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Post by bruce on Feb 2, 2018 14:28:51 GMT
i continue to amend my own evolving rule set, and I am trying to somewhat straddle the line between slightly grand tactical and more detailed tactical actions. A lot of rules sets incorporate a skirmishing factor into combat resolution for units without actually having them on the table.
i have some French and Austrian painted up for this purpose but have not added them into the mix. How many of you use rules or have house rules for actually fighting a skirmish phase with figures? What are the pros and cons?
And how much weight should rules give skirmishing as a factor in gaming that is more or less consistent with historical realities? Bruce
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Post by Richard on Feb 2, 2018 19:26:59 GMT
its hard vwith skirmish rules, there a fine balance between workable and boring with little to no effect on large formations
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Post by bruce on Feb 4, 2018 15:01:07 GMT
Agreed, Richard. But there is a lot of evidence that skirmishing was a major part of battles, causing continuous significant casualties among officers and artillery especially, attrition and morale impact on formed troops.
My guess is that many more casualties were caused by skirmishing than in melee attacks or volleys, especially later in the wars. Bayonet wounds were among the least common. Volley accuracy has been estimated at very low rates. In my own rules, formed infantry only charge when they have a numerical advantage. Usually they fire at musket range until one side has a morale breakdown and retreats or runs. Of course there are exceptions - Borodino is always in the back of my mind.
But there seems to be evidence that skirmish fire was so comparatively accurate and debilitating that there was significant impact on morale and performance, troop movements, etc. so I guess I am wondering whether representing this on the table is more important than just having it be an imaginary combat factor. Am I wrong about this? Lost my perspective? Bruce
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Post by john124 on Feb 4, 2018 16:12:33 GMT
The essence of Napoleonic warfare for me is skirmishers. They along with, squares, columns of attack ,massed batteries and greater quantities of horse artillery, separate it from the actions of the seven years war. Skirmishers were their to perform several functions, one of which was to dilute the combat power of the enemy line, mainly by hitting its command and control. I use ITGM rules and it uses skirmish lines. I do not see how you can accurately show the skirmish actions by just using a factor. Look at the Battle of Saalfeld to see how effective skirmishers could be. The Prussians were practically beaten before the attack columns turned up. Bayonets were their to scare the enemy away not to inflict casualties. John.
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Post by bruce on Feb 4, 2018 19:08:14 GMT
I am still studying this, just read that fully 1/3 of Prussian infantry were designated for skirmishing from 1813. They had learned their lesson. I want to integrate skirmishers into my rules without getting too complex. ITGM may have some answers for me. LaSalle also adds skirmish bases to formations, but they are attached. I think a skirmish turn phase would include counter- skirmishing options as well. Yes, skirmishers do fall back into the main body sometimes, but they also seem to have become more than just a preliminary step, maintaining pressure for long periods. Control of skirmish ground could have a significant impact over a number of turns.
Any other rules that let this guys get well out ahead of the main body and cause trouble? Bruce
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Post by tim on Feb 4, 2018 21:19:26 GMT
In March Attack rules it is handled abstractly, the battlefield is divided into logical areas of contact and skirmish values of the opposing formations compared. The result is arrived at via a difference in factors plus a a die roll to see who has won the skirmish battle in that area and a morale adjustment applied to the losing formation. It won't win the battle but acts more like attrition and softens up the enemy (as it should do) Seems like a simple way to handle the situation of skirmishers in 6mm where you really don't want separate figures for the skirmishing elements and no figure removal for casualties. Tim
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Post by profjohn on Feb 5, 2018 0:20:26 GMT
Rules aside this is a fascinating thread. I hadn't thought about skirmishing in this way much beyond the French use of skirmish screens. One third of Prussian infantry on skirmishing duties is amazing. I can feel some research on casualty rates coming on as it's quite true that volley fire wasn't generally a mass killer and bayonets were, as stated, more about morale. So unless artillery did all the damage there is an interpretative deficit in casualty rates which could be explained by skirmishing casualties. Interestingly - and on another tack - the Ottoman janissaries refused to use bayonets and saw them as a weapon fit only for slaves although they were issued to the short lived Turkish New Army (guess my current enthusiasm).
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Post by bruce on Feb 5, 2018 2:42:52 GMT
Tim, you are quite right about March Attack - one of the best skirmish resolution rule sets I think. It has a meaningful skirmish phase and gets the results as you say. I do not quite get the determination of the areas though. I know you play these rules - are skirmish areas determined by an informal assessment relative to the positions of formed troops?
Yes there are challenges to adding more figures to a 6mm battlefield, and scale and ranges may also a problem if skirmish figures are added. Thinking this through.
