The Loose Association of Wargamers

OK to broaden the question, what, if anything, do you do about skirmish cavalry?

Squadrons served, as I'm sure you know, along side light infantry skirmishers in bespoke units in the French SYW armies.

I've created such but really don't think they have a place in a battle. Your view?

donald

Scouting, if the rules include them, ransacking the enemy's camp, threatening unsteady or already breaking units., but mostly the ransacking!

Rubbish cavalry can be lots of fun used creatively.

I'm a bit of a 'paintaholic' so I don't mind acquiring & painting figures/units of marginal use. As I wrote, I have several squadrons of French skirmish cavalry (2 per 40X40 base), all in hussar dress.

My pal, Malcolm, went out and painted up quite a few of Fred.The G.'s Bosniaks:



Both of us have tried, in a few games, to get them behind enemy lines but that's quite hard, not least because virtually any other unit can smack them hard, generally without loss.

Still....they look good.

As I understand it, the role of "light" troops on a major battlefield was limited to holding either the flanks, or rough/difficult ground that formed units found hard (if not impossible) to cross, or acting as "meat shields" (I know, dreadful expression) for more important folk - I gather Fred's hussars often did this for cuirassiers and dragoons, to provoke enemy fire and allow the "big boys" to charge home unmolested.

To bring them into their own on the main battlefield is going to be very hard, but two options spring to mind: either just restrict them to fighting each other within the context of the main event, or else put them in situations where, if they are opposed to "regular" troops, they gain advantages from the terrain, weather, whatever which gives them some sort of parity. An alternative is to "do a Peter Pig" and have a pre-big game skirmish (invent a scenario if there isn't an historical one handy) that has some impact on the main fight - eg which side occupies a key piece of terrain. Otherwise, have them fight their own little war (see what I did there?) as a skirmish-level alternative to constantly fighting big battles; if done as part of a campaign, the results can be used to determine what each of the main forces can, or can't do - eg cossacks have captured a wagon train carrying food or ammo, with whatever you want that to entail.

Hope that helps, and apologies if I've taught granny to suck eggs.

Granny rather enjoyed sucking eggs; particularly after she lost her teeth.

I acknowledge pitting the various Lights against one another. This does run the risk of prolonging what already be a lengthy game for no real purpose as they cancel one another out.....it still might be fun, though.

I am intrigued with your pre-battle idea. It may well be impossible to manage, given people's busy lives, but would give the subsequent genuine relevance.

donald

The CoC pre game thing is easily transferable to H&M and elements of irregulars can be used to give you a non linear start line. In a campaign, if the loser of a battle suffers losses due to pursuit, fresh cavalry elements on the winners' side should add to those losses, as should fresh cavalry elements on the losers.

And then we ha Sharpe Practice and all the glory of petit guerre.

To be honest, I'm not there yet.
I'm in no way criticising these concepts but as we game...12 times a year (in normal circumstances), I do not want to relinquish big battles.

Certainly, I'll keep this all in mind. It may be possible for me, for example, to run a solo skirmish scenario on a Friday night & let that influence my pals' battle game on the Saturday morning....I *think* they trust me enough.

At any rate, 6+ months of no gaming lies ahead.

donald

If light cavalry had a negligible role in mass battles and that’s the style of gaming you prefer, then you can cheerfully omit them.

Unles of course you like painting Hussars

In which case it’s how you use them in a big game. Apart from the SYW instances noted above, didn’t they also have a role in chasing ‘shocked’ or ‘battered’ units off the table, making sure they don’t recover?

levied troop wrote: ↑Tue Mar 31, 2020 7:56 am If light cavalry had a negligible role in mass battles and that’s the style of gaming you prefer, then you can cheerfully omit them.

In which case it’s how you use them in a big game. Apart from the SYW instances noted above, didn’t they also have a role in chasing ‘shocked’ or ‘battered’ units off the table, making sure they don’t recover?

Depends on what you mean by "light Cavalry". I think you may be using a Napoleonic rather than a SYW viewpoint.

First, nomenclature.
"The cavalry of the Ancien Régime (Old Regime) had long been known as cavalerie légère (light cavalry) to differentiate it from the gendarmerie, the sole units considered as heavy cavalry." from Kronoskaf. Thus, French 'Light cavalry' wore cuirasses & probably iron 'secretes' on their heads & are what any person of sense would label as "heavy". This, BTW, has always driven me to distraction.

What we might call "light cavalry" (hussars & dragoons) "were not yet the dashing hussars of Napoleon, whose charges were to be immortalised in the great battles of the Empire; rather they were regular light troops, very efficient in the petite guerre. Their task was to reconnoitre the enemy, to worry him, to fall on his foragers and convoys and scatter or seize them. Frequently they were joined by 'free companies', raised according to wartime requirements.". In other words, they would not necessarily even appear on a battlefield. Their nags were extremely poor, their orientation was not to pursue a routing enemy on a battlefield.....they might but it wasn't common. They might very well ambush units from a losing army several days after the battle. I would like mine to be able to dismount & shoot (I don't have the figures for this, sadly) alongside their foot skirmisher brothers, whilst ensconced in a wood on the flank of a battlefield.

This negligible role could be true of the Prussian "lights" in the Frei Korps too but , "It was during the Seven Years' War that Frederick the Great changed the nature of the Prussian hussars, these free-spirited free-booters, until then used exclusively for patrolling, scouting, raiding, intelligence gathering and ambushes, to cavalry regiments, which could take part in set charges against the enemy".

I certainly use Fred.'s premium Hussar regiments as battle cavalry. As for the rest of the Prussian "lights", they match my comments on the French, above.

LT: apologies if this sounds like a Kiley-like lectures. Trust me when I say I don't know that much apart from knowing to consult a few good sources such as Kronoskaf. I stand ready to be humbled & corrected.

donald