Steve Jackson Games - Site Navigation
Home General Info Follow Us Search Illuminator Store Forums What's New Other Games Ogre GURPS Munchkin Our Games: Home

Go Back   Steve Jackson Games Forums > Roleplaying > GURPS

 
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Prev Previous Post   Next Post Next
Old 11-04-2009, 12:32 PM   #11
Icelander
 
Icelander's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Iceland*
Default Re: Emerging smokepowder weapons in my fantasy

Quote:
Originally Posted by bolondro2 View Post
First of all, the 1-2-4 entries can be discarded. They correspond to special troops, to few for making a decisive impact in the battlefield.
Fair enough, but note that because of their greater levels of training, those special troops were able to have an impact out of proportion to their size. That is to say, training pays off. And it's no accident that the trend in warfare has been ever greater training and ever more specialised troops.

Quote:
Originally Posted by bolondro2 View Post
3 entry, British light infantry
Light infantry also fought in line, and in that role it was usually superior to the line companies. Training pays off.

Quote:
Originally Posted by bolondro2 View Post
Yes, in the Peninsular campaign they have an edge. But less that it's usually believed-. Most of the British claims of victory are indeed dubious, like La Coruņa (getting your C-i-C shouted, having to kill all your horses and lossing your artillery), Busaco and Talavera (both followed by a retreat of the supposed winner).
In much of your examples, British troops did not stand line to line and exchange fire. Instead, incompetent generals squandered opportunity or pursued objectives which they had little chance of attaining. In many cases, the strategic plan was nonexistent.

This doesn't change the fact that if a number of British troops was put against an equal number of French ones, the advantage was with the British.

And all of the above battles were victories not because they hammered the enemy, but because they achieved the objectives that the commander set out with. For the most part, they were fought in order to make a retreat feasible, where the strategic situation mandated a retreat.

Quote:
Originally Posted by bolondro2 View Post
British have the finest troops of a volunteer army, was leaded by the 3rd best general of the age, and have also the local population cooperation and a have a near perfect intelligence. French have second rate troops of a conscripted army, was leaded in some cases by second rate generals (Victor, Junot or Jourdan) and had the problem of a hostile local population and almost no intelligence, due to guerrilla warfare. I thing that all those factors are, by far, more important in explaining the edge of the British army that the 30 training rounds-by-year advantage.
Why were the British troops first rate and the French second rate?

It was certainly not because the British 'volunteer' army yielded a superior class of man to the French system of conscription. Famously, the British got jailbirds, drunkards, the unemployed and the Irish. The scum of the Earth.

But, as Wellington was fond of adding 'but what fine fellows we have made of them'. The difference between first- and second-rate troops is training.

And before we start assuming that the defeat of the French on the Peninsula was foreordained, let's not forget the numerical discrepancies involved. And the fact that the 'perfect' local cooperation forced several retreats when the Spanish could not feed the British army.

And 3rd best general of the age? Humbug!

From his first steps as a field officer, Wellesley was an inspired general who never lost sight of the objective. He was a master of fighting a battle for limited gains when gambling on decisive victory would have been foolhardy, but he showed several times that when it was warranted, he could act boldly and fast. Assaye was a miracle of generalship (and a brilliant showing by British troops) and Salamanca showed flair and adaptability. But most importantly, the fact that he never overplayed his hand, never got caught out in a way that meant his war was over, puts him above any other general of the age.

By their success we shall judge them. And while Napoleon languished on St. Helena, Wellington parlayed his military success into politics.
__________________
Za uspiekh nashevo beznadiozhnovo diela!
Icelander is offline   Reply With Quote
 

Tags
cabaret chicks on ice, forgotten realms, low-tech, mass combat

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Fnords are Off
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -6. The time now is 09:34 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.9
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.