Prof - I am thinking the same thing. Estimates are that more than 75% of casualties were by musket fire, yet volley fire was clearly inaccurate at best, as much a test of nerves in the smoke and noise as anything. Skirmish fire was quite accurate by comparison, as skirmishers made effective use of cover, speed and initiative to get the best shots. Are skirmishers undervalued in gaming? Bruce
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Post by davidsh on Feb 5, 2018 10:38:37 GMT
A number of good questions. I still use a modified version of Horse, Foot and Guns (remember those?). Skirmishers are a specific unit type and I have skirmish units for all armies. The French tend to have the most (all those references to 'clouds' of skirmishers) and they can make themselves a nuisance. They can also be absorbed by swapping, say, three units of skirmishes for one of formed infantry. The process can also be reversed if required.
There are also many references to jagers and light infantry of all nations being a real pain to their opponents - especially the 95th Rifles!
It is not really very fiddly to game, and does give more options. Besides, is it much different to using hordes of Cossacks? 😊
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Post by bruce on Feb 5, 2018 20:00:07 GMT
There seems to be a fair amount of info online about the lack of hits from volley fire, both in battle and via trials conducted by armies. Does our use of dice to determine the number of hits from a volley perhaps inflate the actual effectiveness?
Many games use the number of hits to indicate the gradual lose of combat effectiveness, rather than the old school number of men hit. This would include things like fatigue and muskets not able to fire after a while. March Attack rules refer to a unit's combat value, which is degraded by hits. This seems to address some of the gaming issues.
Maybe skirmishers impact pact on combat value is not as high as it should be, given that volleys might only hit 5% of what they were aiming at. Bayonets seem to account for only 2% of wounds, artillery and sabres/blades around 12-15% each. I suspect figures on this sort of thing are speculative, but provide food for thought. Muskets cause the most casualties. But how? The French surgeon Larrey reports on an especially vicious melee with some Russians which still resulted in almost no bayonet wounds but lots of musket wounds. Bruce
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Post by profjohn on Feb 5, 2018 22:00:47 GMT
The question of the relative effectiveness of volley fire vs skirmished fire certainly merits a good look. Coming back to the rules issue I suppose one could apply a very simplistic approach and assume that the casualties from volley fire include the casualties from skirmishers and that the skirmish screens for individual units are assumed to be there and in play but not actually represented by figures. My own way with the French is to mount my units up in column and have the Voltigeurs out in loose order at the front (I don't use any basing system except what pleases me so this won't suit everyone). I base French light infantry as skirmishers only. But this has certainly made me think about increasing the fire effectiveness of specialist jäger, light and rifle units. On the other hand you have the slower rate of fire for rifles - does that cancel out the advantage? And then there's Plunkett's famous shot.... Then there's pure volley fire vs platoon or section based fire discipline - the latter seems to have been perceived to have been more effective if you were on the receiving end because the relative proportion of casualties in the part of the line facing the firing platoon felt high compared with a single whole unit volley. It seems to me that skirmisher-imposed casualties may have felt the same so, whether or not the hit rates were better, the impact on morale may have been heavier and so - given that the ultimate resource is the infantry's will to carry on - big skirmish screens would have been worth having. Lots to think about!
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Post by profjohn on Feb 5, 2018 22:43:10 GMT
The question of the relative effectiveness of volley fire vs skirmished fire certainly merits a good look. Coming back to the rules issue I suppose one could apply a very simplistic approach and assume that the casualties from volley fire include the casualties from skirmishers and that the skirmish screens for individual units are assumed to be there and in play but not actually represented by figures. My own way with the French is to mount my units up in column and have the Voltigeurs out in loose order at the front (I don't use any basing system except what pleases me so this won't suit everyone). I base French light infantry as skirmishers only. But this has certainly made me think about increasing the fire effectiveness of specialist jäger, light and rifle units. On the other hand you have the slower rate of fire for rifles - does that cancel out the advantage? And then there's Plunkett's famous shot.... Then there's pure volley fire vs platoon or section based fire discipline - the latter seems to have been perceived to have been more effective if you were on the receiving end because the relative proportion of casualties in the part of the line facing the firing platoon felt high compared with a single whole unit volley. It seems to me that skirmisher-imposed casualties may have felt the same so, whether or not the hit rates were better, the impact on morale may have been heavier and so - given that the ultimate resource is the infantry's will to carry on - big skirmish screens would have been worth having. Lots to think about!
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Post by bruce on Feb 6, 2018 6:03:18 GMT
Yes David, I do remember HFG, especially the long wait for a final version! Sounds like you have modified yours to make skirmishers a unit type and have not found them to be too difficult to manage on the table. I use magnetic bases, 4 separate stands to a base, so I can send out and recall skirmish stands. I also use figure removal for loses, troops run away, killed/ wounded are replaced with casualty bases (from Irregular), all to give the table a battlefield look. I am going to experiment. May be too fiddly or it may be just the thing!
