HistWar
HistWar (English zone) => General discussions => Discussion démarrée par: Gunfreak le 07 novembre 2009, 17:07:39 pm
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In the cavalry theard over at BF we were talking about if you could use massed cav charges.
Is that something you can edit in the editor? Beeing able to send a LARGE force of both light and heavy cav in an all out charge
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I divided this post to make a new thread ;)
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In this thread (http://www.histwar.com/forum/index.php/topic,2830.msg33067.html#msg33067) you will see the battle of Austerlitz played by two teams of four people, including me.
With a remarkable French panache, Zucchi commanded a massive charge to Murat's corps. Five regiments of heavy cavalry and five of light cavalry (5 460 sabres).
Moreover, you can find a video of 16 000 horsemen (http://www.histwar.fr/dl/videos/HW35LR.avi) (as many as at Eylau battle).
It is not Hollywood, so the final scene of Rohirim horsemen saving Minas Tirith may be forgotten, because it was quite impossible for cavalry to charge on a long and regular line. They used to trot along the way and the squadrons that kept its unity after the charge won.
But, what do you mean by « editing in the editor » ? You can set your Order of Battles so that you have a large cavalry reserve corp.
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Yes, but lets say some of the cav corps is delpleted, or you play and army with out a cav reserve corps,
Can you combine scarterd cav regiments into a ad hoc force and send them on their way?
Can you order lets say cav from 3 diffrent corps to go to a colection eria then charge
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Can you combine scarterd cav regiments into a ad hoc force and send them on their way?
Can you order lets say cav from 3 diffrent corps to go to a colection eria then charge
Yes if you have a corp commander free of units to take command, otherwize you have to micro manage and give orders to each units.
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In the 2D views pics of the Austerlitz, i see many units entangled and also permeations. It seems also a few of these units are looking in the wrong direction, (not towards the enemy, bit but toward the own lines).
Are battles so messy ? Can't we prevent our units to get tangled ?
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I have not looked at those pictures to be sure what you are referring to, but to address the issue of units looking the wrong way, one explanation may be a unit that is routing. Or a unit that routed and is now rallying, and so until it re becomes operational it could be standing looking the way it was routing.
VC
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Yes if you have a corp commander free of units to take command, otherwize you have to micro manage and give orders to each units.
Presume one could allocate an extra Corps Commander to accompany C-in-C Staff at setup?
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Presume one could allocate an extra Corps Commander to accompany C-in-C Staff at setup?
Yes. It must be allocated when you make the oob.
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Are there any circumstances where Cavalry will get to attack Infantry in LINE, or will they always get to form square first ?.
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Are there any circumstances where Cavalry will get to attack Infantry in LINE, or will they always get to form square first ?.
Squares are always formed as soon as infantry units detect a cavalry threat.
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But can you catch a infantry unit by suprise lets say you have some hussars behind a hill and a infantry unit march by with out seeing it(fog of war) and the hussars charge then from behind+
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But can you catch a infantry unit by suprise lets say you have some hussars behind a hill and a infantry unit march by with out seeing it(fog of war) and the hussars charge then from behind+
We don't no any details like movement speeds, but in your example I could imagine that it takes the infantry longer to form square than it takes the cavalry to reach them. Maybe depending on the quality of the attacked unit.
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But can you catch a infantry unit by suprise lets say you have some hussars behind a hill and a infantry unit march by with out seeing it(fog of war) and the hussars charge then from behind+
Do you really mind to order your infantry to advance in hilly or wooded terrain without sending any light cavalry reconnaissance ? I don't think so ;).
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Another silly question : what happens if cavalry charge an infantry unit that is already engaged in melee. The infantry can hadly form square if it is already engaged. Will it be automatically routed?
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Another silly question : what happens if cavalry charge an infantry unit that is already engaged in melee. The infantry can hadly form square if it is already engaged. Will it be automatically routed?
Cavalry never charges an infantry melee. It waits for the melee to issue and then charges the ennemy infantry. If this infantry has time to form square, it does otherwise, its moral brokes and it runs away. According to the doctrine you choose for your cavalry, this one chases or not.
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Cavalry never charges an infantry melee. It waits for the melee to issue and then charges the ennemy infantry. If this infantry has time to form square, it does otherwise, its moral brokes and it runs away. According to the doctrine you choose for your cavalry, this one chases or not.
Hmm, that doesn't seem right. So this one infantry unit could, theoretically, beat two of my units. First the infantry, then by forming square my cavalry. Is it generally not possible to attack one enemy unit with two of my own or is this limited to cavalry? Will the cavalry, waiting for melee to resolve, have any influence on the morale of the enemy? What if two lines of infantry go into melee and I manoeuvre my cavalry behind the enemy line. Will they influence the melee or just stand there and wait?
There're a lot of questions about combat mechanics that aren't explained anywhere (at least nowhere I could find). It would be nice to get more information on this.
