How many troops

In preparation for the first rules test game I have been thinking of the size of units for my Sharp practice variant. Now I a quite aware that this was in no way standardized but after reading all the orders of battle I could lay my hands on 500 rank and file seems to be about right for a battalion and a 100 for a company. I also decided on one "Big man per two groups" and as both a company at a figure to man ratio of 1:1 and a battalion at 1:5 would work out at 100 figures

This would mean
For a Company of Foot
10 groups of 10 two of which would be pike men giving you 80 musket  & 20 pike men five bigmen Company Captain Lvl 2-3 First Lieutenant Lvl 2-3 ensign Lvl 1-2 & two Sergeants level 1-2. I am aiming at a total of 10 levels of Bigman in a company. Supernumeraries would include musicians & if present a company standard


For a Troop of horse or dragoons
Still thinking about this but about 60 rank and file seems right though I would have to reduce the numbers for horse holders when the Dragoons dismounted & on the rarer occasions when the Horse would.

For a Battalion  of foot
10 groups of 10 two of which would be Grenadiers if present & 2 figures in each musketeer group would be Pikemen.if present. Big Men would be Major or Colonel  Lvl 2-3 Senior captain  Lvl 2-3 Senior Captain Lvl 1-2 & two Captains  level 1-2. I am aiming at a total of 10 levels of Bigman in a battalion. Supernumeraries would include musicians  at least two Drummers Kings & regimental colours or there equivalent & may be a number of troops to form a a colour party.


For a squadren of horse 
I am still thinking about this but about 45 rank & file seems right

Rules considerations. some more thoughts

I am still working on a force a play test game so most of the questions about how it all works rather depends on what happens when I have tried out the rules I have proposed and seen if they produce results that match the original accounts though finding battle accounts at this sort of level of detail - Granularity as it has been referred to is a bit of a challenge.

I am not sure about tests as such as Sharp Practice Lacks them using shock accumulation as its Morale mechanism but I have thought about the mechanisms described in TSS for determining if cavalry charge home as a basis. I however want to run some play tests first.

Thank you for your feed back it helps me to shape my ramblings into something coherent or as close to it as I get.


I am inclined to agree with the comment below that infantry against infantry fights tended to become prolonged musketry duels. Duels which where often  rather indecisive of all armies of this period only the Swedes in the great northern war bucked this tendency and settled things in hand to hand combat.

First Pictures - first company St Marie’s Parish Militia

These are imminent as I have nearly completed the figures for the League of Ausburg painting competition.
so watch this space.

Not the best photograh but my old faithful camera needs a bit of care and attention & I need to remember how to use Photo shop to tidy up the image

 This is a cropped image form the same set the figures are quite matt but the flash makes them seem very glossy. this is the front view of the competition entry

Musketry ranges & Musketry quality

I am at present considering changing these and changing the mechanism for determining effectiveness at a given range

Musketry ability
I said before that I liked the way Terrible Sharp Sword the ACW rules supplement  spit the characteristics of a unit down from the simpler elite good,  etc system of the Original Sharpe Practice.I have mentioned Drill in earlier ramblings so lets consider Musketry.

Musketry in this period and for much of the whole horse and musket era had little to do with personal marksmanship it was to do with a massed effect of formed troops firing in an orderly way. At the start of the period I am considering it was it would seem the aim to maintain a constant hail of fire on a target and this was done using a variety of rotational drills, but this reduced the shock effect of the fire and innovations before the period we are considering such as the Swedish Salvoes of the thirty years war gave people pause for thought.

However the concept of Volley fire was slow to develop and spread as the result of firing all your guns at once whilst certainly having an effect on the target left you with all your weapons unloaded. This was seen as a significant disadvantage when your effective rate of fire was one to two rounds per minute.especially if your Volley failed to put the opponent to flight and he charged you or by means of other firing drills maintained a more constant if lesser volume fire at you whilst you frantically reloaded.

I have already mentioned the effect of types of firing drill in an earlier article on this blog so I wont repeat myself here, and will limit myself to the quality musketry.

In Sharp Practice I would suggest the following ability levels

Pitiful- dice rolled for effect as per firing drill in use by troops, with one dice in two lost
Poor -dice rolled for effect as per firing drill in use by troops, with one dice in four lost
Adequate - dice rolled for effect as per firing drill in use by troops, with one dice in six lost 
Trained - dice rolled for effect as per firing drill in use by troops, with no modifiers
Good - dice rolled for effect as per firing drill in use by troops, with one dice in six added 
Excellent- dice rolled for effect as per firing drill in use by troops, with one dice in four added



I will come back to this later but I hope you see where I am going this is very much a work in progress 

Pike & Bayonets

Pike
The pike by this point  a defensive weapon rather than an offensive one, there where exceptions notably the Swedish, with each company having  at most twenty to thirty per company of a hundred plus Musketeers.  It was used by most European armies as a deterrent to cavalry, with  the small group of pike being positioned centrally to the company and being advanced and lowered in the event of a possible cavalry charge.

