Monday 22 October 2007

Divisional Napoleon's Battles or 'A heresy. Part 3'

Brigade commanders and other Generals
Because of the modification of scale, NBd needs now the inclusion of Generals de Brigade for the combat units as a last step in the command chain. Brigade commanders will have a reduced Comand radius extending only to his own brigade and to the divisional battery and their remaining abilities will be assigned according those from the actual brigade generals when known. To calculate the points value of Generals, consider NBd Brigade Generals like NB Division Generals and NBd Division Generals like NB Corps General but without any drop.

Assignment of casualties
The proposed modifications of the scales of men and time approximately (exactly?) cancel each other, so initially there is no need for further change in the assignment of casualties, because the product [men (or guns) x time] remains near constant.
The main danger of this approach could be an excesive hitting power for artillery resulting from the great number of batteries, so this effect can be further researched.

Change of formation
In NBd a turn expands only 10 (7.5) minutes, a time-length similar to the taken by almost all the formation changes carried out by battalions or cavalry regiments but a brigade taken many more time (see Jeffrey G., Tactics and Grand Tactics of the Napoleonic Wars, Ed. by Ned Zuarko, The Courier Publishing Co., 1988).
In NB that is abstracted by substracting the time of formation changes from their lesser Line movement allowance. The net result is that only very well drilled brigades, have any additional mowement allowance left after changing formation.
The simpler way to model that in NBd is to consider that all formations changes of individual combat units take a turn to complete, i.e. 10 (7.5) minutes. Brigade evolutions are then made by the individual units using their new movement allowances.

Evidently, all these thoughts and wonderings must be carefully play-tested and the next step will be the design or adaptation of divisional Scenarios.

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