FOGN 2nd Edition

[hazelbark]

"Against the Austrian light troops, Frederick ordered that his skirmishers of dragoons and hussars should always advance hastily and 'attack them closely formed and sword in hand

When did Frederick ever advise anything by advance hastily and attack?


But seriously good quote the issue is in the SYW light troops never really operated in between the battle lines they were off to the flanks and much more in the "little war" as well as recon and scouting.

[bahdahbum]

My only wrinkle is the cavalry attachment can seem overly powerful at times. Two reformed small shooting at one large unreformed with a cavalry attachment effectively means no shooting. That's a bit much.
What i'd prefer if simple is a cavlry attachment can reduce a maximum of 2 medium range infantry dice per fire phase. Not per unit shooting at it. I'd probably also give a unit with a cavalry attachment an extra die in melee

I agree

[bahdahbum]

I would like your input about the light infantry . It seems giving them 5 dice is , in most cases, not justified as line and light are the same considering tactics and use . So light infantry would have 3 dice not 5 ( small unit ).

Some exceptions might be british rifles, austrian jaegers ..

What is the general feeling ?

[bahdahbum]

Now that small fortifications become more common I was considering the rules about fortifications and the many post about it and wonder if I got it right :

Firing : the firing area a 180° but from the front or the rear base ?

Wavering units will not test when charged if in fortifications ?

What about outcome moves ?

[adonald]

I would like your input about the light infantry . It seems giving them 5 dice is , in most cases, not justified as line and light are the same considering tactics and use . So light infantry would have 3 dice not 5 ( small unit ).

A light infantry unit, made up of battalions of light infantry, would have many more skirmishing companies available than a line infantry unit made up of battalions of line infantry, of which only one company from each battalion was capable of effectively skirmishing. If a line infantry brigade had a light infantry battalion as one of its brigade, that would increase the amount of skirmishers, but not to the level of a light infantry brigade. Remember that a light battalion would deploy up yo half its strength as skirmishers, the rest would remain as supports.

So, say for a British Peninsula army with a nominal 600 man strength:

Line infantry brigade of 3 line battalions - 240 skirmishers approx

Line infantry brigade of 2 line battalions and one light battalion - 460 skirmishers approx

Light infantry brigade of 3 light battalions - 900 skirmishers approx

So 3, 4 (skirmish attachment) and 5 dice seems reasonable, in fact, the light infantry look undercooked.

Alastair Donald

[MDH]

Re regular light Infantry as such as many will know I have wondered if we overdid them but were keen to reflect them as one of the more significant tactical developments of the era - from 1792. There were not that many below division level . The idea is that a light infantry unit is either 100% light infantry as in Russian jaegers and French Legere or has at least one - out of two maybe three Btns some line - like British at times and Prussian Fusiliers. So it has a much greater capability than the combined effects effect of the left flank companies of line regulars and marginally better than the latter with a specialist light infantry attachments
( companies of the 60th/95th, Volunteer jaegers ,Tyrolean Jaegers ).

Now in Btn games with skirmish companies modelled these issues all ought come out in the wash although I do hate to see whole Btns of the 60th and 95th deployed the same as line infantry in such games at the same time as I see innumerable companies of the same regts all over the battlefield( no army lists!) Or all three Btns of Austrian jaegers in the same force!

Personally I think to we need to at least double the number of figures we use in most Nap games to get the feel of how to deploy and handle a Btn and also a cavalry regiment- with intervals between companies and squadrons , but that would be a niche within a niche within a niche

As to the present some modification is needed to moderate their overall impact but not too much as that would undermine their significance . Re dice - we don't model casualties as such but impact on cohesion so I suggest the impact of better aimed fire from regular trained light infantry would be more likely to affect command control loss of NCOs, officers etc than regular line fire which could be very hit and miss ( sometimes 100% miss )

[deadtorius]

About fortifications
arc is 180 degrees measured from the rear of the fortification. It can shoot out its sides and front, not towards it's rear.

