Are the Austrians Awful?

[ochoin]

My SYW wargaming has been exclusively French & Prussian up to now.
When writing our rules for the period, quite an amount of research assured me the French were Foul whilst the Prussians were Practically Perfect.

So, the our home-groan rules allow the better Prussians to manouevre & shoot that wee bit better than their Gallic opponents.

However, now that I am expanding into the Austrian sphere I wonder at lumping them in with the French. After a little reading it seems to me that they should be the equal of the Prussians & arguably better in terms of artillery & light infantry if not quite as good in terms of cavalry.

Is this more or less valid?

donald

[Purple]

I’m a tiny wee bit biased but just some thoughts...

The Prussians had some really exceptional commanders at every level, I always work bonuses into that-

Are they the equal? They both lost and won battles but the Prussians were almost always outnumbered, sometimes heavily and virtually always gave a very good account of themselves...

Austrian Lights were immensely irritating to F. He never really got to grips with dealing with them. So I never mind making them a bit OP in the sort of similar blanket stereotype you give to Cossacks being absolute dog shit and Russians being stoic buggers.

Lang lebe der konig!

[BaronVonWreckedoften]

This sounds very similar to the "aren't the 1806 Prussians awful, when compared to those Gallic Gods of the Grande Armee" argument, that you find on TMP. And I would suggest that, in both cases, young Purple is pretty much on the money with his assessment that it's all about the quality of the men at the top. Go down to brigade and (still more so) regimental level, and the M1806 Boxhead is very much a match for Monsieur Crapaud; York's rear-guard action at Altenzauen is a text-book example of how to give an over-confident enemy a bloody nose. Go much above that - and certainly up to army level - and it's t'other way round as a general rule (let's not forget it was Boney the Wonder Frog's mis-reading of the situation that left Davout facing the bulk of the Prussian forces at Auerstadt).

[Etranger]

The Austrians had one big problem in that many of their better generals managed to get themselves killed eg FM Maximilian Ulysses von Browne https://www.kronoskaf.com/syw/index.php ... Maximilian (A great name in itself!). That left the distinctly mediocre Charles of Lorraine as C in C without one of his best advisors. Austria's fortunes improved somewhat when Charles was replaced by FM Daun.

the Austrians had the better Light Infantry, something that the Prussians never quite got to terms with & infantry, cavalry and artillery were all roughly comparable with them. After all, they basically fought to a draw, which given the initial Prussian strategic advantages seems to me to be a reasonable performance.

So, not brilliant but not rubbish either, that dubious claim to fame goes to some of the smaller elements of the Reichsarmee.

[ochoin]

Thank you for your replies. My no doubt limited reading also makes me feel the doughty Prussians had a large dose of luck in that they should have been beaten & beaten early, middle & late in the war....the "Two Years War" anyone?

I can't argue about Fred.'s commanders. I have a certain dislike of him & think that apart from a certain determination, the crochety & unlikeable old beggar did not bring much to the party.

Having said this, his men often fought far better than he deserved, sometimes winning despite him. I think I'll probably shave a bit off for the Austrians, making them somewhere between the Foul French & the Perfect Prussians (& ignoring, for the time being, the Enigmatic English....or Battling British, if you prefer).

I should add I don't think I'm talking about national steretyping but levels of training, technology etc. For example, moving from wooden ramrods conferred an advantage as did cadenced marching.

I'm pretty confident that as well as having generally poor leaders, the French were very poorly trained, which explains their less than stellar performance in the war. Can I quote from Kronoskaf about the French?
"An ordonnance of 1750 standardized weapon handling in the French infantry but there were still no standardized manoeuvre exercises and very few firing exercises. In fact shock was still privileged and most French generals considered French infantry as inherently inferior to its adversaries in terms of firepower, shock supposedly being more in tune with the “génie français” (French character). This preconception created a vicious circle where firing exercises were neglected, thus causing the French infantry to have an inferior firepower on the battlefield; in turn, these poor performances confirmed high command in their belief."
So neither stereotypically 'gods of war' nor 'snivelling Frogs' but merely poorly trained.

donald

[Purple]

There been a few people not liking old Fred. What are you reading?

[ochoin]

There been a few people not liking old Fred. What are you reading?

Dennis Showalter, I think it fair enough but I find the man objectionable which might say more about me than him.
(ambivalent about Nappy, admire Gordon, dislike Robert E. Lee....)

donald

[FreddBloggs]

At Kolin, the comment was that these are not the Austrians of the last war....

In all honesty from my reading I find the Prussian advantage is in the higher ranks, not in the rank and file. Austrians led by Frederick would have been just as good as Prussians (but with different strengths and weakness's).

[BaronVonWreckedoften]

Agreed, Fredd - and Seydlitz/Zieten would have dragged the Austrian cavalry up a notch or two, as well.

[Purple]

Not to mention Winterfeldt and if we are counting Prince Ferdinand ?!