Corp, Army Limits

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All Forums >> [Current Games From Matrix.] >> [Napoleonics] >> Crown of Glory >> Corp, Army Limits

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Corp, Army Limits - 2/15/2006 2:32:48 AM

littlemac80

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Ok, i can't say I know to much about this game yet, only had it for a little over a week. But something has been bothering me about the size limits for corps and Armys. From what I remember reading you are supposed to be able to fit 8 divisions into a corp, and 8 Corp into an Army, not sure about this one.

Here's my problem. I see that the French Grandee Armies can hold something like 300,000 men, so I attempted to fill out the army. I arranged my corps the way I wanted them but when I started placing them in the amry I was only able to get 3 corps into it with about a total of 120,000 men then I couldn't add any more units.

I just want to know what the deal is here.

Littlemac..

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RE: Corp, Army Limits - 2/15/2006 3:36:27 AM

jimwinsor

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Corps can actually hold 6 divisions (sometimes 7), and armies have upper limits too...18 divisions total usually (no matter how efficiently you pack them into corps).

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RE: Corp, Army Limits - 2/15/2006 2:03:38 PM

Hard Sarge

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Yes, you can add 3 Corps to an Army (not 8)

depending on the Nation or upgrade, the number of Div's with in the Corp may be 6 or 7

I pretty much can only fit 19 Div's into a Army (7+7+5)

others have said the could fit 21 (there was a bug that could be used, but I never seen it or was able to, and my top Armies have 19 Div's in them)

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RE: Corp, Army Limits - 2/16/2006 4:29:28 PM

TexHorns

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Never having claimed to be a Napoleonic expert, COG got me curious and I did some reading up on the time frame of the game. Seems that divisions tended to have only 3-5k men in them. Corps tended to be anywhere from 15k-40k. In COG the divisions are 10k when 100% and Corps can have as many as 60-70k in them.

I just found the numbers interesting and wonder if Eric and crew should reconsider the div and corp strengths and limits. I know others have complained about the overall strength of armies. There were of course armies numbering into the 180k range, but they seemed to have been formed for specific campaigns and not maintained over years. Not really complaining, just wondering out loud.

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RE: Corp, Army Limits - 2/18/2006 2:44:45 PM

malthaussen

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Yes, prior to radio communications, there were serious limits on how many troops one general could handle at a time. The 3-5,000 man division (very similar in size to the Roman Legion or a Spanish Battle) and the 15-20,000 man corps persisted up through the American Civil War and beyond -- IIRC, the organizations of the antogonists in the Franco-Prussian War were similar. Except for unusual events like the Battle of Nations in 1813, armies rarely consisted of more than 100,000 men or so, and the larger they got, the more cumbersome they were. I note in passing that many of Napoleon's greatest victories were won by forces of less than 50,000 men.

So the division/corps/army numbers are pretty distorted in this game, but the devs mentioned somewhere that this was done to help the AI in detailed battles, since it generally needs a huge numerical advantage to have a chance against a reasonably competent opponent.

What is really off, however, is the number of guns in a typical force. If we assume one gun per ten men in an artillery divison, which would be standard, then even without any enhancements at all, a 3,500 man arty div would have 350 guns, which is more than most armies fielded at the time (especially the British, who at Waterloo had something like 96 guns altogether). Since most of use, presumably, attempt to put at least one division of artillery in every corps, it can be seen that a typical army would have well in excess of 1,000 guns. Simply put, this never happened. At Borodino, the Russians had a bit over 400 guns, and at Gettysburg, the Army of the Potomac had about 500. These are the highest artillery components of any 19th century armies of which I am aware. Even at the present day, a typical division (which is the size of an 19th-century corps) has around 100 guns -- so it is clear that there are way too many of the things in the armies in CoG.

-- Mal

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RE: Corp, Army Limits - 2/18/2006 3:47:52 PM

Hard Sarge

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my only hassle with reasoning like this is, and as you say, assume there are 10 men to a gun

did anyone say there were ten men to a gun with in the game system ?

I mean along the same lines, are there 10,000 horsemen in a Cav Div of the time ?

were there Arty Div's ?,

were there Cav Div's ?

the game is a bit abstract, over all it works, so why push or complaint about the details ?

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RE: Corp, Army Limits - 2/18/2006 4:25:07 PM

malthaussen

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Ten men per gun has been traditionally taken as a standard when crunching the numbers for a wargame set in this period. As you might imagine, the actual number of artillerymen varied with the weapon. The CoG rules do not specifically state that they use the ten man standard, so you are correct, that is a presumption, not necessarily a point of fact.

There were both cavalry divisions and artillery divisions in the Napoleonic period. 10,000 men (and horses) is far more than would have typically been in a cavalry division, or even a cavalry corps. Generally, divisions of all types were two or three brigades, and a brigade of cavalry was rarely larger than 1,000 sabres. You may recall that "The Charge of the Light Brigade" speaks of 600 men, so it is clear that the numbers for cavalry divisions are seriously out of whack, also.

As TexHorns says, these points are not complaints, just observations. The OP was wondering how he could fit 300,000 men into an army, but the thread wandered off that track.:)

-- Mal

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RE: Corp, Army Limits - 2/18/2006 6:04:18 PM

Hard Sarge

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quote:

The OP was wondering how he could fit 300,000 men into an army, but the thread wandered off that track.:)

Well I think the point is, that is the reason, we are not using "real" formations of that time, so our game armies are going to be larger then what they had

there were Div's of Arty and Cav during this time frame ?, I thought they were units that were grouped together, not formed to be a single unit

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RE: Corp, Army Limits - 2/18/2006 7:50:23 PM

malthaussen

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Strictly speaking, all divisions in this time period were groups of units and not single units. The basic maneuver elements were battalions (of infantry), batteries (of artillery) and squadrons (of cavalry). Battalions were typically grouped together in their parent regiments (except for the British army, which was idiosyncratic in many ways), but often operated separately. For example, in 1809 the French added a 4th battalion to each regiment, and these "4ths" often were brigaded with others or operated independently of their parent regiments. Similarly, squadrons typically operated together with their parent regiments, but could be detached like their infantry counterparts.

Divisions in all armies were really administrative units. Their composition could, and often did, vary from battle to battle or campaign to campaign. OTOH, there was also often a lot of carry-over from one battle or campaign to another (just to keep things interesting). There was nothing like a standard TO&E for any element above the battalion/battery/squadron level throughout this period. Thus these maneuver elements were grouped first into brigades, and then the brigades grouped into divisions, except in the case of artillery, which was only brigaded for administrative purposes. Given that in CoG there is an upgrade for divisional artillery, presumably the artillery divisions in the game are corps and army-level reserve units and not field artillery in the strict sense.

It's been a while since I've done a lot of heavy OOB scrutinizing, but IIRC, the Russian artillery at Borodino was grouped into divisions, and the French reserve cavalry was grouped in divisions (and later, corps) fairly early in the life of the Grand Army. The French Reserve Artillery was commanded by a General of Division, and so we can reasonably designate this collection of batteries as a division. Note that these organizations varied quite a bit from army to army, and the British, for example, never had anything like artillery or cavalry divisions.

-- Mal

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RE: Corp, Army Limits - 2/18/2006 8:49:23 PM

Hard Sarge

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Roger
thanks for clearing that up, it is pretty much as I thought, but didn't want to speak when I wasn't sure of what I was saying

yea, pretty much, the Russian have always been the ones who wanted Arty Div's :)

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