Not sure if fragmented still have to test or not, thought they did.

Only way you can get a unit out of them is to break the defender and rout them out. Otherwise they ignore outcome moves, and in the case of a melee the attacker would make the outcome move if the defender did not break

[bahdahbum]

A light infantry unit, made up of battalions of light infantry, would have many more skirmishing companies available than a line infantry unit made up of battalions of line infantry

A common misconception, at least concerning feench and frenchlike organisation . Light does not mean skirmish . A light infantry bataillon is not a skirmisher bataillon . the training is the same as for line .

It was very unusual to sent a whole bataillon in SK formation . Line and light had 6 companies or 4 common companies and 1 of grenadier or carabinier and one of tirailleurs ( can't remember the name for lmight bataillons ). So a line or a light bataillon would sent one company as SK . There are some cases where whole bataillons went SK, line or light but it was as said, unusual .

The difference was : uniform and name + the light were considered elite or better than line but on the battlefield the role was the same, the light being the spearpoint as elite !

But it was not so with austrian jaegers or british riffle units ! They were more SK than used as line .

[MDH]

A light infantry unit, made up of battalions of light infantry, would have many more skirmishing companies available than a line infantry unit made up of battalions of line infantry

A common misconception, at least concerning feench and frenchlike organisation . Light does not mean skirmish . A light infantry bataillon is not a skirmisher bataillon . the training is the same as for line .

It was very unusual to sent a whole bataillon in SK formation . Line and light had 6 companies or 4 common companies and 1 of grenadier or carabinier and one of tirailleurs ( can't remember the name for lmight bataillons ). So a line or a light bataillon would sent one company as SK . There are some cases where whole bataillons went SK, line or light but it was as said, unusual .

The difference was : uniform and name + the light were considered elite or better than line but on the battlefield the role was the same, the light being the spearpoint as elite !

But it was not so with austrian jaegers or british riffle units ! They were more SK than used as line .

Not so sure that is true of the 1790's demi Bdes of legere. They were also composed of the shorter more " nimble" men and I would not classify them as elite myself .

[shadowdragon]

Also having whole light units in SK order seems unrealistic unless irregular . But I can live with it .

For interest you might whish to see the following link

http://napolun.com/mirror/napoleonistyk ... tics_4.htm

From the link you provided:

"Several companies or even battalions could be employed as skirmishers (tirailleurs en grande bande). The tiralleurs en grande bande acted in large numbers, stormed or defended a position, or turned the flank of the enemy. The large skirmish formations were usually supported by columns and artillery. At Friedland General Oudinot had deployed 2 full battalions as skirmishers into the Sortlack Wood. In 1814 at La Rothiere four French battalions were formed in skirmish order by La Giberie to anticipate any attack which might develop in the rear of the wood. The French on occasion deployed even entire divisions [!] in skirmish formations. (Nafziger - "Imperial Bayonets" 1996 p 111)
In 1806 at Jena, the French 16th Light Infantry advanced left in front towards the woods: its third battalion advanced en tirailleurs (in skirmish order) towards the wood, the first and second battalion, marching still in column, went past the right of the woods and deployed into line in the plain at musket range from the Prussian battery.

There is a myth, however, that only the French were capable of using entire battalions in skirmish order. In 1813 at Hagelberg the IV Battalion of Prussian 3rd Kurmark Landwehr deployed into skirmish formation and advanced forward together with two other battalion formed in columns screened by their own skirmishers. In the end of battle approx. 300 Prussian skirmishers pursued 2 battalions of French infantry (total 1.000 men). These skirmishers were joined by Cossacks and Russian guns and the French halted and surrendered. In 1812 at Borodino the Russians employed entire brigades of jagers as skirmishers. In 1813 at Dresden, Russian General Roth had several jager battalions of his Advance Guard in skirmish line along the Landgraben canal. At Borodino, Polish 16th Division fought in the wooded area near Utica having 2/3 of its strength fully in skirmish order. In 1813 at Leipzig, Prince Poniatowski deployed 6 Polish battalions into a thick skirmish line.)"

