Napoleonic Wargame Club (NWC)

Does anybody know what distance the typical map hex is supposed to represent in the HPS maps? 100 metres? Is the map scale the same for all the different games and maps?

Thanks.

Lt Tim Cavallin, AdR

100 meters is correct.

The new maps in Waterloo that are for the company, section, squadron EAW scale battles are 40 meter hexes I believe.

Oberst Wilhelm Peters
2nd Kuirassiers, Reserve Korps, Austrian Army
[url="http://www.acwgc.org/acwgc_members/burr/Austrian%20Army/Bill_Peters.htm"]Officer Battle Dossier[/url]

For the company level scenarios in the Waterloo expansion pack I used a scale of approximately 33m, with a single 100m hex at the standard game scale becoming 3 x 3 hexes at the company level.

This is pretty much the same sort of scale as the EAW series although, as Bill has pointed out, it seems they use a scale of 40m hexes, so if you wanted to calculate 200m musket range that would be 6 hexes for the Waterloo expansion but only 5 hexes for the EAW games.

From a tactical viewpoint, I'd generally recommend moving formed units to within 3 hexes (100m) before engaging in a firefight, although skirmishers (and of course riflemen) may find it worthwhile firing at longer ranges.


Capt Rich White
4th Cavalry Brigade
Cavalry Corps
Anglo-Allied Army


Lt Col Rich White
Right Wing British Army 1776

Tim,

HPS Waterloo documentation states 100 meters. Earlier games in the series had stated yards.

Proper EAW scale is 125 feet per hex.

ACW scale is 125 yards per hex.

Infantry operating in Belgium and Russia are more sluggish than those operating in Bavaria, Austria and Italy.

Colonel Al Amos
1er Dragoons
AdN

How about a scale of 33yds for the British and 33m for the Europeans?

To be honest, as long as the map and pdt are adjusted to scale, there's no real reason why a hex couldn't be 25yds, 75yds, 100yds or even 150yds.

While 100yds (or 100m) is certainly a convenient scale for the standard battalion level system, I've created a scenario at 50yds per hex that works well enough and actually does a better job for the purpose I'm using it for than a 100yd scale.

As I've already stated, for the company level expansion pack scenarios I'd used 33yds/33m, but a scale of 25yds would also be feasible.

I haven't done sufficient tests at this point - and it'll probably be a while before I get round to it - but a scale of 50yds might actually be viable for either battalion or company level scenarios.


Capt Rich White
4th Cavalry Brigade
Cavalry Corps
Anglo-Allied Army

Rich,

I believe only the USA is non-metric, so the British would like 100m.

I don't mind metric either. I merely pointed out that in earlier documentation yards was used. This fact was only important because a discussion I had with one of the game designers way back when turned on it. The designer was saying my figures for stacking was messed up because I was using yards while the game used meters. So I pointed out to him the docs said, "yards"."

Now that the docs say, "meters" all is fine in the world.

The flexibility of JT's Horse & Musket engines includes the ability to telescope scales, and develop a game at nearly any level. All that is required is for the pdt, oob, and map files to be consistent within each 'scale set.'

50m per hex COULD be a good scale for bn level AS LONG AS players put their units into EXTENDED LINE when necessary to model the proper frontage of a unit in line. I suspect that won't be the norm, and the smaller hex scale could lead to much misuse, although that is a problem with all games.

Colonel Al Amos
1er Dragoons
AdN

Thanks everybody for the clarification & comments.

Lt Tim Cavallin, AdR

The British army of 1815 would certainly not have used 100m ... and there are plenty of Brits around today who still dislike the metric system.

If a scale of 50yds per hex for battalion level were used, then max stacking would be 1000 (or less, perhaps 800) and it would make sense to break down units larger than say 750 in the OOB, so players would have no choice about keeping massive battalions. There might still be a use for the <i>extended line</i> feature, but this could be something like 400 or even 300.

There are various ways of reducing player misuse of the hex scale - what I'm particularly eager for is to reduce player over-reliance on ZOC melee elimination tactics and encourage firepower instead. Reduced stacking and increased ranges, especially higher fire factors at point blank range, go a long way to redressing the balance.

Capt Rich White
4th Cavalry Brigade
Cavalry Corps
Anglo-Allied Army

Rich,

If you are attempting to reduce melee and increase fire combat then you only have to rework the stacking limits.

I think it has been shown that a unit in 2-rank line can put 320 muskets in a single line across the front of a 100m hex, and a unit in 3-ranks can put 480 men.

Now we know that Company commanders and Battalion commanders had a set of drills and regulations that they would use when commanding their troops. We all want to be Bde, Div, Corps and Army level commanders, so....

We make the stacking limit to achieve results that fall in line with the drill.

Coys and Bns would NORMALLY use a full interval between coys and bns in regards to depth. This full interval would be a depth equal to the frontage of a unit. If we have determined that a 3-rank unit needs 100m frontage to form line, then commanders would leave that same distance behind the unit empty to allow it to manuevre properly.

Therefore, we could set a stacking limit of 500 men and call it good, but there are units that exceed that strength. If you are going to break the unit down then it should be in accepted drill methods. The Austrians could have Massen, the British Wings or Grand Divisions, etc, etc. This would force players to put large units into seperate hexes when deploying in line, and column, but would hamper squares and lead to abuse. So....

A stacking of 1,000 men (no need to change scales) would take care of the vast majority of units we would use, yes some exceptions would need special handling, but very few. This would allow two units of 480 men (3-ranks) to be in one hex. The engine would limit the amount of fire power coming out, penalizing the second unit for moving forward in the hex to fire, etc, and this would allow players to form bde, div columns at half-interval. Target density and pass through fire would penalize enough for such tactics.

There is no need to redo scale needing new maps, etc when just a simple adjustment to stacking limits can achieve the same results. Dropping scale creates new problems, as one can see in your Company Level game, i.e. a bn of 6 coys attmpting to form square actually forms 6 little squares, unless someone disrupts of course, which could portray the bn having problems getting into square properly, but looks very wierd.

But, hey to each his own.

Colonel Al Amos
1er Dragoons
AdN

Al,

Modifying scale does far more than just impact stacking limitations -it also determines weapon ranges and effectiveness and fundamentally alters the physics of the battlefield. Firing at a target at 1-50yds just isn't the same as firing at 1-100yds and an attacker must first move into the 50-100yd hex before closing next to the defender in the 1-50yds hex. It's not just an issue of battalion or company level, although if you go down below the 50yd hex scale it would become impractical for battalion level due to stacking issues.

Unfortunately, it would require an engine change for companies to recombine into a single battalion square - at the scale it would also cover more than a single hex, perhaps 2 x 2 hexes, so it would be an awkward change to implement. Yet, as you know, using the company level does permit a greater level of realism over battalion level in a number of other respects.

It's also regrettable that small units can't form up <i>alongside</i> each other in line up to say 480 or 500 men at the 100m hex scale. As we're all aware, three 300 strong French units aren't treated in the same way as a single 1000 strong Austrian unit. Perhaps it's a fundamental problem of a hex-based game and there's no viable solution? But perhaps a solution of sorts would be quite straightforward - break down the large battalions in the OOB itself, or, failing that, try battering the Austrian player's hand with a ruler if he refuses to deploy his units into extended line when going from column into line. Any possibility of this becoming a feature of the game engine? (ie. units that are large enough to deploy into extended line <i>automatically</i> do so, whenever they change from column into line)


Capt Rich White
4th Cavalry Brigade
Cavalry Corps
Anglo-Allied Army