Napoleonic Basics: British Infantry
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- čas přidán 10. 09. 2024
- In the first of a series of videos looking at the basics of Napoleonic wargaming. In this episode we look at the organisation of a British company, battalion, regiment and brigade and what these terms actually mean. Enjoy!
Grenades were considered to be just as dangerous to the grenadier and his comrades as to the enemy and so were phased out. The grenadier as a type of soldier first appears in the army of Louis XIV in the 1670s and the grenade was used on the battlefield but very quickly became a weapon for sieges only. A good example of this is the siege of the Schellenberg in 1704.
They were not used very often by the 1750s and they had been removed altogether by the time of the American War of Independence. As you say, the grenadiers were often the biggest and strongest men of the battalion although they could also be older, veteran soldiers who were known to steady. As a consequence of this the rest of the battalion sometimes referred to them as ‘grannies’!
I love this community, the fact you wrote that text to explain a flashing question the presenter had is amazing
33rd Regiment of Foot, "The Havercake's", Richard Sharpe's, and also Sir Arthur Wellesley's old Regiment back in India
Thanks for the interesting videos!
About batallions and regiments: there is an important distinction for the Napoleonic time - a batallion is like the company and the brigade a unit on the combat unit. The regiment on the other hand is an administrative unit (also in the French army). Even when the French deployed more batallions of the same regiment in the field they didn´t often or necessarily in the same brigade. So the first batallion of a French regiment could be part of a brigade in Spain while the second batallion was part of a brigade stationed in Germany. When it came to tactics no Napoleonic general would talk about regiments.
Grenadiers: in the 18th century step by step the grenade was abandoned. In the AWI is should have been gone. The fighting/tactics changed. In the 17th century there were still blocks of pikemen. It was easier and more effective to throw grenades in this kind of slow and packed formations. In the 18th century this kind of formations were gone and so the grenade was abandoned.
I've always been interested in the Napoleonic genre, and all of this tabletop stuff in general is new to me, but it seems like something i'd enjoy, great video.
Welcome to the channel! I hope you don't find Naps too daunting! Any questions feel free to ask!
Great video - very useful. Just getting started with BP in a Napoleonic setting. With regards to the issue of why grenadiers were called grenadiers, I understand the issue as follows (although I might be very wrong). In the 17th and 18th centuries Grenadiers were armed with grenades and tended to be the tallest and physically strongest soldiers who had the ability to throw grenades the furthest. From mid / late 17th century grenadiers gradually stopped using grenades, but the name was kept out of habit and for morale / propaganda / psychological warfare reasons to indicate that a particular unit were physically stronger and so on. Must stress, I'm not 100% about this- it's just one of those bits of info that I picked up ages ago and I can't even remember the source, never mind vouch for its legitimacy.
good explanation !
advances in musket technology giving longer range and faster reloading meant grenades were less efficient than having the grenadiers just shoot at the enemy , so they where phased out by the Napoleonic Wars .
What a great, helpful video! Thanks so much for putting all this info together, and popping on some visuals to boot. Awesome.
Except for the Light Division, Portuguese Line were not brigaded with British Infantry. Portuguese Line regiments were two battalions to a regiment, they served together. A typical "British" division in the Peninsula was made up of two or three British brigades and one Portuguese brigade.
worth Redding the Waterloo companion. A few regiments (Guards) paraded with over a 1,000 men
Just started in Napolenics with the Black Powder set and the most confusing thing to me is unit structure & the sheer amount of units to choose from. The armies if you play historicial reenactments are huge so condensing this down to building your own can be daunting. I've ordered the companion scenarios & army lists to go with it.
I'll be doing a video on selecting armies using the army lists this weekend, so keep an eye out for that! I've also done a series on putting on a game where I talk about using historical orders of battle (oob) to plan your army
Well done! I've Liked and Subscribed. Just in this first video I've watched you have cleared up many of the questions that I had about the organization of the Napoleonic British Army. I just finished watching the video on the Russians and will be watching the lot! Again, well done!
Thanks dude! Glad you enjoyed it!
Hey man, great video. Liked it a lot. Just starting B.P myself, so I learned a lot. Looking forward to you covering the French. Keep up the good work.
