ECW question

[ochoin]

For our inaugural 'Victory Without Quarter' game, the armies needed to be organised into 'battaglias'.
To do this, I put pike & shot regiments and Horse troops in separate battaglias.

Is this the way ECW armies were organised or did they have combined formations?
I'm planning another game in the near future & would like to know.

donald

[FreddBloggs]

My understanding was the battalias were:

Pike and shot companies brigaded.

Dragoon Companies brigaded

Horse squadrons brigaded.

Combined arms operations did happen, but these splits would hold at the battalia level.

[BaronVonWreckedoften]

As I understand it, the significance of "battalia" in the ECW was that because regiments had become so small, it was necessary to combine them in order to create conformable units that could cover a given amount of ground/frontage. Hence the battalia formed in an army would have been of a roughly comparable size, given that they had to consist of a complete number of companies, or regimental groups.

"Combined ops" forces generally undertook raids or other special missions and would normally consist of two or more out of dragoons, horse and commanded shot (maybe some small "galloper" guns), usually selected to make the force as mobile as possible. In essence, such a force would simply be an army in miniature (see what I did there?), but it would be the norm for each of those elements to fight separately in terms of tactical formations. although you might get dragoons or commanded shot interspersed among the horse to "stiffen them up" a bit.

[Etranger]

What they said. Each arm usually brigaded separately but dragoons could be attached to cavalry eg as a single troop, and likewise commanded shot, although they'd struggle to keep up with horse, unlike (in theory) dragoons. Dragoons could appear on the battlefield as small separate troops & it would make sense for them to be tactically attached to larger regiments of horse.