Honour Forums

Discuss the Honour system.

1. Sam Mustafa
   Le Grand Fromage

   On another thread, Cam wrote:

   "I never understand why, if combined arms are so effective, most armies did not form mixed divisions the way a wargamer would - preferring instead to mass their cavalry in entirely separate corps."

   This is something that has fascinated me for years. I've had countless discussions with friends like Mike Leggiere, Jack Gill, Rick Schneid, Mike Pavkovic, and others, and I can honestly say that none of us really have a definitive answer for it. But...

   One thing we all agreed upon was that there was a big difference between theoretical TO&E, and actual battlefield practice.

   For example, a French infantry division might not have cavalry attached - at that level (although one can certainly find plenty of exceptions to that) - but it did have cavalry probably pretty close-by, attached to the corps. And of course in a large battle where one might find entire Reserve cavalry corps, then sooner or later they have to be committed *somewhere*. And that somewhere is most likely a place where your infantry has already been fighting for a while.

   What I'm saying is: Wargamers have traditionally focused on the beginning of the battle, and the way that units looked on paper, and probably on the ground, before the real mix-up of heavy combat began. But once they got engaged, I have a feeling that many, if not most, armies soon became combined-arms affairs, depending upon what moment of the battle we're talking about.

   So what I decided to do with Lasalle was to get away from the "Historical Army on Paper" concept and go instead to the "Moment in Battle" concept. You might be an infantry commander, and those Hussars might not be theoretically under your command. But in this moment, the corps commander has shown up (or not), and committed the hussars to assist your division in this sector.

   One last point with regard to different armies:

   I think we have to consider the possibility that armies were structured in certain ways not only in anticipation of particular tactical situations, but also for administrative reasons. Some of these reasons make no sense to us anymore, 200 years later, since they might have to do with things like feeding horses, or the privileges of aristocratic rank, or the seniority of regiments, or whatever.

   But I have a feeling that by about 1809 or so, pretty much everybody in Europe was fighting in essentially the same ways, with minor differences understandably exaggerated by wargames in order to add "flavor."

   At the end of the day, was a Prussian infantry brigade really more likely to enjoy cavalry support from that supposedly "organic" light cavalry... than, say, a French infantry brigade was, from the Chasseurs attached to the corps? After all, those Chasseurs had to be *somewhere.*

   Posted 2 years ago #

2. mfarl2001
   Member

   Id offer this to follow up, In G. Nafzigers Napoleon at Leipzig, page 137 has FZM Gyulai's orders for the attack on Lindenau. Its essentially "your going to be in column one, and go get some grenzers from that other division over there, oh and Im taking your brigade artillery. Also Im rounding up all this cav (squadrons from several diffrent regiments) and gonna keep em close by me." I was interested in that action and was rapidly annoyed when old FZM Gyulai couldnt keep it all neat n tidy for me. He did collect a combined arms force of all three arms as he needed whis what was in the area for him to access that day.

   Posted 2 years ago #

3. cam_millar
   Member

   I love the idea of a moment of battle. I am always intrigued by fights on the "hinges" of commands. For instance, at Austerlitz, Prince Liechtenstein's cavalry attacked a French Reserve Cavalry Corp's light cavalry division who were in the gap between two different Line Corp divisions. They were eventually driven off by Cuirassiers sent from the Reserve Cavalry. So you had a fight in the hinge featuring 3 French Corps.

   (As an aside, I always wondered how in practice command operated in these sorts of situations. Presumably the official order of command went out the window - the various division commanders did not refer everything upstairs to their Corp commanders, who then formed an ad hoc committee of Corps Commander with Napoleon as Board Chairman to work out what would happen and issue in triplicate their decision. I guess these were experienced division and brigade commanders, and the various division commanders just got on with things. Division and brigades would have routinely had to coordinate with troops in other Corps. They may not have even communicated much with each other - they just knew what to do. I am not even sure there would have always been a Lasalle type "Commander". But that is for yet another thread...)

   So I buy the idea that combined arms could operate together.

   But the questions are (1) how closely (especially intermingled) did they normally operate together and (2) how common was it.

   Any rules that provide even a small incentive to intermingle cav and infantry will our course lead to that happening nearly all the time. It looks to me that Lasalle makes intermingling infantry and cavalry effective and relatively easy. Normally it is the command range that operates as a limit on spreading your cavalry out within your infantry. In Lasalle it appears to me I can use my Commander to control some of my cavalry, which allows me to spread them quite a bit. I do wonder (emphasise, don't know yet) if Lasalle encourages very close coordination between infantry and cavalry. I then wonder how common this intermingling was (note this is a question - I have no idea).

   One way to look at how common it was might be a thought experiment. Say we have a very big Lasalle tournament. What would be the average ratio of cavalry to infantry to artillery be, and how does it compare with historical forces? How common are infantry only, cavalry only, and combined arms forces?

