During this period when most sets I would like to buy are either “out of stock” and not yet produced I have been studying Napoleonic warfare as much as possible. It’s fascinating how much ISN’T known, or well understood about how these huge armies actually fought only 200 years ago.
An example of things not easy to track down accurately is the composition and formations of the units in battle. Look at 10 different sources and you are likely to find 7 different lists number and type of enlisted, NCO and officers in a battalion, and how they were arranged in the line of fire or columns (with at least a few of the agreeing sources being because one used the other as it’s source and they are both wrong). Combing through all this I have tried to distill it into a useful and hopefully accurate record, and diagrams.
It is one thing to know that Austrian units official strengths was much larger than those of the French and other armies. It is quite another to see it actually expressed.
While not the best picture, this is a comparison of a battalion in line formation (from the top);
Austria (in white)
France 1808 (navy)
Prussia musketeers 1806
Prussia Fusiliers 1806
Interesting to see how huge the Austrian battalion is, including it’s much larger 6 companies, with each subdivided into half-company and zug (1//4 company) units. 3 Austrian Zug is larger companies of the other units.
Also; interesting is the nations difference in skirmish deployments. While the French would send out anywhere from a company to the entire battalion in skirmish order, the Austrians used their third rank to skirmish. The Prussian musketeers of 1806 had a separate detachment of about 50 schutzen to skirmish, but would sometimes also use their 3rd rank to boost skirmish numbers when desperate. And the Prussian Fusiliers formed line in only 2 ranks, compared to 3 for all the others, and had a larger 80 men+ Schutzen for skirmishing or detached duties.
Cheers
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