After that, they are pretty much out of direct player control, and will either complete the mission and retire, or abandon the mission and retire if threatened. Allow the player to site the guns and set a mission for them. Positional batteries (eg Borodino fleches), would have more stamina than field batteries though. Maybe something as drastic as dropping 1 dice _per turn used_ would not be that far fetched. Make these extremely lethal guns degrade very quickly in game terms. Dont fear making guns super lethal at all sorts of uncomfortable ranges. Some game mechanics to ponder for future experiments : In 99% of wargames, there is no good reason to do this, so something is missing. The Russians being far more conservative than the French for example. Armies tended to keep the majority of guns in reserve, and rotate them through the combat zone most sparingly - some more so than others. Artillery commands may get specific missions to perform on behalf of a Division, but the siting of the guns and the execution of the mission was very much in the hands of the specialist battery commander.Ĥ) Reserve doctrine. The chain of command for Artillery appears to be not well integrated with the general command at the Divisional level. Ouch !ģ) Command control - True combined arms tactics (in the modern understanding of the word), was still 100 years off at the time of the Napoleonic wars. 3-4 turns of use in a wargame, between refittings. After 1-2 hours of use, a gun is in need of a complete overhaul before being used again. Each battery is a limited use weapon, degrading quickly in a sustained bombardment. It just took a lot longer to inflict those same casualties compared to WW1 artillery.Ģ) They were highly temperamental systems. In terms of the cause of casualties, Napoleonic artillery has the same battlefield effect as WW1 artillery. Love it !įrom what I have been reading, the current thoughts on artillery effectiveness in the period go something like this -ġ) They were in fact extremely lethal, providing most of the kills amongst the 3 arms of combat. I think its excellent the way your group is taking the toolbox approach and building your own conventions for getting that whole gameplay vs simulation balance in order.