Hi all,
Barry, I seem to have missed some of your posts, but I will read through them and give my point of view.
As I and a few of us have said in the past, please don't change too much in the BLB rules, they work fine so why change something that works.
The squadron strength of 6 figures is ok and doesn't need changing.It's the people using single squadrons in a "GAMEY" tactic that need to change their outlook of the use of cavalry in this period.
I agree with
Ed in that cavalry regiments were not all made up of single squadrons.If I might take the British cavalry at the Battle of Blenheim as an example.They were organised into three brigades, that of Wood's, Palmes and Ross's.
Wood's was made up of his own regiment (2 squadrons) and Lumley's (3 squadrons).
Palmes was made up of Cadogan's (1 squadron), Wyndam's (2 squadrons) and Schomberg's (2 squadrons).
Ross's was made up of his own regiment (2 squadrons), Hay's (1 squadron) and attached to this brigade was the Erbprinz Dragoons (4 squadrons).
You will notice that Cadogan's and Hay's only have single squadrons, but this is only because their other squadrons could not get shipped over in time for the battle.
It was Palmes brigade all 5 squadrons of it that charged the Gendarmerie (8 squadrons).To comment on
Jim O'Neil's post, regiments did sometimes fight with their squadrons in line abreast as Palmes ordered his wing squadrons to swing outwards, whereupon all 5 squadrons charged forward.Using this tactic could be a gamble and has it's good and bad points, you may have more figures fighting, but may also suffer more casualties.I like the "All or Nothing" charge as it is with supporting squadrons behind each other in base contact and sharing the casualties amongst the regiment when taking morale checks.
Cavalry in this period as throughout military history have mainly been used as Shock troops charging in deep formations in a attempt to break into or through a enemy formation using the speed and weight of the horse and rider to it's advantage.
Steve reading your post on how single squadrons are so fragile now, I'd say and so they should be!!!
On page 4 of BLB v1 it has the figure to real man ratio as 1 to 35, this gives us a squadron of 210 cavalry charging a regiment of 630 steady musketmen some armed with pikes too.If betting to the outcome I know who my money would be on.
As has been said on this forum many times before, it just didn't happen during this period.People seem to get transfixed with the period being the same as the napoleonic period.Cavalry did not charge steady infantry frontally, it was suicidal.
Cavalry operated in Brigades and neither regiments nor squadrons were sent on their own willy nilly about the battlefield.Remember you should have a cavalry figure for every two infantry figures so for every two regiments of infantry, you should have three squadrons of cavalry.
Sorry this is so long winded, but once I get started
Kind Regards.............Ray.