http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0300 ... ge_o05_s00
It really is a eye opening and consummate account of what really happened during napoleonic battles. For anyone mildly curious I would recommend it heartily.
Muir makes the following points:
- Officers constantly (if good leaders) strove to drive their men to get as close as possible before opening fire.
- A units quality or confidence often dictated the range at which a unit would open fire.
- Often units would sit well beyond effective range and enter into a attritave exchange of fire
- Melee was extremely rare on the battlefield. Most likely a unit would run if faced with a bayonet charge or alternatively its own fire would stop the charging unit in its tracks and either repulse it or the charge would falter and the charging unit stop and enter into a musketry duel (see above)
- Units in square were practically invulnerable to cavalry attack unless unformed
- Cavalry would always pull up a charge unless the unit being charged stated to flee.
- It took real discipline to hold fast against a cavalry charge
- Units in square were inclined by their leadership to hold fire as long as possible as the greatest moment of vulnerability was during reloading after a volley.
Muir makes other interesting and pertinent points, but the question here is how capable (with mods) is the SOWWL engine able to recreate the above?
Do you agree with his findings? If not why not not? Can you cite examples where the above was not true?
That said one of the areas where SOWWL excells is command and control, insofar as the courier process (given the caveat it is not working as intended currently). Given that, can the rest of the game be made to be a truer representation of what happened. Would this still be an enjoyable game to play if it were?