Several other examples are provided.

The evidence supports both that fully deploying was common (examples provided are only a sample) or that fully deploying was uncommon (example provided are the only cases). Or one could argue like a politician - ie backwards from a conclusion (interpret the evidence so it's consistent with an a priori conclusion). Of course war gamers would never do that.

My own view is that towards the end of the war's most line infantry are being to act like light infantry with regards to skirmishing. In the American civil war any regiment was supposed to be capable of fully deploying in skirmish order. But even at Waterloo d'Erlons corps clearly had a greater skirmish capability than is imp,it's by the single legere regiment in the I corps orbat.

In any event there are examples when several battalions including whole regiments fully deployed in skirmish order was done. Therefore it must be represented by the rules.

[shadowdragon]

I'm not sure what you're proposing. Ignoring attached cavalry completely? Reducing their effectiveness? I wouldn't favour the first option but the second is an option but only one that should be considered in conjunction with reduced effectiveness for light infantry units.

See other post for minor reduction.
I am not certain about Light needing reduction. I think some of the options being discussed help reduce them. I think most people are talking about reducing the flexibility of skimisher formation which I agree with reducing.

Going from 5 dice to 4. Uncertain.

Fair enough - re: reduction.

However, it's possibly an unnecessary complication - at least in most cases. For your example - unreformed armies shouldn't be sitting back and firing at medium range anyway. That would be very reformed like.

In the case of a unit in buildings, perhaps they should get no cavalry attachment benefit.

Willing to consider reasonable alternatives....as long as we follow the rule of as simple as possible but no simpler. Lol

[MDH]

Re skirmish order I suppose one could distinguish between a capability that was exercised well and trained for by some and one that could be and was done, but less expertly, by others , and there is a distinction between that order as a target and for movement ( given terrain) and that order as an effective firing formation with the light infantry drills associated with that in the more expert units .

We allow ( indeed require) some French line from 1792-95 to form skirmish order but they fire as line infantry in terms of dice. And in the text I say that whether they did this because it was all they were capable of doing one view) or because of the spirit of the revolution encouraged it (another view) it makes no odds.

But wargames rules are the last place to try to resolve such things. If I had been a scholar writing a PhD thesis I would have had voluminous footnotes a lengthy bibliography original primary research, peer review etc - but no FoG(N). I imagine I should have regarded such stuff as frivolous

A question I ask for all such examples is were they any good at it? Its a bit like the elan and drill values we give to various types. On the day ones d-rolls may suggest that a particular unit was more or less than it was paid for! Oh so they were vets or conscripts after all! Something wrong with the lists then?

[bahdahbum]

Large sk formation were uncommon. I meant in the open, sorry . As always there are exceptions. During revolutionnary wars the french light were so poor that line infantry was deployed as sk.

Light and line did basically the same thing. Name changed line or light. Sk was not light infantry specialisation. Infantry was more flexible than we usually think.
But light being considered as a kind of elite, they were the ones that got the most dangerous job ! Question of esprit de corps.

[hazelbark]

I think you need some significant difference in times and armies.
Also there is in my view a bit of a necessary confusion between elan, skill and skirmish formation ability in different times.
A lot more units formed a skirmish like formation at different times. Examples have been posted.

Add several revolutionary era French units where large formations appeared to go into a skirmish formation.
The whole camp of Boulouge French line seems exceedingly capable of dispersed tactics.
Several instances in many armies of dispersed formation for specific battlefield and terrain action.

In the Russian army, Jaeger regiments were repeatedly pull aside for special duty. Most of this seems based on they wanted the most trained or stalwart troops for serious action. It was clearly not because they were deploying in skirmish formation.

English penny packet company employment (modeled well with attachments)

I think we have in one sense a straight jacket of light troops being the only ones allowed to operate in skirmish formation.

