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Get Phil for the siege, I'm stretched pretty thin and don't want to hold you up any more than I have.
As for stacking....
From a long time ago.
"Continuing on with our club wide research of tactics during the AWI, I picked up, through Inter-Library Loan, That Loose Flimsy Order: The Little War Meets British Military Discipline in America 1755-1781 a thesis paper by David E. Parker.
It is a good overview of the subject. I will not quote extensively from it but give some answers to questions I had concerning the subject.
Q: Did the Germans fight in 2 or 3 ranks?
A: Yes. hehehe... Turns out the Brunswickers who served under GM Riedesel did. These troops accompanied General Burgoyne in the North. GM Riedesel served with a Hussar unit druing the SYW in Europe and was very comfortable fighting 'the Little War.' So he had his command adopted the British 2-rank open style. The Hessians from Hesse Hanau and Hesse Cassel did not and retained thier Prussian 3 rank drill.
Q: How "open" was 'that loose flimsy order'?
A: Apparently it had two basic versions, one with a 4 foot interval between files and one with a 10 foot interval between files. These distances allowed officers to maintain control over thier men, and allowed the men to move over obstacles and practice aimed fire better than the 'closed order', with only 22" per file. Incidentally, light companies were pulled together in England in 1771 to learn these new instructions at Salisbury under William Howe the then army "Drill Instructor". These same tactics were then taught to the entire battalion, at least upon arrival to North America if not sooner.
Q: How would or could this impact our playing of 1776?
A: Strong evidence is made that ALL British and Brunswick troops should be rated as (L), light troops. This would allow them to use close order 22", open order 4' and extended order 10'. If you do not add the interval between companies (which you should), this would give 68 files per hex at 22", 31 files at 4', and 12 files at 10'.
So the British player would need to exercise self-discipline if they use a 'universally' trained army of light troops. That discipine would mean not stacking more than 96 men per hex for closed order (company intervals taken into consideration), 48 men in open order and only 24 men in extended order.
Now a question arises how to best reflect the difference between closed, open and extended orders. The easiest is extended order, just put the sub-units in X order in the game with the single line. The open order was used to facilitate movement over the less than clear ground of North America. In game terms the best way would be to keep the sub-units in line formation, and play with Line Disruption ON. But this does not go far enough. The PDT file needs to be modified so the Brits have only a 3% chance of disrupting instead of the current 10, BTW the Colonial percentage needs to be dropped to 5%, and British units need to be rated as B class. These two things will help them from disrupting much even in woods, and it will help thier fire which reflects the move to individual aimed fire.
To be fair, if a Brit player is going to use the above then he must keep his stacks limited to the 4' interval spacing, so only 48 men is good to reflect company intervals. This also means you try to keep 48 men per hex as well! So you initially deploy the unit into line at 48 men per hex and then as casualties start and strenght drops, you shorten your line. (Colonials should do so as well.) Unless you are defending a linear obstacle such as entrenchments, fieldworks or a stone wall.
Also, he should discipline himself as to how he moves his battalions. Keep the unit in line, and if the line is going to change facing the wheel the outside flank around. Move the battalions forward, and backward in line. Lines can be "crocheted" (not straight), flanks can be facing out at an angle to the rest of the line, or it can follow a tree or fence line, etc, but the unit needs to move together. So if one sub-unit routs the bn stops and waits for it to close up again, or it moves at disrupted speed if any of it is disupted, etc. etc.
Now William Howe has helped you guys out again, he trained the boys to change formations at a run, so when massing into a column, or when executing a wheel, I would say the individual sub-units could change into column to get to their new postions quicker then change back to line.
Well that's it for now, just more thougts over ground that's been covered.
Lt. Col. Al Amos
1st U.S. Dragoons 1812-R
Edited by - Al Amos on 06/22/2002 00:55:10
Excellent stuff Al!
I don't think that open order is really the same in game terms as X order though. (And I think we may have rambled over this territory before).
What this means in terms of the minimum requirement would be that a hex containing only 40 men would be considered "open order" (4').
The other thing is that units in X order (as the game currently defines it) should be severely limited to 24 men OR 1 company. (The 10' being a guideline.)
So to keep it simple:
100 men max in a hex (melees could still involve 200 max). Close order
Minimum of 40 men in a hex. Open order
X order units, 24 (or 1 company.)
For Hessians (or a three rank unit) increase to 150, 60, 24.
Your points on wheeling, line and forest, etc are all well noted.
Lt. Colonel Mike Cox
New Jersey Militia
(1st Hunterdon Cty)
AdC American Army
Mike,
Yeah that could work, and you are right open order is not the games' X order, that is the extended order with 10' interval, but all Brit units would need to be coded as Lights since they had been trained, and in practice did, use the 10' interval.
As for the stacking you could still stack over 100 men in a hex with 2 rank troops, PROVIDING ...
you realize you are forming a column (sub units were in line formation within columns) so...
you disciplined yourself to fire ONLY the top sub-unit, since all the others are behind the first and the DOUBLE WIDE* column had not come into practice yet.
(Yeah I know ADF will fire any and all, so you could play MDF if you wished to be pure on the issue.)
*Column of divisions refered to here - 2 company frontage, not mobile homes .
Lt. Col. Al Amos
1st U.S. Dragoons 1812-R
Edited by - Al Amos on 06/22/2002 01:24:44"
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LtGen Al Amos
1st Continental Light Dragoons
Commander Lt Dragoon Bde - American Army
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Battle of Brandywine, in which the rebels were defeated, September the 11th 1777, by the army under the command of General Sr. Wam. Howe.