As Profjohn has said, whether you abstract them or use figs, the question is, do loose order units have the impact they deserve. I think rifle fire was not the norm, most skirmishers had muskets. The 95 th and the KGL were exceptional units by any standard, not typical. The French were clearly the leaders in this tactic, but the Austrians and eventually the Prussians and Russians were effective practitioners.
I remember reading about a German battery at Waterloo that was all but destroyed by musket fire by the end of the day without ever firing on formed troops until near the final stage of the battle. It certainly is food for thought. Bruce
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Post by twr on Feb 8, 2018 5:59:14 GMT
The rules I use (Volley & Bayonet) have regiments or brigades as the basic infantry formation - typically 1500 to 2500 men per brigade. They allow the use of independent skirmish detachments (500 men) or reinforcing skirmishers who reinforce a brigade. We tend to use detachments to hold small building complexes (think La Haye Sainte). Generally however they support the brigade.
At a game level they improve the fighting capabilities of the brigade by increasing the brigades combat value and have a chance of drawing enemy musket fire away from the brigade. When you consider the level of the game, and that each pair of turns represents an hour, this level of representation works well.
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Post by bruce on Feb 8, 2018 18:05:20 GMT
This seems sound - maybe I want to have my cake and eat it too, but I like seeing the figures if it can be made to work without a lot of fuss. Grand tactical games rather naturally tend to represent skirmishing symbolically, but I want it all! Bruce
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Post by twr on Feb 8, 2018 21:31:04 GMT
The rules encourage the use of seperate skirmish stands which are placed in front of the stand which has skirmishers operating with it. However, my stands frequently have the skirmish screens modelled on the bases these days. I find this works well for 6mm.
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Post by Orlog Subedai on Feb 9, 2018 22:01:07 GMT
In our 5mm rules -with the old MiniFigs blocks from the 1970's- single skirmisher companies are deemed to be too small to faff around with so we use whole battalions in skirmish order -1 block gap between two for a skirmish line or two lines in chequerboard fashion for a skirmish screen. Each battlaion is 3-5 blocks depending on nationality. Firing at formed troops was as normal but firing at a skirmish line meant that a third of casualties came off the light troops and two thirds from the formation behind if in range. Firing at a screen meant all casualties came off the screen The thinking behind this was that although cover was used a six deep skirmish screen would take more casualties. There is also a minus modifier for firing at skirmishers as well. Maybe this system might spark a line of tangential thinking.
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Post by bruce on Feb 10, 2018 4:50:26 GMT
Hi Mick: I am guessing that the minus modifier is to account for the fact that skirmishers are literally smaller targets, and should be presumed to be under at least some cover most of the time. Is this correct? What happens when skirmishers fire on skirmishers? The skirmish lines were often such a problem that cavalry might be sent in to clear them out. Or two opposing skirmish lines might fight for control of the skirmish area during a turn phase. This becomes almost a battle within a battle perhaps during a skirmish phase for the turn. Might be too fiddly, or it might be an interesting part of a game. But I think its worth fooling around with - maybe smaller stands of skirmish figures moving around and causing trouble. Bruce
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Post by Orlog Subedai on Feb 11, 2018 21:55:13 GMT
Yes Bruce, the minus was to allow for the rapid movement of individuals and cover etc.
If I were to explain the basis of the rules -written in the late 70's by the way- it might explain the system a little better. Each formation inflicts a number of Flinch Points (FP) either psychological (morale)or physical (firing and melee)depending on the circumstances. If two formed skirmish lines/screens come up against each other then each would inflict an equal number of psychological FP so they would cancel each other out, therefore no effect. If both fire and one has a more effective fire than the other then this could cause enough casualties to infict a physical FP. The net result would be that the loser of the firing would be 'pushed back' 20 paces (2cm) per FP -up to 2, any more signifies a rout. This 'push back' is not meant literally but is only a simple method to reflect that the volume of fire was enough to slow down the advance by a proportional amount. The victorious unit has the option of advancing an equal distance at no cost if it wants to.
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Post by bruce on Feb 12, 2018 5:25:13 GMT
Very interesting indeed. This seems like it could create some interesting ebb and flow, also making for a simple and smooth resolution. Thanks Mick, Bruce
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Post by davidsh on Feb 12, 2018 10:18:53 GMT
Using specific skirmish units on the table is very useful. As Mick said, they can be pushed back, but due to their formation and function, can bounce back quite readily and carry on being annoying. Very useful in popping at gun crews, or operating on flanks in support of formed infantry. They can also tie down greater numbers of formed troops, so the best way of dealing with them is to send in skirmishers to oppose. Gives another dimension to the games, fictional or historic.
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Post by bruce on Feb 13, 2018 4:48:38 GMT
Agreed David. And while I think it's okay to abstract them as some excellent games do, I want to try playing with them. As an American, I take to loose order fighting from cover quite naturally! Bruce
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