Mass Fire and Line Infantry

[Valadrim]

Originally Posted by Kromm

Massed fire should only use the rapid-fire rules in two situations:

1. When the weapons are "synchronized" or "linked" to let a single gunner discharge them all at a single target as if he were firing a single, high-RoF weapon. Not all of the weapons are in the exact same spot, and a gunner who lacks traits like Compartmentalized Mind and Enhanced Tracking must aim using a single gunsight that won't be zeroed to all of them, so there will perforce be some dispersion.

2. When the weapons are individually fired, but are close enough together that the smoke, flash, recoil, power surge, etc. from one could become an issue for another. In that case, individual gunners work against one another somewhat. Peter's gun disturbs Paul's aim, since Peter and Paul aren't a hive mind and don't fire truly simultaneously.

I am trying to figure out how to best show groups of line infantry firing in formation. Let's say that we have a section of infantry with muskets firing at another section. Lets call it 3 rows of 22 men shoulder to shoulder, that ballparks to a little less than 15 yards long, as an elongated box the formation of men make a SM +6 target. Most muskets are Acc 2 and per the box in HT page 86 get a +1 to Acc on the first shot. If each row of 22 rolls separately to hit that is a rate of fire of 22 for a +4, if the whole section of 66 rolls together then we get a +6.

Starting combat range if often about 100 yards, which corresponds to the half damage range of many muskets. If we assume an average skill of 12 that means an effective skill of 15 if they can aim for 1 second and fire by row, or 17 if they instead fire as a whole section. With a Rcl of 4 that means an average roll of 10 or 11 gets you 2 hits at the opposing formation with either the 22 man row or the 66 man section.

So the breakdown

Everyone rolls: 66 to hit rolls at skill 11. Result 41.25 hits on average.

Each line rolls: 3 to hit rolls at skill 15. Result 6 hits on average.

The section rolls: 1 to hit roll at skill 17. Result 2, almost 3 hits on average.


The results are so wildly different I thought that using rapid fire to model this kind of combat can't possibly be right, which is when I found the Krommquote above. Without doing a lot of research about casualty rates the 66 to hit roll methods sounds too deadly, even if I come up with a good mechanic for shooting someone that was already shot; and the rate of fire methods sound so harmless that pike formations would still have been the rule of the day.

What is the best way to model this style of combat without using mass combat rules?

[jason taylor]

Historically big splatters of casualties tend to take place at whites-of-the-eye range. When fire is opened at a longer range it tended to result in sustained firefights.

Much of the obsession of old generals with bayonets was not just poetic license. It was a realization that if they allowed fire the engagement would be an indecisive dribble of useless casualties. Some of the expedients like carrying unloaded muskets and even weirder ones like removing the flint are explained thereby(Anthony Wayne's storm of Stony Point is a classical example of the first method).

Wellington's use of the reverse slope allowed him to keep his men in a psychologically steady posture which kept them from opening fire prematurely. The sudden volley that knocked down large numbers of foemen at once followed by a bayonet charge was intended to cause a system crash in unit coherence and did exactly that.

In game terms, it should be written so that at one hundred yds there are seldom many casualties, as if there were they would definitely break a unit receiving them. The level will increase exponentially as they approach.

[Anaraxes]

I recently ran across a YouTube video (yeah, I know, not the best source) citing an 1810 Prussian shooting test (better source, if you trust the reporting) that did some hit chances against a target that was 1.8 m high by 90 m wide. That is, the target was the size of an entire enemy column. Results at 70 m were a 60% hit chance; at 140 m, 40%; and at 210 m, 5%. That's a chance to hit anywhere in the entire column.

The video also cited some calculations by various period observers based on logistic and casualty data, which worked out to somewhere between 0.1% and 0.3% chance of a hit per round fired in actual combat.

[Ulzgoroth]

The best model for an infantry firing line, short of modeling each individual shooter of course, is probably Suppression Fire. The firing line is really not like a singular automatic weapon, but when it comes to filling a down-range area with lead the source doesn't make as much difference.

That doesn't let you model the target formation as a single target. There's simply no way you can do that without diving deep into the ranges where Rapid Fire doesn't work at all reasonably. But the law of large numbers offers an alternate way out of rolling for each member of the target formation.