I could see a real radical change as follows:
Certain years and armies: Any line infantry rated as veteran or superior may change to skirmish formation. They fire as (reformed) line.
I would then feel more comfortable doing something like letting all Russian jaegers before 1808 to be bought as veteran or superior line. Maybe even require that.

The amount of Rough terrain would increase as more could contest it.

Skirmishing line still only shoot 3 dice. But take less hits.
This would need serious list examining and playtesting. But might work well with letting unreformed move 6 MU.

A lot of this would increase the options for the early French which seem warranted.
Combine with the what happens if skirmishing infantry gets caught proposed revisions. Creates something...either interesting or too messy.

[deadtorius]

Random thoughts I thought I would throw out there.
Skirmishers
It seems some players feel that at present they get too many dice (5) compared to regular reformed infantry (3). Lets assume that light infantry can be in one of two formations, tactical or skirmish. When in tactical they move at their normal move rate, 4 for unreformed 6 for reformed. They get 3 dice when shooting at med range. This assumes most of their companies are currently in line or column with fewer out front skirmishing. When in skirmish formation they all move 6 MU and get 5 dice. Now we are assuming that more companies have been sent out to skirmish, and get the normal -POA when shot at.
If charged they evade as normal with the risks the new proposals have put out there, spent if caught. An evading skirmishing unit ends its move in tactical, they have fallen back on their battalion HQ's who were assumed to have remained in some non skirmish formation/ rallying point. If charged in the open by cavalry they still test, and evade but have the option of ending in square, but do not get an option to shoot first as its assumed the various companies have been busy running back to reform.
How to represent this? Well easiest way is a counter that says skirmish but this is a figure game so how about having one extra skirmish base with 3 figs that could replace one of the standard rear bases. 2 skirmish bases regular tactical, 3 skirmish bases in skirmish formation. Also not sure if it makes sense but maybe not allow them to have artillery attachments...
Anyway random thought today as my job does not require my full attention and I can ponder things at work.

Buildings.
There seems to be some who consider these things are too easy to take. Granted I have seen games where they can fall quickly and other games where they can hold out for the entire game. Also there is some concern regarding the whole shooting out to med range but not able to send your defending troops out to snipe at the local artillery.
So easiest solution would be to only allow artillery to shoot at a building at any range. Infantry can only shoot at a building at close range. This solves the whole why can I shoot at attacking skirmishers from a building but can't shoot at them in normal circumstances if I am unreformed being shot at med range by reformed infantry. Keep the cavalry attachments inside so they don't affect anything.
My thoughts are that if you are in a building you run a greater risk of being cut off from your own forces and using Aspern Essling as example its hard or impossible to get food and ammunition up to those buildings and your wounded out in some cases. In an extreme case it comes down to bayonets and musket butts as possibly both sides have run out of ammo.
As for taking building easy, the attacker could have an advantage by sending in multiple attackers against a single defending unit. Actually I think its almost the only way to do it at least 2 but 3 attacking units. Do we want to make it harder on the attacker then? if so apply a -POA for attacking a building but defender gets the usual 4 dice etc but no POA mod so hits on the normal 5 or 6. For those of you who want to represent something like the Granary at Aspern or Hougumont then I would suggest re rolling every die that scores a hit. If the die roll is 5 or 6 those dice reduce the hits by 1 for each successful roll. Also add 1 die to cohesion tests since if you are in a nice strong building its likely going to make you feel braver and more secure so why not easier to rally?

Thats it random thoughts done for now. See what you think. Perhaps with luck it might help with some new ideas.

[KitG]

I don't think that there is a problem with the light infantry rules - IF your intention is to model brigade sized units that had the capability of deploying one half to two thirds of their strength in skirmisher screens. These seem to be either:
(a) 'Special' troops - 95th Rifles, 5th Legere and similar units with either different training or equipment than the line. Sometimes these would be elite.
(b) 'Hordes' irregular - Albanian 'riflemen', Revolutionary war demi brigades, Fellahin, revolting Tyroleans - troops that could only fight in a mob with limited ability to make formation changes and not very cohesive.

