General de Brigade

[colinjallen]

My main 15mm French force is Lauriston's 5th Corps of August 1813. This corps has 3 divisions, each of which has 2 large brigades of infantry, most of which have 2 regiments, giving 6 battalions per brigade.

During a recent game, we were commenting on how the large brigades made the corps somewhat blunt and unwieldy as, with the brigade commander being effectively the lowest level in the game's chain of command, one had to commit entire large brigades to particular actions, which seemed entirely appropriate for 1813. We then started wondering about the role of the two regimental commanders in each brigade; should they actually be the lowest level in the chain of command that we are trying to model, rather than the brigade commander?

Has anybody had any thoughts about this?

[Suvoroff]

I've thought about this. I think it depends on several factors. If you have a brigade of two regiments of four battalions, you probably want to break them up and consider your "brigade" (for game purposes) to be a single regiment.

In smaller games you probably want to make smaller brigades to increase your tactical flexibility. A game with only one or two brigades is rather awkward, command-wise; and a lot can ride on a single Brigade Morale Check.

Another consideration is using brigade size to reflect either tactical flexibility (thus 1805 French might have more, smaller brigades than their clumsy opponents) or durability (thus you might want larger brigades for 1812 Russians to improve their ability to take high casualties and keep fighting.)

Yours,
James D. Gray

[captain chook]

James, having only played 20 or so games, I am still uncertain whether to go with flexibility or more robust brigades. I do worry that French potentially are at a disadvantage compared to larger Austrian units in terms of ability to sustain casualties and then, if they are to have smaller brigades, will be brittle in this department too.
One of the strengths of the earlier French armies was their command/control structure and perhaps this needs to be reflected more.

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[DCRBrown]

Colin,

Do not overlook the use of ADC's (or spare brigadiers).

Even in 1813-14 the French could be given at least two spare ADC's, thus giving you the ability to create mini-brigades from your larger brigades, so on and so forth.

DB

[captain chook]

I suppose a lot of these problems arise from casual games using points rather than following a scenario. In a 1500-2000 point game it is hard to justify an AdC.
I have just enjoyed a game put on by Valley Boy where points were ignored and we used a fictional scenario. We had a great game (my lucky, or doctored, dice were working well) which actually ended with a result (we have found points games often grind on without a clear conclusion).

In the rule book there is, of course, the suggestion that the French have 1 or 2 extra generals/AdCs, and perhaps most of us need to follow this suggestion and ignor points other than for competition games.

Ants

[colinjallen]

I guess that the extra ADCs would do the job rather well, giving some extra flexibility but not too much; thanks for the reminder.

I don't think that we have ever used the points system.

Colin

[NTM]

An example of this would be Morand's division of 4th Corps at Bautzen. Officially it was of two brigades but according to Nafziger operated as 3 utilising a spare general. IIRC the 3 brigade organisation was used in the Autumn too.

[Beresford]

I second Nigel's comments on the IV Corps in 1813. Morand's 12th Division is made up of (for the start of the autumn campaign) 13 bn:
13e Ligne - 5bn - GdB Hulot
23e Ligne - 4bn - GdB Toussaint
8e Legere - 4bn - GdB Belair

I have not researched far enough to know if these were in fact the Colonels of these regiments, also designated as the GdB, or if they were different individuals, and doing something else at the time. there were also a coupLe of FAB in the Division, so that woudl give something additional for a GdB to command if he were not also the Colonel of the regiment.

Later in the campaign, it looks like the remnants of Guillemont's 14th Division were attached to the Division:
137e Ligne
2nd Provisional Croatian Regt
It does not seem that additional brigades were created, or additional GdB assigned. By then the numbers were probably qute low, so they were there to make up numbers in the existing bdes I suppose.
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Cheers,
Beresford