Very interesting chat, always something to learn. The centre column at the beginning of the Zulu war had both battalions of the 24th foot interestingly, I can't quite remember why they were all sent out (and to the same theatre). Keep up the great work.
Fantastic set of videos and great channel. I've always wanted to get into Napoleonic wargaming and have actually started. Rule set I've chosen is Sharp Practice from too fat lardies but that being said, the history and facts you talk about is fascinating and I very much look forward to see the video on light infantry, 95th Rifles. Keep up the good work
It's a good rules, we've played it a couple of times. We're putting together forces from Napoleon's Egyptian campaign
I really like those dynamic poses. What brand of models are those in the beginning?
Great video, good explanation. Thanks for this series.
Hello @Napoleonic Basics, at 2:20 you say 6 Companies make a Battalion, but then at 7:17 you say its 10 Companies to a Battalion; just wondering which is correct? Sorry, this is all new to me
This is really helpful. Just getting started and am having difficulty getting my head around numbers to use and military organization of the time but this cleared everything up for GB forces.
I have seen your Austrian videos but is there any chance you might do a similar video to this one to help understand how to represent their brigades on the table top? In particular I'm not sure about number of companies to use, how or how many of the light and grenadier companies fit into their regiments or would they be separate?
Thanks for all your hard work on these videos and please keep doing them!
Glad it helped! I found it very confusing at the start too!
The Austrians would remove the grenadiers to form separate units called 'combined grenadiers' which would be used as an elite reserve. The remaining companies would form up in the line battalion. I use battalions of 48 figures. I'll go into more detail in the how to start Austrians which will hopefully be 10th Oct's video
@@NapoleonicWargaming thanks so much, can't wait! Stay safe.
They look awesome, excellent job!
you slightly mistaken dueling the Napoleonic wars many British Regiments had 3 to 4 battalion in that period with . some posted to the West Indies and Australia. India, in fact the 95th rifles the Green jackets end up with 7 or 8 battalions at the end of the war
with quite a few 2nd battalions served in Spain
Hi, I am new to 28mm Napoleonic gaming and need some advice. I have several boxes of Perry British Line Infantry and wanted some advice on building regiments. My idea is to build regiments of 30 men, 5 bases of 6. I'm a little confused about the flank troops though. I'd prefer not to use split bases to hold 3 grenadiers or 3 light infantry. Can I put 6 grenadiers and 6 light inf at each end or is this too many? Can I have 6 grenadiers or 6 light infantry at one end and ordinary troops at the other, thus sticking to 6 flank troops per 30 man unit? Sorry if my question is confusing, I'm finding it difficult to find a definitive answer to this.
It is too many really. British companies were (on paper) 100 men, and roughly minis equal 20 men, so you'd want 5. That said, most companies really got to about 50, so 2-4 minis would be right. That said, if you want to go with a full base of 6, why not?! They're only representative anyway.
The only issue you're going to have is the ratio of flank company guys to centre company guys in the box, but if there's enough, go large!
@NapoleonicWargaming fantastic reply, thank you so much! I was also thinking I could build units of 32 men (8×4) with 4 of each flank troop on each end. This might be a better representation and allow either a long line of 8 bases or a block of 2×4. Again I am very new to this and it probably shows lol. I've played 40k on and off for years but this is a different ballgame!
Again, thank you so much for your time!
Hi, I'm just editing some stats for a Napoleonic genre game, a bit different from table-top type but still a warfare oriented. In this regard, I wonder what, in your opinion, would be the most adequate army organization that can be set as a standard for all armies of that age - that could be used as a Unify template each player can use no matter the Nation he chooses (Historical accuracy have to be partially neglected for the applicability of these base mechanics). I know that each nation applies its own structure and that it is radically different from that of others and that there have been at least two serious reorganizations of the military in the wars of the coalition in each country, but in this case I need a basic framework. I need the most popular model of division of units in the armed forces during the Coalition Wars, so whatever order a player choose he can not get out of this frame. The numbers I represent are relatively restrictive and closer to what the European armies were during the sixth and seven coalition, but I do not want to impose excessive numbers on the hierarchy and to get drastic differences in the size of the divisions each player could compose.
