army's in Waterloo scenario

Is it me or do the British have more men and artillery than the French?

Shouldn't this be the other way around?

To me both sides seem short of troops although perhaps the French more so. I also find the battlefield a little small and cluttered. I guess they had to include the three farm buildings but they lack the large spaces between them.

Originally Posted by yodafly

To me both sides seem short of troops although perhaps the French more so. I also find the battlefield a little small and cluttered. I guess they had to include the three farm buildings but they lack the large spaces between them.

The real battlefield was rather small for a napoleonic battle of this size and one of its main feature was precisely the lack of space for manoeuvering between the fortified houses wich created killzones for the artillery.

True Keyser, but in the game there's barely 4 or 5 house widths between the buildings and it certainly wasn't like that at Waterloo. I guess whilst the game is awesome at what it does, it's just impossible to scale battles down to fit into the game mechanics.

It's just balanced to the game. If you play as British I think there are more French.

The French and 'British' armies were roughly equal in size - however Wellington's forces were qualitatively inferior including a great many Dutch, Belgian and German units that were of dubious value - and even his British regiments were generally of poorer quality than those he'd led in the Peninsula.

Don't know how you'd represent that other than by giving the French units several experience chevrons each and the British and their allies next to none.

I played the British Waterloo this morning and I can't remember the numbers but it really seemed that the French had more troops. Until Blucher arrived and promptly got murdered along with the rest of his "army"

Its interesting to look at the orders of battle - even a glance will show you how completely impossible it is to capture a major Napoleonic battle with just a maximum of 20 company (or platoon!) sized units per army.

However the OOB on wikipedia is misleading as it is for the whole campaign and not the battle itself - for example under 60% of Napoleon's Armee du Nord actually fought at Waterloo as four corps were tied up fighting one Prussian corps at Wavre instead.

The supposedly authoritative Greenhill Napoleonic Wars Data Book is also wrong including whole French and allied corps that never actually appeared on the day.

http://www.napoleon-series.org/milit...terloooob.html seems accurate for the French.

http://www.britishbattles.com/waterl...lied-order.htm seems accurate for the British.

One major issue is that most French units were seriously understrength due to their having seen more action and marched further and faster than the British - the average French battalion seems to have been only 500 strong compared to 640 for the average 'British' one.

Those British battalions - particularly those in the Foot Guards brigades - that were at full strength were also much larger than even a full-strength French one, having 1,000+ men on the day of battle.

This makes the final confrontation between the British and French guards far less equal than it looks in most depictions of the battle.

The Prussians having been soundly beaten at Ligny two days before were also seriously understrength but even so their battalions were still larger on average than the French.

Its also worth noting that most of the French ligne and legere regiments at Waterloo only had two battalions instead of the 3, 4, 5 or 6 of earlier campaigns.

This would have presented them with tactical problems in that officers and men were used to maneuvering in bigger formations - and it may explain the disastrous divisional columns used by D'Erlon's corps: the standard l'ordre mixte formation that put a battalion in line between two in column really needed a minimum of three battalions per regiment to work.

In addition D'Erlon's corps had managed to avoid Quatre Bras or Ligny by marching backwards and forwards between them all day so this was literally the first time it had fought together.

The French did have a lot more cannon though - a third more in terms of pieces but probably nearer half more in terms of total poundage of shot.

However much of this advantage was nullified by the muddy ground and Wellington's careful use of the reverse slope to protect his troops.

Great post Claudius. You might want to go into detail about English Infantry allignment and fighting vs French Infantry and fighting technique

Most Resptectfully submitted, Capt R. Sharpe

Originally Posted by Clodius

This would have presented them with tactical problems in that officers and men were used to maneuvering in bigger formations - and it may explain the disastrous divisional columns used by D'Erlon's corps: the standard l'ordre mixte formation that put a battalion in line between two in column really needed a minimum of three battalions per regiment to work.

Well the attack of D'Erlon seems to have worked rather well in fact, before being charged at least...

The Dutch and other 'non-British' units of Wellington's army actually fought very bravely and, dare I say, might have saved the day at Waterloo.

Their roles, however, have been 'downgraded' by later historiographies. I just recently read an amazing account of the battle and those poor Dutch and other nationalities were of immense importance to Wellington's victory.

Originally Posted by Erkli Pasha

The Dutch and other 'non-British' units of Wellington's army actually fought very bravely and, dare I say, might have saved the day at Waterloo.

Their roles, however, have been 'downgraded' by later historiographies. I just recently read an amazing account of the battle and those poor Dutch and other nationalities were of immense importance to Wellington's victory.

Actually barring some cavalry who ran away the Dutch, Belgians and Germans indeed all did their bit - particularly the Kings German Legion and the Brunswickers.

Naturally historians tend to focus on their own nationality - if I could read Dutch or German I am sure could dig up balancing accounts.

My impression has been that the KGL, both then and now, were always regarded as semi-elite troops. The bad reputation of foreign troops seems to stem mainly from the seemingly poor performance of some of the Dutch militia and such . . . which was more or less to be expected, I suppose.

Chasseurs Britaniqques and others of the such drag reputation down, the KGL troops really were excellent quality, countless others as well, Hessians were good troops as were Brunswickers, Croats and Poles fought well...

Some were good quality, some were awful, its the same in all armies.

Well the Waterloo battle in the game shows what a nonsense the current 20 unit battle system is when trying to transfer it to a Napoleonic scenario. Not to change or update the system in someway that represents the corps/division setup of the era was downright lazy if you ask me.

But the whole point was that while a battalion column could form square very quickly, D'Erlon's division columns were actually each made up of 7 or 8 battalions in line stacked one after the other with only 4 paces or 10 feet between each battalion - so any attempt to form battalion squares instantly resulted in the division merging into one confused mass of 4,000-odd men - particularly if as appears to be the case the divisions had never manoeuvred together in this or any other formation before the battle.

So by forming up that way they were just inviting annihilation by cavalry charge - and that's exactly what they got.

In fact didn't one of D'Erlon's Generals de Division wisely ignore his orders and form up in battalion columns? - and it was his division that was the only one that survived as a useful unit.

Another under-estimated factor is that the Bourbon regime had deliberately done everything in its power to destroy the esprit de corps of the Napoleonic army - many regiments were completely disbanded and an attempt was made to form wholly new named departmental regiments out of battalions and companies taken at random from different regiments - even ligne and legere regiments got mixed together this way.

Napoleon tried to reverse this 'reform' but had so little time that the regiments of the Armee du Nord were seriously understrength having just two battalions apiece - and even if those battalions included a great many veterans they were not necessarily fighting in their old regiments and much of the small unit cohesion that is vital to any army had been lost.

This is why Chandler calls it a deadly but brittle weapon - it still had a powerful punch but had far less staying power than previous armies and its regiments broke and ran far more easily than their predecessors.

All this really says is that to recreate a battle like Waterloo properly you need a whole game designed for that one battle alone.

When I was playing as the British at the Battle of Waterloo I counted that the French had 24 units, I don't know I might have miscounted.