Don't the rules largely reflect the strengths of type A? (aside from the wonky rules in Book II regarding the Light Division - ever wondered why we never see this division on the table? - we must be the only rule set in Napoleonic Wargaming history that has made this elite division practically worthless in terms of the game!)

Type B seems to be a bit too effective, to my mind. But isn't this largely a rating problem? Could it not be simply solved by making irregulars test on one dice, like conscripts, to reflect their basic mob like state? They are currently far too resilient, in my view.

The other problem is that the lists in books II and III allow far too many light infantry skirmish options - a principle needs to be established whereby if an army doesn't have any specially trained light troops, to such a degree that they can be qualified as Type A, or any Type B Hordes, then they don't get any light infantry. They can take skirmisher attachments instead. Cut down on the amount of Light infantry eligible under the lists and we would be half way right, without really needing to change the rules at all. But for Pete's sake make LI in Skirmish take a CT when charged by Cavalry in the open! For the tenth squared time!

[MDH]

I get the feeling its going to be pretty hard to come up with a revised treatment of Light Infantry that does not displease as many as it pleases - at least on these pages. And they may please nobody. We will need to look at, and people will have to have tested , the combined effect of changes particularly in respect of outcomes rather than what processes or metrics they are supposed to model. Differences of opinion or interpretation are not about errors but design judgments .

I will say this to some of the more radical proposals here. At present I am not at all inclined to implement or be committed to changes that will require the revision of the whole or most of the two books of lists in order to implement them eg wholesale changes in special capabilities and dice and so the points system .

If that is to happen then we would perforce need to consider the revision of much more than we are doing presently for a 2nd ed so we don't end up doing that twice . And don't look for such fundamentally revised lists swiftly . Think of years. It needs planning and an orderly approach to do that and a firmly finalised rule set. The ping pong of rules changes and so lists changes in writing the first version was a real butt and brain pain (what managers and politicians call a " challenge" ).That took years. I will not be rushed into such a thing .

More importantly I am far from convinced that a such a full revision as that will not effectively kill FoG(N)- maybe not among some here - but among the many thousands who bought it and who don't appear here. Too much change and they will not go for it.

I am not giving up my active part of the hobby ,pro bono , for all that time, even in retirement to devote myself to such an outcome ! I myself would not want to pitch that to Slitherine - who by the way own FoG(N). Qui bono?

[shadowdragon]

There is a story in military planning circles that a camel is a horse designed by a committee. Let's not make v2 into a camel. Every rule set ever written is a reflection of the author(s) vision / interpretation of history and the best ones remain true to that vision. I was part of FoGAM v2 beta testing. I believe the discussion there de-evolved to the extent that it turned off at least two of the authors who no longer have any interest in the rules. That's a real shame. Let's not let that happen here. We've plenty of ideas already. Let's focus on testing what's on our plates instead of collective writing.

For my part I'd be happy with a better structured document, incorporation of errata, clarications and other bits found various posts (eg 1812 Wurttemberg list), and some minor changes to tweak the rules.

[hazelbark]

It is probably wise to not get too radical with changes and to focus on clarity and ease of digestion of rules.

[MDH]

There is a story in military planning circles that a camel is a horse designed by a committee. Let's not make v2 into a camel. Every rule set ever written is a reflection of the author(s) vision / interpretation of history and the best ones remain true to that vision. I was part of FoGAM v2 beta testing. I believe the discussion there de-evolved to the extent that it turned off at least two of the authors who no longer have any interest in the rules. That's a real shame. Let's not let that happen here. We've plenty of ideas already. Let's focus on testing what's on our plates instead of collective writing.

For my part I'd be happy with a better structured document, incorporation of errata, clarications and other bits found various posts (eg 1812 Wurttemberg list), and some minor changes to tweak the rules.

Indeed Ney's III Corps of 1812 is done - the first of the new lists I am working on . I hope to get up to 12 new lists, mostly for 1814.They will supplement and add to, not replace. Not so much " Lost Scrolls" as reinforcements