At the moment, I have chosen a division to be able to support 2 or 3 main brigades (light / line infantry or cavalry brigades) and to have the option of adding a support artillery brigade (rather a pair of batteries) and support battalion of skirmishers / grenadiers assembled from the main units.
Each infantry brigade contains 2 regiments (but also 1 is a possibility), each regiment - 2 battalions (made up of 6 companies each). Which means that an infantry brigade would consist of between 2 and 4 battalions. For the British Army it is characteristic of 4 regiments to make 1 brigade, but since each regiment in battle is present with only 1 battalion this actually means that their brigades were usually composed of up to 4 battalions during campaign, and the late French infantry brigade was formed from 2 regiments 2 field battalions each - again 4 in total. I can see that this is typical for the late Austrian (except they attached artillery directly to each Brigade and not under divisional command) and partially late Russian armies (1812 onward). Only the Prussian brigades were larger, but they are rather substitutes for divisions.
The cavalry brigades are rather similar, composed of 1 or 2 regiments, the regiment is of 2 wings with 2 squadrons each (4 sqd. per reg. in total).
The depot battalions of the regiments are not taken into consideration (as if they did not exist).
Nice video! Very informative.
when your playing black powder, is it important to do company's with flank companies or make them for example, all guard, all light or all regulars and still be viable?
Not at all! The units are representations, so it doesn't matter if you don't have the 'right' number of flank company troop. In fact, I grossly over represent them in my units, with 1 in 3 figures being flank company when in reality if should be about 1in 5!
Do I understand correctly that the Light infantry was always part of the line infantry and just detached as the commanders saw fit? Or were there also Regiments of Light infantry that operated on their own? And in Black Powder terms. Can you tell me how many models I should painting as Light and how many as line infantry, e.g. Out of a Box of 60 victrix models Thank you!
There's a few questions there I think, I hope to answer them clearly!
1. There were units of light infantry in most Napoleonic armies. In France there were the Legere, in Britain we called them Light Infantry (such as the Kings Own Yorkshire Light Infantry or the Durham Light Infantry). The Russians called them Jager, the Prussians were a bit different, well get to that in a bit!
2. Some nations had Light companies WITHIN a battalion, the British and French being the best. For the British, a battalion had 10 companies, one of which was the Light company, the French had 6 companies (8 pre 1808) and one of those was a Light company
3. Painting minis wise, it depends on how big your units are, but brits 1 in 10, French 1 in 6. The prussians had a different system where each Regiment had 3 battalions, one of which was Light infantry (called fusiliers)
Sometime a commander might take the light companies (or Prussian battalions) and make an ad hoc group. For example at Waterloo, Hugoumont was held by the light companies of the guards brigade. You can do this I'm BP, but you lose mixed order formation
Much obliged sir. To me that translates that out of 24 british models in a Regiment i will be painting 4 as Light and 4 as grenadiers. The Light models I will probably put on round bases to make Them also usable in tschakos & tomahawks.
Is the 95th rifles unit basically the same as Light infantry? Were they Also Part of regular line infantry?
nice paint job.
Very good information thank you, Brill video, Your painting to great
Thank you for the kind words! Really glad you enjoyed the video. My painting can charitably be called tabletop standard, there are some incredible painters out there too!
The rank of Brigadier did not exist in the early 19th Century. Brigade commander was an appointment held by either a Colonel (eg Ompteda at Waterloo) or, more usually, a Major General (the most junior of the General Officer ranks). A division would typically be commanded by a Lieutenant General and a full General would command a corps. This did vary, 1st KGL Brigade was commanded by a Lieutenant Colonel at Waterloo and 4th Division by a Major General, by usually held true.
As for battalion strengths, the British battalions (but not KGL or Hanoverian) at Waterloo averaged over 600 men, This was probably not far off the battalion strengths during the Peninsular campaign too. The French, by contrast would typically be around 100 men weaker per battalion. They did have more battalions though.
I think the 95th had three battalions and all were in action in the Peninsula War - could be wrong!
