No Difference Between Column Speed and Line Speed of March
One of my two serious pet peeves about the land warfare tactical model in TWN/TWE.
Please note that I am not a military historian. However, last year I was hired by a small computer game company to redesign a Napoleonic strategy war game (yes, in my opinion strategically better and much more realistic than anything in the Total War line--but of course, graphically inferior) and turn it into a game covering 1683-1792. I have always loved history and especially military history, and in order to prepare for the project, I read all of or most of thirty books (yes, thirty) covering the warfare of the period. So at least you know I am not shooting from the hip here.
My problem is this. In Total War Napoleon (and I am assuming also Empire), the speed of march in line formation is exactly the same as the speed of march in "column" formation. Historically, there could be a significant difference between the two.
It took massive levels of repeated drill to get units to advance in thin lines. Advancing in line was a very complicated task. It is dreadfully complicated to keep a formation with a 300 or 500 man front moving in a thin line. But you must in order to maintain cohesion, increase combat effectiveness and reduce your numbers of stragglers. The Prussians of the mid 1700s, of course, perfected drill and were capable of higher rates of march in line wihtout disorganization. The slightest obstacle on the field could ruin the formation.
The French army of the Napoleonic wars was a massive, conscripted army -- with enthusiasm, but hardly the best drilled in Europe in the last 100 years. This lack of drill required the French to use other methods to close with and engage the enemy and their solution of the rapid evolution from the faster column to much slower line was in and of itself a tactical revolution. They were for the first time able to pin down enemy formations and force battle on them with the combined use of their relatively recently invented division system and the rapid deployment from their lines of march on roads to line in the field.
But column, while easily used by undrilled troops, could also be very dangerous on the battlefield to the troops using it. In deep formations, it would be easy for the enemy to take out many many of your troops with a single cannon ball -- and the target environment was simply richer, presenting anyone firing with a thick, rich wall of flesh. Thankfully the physical simulation of projectile trajectory in TWN takes care of this all on its own and there would be no need for any kind of jury rigging.
From the Wikipedia entry for "Column (formation)" (yes, with 30+ books on the shelf behind me I have better sources, but don't have the time):
During the Peninsular War, after the Battle of Sabugal (3 April 1811), Duke of Wellington wrote, "our loss is much less than one would have supposed possible, scarcely 200 men... really these attacks against our lines with columns of men are contemptible." [2] These failings were still evident at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815,[3] prompting Wellington to comment, "They came on in the same old way and we defeated them in the same old way."[4][5]"
Most unfortunately, playing TWN, I see units moving in line and running along and quickly getting reordered when they arrive. There is no need to approach the enemy in column to rapidly maneuver (or because your troops are simply incapable of any speed of advance in line).
The French development of a rapid deployment from column to line, in my opinion, is the dominant tactical infantry revolution of the period. And it is wholly missing from TWN.
If I were designing for Creative Assembly, I would implement the following type of system:
Units can be in either "column" or "line" formation. This is a toggle switch, like so many others in TWN. When the unit is in column mode, it will seek out a frontage of no more than 10 men--or perhaps a road in width (this is not a historical number, and is only an arbitraty number meant to have something which works on the scale of TWN--the narrower the formation, the faster it would be). Whenever a unit has a frontage of 11 or more men, the rate of march would drop significantly. Deployed in column, the frontage would be the afforementioned 10 men. But when a player clicks on "line" mode, the men available spread out into 2 or 3 man deep formations as quickly as possible (perhaps the player also gets to choose this "line depth" with a setting, but most nations had abandoned 3 man deep lines by the mid 1700s). In order to keep things simple, there would be only one column width used in the game...10 men or less. Note that in some sources I have seen, columns could have frontages 60 men or more across. Though the advantages of speed probably drop here as well.
What would be interesting about this type of system, is that this "evolution" from column to line would take place at different speeds, depending on the nation and the quality level of the troops. The French were good at this evolution (at least at the start of the wars). The worse the troops and the later in the war, the slower this evolution would have been.
In my opinion, this NEEDS to be in the game to make it slightly more of a "simulation" and not a parlor game.
This speed of evolution could/should also be used for square formation, but that is a whole other story.
P.S. My other peeve is the "stone wall" range of weapons which results in the silly light infantry duels where the whole thing can hinge on 2-3 meters of range. I will post on that elsewhere.
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Originally Posted by Victrian
