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Right in the basics, but not as a whole. Also any elaboration on the real life and/or game mechanics are lacking. I will try and provide a very short turtorial below:





Infantry, cavalry and general military formations and tactics were dictated by the technology available at the time. Smoothbore muskets were horribly inaccurate compared to even 19th century rifles. Basically a soldier on his own would hit sh*te. Therefore units were tightly packed to provide a concentrated volley, increasing the amount of lead sent flying and thus having more, though very small, chances of hitting a target. The downside was of course that your men grouped together posed a bigger target as well increasing the chances of any individual enemy bullet to hit a 'random' target. However as long as long as both sides suffered from the same technological limitations and sticked to the doctrine, all was well.

By the time of the Napoleonic wars, the Brittish still deployed a tactical shallow single line. As such they had a continueous defensive and offensive line. The French used to deploy their troops in a segmented line (see below), which generally allowed for greater manoeuvrability at the slight expense of having a interrupted line. Ironically the latter is the only method of deployement available in ETW. There are ways to get around this, but we will return to that later.

Under Napoleon the French started to employ column tactics. A column genrally was a single narrow file placed between two segments. As the column had a very small front face, it was hard to hit and regardless of whether it was still, moving or gone, did little to (further) disrupt the integrity of the French line. As can be seen below, the volume of fire projected by the French host with column is roughly equal to what it would be without column

As the column marches onwards, the number of Brittish soldiers actually able to fire directly at the column is limited. Also as the French take casualties at the front of the column, each casualty is istantly replaced by the man behind him. This means the Brittish troops firing will only see a continueous wall of bayonets advancing towards them, no matter how many the kill off. At this point they are probably sh*tting it. The image shows some Brits below actually breaking from the formation. Furthermore it illustrates that flanking fire at the column is only marginally effective. Also it is questionable how many troops of the line can be diverted to flanking fire on the column as they are still under the same ammount of direct 'suppresive fire' from the French segments. Firing at the column, means they are not firing at the segments. Just count the number of yellow bars flying towards the Brits as opposed to the number of orange lines still going at the segments.

The column will now charge the remaining distance, bayonets forward. Shattering Brittish morale they drive a gap in the line, as the troops flee before them, or simply smash through, if the Brittish troops are disciplined enough to stay put. In either case the Brittish line is now broken, as shown on the last two images.

Image removed for profanity. Feel free to remove it from the image and re-edit post.

For the love of God,.. you can't be serious. Is this better?



Now, can we mimic this in game, and if so, how? As I said before selecting the 'standard single line' group formation puts your units in a French style segmented line. If you want a true traditional (Brittish) single line, group two or three units and select column; yes, column. There is a sense of irony in this, but in effect this is how the game works. Now draw them out to produce a single long file. If your units are not at full strength, the units will be packed very compact into a very tight double or triple continueous line. Place more of these drawn out columngroups next to eachother to be a real Brit :D

Now how to make a effective French column? Select a single unit, or a small group for larger scale battles, which you place in 'standard single line'; again the irony. Mostly though a single unit will be enough for a single column. Draw them out, but keep them very very narrow. Three to five soldiers is enough when playing on medium unit size, maybe up to eight or nine for ultra, but no more. Place them between two segments or two groups of segments and select 'force melee'. Watch the Frnech miniseries about Napoleon, and specifically the episode at Eylau, and you'll see a column doesn't fire! When your segments have the enemy line halted or pinned down, double right click and charge! Relative distances and musket range between two firing armies are to small in ETW to require marching of the column first.

I have already indicated before that when using multiple units in a column you should select 'standard single line', so to have several narrow three-five or eight-nine column segments packed together. Why don't we want to select 'column' and place these units in a file? Because the succeeding units will only smash into the friendly unit in front of them, rather than the enemy line. Friendly fire might not work for melee, but those secondary and tertiary units still don't provide any significant contribution to your charge and will only serve as cannon fodder as they break the column to swerve around your primary unit and get into the exchange of fire between your segments and the enemy's line. Generally though, you will want to limit the number of units in an individual column as the wholepoint is 'blitzkreig'. Have them wide enough to break through, but certainly no wider than necesary as a wider column will encounter more 'drag'. If you insist on a larger charging force, it is better to have several individual columns at regular intervals between your segments.

Good luck, and have fun!