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Melees are not brawls, so cavalry will hold until the melee is over and if the enemy infantry routs then the cavalry will pursuit it (making prisoners quite often or just pushing it out of the table); otherwise if enemy infantry (that suffers in morale being threatened by enemy cavlry in sight and .... for example being isolated and in melee) wins the melee it will try to form square (for cavalry nearby) so being unable to exploit any advantage by winning the melee (and the cavalry will call artillery support to smash that square) :twisted:
So as doctrine dictates is best to move the 3 armies (infantry, cavalry and artillery) together to have mutual support.. but this is not always so plain and simple ;)
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This sounds good, but it does appear that it is impossible for a Cavalry unit to catch an Infnatry unit un-prepared, in line formation, or march in Column ?......while this is not a massive big deal to me, as there were few case's of this happening in real life, it does seem a little sad that the Infantry will ALWAYS, no matter what, form square first, is that in fact correct - in game ?.
Is there the "chance" that the Cavalry charge home before the square has finished forming ?.....can that happen ?.
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Yes this can happen, and ingame (as far as i saw by now) in that case infantry will drop in morale and, obviously, refusing to melee with cavalry will rout... but of course the cavalry will pursuit as posted above.
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obviously, refusing to melee with cavalry
From this would it be correct to assume Infantry will not fight Cavalry UNLESS they are in square, if that's right I like the idea, but I suspect some may have an "issue" with this.....there have been very long discussions on many different forms abour Infantry being able to withstand Cavalry attacks when NOT in square, something I have never really agreed with, in the main, of course there are always exceptions, but generally speaking if Infantry are not in square when faced by charging cavalry I believe (from what I've read) that they would run for the hills !.
Is there any circumstances that a LINE, or COLUMN, of Infantry, will stand and fight against Cavalry ?.
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In the Waterloo camp. Prussian cav tryed to charge the old guard grenadiers frontal and got a volley at close range, and then was finished by guard cav.
At the battle of Preußisch Eylau the russian inf layed down and tryed to shoot the french in the back !
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Interested in this one as the only references I can find is of the Old Guard in Plancenoit or in square v the Prussians cavalry. But then most English accounts don’t dwell too much on Plancenoit.
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have found another but not Napoleonic 'The Thin Red Line' at Balaclava.
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No,that's irrelevant. At Balaclava they had the Minnie bullet with longer range and better accuracy.The same one that mowed the old style cavalry charges in the Civil War a decade later.
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OK accepted What about Minden?
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Yes,Minden is an interesting case...the British and Hannover infantry was hit by artillery while attacking, and still managed to defeat the cavalry charges... I assume they were not in square since they were attacking.
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Accounts I’ve read say they were Probably had their rum ration. Because if it was the same strength as the RN rum you’d fight anything in any formationjavascript:void(0);
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Ah Taff,
I have fond memories (as a pongo) of sippers and neaters as a guest of the RN personnel aboard the Georgic sailing from Liverpool to Japan/Korea. Also many invites whilst "on shore".
We did not discuss wargames :D
After the Korean War ended we could purchase rum (real issue stuff) for 2&6d BAFVs per bottle :p
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Infantry would only form square if its flanks were open. Otherwise there would be little reason to do it apart from perhaps shaky troops who felt more safe in it.
Balaclava had like 400 hussars facing about 1500 British and Turkish soldiers supported by a battery. A few ragged salvoes from 500 yards(along with the artillery fire) that emptied a few saddles were more than enough to make the Russian cavalry pull back. Minié rifle or no Minié rifle, the cavalry did not attempt to charge neither frontally or by outflanking. Even Prussian troops with needle rifles would IIRC use squares if their flanks were open.
Another example would be Fontenoy with cavalry charging British and Hanoverian troops who advanced in line. The French cavalry took heavy losses IIRC but at least helped stalling the attack until infantry could come up and finally repel it.
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OH well back to the thread No good crying over lost rum
Against all expectation the British advance passed Fontenoy in a great, deep column, known as the 'Infernal Column' with the English on the right, led by the Foot Guard regiments and the Hanoverians on the left
Balaclava• This original Russian cavalry force divided itself into two smaller groups, and only about 400 of them were involved in the "Thin Red Line" incident. These 400 Russians were the Cossacks and Ingermanlandsky hussars of the 6th Hussar Brigade, commanded by General Rijov. The rest of Rijov's force attacked the British Heavy Brigade. Rijov's command was part of General Pavel Liprandi's 23,000 strong army at Balaclava.("Crimea: The Great Crimean War, 1854-56", by Trevor Royle, pages 266 - 268)
The 93rd Highlanders involved in the "Thin Red Line" incident probably numbered no more than a few hundred infantrymen. This was part of the British, French and Turkish forces at Balaclava which totaled approximately 20,000 strong
Just back up the prior answer
Seems if Infantry does stand up Cavalry it’s a freakish thing & how you can gear that into a game I don't know<G>
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One other factor, not discussed so far I think, is the relative strength of the cavalry and infantry. Presumably a weak cavalry force would do badly against a strong infantry regiment even if it was in line. What is the combat rating of one horseman compared to one footman? At what point would the cavalry decide that there just were not enough of them to make an attack effective?