   A combined arms Lasalle army list probably has a ratio of (say) 2-3 infantry battalions per cavalry regiment. My gut feeling is that would be a very common force at a tournament. How does that fit with ratios in real battles (I am not sure of the answer cos I am too lazy to look it up). If the ratio in a tournament has a high ratio of cavalry compared to infantry versus historic ratios, that might suggest we are playing a somewhat unusual battle with a high cavalry ratio in action - we are capturing a fairly rare "moment" in the battle.

   That is of course not necessarily a bad thing. I suspect the most common Lasalle sized fight in reality with an all-infantry force fighting an all-infantry force, with not necessarily any artillery. Which might be pretty dull. Combined arms fights are more interesting.

   I will be interested to see how many all-cavalry forces will be taken in Lasalle and how effective they are. Yet unsupported cavalry attacks were somewhat common. I always remember Phil Barker posing a question on the DBMM list (why discuss Napoleonics on an ancient rules forum? - cos it is that type of list). He wondered why Commanders persisted in sending unsupported cavalry to attack infantry right through the Wars up to (infamously) Ney at Waterloo, when all wargamers know this was stupid. Did it mean all Napoleonic cavalry commanders were morons or especially drunk, or that they saw some merit in it that wargamers have missed.

   Note, none of this should be taken as criticism of Lasalle - I have not played it enough. All I know is that tomorrow at the club I am playing a DBMM competition, but will spend most of my time trying to watch a 25mm Lasalle game happening at the same time (and wishing I was playing in that instead).

   Cam

   Posted 2 years ago #

4. seldon
   Member

   Cam,
   very interesting point of view, it is an excellent way of looking as the concept of "a moment in a battle" ! And great ideas to go do some research.

   Posted 2 years ago #

5. Von Kleist
   Member

   Hello all. Been a lurker here for a while and thought I would finally respond. Firstly congratulations Sam on a really good product.

   I'm certainly no napolenic aficionado and doubt I'm as well read as the other authorities on this forum but here's my thoughts on this. Infantry fight better with the support of cavalry and guns but if you have your cavalry spread across your entire front then aren't you limiting what you can use to exploit a sudden opening in the opponents lines? Funneling a brigade of horse into a gap is entirely different to being able to call on a whole division if need be. Yes you have cavalry on hand to help if something goes wrong but if your infantry holds their opponents easily aren't you then left with a brigade or more that is stagnant and has no use in the overall battle, multiple brigades if your entire cavalry is pread across the entire line? Also I think some of the reasons for seperating out the horse from the infantry must be at a strategic level not covered by most wargaming rules. Logisitics, commanders able to focus their talents on one form of arms, exploiting the speed of entire cavalry forces in the pursuit of routing/retiring armies, ability to have one central fast reaction force to cover a retreat if things go badly, etc. must have played some role in forming single arm divisions and corps and are impossible to calculate into a tabletop game I would think.

   Martin

   Posted 2 years ago #

6. Sam Mustafa
   Le Grand Fromage

   Cam wrote: "(As an aside, I always wondered how in practice command operated in these sorts of situations. Presumably the official order of command went out the window "

   That's certainly the impression I get, also. Again, I think wargames (and especially the large-scale ones with command systems) have taken the On-Paper or "At-Start" command structure and then assumed it remained rigid throughout the battle as a predictable machine that only has certain gears and only runs in certain ways. But as soon as the fur started flying, it sure seems that the better and more successful armies are the ones that have good mid-level commanders who are quick thinkers and can adapt, and good corps-level commanders who know when they need to improvise here or there.

   Consider the battles in which an army broke down, and we often see corps commanders disgruntled or befuddled, or mid-level commanders lacking initiative and waiting for instruction. (The Prussians at Auerstädt are perhaps the classic example, but there are many others.)

   Cam wrote: " It looks to me that Lasalle makes intermingling infantry and cavalry effective and relatively easy. Normally it is the command range that operates as a limit on spreading your cavalry out within your infantry. In Lasalle it appears to me I can use my Commander to control some of my cavalry, which allows me to spread them quite a bit. I do wonder (emphasise, don't know yet) if Lasalle encourages very close coordination between infantry and cavalry."

   I guess it depends upon what you mean by "intermingling." If you mean "on the same table trying to cooperate," then yeah, I'd agree that Lasalle makes it pretty easy. But if you mean "reliably able to make combined arms attacks, like in Napoleon's Battles," then I'd say No.

   For one thing, there just aren't that many cavalry units on a Lasalle table. Four, perhaps, in an average game? And the enemy probably has a similar number, and they often end up engaging each other because you're trying to keep the enemy's cavalry away from your own infantry, etc. (This happened in our game yesterday; I commanded the Austrian cavalry, and we never got anywhere near a French infantry unit. We were tied up for 18 turns in a back-and-forth battle on the far right flank against the French light cavalry.)

   The other thing is: there's not that much space to really make it happen. I've been playing this game for nearly two years, and I've NEVER seen a combined INF+CAV vs. Defending INF attack. I mean, it's geometrically possible, yes. If you had two small attackers, in Atk Column & Waves, respectively, then you could fit against the front of an infantry defender in Line. I'm sure it will happen eventually, but I've just never seen it, for lack of opportunity.

   Posted 2 years ago #

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