The fact that the British fought in two ranks seems to present a problem for war gamers using this set up, all your units regardless of nationality are based on blocks of four figures making it impossible to represent the British line's wider frontage. 600 British would bring all their guns to bare where as 600 French would only bring 400 guns to bare, how do you take account of this. Another point is that four British battalions might have a front of 1200 men where as four French battalions might have a front of only 800 men, how can you represent this if all your units are set up the same. Sorry but just wondered. btw love the figures.
6 to a base with somewhat wider basing
If I remember correctly, this is accounted for in the modifiers... British infantry get a +1 firepower if I remember correctly (in Napoleon's Battles anyway).
Where does one get a copy of Napoleon's Battles? How does it compare to Black Powder?
I'm not 100% sure I'm afraid, I've not played it. As for where can you get it, I'd probably try Caliver books and amazon as my first ports of call
I may give black powder a try... It sounds like it might be an easier to learn rule set.
@@renardgrise it's very straight forward for the basics, you can then add the complication layers on yourself to get thr flavour of the period
are these 1/72?
They were still in use with the Royal Navy
With so many different uniforms with different colour s how did they know who were the correct adversary to shoot
That's a great question! Sometimes they got it wrong and either got a nasty surprise or shot their own guys! Check out my video on the Swiss and the battle of Maida. No spoilers, but the red coats of the Swiss caused some confusion!
Interesting.Greetings
How long would it be a British line versus a French line? In yards?
I'm not 100% sure to be honest! I'll have to delve into the library!
@@NapoleonicWargaming It depends on the strength of the unit and number of ranks. Assume Brit Bn of 600 men, 60 per coy. 22 inches per man and two ranks is coy front of 55 ft. all 10 in line would be 183 yds Bn frontage. French had the 8 coy organization and a later 6 coy organization. Assume a 720 man bn. and 6 coy org and of course 3 ranks. ths gets 146 yd bn front.
Great Video!! Really informative. I find it curious the great deviation on numbers between the papers and reality. I'm working on the 88th foot and 43rd light as well. Wouldn't mind some extra photos, are they available on the Facebook page? I spotted something that I believe you might have gotten wrong. I believe that the 43rd light infantry wouldn't have a drummer. The regiment would have a bugler instead. I'm almost certain that this is the case at least at 1810. Nevertheless they are all excellently painted!! Cheers
Miguel Correia
That's right! My bad! I have recently bought butlers from Eagle miniatures for the Kings Own Yorkshire Light Infantry that I'm currently painting! Thanks for the kind words!
@@NapoleonicWargaming No problem at all, we are digging history that is 200 years old and trying to be as historical accurate as we can. I actually ended up painting a drummer as well, only noticed after and managed to paint it for the 88th instead. Thank you for the quick reply!!
*Bugler not butler 😆. Exactly, I dont think anyone is ever going to know these things 100% which is why I don't get too hung up on them
Sorry a little confused, you said at the beginning that 10 stands make a battalion, yet then show 6 companies. Sorry new so getting my head round it.
10 companys make a British battalion, which for me would be 2.4 minis per company. The bases are entirely meaningless as regard companys, as companies don't act separately in this scale of game it doesnt actually matter. The only one that does is the light company skirmishing in front of the battalion. That's why it doesnt really matter that my flank companies are waaay over strength at 4 minis, it just keeps it easier when planning my painting
@@NapoleonicWargaming thank you very much. You mentioned light companies, is it worth basing them single, so they can then go into skirmish? Maybe on a magnetic tray? Or do they not go into skirmish in black powder when their in a mixed regiment like this? Trying to find mixed regiments in the rules.
@@Kallistosprom they certainly can skirmish! You could base them individually absolutely, but I tend to paint extra minis in more 'action' poses for my skirmishers. There's quite a bit on mixed formations, p22 of the mini rulebook (not sure in the brb, butnits in formations) is the main intro to it.
@@NapoleonicWargaming thank you. Sorry for the questions.
@@Kallistosprom np at all mate! happy to help
A lot of British battalions in the Peninsular were second battalions.
Absolutely. With it being a beginner's video I was trying to simplify it. But yeah, you're absolutely right.