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Agree with the above
Just found this to complicate things more
Against cavalry the infantry was formed in battalion-mass as the square on 3-ranks deep was considered not strong enough. The battalion-mass was a closely packed column, one company wide and six companies deep. The mass could manoeuvre, if slowly, either in closed or open order. At Aspern-Essling and at Wagram the battalion-masses withstood repeated charges of Napoleon's heavy cavalry. But these very deep formations were very vulnerable to artillery fire.
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The battalion mass was for movement with the added benefit of being able to form into a square like formation very quickly
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The main danger is that if you get to close together you can`t reload or handle your gun.That means you can`t do anything.
In the age of reason no cav attacked the long line of infanty in the hope to break it.
The Infantry could simply shoot them to peaces.
flanks or the rear are different.
so a line of infantery with secure flanks could withstand if it doesn`t break.
But if they waver they would be dead.
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Yes,Minden is an interesting case...the British and Hannover infantry was hit by artillery while attacking, and still managed to defeat the cavalry charges... I assume they were not in square since they were attacking.
Infantry square wasn't used in the 18th century.
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Infantry square wasn't used in the 18th century.
It was used but not in same degree as in this era. As armies generally deployed in a more symmetric and linear formation, cavalry did not get same opportunity to catch isolated infantry units. In the late phase of the battle of Blenheim several French battalions were using square to defend against the allied onslaught.
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It was used but not in same degree as in this era. [...]. In the late phase of the battle of Blenheim several French battalions were using square to defend against the allied onslaught.
I stand corrected.
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Yes the Square was well know but not much used, partly becasue of the mentioed and the fact that cav during the first 50ish years of the 1800s had less of a shock value then Napoleinc cav
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What happens if two infantry units are engaged in a firefight (or even melee)? Will the supporting cavalry charge the enemy infantry to ensure a victory?
Here's food for thought:
Cavalry may be successfully thrown against the flank or rear of an
enemy’s line at the moment of its being attacked in front by the infantry.
Whatever method be adopted in charging, one of the best ways of using
cavalry is to throw several squadrons opportunely upon the flanks of an
enemy’s line which is also attacked in front.
[..]The cavalry is also a critical reserve force. Primarily composed of heavy cavalry
capable of delivering a devastating shock attack, you can launch them without
restraint against an enemy line already wavering under great stress.
[..]
When supporting a regular corps, the Tactical AI will send the cavalry
regiments through the intervals between the first line infantry units to harass the
opposing troops.
[..]
Cavalry units will charge enemy infantry regiments under stress;
[..]
A regiment of heavy cavalry may go so far as to charge an infantry square.
[..]
infantry will rarely charge cavalry; such an unlikely event is not included in “HistWar: Les Grognards”.
From reading the manual it appears that cavalry will be modelled pretty aggressively and will frequently charge infantry "under stress".
"Under stress" certainly meaning under attack, be that by artillery or infantry (even in melee I suppose). Now, it may be that melees don't occur that often in the game and are resolved to quickly for a cavalry squadron to exploit the situation, but at least it seems that cavalry will charge infantry units that are engaged in firefights.
I wonder what the AI of the infantry unit will decide to do when already engaged in a firefight and enemy cavalry appears on its unprotected flank. Or, same situation but it's additionally being bombarded by artillery. Instant rout or build square first and then rout?
Ras
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Infantry always tries and forms square and then asks for cavalry help.
Now, as I said in the french forum, units (artillery, infantry and cavalry) are not alone on the battlefield. So think that if you have some cavalry in support of your infantry and ready to exploit any situations to make a charge, your ennemy has some too with the same mission. There are big chances that his cavalry counter-charge yours.
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How is the "asking for help" implemented? Does infantry send messenger to cavalry? Or corps commander issue commands?
Thanks.
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Infantry always tries and forms square and then asks for cavalry help.
So, even if being bombarded the infantry will form square if enemy cavalry appears?
Now, as I said in the french forum, units (artillery, infantry and cavalry) are not alone on the battlefield. So think that if you have some cavalry in support of your infantry and ready to exploit any situations to make a charge, your ennemy has some too with the same mission. There are big chances that his cavalry counter-charge yours.
Yes, it's always best to have all arms supporting each other.
What if the enemy doesn't have cavalry support because it's routed, destroyed or detached?
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How is the "asking for help" implemented? Does infantry send messenger to cavalry? Or corps commander issue commands?
Thanks.
This is managed by the Corps AI, if the Corps does not have any cavalry or artillery for help.. AND the doctrine allows to call support outside the Corp, a message will be delivered by the AI to another Corp nearby for assistance asking support.
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The more information I receive about this fascinating Napoleonic creation the more excited I become.
Thanks for continued posts. :D
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Yeah, me too :D
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So, even if being bombarded the infantry will form square if enemy cavalry appears?
What if the enemy doesn't have cavalry support because it's routed, destroyed or detached?
Yes to first question and for the second one :
a message will be delivered by the AI to another Corp nearby for assistance asking support.
It would be unlucky if there was cavalry nowhere. Your infantry can also be support by artillery that can targetted cavalry as a main threat and brokes its charge. Now, if there is neither cavalry nor artillery in your corp or the nearby ones to support the infantry, well, I think you are in a critical position.
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Ok, thanks. It's clearer now.