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roth -> Charging Squares (12/1/2009 4:51:21 PM)
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I have not played this game yet, but I've been reading the manual.
On page 153 is the following statement:
"Ineffective to Charge Squares: Squares take -95% fewer casualties than Line. It is unwise to charge squares."
Certainly that's good advice for charging cavalry, but in my view, not for infantry. The statement doesn't appear to apply exclusively to charging cavalry; rather, it seems to apply to any charging unit. That advice doesn't tally either with my knowledge of Napoleonic-era combat nor with my experience with other game systems, whether board games or miniatures.
In fact, an essence of the combined arms tactics of the era was to use cavalry to force infantry into square. Ideally, you would then pound the squares with artillery, but if artillery wasn't available, no commander worth his salt (of whom I'm aware), would have hesitated to launch an infantry assault against enemy infantry formed in square. Otherwise, one would see much more frequent use of squares as a general defensive formation when opposing artillery was not a factor.
Without actual play experience, I allow that this may not be an issue. In a game situation, a line (or column)-vs-square combat may result in the square taking so many casualties from a pre-charge exchange of infantry fire that it would be too weak to resist the assault (although in actuality such an exchange of fire would not always occur; it was not uncommon, in circumstances when a charge needed to be pressed home, for the charging troops to go into the charge with their muskets unloaded so that they would not be tempted to halt and return fire.) But, without having read the manual, I assure you that I would have been shocked to see my infantry assaults against squares, whether in line or column, be consistently repulsed. It would cause me to question the accuracy of the game's combat model.
What are players' experiences with this? As a practical matter, do square casualties from fire, whether from artillery or infantry, weaken the square enough to produce the historically-more common result of defeat for the square in a close action?
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