Reply To: Some good viewing for Napolenonic fans…

[Anonymous 0xp 1]

@elessar2590 This is why I am so surprised there is so little discussion on squares in the videos.  The only battles I have read about at depth in this era are Waterloo and Quatre Bras and essentially squares or not being in squares was so important in both these battles.  Perhaps the books I have read have overestimated the power of squares, which is why I thought these videos didn’t give enough time to explain the square, which was my point. Perhaps the tales of Wellington jumping into British Squares on Copenhagen to escape the French Calvary have wrongly made me assume that squares were much more important than these videos make them out to be.

Basically I have always thought of Napoleonic era tactics as a complicated game of Rock, Paper, Scissors (I believe it was Bernard Cornwell’s non-fictional account of Waterloo that explains it this way and it has stuck with me).

Calvary > Infantry in Line
Infantry in Square > Calvary
Artillery > Infantry in Square

and so on and so forth.  While a very simply way to understand warfare at this time, am I completely wrong?  Given how much I have read about British Squares and their use at Waterloo and Quartre Bras, should these videos on Infantry and Calvary tactics of this era not have discussed it more?

As a side note, I have also thought about using Game Theory to study battles from this era, to use maths to try and get an insight into a generals mind at the time or turning it into a card game of some sort but I don’t think my grasp of history is strong enough in order to get the math or game right.