Angularity wrote:
Telchar wrote:
Angularity wrote:
I don't know if you've taken the factor of spacing into account well enough. The infantry would have been shoulder-to-shoulder, so any shot in the 'beaten zone' would probably be a (disabling) hit; cavalry may have been boot-to-boot occasionally, but more likely would be moving with 3-4 feet between individuals. Jac Weller's books have all the details. The bottom line is that you need to end up making it less likely to score a disabling hit on cavalry (except if they chose to close up).
You may also need to add in a factor for if a target unit moves more than X across the frontage of the shooter. A hit from a cannon becomes less likely, but more effective, if a unit in line is moving across the battery's front.
So, your target is more like hitting the hard bits in a colander, rather than shooting at a pan, if you see what I mean.
The old WRG Renaissance rules were brilliant, my favourite of all the ones I've used. There were 3 base widths for horse, and 3 for foot, which impacted on shooting and melee.
Eh, I don't see what you mean
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I know about the different distances between cavalry and infantry in formations, but what effect does that have on shooting? For the second paragraph, I really don't get how someone could represent this in a rulebook without writing another 20 pages of rules.
I don't know WRG, so I don't know why they were so brilliant.
Maybe you're assuming that the shots from a Napoleonic musket are going where the shooter intends? It's more of a random thing, which is why they stood in great long lines.Let's assume a company of infantry, 100 men in two lines of fifty, all shoulder-to-shoulder or as near as makes no difference. Shooting at a similar enemy company, that gives them 100 square yards of target to shoot at, for round figures. Shots go high, shots go low, some hit muskets or buckles and do no damage, some cause non-disabling hits, and the ones that are left are the figures you take off.
I know, that's why there are two rolls. The first to determine wether or not the ball hits the 100 yards where the enemy is, the second to account for balls passing between troops, causing non-fatal wounds, getting caught in armour etc.
[quote='Angularity']Shooting at cavalry, each man and horse takes up one yard wide by three yards high, one deep, and they're at least a yard apart. So, on a fifty yard frontage, there's 25 blokes, 25 horses, and a total target area of 25 x 3 = 75 square yards. Even on basic ratios, you've got less chance of making a disabling hit. Add in the effect of armour and heavy boots on the rider, all the tack that can absorb a hit, the cavalry moving faster so being more off-putting to the shooter, and the fact that the horse can absorb more hits before it's disabled, and you're down to around 33-50% as likely to score a disabling hit on cavalry as you are on infantry. Fiddle the 'to hit' roll required to make it work.[/quote]
Oh, so you're giving me an excuse for increasing the roll for cavalry, I thought you were suggesting a new rule of sorts. Thanks!
[quote='Angularity']The cannon thing is easily done with card templates; a cone for grape, and a longer, narrower line one for ball. Place it over the target and roll for any model in the beaten zone. If your opponent is daft enough to expose his flanks to your guns, then he'll soon learn not to.[/quote]
I have a rule to represent that kind of thing, which I think is easier, because it doesn't use templates. Canister allows the gun to fire at several formations close to one another at the same time, and has more attacks, so has more chances of killing people, while a cannonball automatically takes 3 men off each company it hits (at a 4+). I supposed this was a suggestion to make it harder for cannonballs to hit lines when firing into a flank.
We have a lot of misunderstandings
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"... Telchar wrought it in the deeps of time."
-On Andùril, The Lord of the Rings