Regiment vs Regiment

[Uxbridge]

Here is another fun thing to try at home.  Move the two sides far apart. Now select two regiments of equal strength and march them until they meet. Order one to attack the other. What should happen?

I tried this with a French line regiment against a Russian light infantry unit. The French marched smartly up to the Russians but did not fire. The Russians let off a "machine-gun" burst of musketry, including the second lines who appeared to be shooting into the backs of the front line. The French stood passively for a minute and then routed, retreating about 1 kilometre where they rallied and went back into formation. The Russians followed, shot them up again and once more the French, without firing, routed.

Now I know I am taking the two units out of context and maybe this is a silly test. But it seems to me that
a) if the French are so uncomfortable about either firing or moving into hand-to-hand combat, why on earth march up to within 100m of the enemy?
b) Why do they go from being formed to routing? Why not retreat in an orderly way, as any properly commanded unit of the time would do? After all the Russians were standing still, not threatening to advance. They did not appear to have taken a lot of casualties.
c) Why did the French not fire at all?
d) What does it mean for the graphics engine to show the back lines of the Russians firing? Is this purely symbolic or are all the men supposed to be able to fire?

I appreciate that the full game may work differently to the demo but the demo is all we have...

[JMM]

Interesting...

Could you send your test... Curious a lot...

JMM

[Uxbridge]

Saved game has been emailed to you.

[JMM]

Received... working on it just after finishing my present task.

THX
JMM

[FranzVonG]

I've tried the same test, 1 polish regiment (1400) against a russion one (1800). Instead of giving the "attack unit" order, I gave the "scout" one.

The outcome was interesting: when the two regiments met in the field, the polish formed a good, long line, while the russian charged with their 3 batallions, loosing nearly 100 men due to the first polish volley (at nearly 150 meters). At 50 meters, the russian halted, fired (without inflicting casualties), but the polish routed.

The same thing happened many times, with the advancing russian suffering casualties but holding, and the polish running away before the bayonette charge. It was all quite realistic, only the russian fire seemed a bit too much ineffective.

[Hook]

It was all quite realistic, only the russian fire seemed a bit too much ineffective.

Did you have information set to Vague or Precise?  If it's set to Vague, which is is for Grognard difficulty, you don't have the exact numbers on even your own units.  You can change it in the F7 options.

If it's set to Precise, well, such things were known to happen.  At least the Russians won.   If we knew all the variables that went into resolving musket fire we could figure out why it happened.

Hook

[JMM]

It seems to be one of normal behaviours...

About the casualties... Don't forget, the internal engine calculates the losses before the graphical engine displays the combat.

Animations are built for a time scale around 20s/mn... and during this time, 3D models open the fire around 2times...
If you play with time scale= 1, 3D models open the fire around 6 times (*3..) but the casualties are the same (always calculated by the internal engine)

JMM

[Gunner24]

Animations are built for a time scale around 20s/mn

A usefull bit of information, so you recommend that when viewing the 3d screen the clock is set to 20/60, and not  60/60 ?.

If you play with time scale= 1, 3D models open the fire around 6 times (*3..) but the casualties are the same (always calculated by the internal engine)

Thanks, this is very helpfull.