Austrian infantry formations; Line, Division Mass & Battalion Mass

Forgive the crappy photo, but it has been very helpful for me to do diagrams of Napoleonic infantry formations to understand them, and their relation to there own other formations as well as those of other nations,  so I thought others may benefit from it as well.

In 1809 Austrian infantry battalions were composed of 6 companies, just like the French.  However, Austria’s infantry battalions official size in number of men was much larger, the largest in a Europe.

This was because the Austrian line companies official strength was the largest as well; 

180 (German) 200 (Hungarian) rank and file +

14 NCO 

4 officers

2 drummers 

2 Zimmermen (pioneers)

And while many battalions were well below official strength by Wagram, many others had been brought back up to at or close to this level in the lull between Aspern and Wagram. 

Austrian battalion tactical sub-company units were; the half company (obvious as to what this is) and the Zug (1/4 company).  

The main Austrian infantry formations were; line, battalion mass & division mass (where here division = 2 companies).

Line: was used to engage enemy infantry (attaching and defending) and its nature is obvious.  But worth noting that the Austrians formed in 3 ranks, and the company sub-units can clearly still be seen even in this most uniform of formations. (Top of below pic)

The other 2 formations were used more when cavalry was more of a threat, or when not in the front line, or otherwise when space between units was deemed necessary.

Battalion Mass: was formed 1 company wide X 6 companies deep (bottom of below pic) multiple battalions of these could be deployed in checkboard fashion much like the smaller division masses, with artillery batteries deployed between them.

Division Mass:  was formed as 3 separate masses of men of 2 companies each (hence the name); each mass was 1/2 coy wide by 4 coy deep.  And these masses were formed with 2 up and 1 back, spaced so that they could easily form into line when appropriate. With this spacing, friendly cavalry can move around your units, or artillery can be set up in the open spaces, and any enemy cav that attacks will face lots of bayonets and support musket fire.  (Middle of below pic)

Here is my little diagram that shows each of these formations for comparison (but to be clear the units in these 3 formations would not deploy one directly behind the other as in the pic, that was done purely to facilitate comparison to each other and their frontage and spacing. 

Cheers.

The die is cast (as it were)

 So the good news is that Hat is proceeding it’s production of their 1/32 Austrian German fusilier action and marching sets!  Now almost 14 years after the original masters were shown on their site, these figures will finally be available!  Truly great news.

https://hat.freeforums.net/thread/1143/1-32-napoleonic-austrians?page=2

The bad news is that unfortunately Hat was not able to have them produced with swappable hats, so these sets can’t be easily made into Grenadiers or Jagers or anything else without cutting off their heads and finding a suitable replacement; they will ONLY be produced as Austrian German fusiliers with helmets… PERIOD.

Still, they look good, and I very much look forward to buying a LOT of them to fill out my need for Austrian German fusiliers in helmets in my Wagram scenario.  

Since I have stand-in Hungarian fusiliers (BMC Mexicans painted white) for my scenario already, the biggest issue for me now is finding figures to make grenadier battalions.  I have about 5 battalions worth of Italeri grenadiers already, but that still leaves me 14 battalions short of what I need.

Cheers!

Ideas for favorite unique figure poses

In reorganizing many of my various units some things this hobby come into focus.  My various units’ figures come a variety of different sets, made by several different manufacturers , each with their own style and often similar types of figures in their sets.  

Take Hat for instance;  many of their type of troop sets are fairly standardized to either;

1.  For a unit troop type they produce separate action, command and marching sets, with 6 different poses in the command and action Sets, and 2 or 3 in the marching sets, 18 figures total in each set.  The Bavarians, Prussians & Russians sets follow this pattern.  The upcoming Austrian sets will follow this pattern.

2. For a unit type they produce 1 combined action & marching set with 6 poses (either 1 or 2 marching), and then a command set of 6 poses, but that also includes figures for a similar, but slightly different type of troops.  Sets like this include the French light infantry chassuers, voltiguers and Carabiniers sets, and the Wurttemberg line and grenadier sets.   

I like this approach better than that of many other manufacturers that either include too many drummers or officers or flag figures, or even worse; a bunch of odd, not very useful figures, like figures being shot, oddly contorted charging figures, or those using their musket as a club. 

While Hat’s approach of focusing on the most useful poses, their sets are very efficient.  However, a downside of This approach is that many sets contain very similar poses, which can get a little boring when putting together a few hundred battalions.  Don’t get me wrong; I wouldn’t trade this efficiency for anything, but it makes me apprciciate those unique poses which fit into my units where the figure are available in sufficient numbers to do so.  Here are a couple of my favorite fairly rare/unique figure poses that I find useful.

The first is actually made by Hat; from the Carabiniers set, I find this figure helpful in braking the monotony of fire lines with stand fire in front and reload behind;

The next figure is from Armies in Plastic’s French infantry set, and while I typically try to avoid kneeling figures, this pose is useful as either a skirmish, front rank of a square, or a fire line.

Another figure is from Accurate’s excellent AWI British, which is very useful in rear ranks of advancing battalions (particularly when you run out of marching figures);

I will add more useful uniques later.  Cheers!

Comparison of Austrian, French 1808, Prussian musketeer 1806 & Prussian Fusilier 1806 firing lines

 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

Welcome to all my Singapore readers

According to Blogger over the last 6 months the country with the largest number of views of this blog has been Singapore.  Very flattered that people from across the world would be interested in what I’ve posted, hope you have enjoyed it.  

Thank you to my readers from Singapore and everywhere around the world.

Latest troops to join the army!

 I recently noticed some limited restocks of some Hat sets so took the opportunity to try to add some figures to reorganize my Bavarian units (and why not pick up another Austrian command unit if Hat is making noises about producing their Austrians troop sets).

While I ordered 10 Bavarian action sets, they only had 5 (sad face).  But that’s better than the nothing available for the last couple of years.

Cheers

Hat mounted Austrian officer on Hat French dragoon horse

 

It fits!

It is a challenge to find a 1/32 horse for the Hat Austrian mounted officer because the tails of his coat make him a difficult fit for many other manufacturer’s 1/32 horses; doesn’t fit well on Call to Arms, Italeri, or Armies in Plastic horses.  

However he sits quite nicely on Hat’s own 1/32 French dragoon horses.