If you just figure the target number to hit each of the targets, you can use that to determine the odds of each soldier being hit...then just multiply that probability by the number in the formation. No randomization required. (If you really want randomization, adding something like 3dF to the target number before calculating could work. A dF is a Fate die, with faces of +1, +1, 0, 0, -1, -1.)

This is unfair in favor of the attacker because it does not account for the fact that the front rank thins out the incoming fire, so people behind them are actually less likely to get hit. You could perform the whole exercise by rank, but that would add up. At a minimum make sure to cap number of people hit by number of rounds fired.

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by Valadrim

I am trying to figure out how to best show groups of line infantry firing in formation. Let's say that we have a section of infantry with muskets firing at another section. Lets call it 3 rows of 22 men shoulder to shoulder, that ballparks to a little less than 15 yards long, as an elongated box the formation of men make a SM +6 target. Most muskets are Acc 2 and per the box in HT page 86 get a +1 to Acc on the first shot. If each row of 22 rolls separately to hit that is a rate of fire of 22 for a +4, if the whole section of 66 rolls together then we get a +6.

Starting combat range if often about 100 yards, which corresponds to the half damage range of many muskets. If we assume an average skill of 12 that means an effective skill of 15 if they can aim for 1 second and fire by row, or 17 if they instead fire as a whole section. With a Rcl of 4 that means an average roll of 10 or 11 gets you 2 hits at the opposing formation with either the 22 man row or the 66 man section.

So the breakdown

Everyone rolls: 66 to hit rolls at skill 11. Result 41.25 hits on average.

Each line rolls: 3 to hit rolls at skill 15. Result 6 hits on average.

The section rolls: 1 to hit roll at skill 17. Result 2, almost 3 hits on average.


The results are so wildly different I thought that using rapid fire to model this kind of combat can't possibly be right, which is when I found the Krommquote above. Without doing a lot of research about casualty rates the 66 to hit roll methods sounds too deadly, even if I come up with a good mechanic for shooting someone that was already shot; and the rate of fire methods sound so harmless that pike formations would still have been the rule of the day.

What is the best way to model this style of combat without using mass combat rules?

Hmm I think I would argue that a line of men that 15 yards across and 2 yards high is not really an elongated box (as per the size and range table rules). I don't actually think it fits into any of the categories defined*.

I.e I don't think it could counts just as SM5

I don't think it's really an elongated box at SM6

It's certainly not a box or blob at SM7

but neither would it be defined only by it's smallest dimension SM0

I think I'd have new category that's described roughly as "one of the presented dimensions is significantly disproportionate from the other two but not as extreme as the steel cable example on pg550" (bit of a mouthful)

So I'd call that Main dimension SM-1 or even SM-2 for SM4 or SM3. That should cut down on the effectiveness (although you only have them aiming for 1 second). And of course after that you have obscuring smoke, and losing the carefully loaded bonus

If i was going to run a Napoleonics campaign with lots of volley fire, l'd probably run of some more defined hard and fast sub divisions of SM adjustment based on formations and ratios (Formation choice was a dilemma at the time)



*we seem to have gradation between different shapes in one direction but less in the other

[exalted]

If your into historical settings anything but a seasoned army is likely to have default skill levels or there about. Training was usually very poor except for the most elite regiments and in some nations more or less none existant when it came to firing drills with live ammo.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by exalted

If your into historical settings anything but a seasoned army is likely to have default skill levels or there about. Training was usually very poor except for the most elite regiments and in some nations more or less none existant when it came to firing drills with live ammo.

Tiger-Warrior Training!

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by exalted

If your into historical settings anything but a seasoned army is likely to have default skill levels or there about. Training was usually very poor except for the most elite regiments and in some nations more or less none existant when it came to firing drills with live ammo.

Also if the tactics of the day are based around musket volley fire, it likely that what training there was would be concentrated on drilling how quickly and reliably you can load and fire rather than how accurate you are at hitting targets.

[Tinman]

I don't think you should use Rcl 4 for your formation shooting. Use Rcl 1, for the same reasons that a shotgun has rcl 4 for slugs & rcl 1 for shot.
That will increase your hits a bit.

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by exalted

If your into historical settings anything but a seasoned army is likely to have default skill levels or there about. Training was usually very poor except for the most elite regiments and in some nations more or less none existant when it came to firing drills with live ammo.

Also training tended to emphasize drilling. There was a reason for that; a better drilled army could concentrate an attack on a select point as at Leuthen.