To play the 100 Days Campaign

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Belg
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To play the 100 Days Campaign

Post by Belg » Wed Jul 15, 2015 9:18 am

Hi,
for our fantasy Campaigns, we use the excellent regulation of Nick Lund "Fantasy Warriors Campaigns". We would like to try to use it also for the historical battles (WSS and Napoleonic).
The regulation provides a map divided into squares. We would like to try to draw one map on a A3 sheet (or two or three or more sheets) in order to play the 100 Days Campaign.
The regulation provides that a Force can move in a turn to the maximum of 3 squares, if it is in the best of conditions .
As a game Turn should correspond to a day, which scale should we use for the map? That is, the armies of the Napoleonic era, how many kilometers could walk at most in one day? And how many hours could they walk every day?
Many thanks

Sergio
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Ronan the Librarian
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Re: To play the 100 Days Campaign

Post by Ronan the Librarian » Thu Jul 16, 2015 7:40 am

Hi,

I've listed everything in "miles per hour" (mph); multiply by 1.6 to translate the figures into kilometres.

Whilst it comes from 100 years later, the British Army's Field Service Regulations for 1914 give comprehensive statistics for a regular army moving through territory with at least a basic road network. The FSR stipulates road marching speeds of 3 miles per hour for foot troops, 3.5mph for mounted troops (this includes periods of walking whilst dismounted - if they remained mounted all the time, it was 7mph), and 2.5mph for wheeled vehicles. These rates included short halts every hour and a typical day's march was around 15 miles (6-7 hours, depending on the make-up of the force), although a forced march could double that, or occasionally even triple it (the British Light Division famously marched 42 miles in 26 hours to reach Talavera). Daily distances might be extended or reduced slightly in order for troops to reach a fixed objective - eg a river crossing, the next town, or the outskirts of a large wood.

Typically, there would be a rest day for every 3-6 days of marching, depending on the state of the roads (including how much military "traffic" it was carrying), the fitness of the troops, the availability of food, and the climate. Heat would affect the time of day at which marching took place, both to avoid fatigue/sunstroke, and to minimise dust (just before dawn until noon was a common marching period in summer and in places such as India, with the hottest part of the day - noon until 4pm - being avoided).

Obviously, the speed of a column was dictated by the slowest element - usually the artillery and baggage. However, if your armies are moving three squares a day, then a square would equate to 5 miles/8 kilometres or so - although for a short campaign such as the 100 Days, perhaps you could be generous and make each square 10 kilometres to keep the maths and map scale simpler.

Hope that helps.

RtL
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Belg
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Re: To play the 100 Days Campaign

Post by Belg » Thu Jul 16, 2015 12:45 pm

Many thanks, Ronan.
You're really kind. Your information is very useful.
Your suggestion to speculate that a square map has the side corresponding to 10 km greatly simplifies our lives. In fact we are trying to use a system as simple as possible, obviously to allow a certain adherence to the reality of the time.
If then we draw to an A3 sheet a pattern of squares having the side of 2.5 cm (= 1 inch), as this side correspond to a distance of 10 Km, that is to say 100,000 cm., it follows that every one cm of the map would amount to: 100,000 / 2.5 = 40,000 cm of the terrain.
We should then be able to find or draw a map of the area where the 100 Days Campaign took place, in the scale of 1: 40,000.
It seems to you correct?

Best regards,
Sergio
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