Napoleonic Wargame Club

I've noticed through the years what seems to be a bonus applied to artillery when first fired. This may just be a quirk, but I've repeatedly noticed more casualties produced during the first time a battery is fired, e.g. in a current game a Prussian light battery (6 pdr) fires at maximum range of ten hexes which results in 8 casualties on a single battalion at a 75% artillery effectiveness rate due to weather conditions. Has anyone else seen similar results? If this has been addressed in the forum previously, I've missed it.

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Feldmarschall Jeff Freiherr Mathes von Krain
50th (Stein) Infantry Regiment
Dritte Brigade
Austrian Korps

Yes, I've noticed that almost from the beginning. First shot I can hit a gun; all subsequent shots I can't.

Something I see in PC, first shot often kills a tank, following shots just at fatigue.
But officially I'm not aware that there is any bonus for firing the first time. Besides, can't we just fire our units once?

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Some wargames rules give a bonus for the initial salvo, to represent that the muskets are all clean and unfouled by powder etc. May be the same premise here.

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Général Gregor Morgan
5ème Régiment de Cuirassiers
1ère Brigade
2ème Division de Grosse Cavalerie
Réserve de Cavalerie
La Grande Armée

Some miniature rules I've read for 18th and 19th century have a first fire bonus for musketry, but I don't recall one for artillery - likely due to the fact that the cannon bore was swabbed after each round fired. Still, it may just be a nuance I've noticed when first firing artillery. It would likely be more difficult to notice such a bonus with infantry fire, particularly in column formation.

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Feldmarschall Jeff Freiherr Mathes von Krain
50th (Stein) Infantry Regiment
Dritte Brigade
Austrian Korps

I don't know of anything either, and it may just be some kind of "confirmation bias"

I have seen games with the concept, and it's a real enough thing. Armies would generally tend to husband that first fire as it's the most effective. Not only do you have unfouled muskets, but the longer troops fire, the more likely they are to lose volley cohesion, or have misfires that take guns out of the mix...

If it applies to arty, I imagine it's that the first fire is the most "careful". The gunners were able to take their time loading the gun, siting them and the like, and so that would be their best shot, if perhaps not as notably as with musket fire.

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Feldmarschall Freiherr Gary McClellan
IR44
Portner Grenadier Battalion
Austrian Army

Scenario Designer:
JTS Midway
JTS Seven Years War

The Early American War (EAW) series has that. Its nice too. Hefty first shot point blank can send some units running.

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Bill Peters - Prussian civilian observer
Scenario Designer for John Tiller Software "Napoleonic Battles" and "Panzer Campigns" series games