Friedrich, again & some more (2)

This is getting to be a bit rambling, but never mind. A couple of other observations on 'Frederickan' vs 'Napoleonic', and the classic Prussian army.

One thing the napoleonicists make a big deal of, is the Grand Batteries and much higher concentrations of artillery in their period, compared to the SYW, and yet, when you look at the actual battles, the Prussians show a steady escalation in the proportion of artillery (although, it is true, their opponents generally dont). This reaches something of an apogee at Torgau, where Frederick is recorded as bringing 440 heavy pieces (that's in addition to the estimated 100-odd field and battalion pieces). This for an army of 45,000 - over 10 guns per 1000, a ratio not so much Napoleonic as positively Haigean*. It's true that he didnt muster them in a grand battery, but when you look at his extremely energetic battles, there is rarely any place where you would want a grand battery, so capability and need seem to fold neatly into eachother.

Interestingly, once the SYW was over, Frederick reduced the artillery establishment considerably, and seemed to regard it as unnecessary and ill-mannnered (ha): the rationale, I believe, was that the great decline of infantry quality during the war necessitated more artillery (gee that sounds familiar).

The other thing I notice is the great stress Duffy places on, and how he points out the importance of, the kleine krieg - the scouting of the Croats, hussars, bosniaks, freikorps, and other riffraff who weren't forced into the firing line :)

Again, the proportion of these grew - on both sides - as the war ground on: and in many of the battles, the success of the initial manouevres seems to depend enormously on the relative successs of the scouting screens (particularly noticeable at Kunersdorf, Torgau, and Liegnitz I think). Not exactly a surprise to anyone who's read Sun Tzu, and yet ... after the war, Frederick greatly diminishes the establishment of all his light troops: and, with all the European armies aping the Prussian fashion, that seems to lead to a great reduction of scouting troops in all the continental armies... including the British.

Nicely timed for the decade before the War In The Colonies put such a premium on them, really.

Friedrich, again & some more

Still following Alte Fritz through his career, & gotten as far as the fiasco of Torgau(1), almost at the end of the Seven Years War. I have to say, looking over his battles, that the celebrated oblique attack looks a lot less impressive than its' proponents would have: one dazzling success, at Leuthen, one total fiasco (Zorndorf), and a series of minor victories or draws, mostly notable by the fact that the Prussians held the field at the end of the day, at the cost of considerably higher casualties than their opponents sustained (and with less ability to endure such casualty rates).

In fact, the whole problem seems to be that it is almost impossible to surprise your opponent with the whole march-to-a-flank manouevre, as your army is largely visible, and your opponent will have you well-scouted (unless he's an absolute idiot). Once your manouevre has been spotted, the defender actually has the advantage of interior lines, in order to redeploy to face you (although the restrictive methods of mid-18th century armies does nullify that somewhat).

I also need to bear in mind that these manouevres were conducted in the face of teh Austrians under Daun, who seems to have been careful and cautious to the point of supine indolence.

And what made the victory at Leuthen so singular? the presence of a range of low hills that screened the march columns as they headed to the flank, plus the surprise effect, as it was the first time Frederick has tried this against the Austrians.

So, summing up, the oblique attack will only really have great effect when terrain or other aspects grant the opportunity of (at least some) surprise. In other circumstances, it seems to partially nullify the disadvantage of superior numbers, but leads to very bloody and expensive attacks. I suspect, in the absence of surprise, it also exposes you to dangerous intercept attack opportunities against a dynamic and watchful opponent.



(1) over which, btw, I'm totally with Napoleon on this - he deserved to lose, dividing his forces in the face of a numerically superior enemy is a shocking risk to take, even against so supine an opponent as the Austrians: and given that he had not cut their line of retreat in doing so, the upside if everything went right did not nearly match the downside of the potential elimination of the royal army.

Friedrich der Groesse

Wow, it's sure soupy today: we had tropical downpours yesterday, and this morning more heat, so all that rain is evaporating. When I was looking out the back yard this morning at 6:30, it looked like fog, but no, just evaporating moisture. When I got out of the car to walk to the office at 7:30ish, my glasses completely fogged up by the time I'd stood up: not sure what the temperature was at that point, I think around 84C.

It prolly won't go over the low 90s, but with 80% humidity to go with it, makes it a mad dash just to get to the car. Still, if last year is to judge, it will pass off in afew weeks in favour of higher temperatures but much lower humidity.Thank goodness for air conditioning in the meantime.