Plug Bayonets
These are a spear head shaped dagger with a slim handle designed to fit down the bore of a musket and turn the musket form a fire arm to a short spear. This prevents the weapon form being loaded or fired.

Ring bayonets
These are similar to the above but feature a ring or rings which protrude from the hilt fitting  and fit over the barrel end allowing the spearhead shaped dagger like the plug bayonet to rest parallel to bore of the musket. This allows the musket to be loaded and fired with the bayonet fitted.
However the bayonet was heavy unbalanced the gun affecting the weapons accuracy and firing drills where ill adapted to loading a weapon with a fitted bayonet.

Thank you Steffano 

More On Musketry Drills -cavalry shooting

Thanks to a post on the Sharp Practice forum I think I need to add this 

Carcarole by horse this is just a variation on the rotational fire drills done by infantry and is becoming obsolete at this period as far as I can tell it was only used by the Austrians on any large scale & that the preferred technique for those cavalries  which used firing whilst mounted was a variation on the French pistol volley then charge with sword without reloading.

It does mean that we need to consider the horse Pistol as a mas combat weapon rather than something the odd Blaggardly villain might use on our hero to compensate for his lack of swordsmanship.

Given that the ranges for formed musketry are what they are I would range pistols as carbines but count the firer as being one level of musketry worse than they are for now. I am however considering changing the ranges a bit and using a similar mechanism to reflect loss of accuracy at range.

Thank you Steffano

Disorder drill & musketery

Introduction
In adapting Sharpe Practice to the period we have to consider every thing I have read so far on the period about manoeuvring infantry in the period suggests that it was rather more difficult than it became later in the horse and musket period. I am taking a wild guess that the cause of this was connected to the level of training of the troops and in particular the rather primitive systems of drill used.

So I am first going to use a set of characteristics for each unit based on the expanded  ones introduced in Terrible Sharp Sword where troops are rated for Musketry, Drill, Experience  & belief, here I am only really interested in Drill as the others I will consider separately and some like belief work as they are.


DRILL
Rabble:- have no training or experience  at all, little better then Walllahs can be made to form line with difficulty but doing any thing with them other than them having stand and wait will be difficult and require a lot of  Officer & NCO effort.
Trained band:- Have had limited training often in out of date patterns of drill or limited sections of more modern drill from poor trainers, never used it or practised it out of the environs of a parade square or village green, can be relied on to stand in line, in well dressed ranks and files, to do basic formation changes, such as rotational fire, advancing pikes fitting bayonets but not with the alacrity of better trained troops and   change form column of march to line eventually if with difficulty and command input
Regular:-  This is the standard bench mark of professional soldiery they can stand in line and are likely to maintain correct dressing  when moving & can deploy from column of march to line with some efficiency and relatively little confusion, can carry out basic drill evolutions such as those outlined above well and with alacrity are capable of managing some sort of volley on command even they usually use rotational fire drill
Good:- Pretty much the best you can expect for most troops they can do every thing regulars above can in addition they will deploy from line to column with no confusion and maintain dressing and formation in most circumstances without needing constant input from their commanders

Polished:- Perfect but rarely found only the best of the best could do this in the period this lot could drill with the men of Fredrick the greats army without looking too shabby


Disorder 
I feel that in order to properly model the behaviour of the troops of the period I need to add an additional factor which I will call DISORDER  this works like shock and effects all groups in a formation like shock except that it has a maximum value of six and does not have any of the morale effects that shock does.However if a group in a formation or a formation has a Disorder of Six and suffers any further causes of disorder then this becomes shock as beyond a certain point being a milling mob will also  have adverse morale effects. It is important to note that disorder is independent of events which might break up a formation. such as cavalry charging too long at the gallop, or poorly drilled troops trying to manurer through difficult terrain.

Causes of Disorder 
These are many and various and depends on the troop types involved but for infantry my thoughts are as follow, I am thinking that single groups should not suffer disorder but suffer a penalty of being unformed, unless lead personally by a big man of status two or higher.

1 Changing form column of march to line or back again
2 Manoeuvring in line-expanding or contracting frontage
3 Firing 
4 Advancing your pike fixing & unfixing bayonets 
5 Moving in Line
6 Other causes -here just to remind me that other things might generate disorder that I have not thought of yet.

This is not a finished article but a WIP expect more shortly but work calls.....