British Regulars 75+

[caranorn]

I've just started looking into something that's been bothering me with the British Regulars in the 75 campaign. Can anyone tell me what the design decision behind giving most line units light and/or grenadier companies in the game? As far as I can tell, the British Army (and possibly the German contingents under their command) detached the light and grenadier companies from their parent battalions. That is to say, a line battalion was composed of one grenadier, 1 light and 8 line companies. The light companies were detached and regrouped in separate light battalions, the same happened with the grenadier companies. So in game terms, no British line battalions in the 75 campaign should have light or grenadier elements and be formed of only 4 line elements.

Note that there also seem to be some issues with the strength of the light and grenadier battalions in those scenario setups (resp. reinforcements), also with the marine battalions. While I don't have any reliable numbers for the strength of light, grenadier and line companies, it would be reasonable to assume that grenadiers would make up 1/10th of the infantry, idem for light. Gage's force at setup of the 75 campaign has a total of 30 infantry elements, 2 grenadier, 2 light and 26 line, with Howe's reinforcements that's increased to 2 grenadier, 2 light and 43 line. That makes for only a ratio of 0.425/10th of the infantry in the light and grenadier units, so less than half the expected strength. There are also only 2 elements of marines in a single battalion when I find that by May 1775 two battalions were ashore at Boston with a total strength slightly less than 1200 men (all ranks). Note that I also don't understand why the 1st and 2nd Light battalions were relabelled at some point in WiA (or was it already in BoA I ?) to two of the line battalions present at Boston at the time. Lastly, the total infantry strength in Gage and Howe's Forces seems to be pretty low with 6120 men when one would expect something closer to 9700 men (marines included) (well actually less as that would assume full strength).

I'm considering to mod this into a new scenarior, but maybe there was a good reason for the current representation in WiA.

Sources I've used for this are mostly: http://www.americanrevolution.org/britisharmy.html , http://www.history.army.mil/books/revwar/contarmy/ca-fm.htm and http://www.fifedrum.org/crfd/BD_1.htm .

[lodilefty]

OOB in WIA was result of quite a bit of research [both in BoA and WIA] and adjusted for play balance [remember the two different 1775 setups in BoA??]

The resulting force structure is a result of 'best fit' to the 4 elements per unit game design, plus adjustments for play balance.

The separate Grenadier and Light units reflect the practice you stated, but if we create too many very small, single element units, they are very prone to anhiliation [hits concentrate on that element] = game balance again

This is, after all, a grand strategic game, so seeing regiments with 'inherent' Grenadiers and Lights should be interpreted loosely

"Manpower' is 'only' cosmetic, reflecting the 'men per hit' of the game engine. All unit strengths [men per hit] were adjusted down for less than full rosters as that was the reality.

..but by all means, mod away!!!!!

[caranorn]

Okay :-) . One other possible problem with single element specialist units would be that they could be brought to full strength with the appropriate replacements which could lead to far more grenadier and/or light units than are realistic...

I think I'll go ahead with a small mod, probably just for the British Regulars and maybe the Hessians...

[FM WarB]

As the manpower strength of elements is abstracted by the number of hits an element can sustain, reckoning things by manpower numbers becomes an excercize in frustration. Generally in this game an element should represent two American or British companies and one German or French. The number of "hits" each element of various type sustains represents the subjective opinion of the designer.
That being said, a force of 16 British bns would have, at full strength 16 four element line bns and 4 four element bns of grenadiers and light infantry. This requires some fudging, as the numbers of battalions in a force were not always even, and British commanders of the era, felt no compunction to abide by the constraints of this game system.

It is of course correct, that the Grenadier and light companies of the British, Germans and french were united into "elite" battalions throughout the course of the war. From 1777 on, the Americans united their light companies into battalions. (They had no grenadier companies.)

[caranorn]

I agree with the 1 element=2 british companies etc. Though I'd make one exception (which is already in the game) that in 75/76 most batallions were pretty small and should start with fewer elements...

By the way, I've modded the database files accordingly, but haven't had time to test it. My modifications are also rather sloppy, so I won't be posting this for anyone else to test...