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Courtesy of my birthday, I'm reading through Chris Duffy's Frederick the Great: A Military Life, which is utterly fascinating (well, for wargamers, anyway). Duffy is perhaps the preeminent historian of the 18th & 19th century in military areas, and has long made a speciality of Frederick, so this is both animated and quite specific, with endless details apparently at the authors' fingertips, and - as always with Duffy - written in a lucid, flowing prose that is a positive pleasure to read.

What I'm finding particularly illuminating is to compare Frederick with Napoleon: both came to command of an army quite young, with no experience under fire and little other military education except some practice with drill, and voracious reading of military history on both their parts.

With Frederick, once he launches into the 1st & 2nd Silesian wars, you can visibly see him learning, groping for the practicalities of strategy and grand tactics piece by piece: writing up his own critiques after each campaign, with a list of his mistakes and what to learn from them, and also his opponents' clever moves, and what they showed: how to defend a river line from in front, rather than behind; the sensitivity to scouting; the importance of little-wars and the support of civilian populace; the disadvantages of the direct approach; the whole headache of lines of communication and the war of depots.

I can see how, by the time of the Seven Years War (16 years later), he had turned into a general of great ability and vision, but in these early campaigns, he is clearly starting no better than most of his contemporaries, except perhaps in the measure of his determination and ruthlessness: although after a couple of years, he is also clearly improving far past them.

The comparison I still find startling is, Napoleon takes charge of his first army, apparently already knowing all of these things. How, why? Their education seemed very much on a par - Nappy, obviously, has the advantage of reading the history of Fredericks' wars, but that is not so illuminating or astonishing as to provide a key to unlock all the secrets of generalship. Is it just a matter of inherent talent and penetration, perhaps? It certainly can't be determination and energy, as both seemed to exhibit more-or-less identical monomania on the reading matter.

It's hard to think of any other general who emerged, so instantly fully-formed. -
Alex the Axe Murderer? Well, yes, in the tactical sense - a brilliant leader of men and tactician, but he never seemed to learn any strategic lesson except one: make a dash at the enemy army and beat them. If he'd run into a Fabius, or even a competent general willing to put reliance on his fortified cities, he would I think have come a cropper comprehensively.
Wellington, again, you can watch him grope his way towards strategic understanding through his Indian campaigns (altho he astonished Europe by apparently emerging fullyformed, this is just because India didnt count, to them).
Rommel? Again, his concepts in WW2 clearly stem from the lessons he learnt fighting in Italy in Big One, as a relatively junior officer.
Conde? Again, a tactician, without the strategic grasp to win wars rather than just battles.

Hannibal? Ah. There, the lack of knowledge fails me - I don't think I've ever seen a comprehensive military (or other) biography of him: I suspect adequate resources are lacking.

Of course, the depressing side of Nappy is watching him deteriorate and lose much of his ability with age and indulgence - something he only regained, rather too late, once he was again hardpressed.

Enough blithering for today - work calls

Waterloo Day

Seems funny to reach Waterloo day, & not have any wargames planned: huh, when I think about it, not even any Napoleonic soldiers here, if I wanted to do a refight. Of course, I unloaded my huge Nappy collections before we left NZ (which helped pay for the move, of course), and haven't really replaced them, having failed to find any large number of Nappy players in the UK (and the few small groups I found, playing strange and demented scales and rulessets - Napoleonic skirmish with 54mm figures, for Davout's sake!)

Oh well, I progress with my project of getting all my unpainted lead at least based, undercoated, and given a brown wash. Overall I'm delighted with the look this produces, and it does feel enormously better than having them just stuck in piles, in cardboard boxes lying around everywhere. However, with the advent of the hot and sticky weather, it has been slown down a bit - both because of technical issues with the ink washes in this heat, and because the humidity is so debilitating.

I expect this to pick up now, as we've reached the point where the air conditioning is going on pretty much fulltime - we try to put this off, both to acclimatise and to keep the bills down, but as it gets hotter, there comes a time to just be realistic, and rely on the blessings of technology! Once it's regularly over 90F, that seems to be our current sticking point (so to speak). Judging from last year, the next 6 weeks will get hotter & hotter, with the humidity only starting to diminish in August, but as we go from airconn'ed house to airconn'ed car to airconn'ed office, it isn't too hard to put up with.

And speaking of which, whoever has control of the office temperature this year, is taking a very different approach to last year, I'm happy to say: last year, I was cooking at the office every day, as they kept the temperature very hot (80ish) to keep costs down (I assume). This year, it's positively chilly in the office: I havent measured, but I would guess around 65F, so it's always quite pleasant to walk out of the office into a wall of hot air (at least for the first 30 seconds).

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I was going to expound on the situation in Iran, but it's too depressing & I'll put that off til tomorrow, I think - besides, Thursday is my busy day at work, so best to clear the decks and get ready for the change requests.