitting the most obvious feature of the warfare of the era. It's also one that can't be attributed to the stellar (or abysmal) performance of any individual commander. When you drill into the causes of French or British proficiency, or of anyone else's relative lack of it, they turn out to be embedded into the armies in question like the word "Brighton" through a stick of rock, and just as hard to change. Most armies of the era recognised this, and made efforts to improve their battlefield performance by reorganising and retraining. It's therefore appropriate to rate them differently according to the era you're gaming. Personally I've never really done historical refights, as back in the day I hadn't the figures, and these days I don't have the community or the space.

So I just look for rules that allow me to apply general indicators of prowess appropriate to the era that I have figures for. I'd expect my 1805 Austrians to be less effective than my 1805-7 French who, on the basis of their Peninsular performance, I'd expect to be less effective than the British opponents who consistently bested them there. If they're all rated anomalously the same, I'm likely to pack up, and go play Risk or Campaign on a board.

Incidentally, it is sometimes suggested that there's somehow something old-fashioned about such national characteristics, and that rating all armies as constructively identical is the enlightened, modern view. This is exactly backwards, it's actually very old-fashioned. If you look back before BQ et al, you're in the Featherstone era, from which national characteristics were also entirely absent. The resulting rules produced dice games of chance, in which the counters were figures. It was because these were so unsatisfactory that people started thinking about whether there was a better way.

Someone had written something like this, "only 2 national characteristics not nation would be enough";

FRENCH
+ 1 On morale if fighting an offensive battle.
+ 1 In melee .

BRITISH
+ 1 On morale if fighting an defensive battle.
+ 1 If fiing.

RUSSIAN
+ 2 On morale if fighting an defensive battle.
+ 1 On morale if Infantry in column formation.

And for other nations?

I agree almost entirely with 4th Cuirassier's last message. My issue is only with method. If we privilege some armies across the board (ie with individual unit factors – morale, shooting, melee), plus speed of tactical movement, plus significant speed of formation change advantages, plus command/responsiveness, that tends to a significant, in my view virtually game breaking advantage. That was my experience playing Quarrie rules.

To me, the key difference is the command/responsiveness factor, not a +1 here and there, and, critically, a huge difference in formation changing speed.

I find it impossible to believe that Arch Duke John could win at Sacile (1809) using Quarrie. I doubt that EH Ferdinand could even scrape the kind of borderline win he achieved at Raszyn. There are just too many penalties for the Austrians at every level of the game. If rules allow, in one way or another, for one line battalion, on the table, to be essentially the same as another, but with a superior, normal, inferior rating to reflect "national characteristics", or more likely, the difference between some, better or elite battalions and the rest, and leave the command and control as the key variable between armies, then I think the game can work. Plenty of rule sets support this belief because they do just that.

At Gefrees in 1809, Kienmayer defeated Junot despite being outnumbered. This would be impossible using Quarrie I suspect, yet these smaller battles show, if anything, the flaw in his 'national characteristics' approach. When there weren't multiple layers of command complexities, Austrian infantry battalions seemed perfectly capable of performing as well as French ones.

At Sacile, Eugene being inexperienced and a bit impetuous, would be saddled with command and control issues, just as John would be. The Austrians could win a replay but it would not be guaranteed. But we wouldn't be arguing that, at battalion level, the 112eme regiment de ligne was intrinsically better than IR27 Graf Strassoldo or whatever, just because one was French and the other was Austrian. Polish infantry at Raszyn might be rated superior because they were remarkably good, but other than that, Ferdinand's numbers would be pitched against Poniatowski's superior leadership / better command system.

But as 4th Cuirassier observes, each to their own and we can hold completely opposing views on this and still share our love of the hobby. And if someone living in the depths of the Antipodes (Christchurch NZ) asked, do you want a game using Quarrie this weekend, I'd definitely be up for it. I have very fond memories. I just *might* ask if I could borrow some Poles and leave my Austrians at home :-)

Cheers,
John

Someone had written something like this, "only 2 national characteristics not nation would be enough";

FRENCH
+ 1 On morale if fighting an offensive battle.
+ 1 In melee .

BRITISH
+ 1 On morale if fighting an defensive battle.
+ 1 If fiing.

RUSSIAN
+ 2 On morale if fighting an defensive battle.
+ 1 On morale if Infantry in column formation.

And for other nations?

@ Johann

When you get right down to individual unit morale, melee, and fire factors the various nationalities were little different, but movement and formation changing were severe issues. Then and now, I don't think these can have been properly playtested.

I recall one game in which three battalions of my 3rd Westphalian Landwehr were routed by one French battalion. The Landwehr had to cross a river then attack a single French battalion 150 yards beyond it. The French let them cross the river and then, while they were taking three moves to Reform When Unformed, shot at each Landwehr battalion for one move. This made them Retire or Halt, and the French then charged the nearest, which made it Rout off the table taking both the other two with it. Almost no other result than that was possible. If you had French, British or Russian you were OK, but you couldn't really win with anyone else.

I'd still handicap Austrians somehow, just not to that extent. In the 1970s there was really only Rawkins and not everyone was aware even of him.

4th and Johann – very good overviews, I agree. The games are about what if narratives for me, but I don't want too lose some of the authenticity that characteristics confer.