light battalion

[duc de limbourg]

In BP, does the whole light battalion can skirmish or is a part of the battalion used as a reserve so maybe half can only skirmish?

[Alan Charlesworth]

I think you need to clarify the question.

What army?
What period?
What light batallion?

In BP you can have a unit in either skirmish order or mixed order and these are defined in the rules. Are you talking about a modification to that?

[duc de limbourg]

Alan,
eg a french light battalion of the Napoleonic wars.
In reality it only skirmished with a part of the battalion, the rest would be a reserve which fed men forward if the skirmishers received losses. So maybe only half or one third really skirmished.
How is such a battalion used in BP.
I'm learning the rules but sometimes i'm a bit too historical, I presume

[Invisible officer]

Alan,
eg a french light battalion of the Napoleonic wars.
In reality it only skirmished with a part of the battalion, the rest would be a reserve which fed men forward if the skirmishers received losses. So maybe only half or one third really skirmished.
How is such a battalion used in BP.
I'm learning the rules but sometimes i'm a bit too historical, I presume

For my taste you can't be too historical. I would do it in the correct way, Prussian Füsiliere and other light Infantry battalion size units did it the same way. With a reserve formed in line or column.

[Alan Charlesworth]

duc

OK now I see what you mean. BP don't go into that level of detail.

One option would be to deploy your Skirmish formation unit with half the bases formed and that rest skirmishing, but still use the standard Skirmish stats for shooting and firing. In effect a beefed up version of the Mixed Order. That would at least 'look' right for the period.

If you wanted to replicate the way many light battalions fought in more detail you would need to modify the factors to reflect how many companies were in support and how many in the skirmish line. This varied between nationalities and between different engagements. The difficulty comes in assessing the factors to use. Adding or reducing to the dice rolled or giving +1 or -1 on die rolls moves the odds by quite a big jump each time. You also get into the issue of what frontage the skirmishers from such units should have.

A related issue would be the lack of differentiation between the effectiveness of different nations skirmishers or indeed the same nations skirmishers at different point in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.

Generally I think that BP abstracts these issues in a way that is consistent with the framework of the rules design. If you add too much detail back in you end up with something similar to General de Brigade or Republic to Empire. Both fine sets of rules but at the price of grater complexity and a slower game. You pays yer money and takes yer choice

[duc de limbourg]

Thanks for the answers. I agree that when you expand the details, a lot of fast playing disappears. Well, maybe to the drawing board for some hous rules