Slitherine

This is just a question that surely has an historical and/or gameplay answer.

A Commanded shot is a small unit of musketeers temporarily attached to other units (usually horse) to provide firepower.

I come across historical reports of the battle of Rocroi saying French 'commanded shots' were "displayed between cavalry units". Two contemporary maps show the order of the battles of Rocroi (1643) and Les Avins (1635) where those commanded shots were put in the intervals of the only first row of cavalry (that is in checkerboard formation, like the infantry) at least at the start of the battle, in both wings :

Rocroi :



Battle of Les Avins



Military historian John A. Lynn also wrote : "To bolster his cavalry, (French) Henri (IV) also interspersed companies of musketeers betwen his squadrons, a practice that continued throughout the Thirty years' War'.

The Swedish Army is said to have done it too.

This is an order of battle hard to achieve in game, because of :
- the limited number of Commanded shots in the French Army (and to a less extent in the Swedish one) in the Vanilla Skirmish mode during 1635-1648 : 1 up to a medium force size, 2 for a large one and 3 for a very large one.
- and the limited width of the deployment zone that prevents checkerboard formations for both cavalry and infantry. For example :



About the 'limited' number of Commanded Shot :

1) With a Small force sized Army, I guess one can easily have 4/5 cavalry units. So one can achieve a 'Formation 1' on one wing (see above) and let 1/2 cavalry unit(s) in the other wing (that could/should also have their Commanded shot).

2) With a medium force size Army, one can have say about 7-9 Cavalry units and could attempt a 'Formation 2' on one wing and let 2-4 on the other one (again they could/should have their Command shot) but, in fact, one can actually get only one Commanded shot unit (not 2).

3) With a large force size Army, one can get 12 cavalry units and theoretically make one Formation 2 on one wing and one Formation 3 on the other have but one gets only 2 Commanded shots (not 5).


Formation 1, 2, 3 (blue : commanded shots ; Red : Cavalry)

I guess the limited number of Commanded shots is a matter of balance between armies and cost of units and also reflects what real battles actually were. Looking forward to learning as much in terms of gameplay (a gameplay I really like!) as in terms of History

Cheers!

PS : sorry as I focused on the Swedish and French. I don't know the other armies well enough to know if they used that same order

The French use of combined Cavalry and Commanded shot at the battle of Rocroi (as I understand it) :



It did not work well on the French left wing (as, among other reasons, it seems that the horses were exhausted because of a too fast gait) but on the right wing, it quickly overwhelmed the Cavalry of the Spanish left wing, thans to flanking :

I generally don't find them worth the points anyway. Their defensive Impact and ZoC is nice, but they get killed in melee, and their firepower is so negligible as to be easily ignored for several turns.

SnuggleBunnies wrote: ↑Sat Dec 07, 2019 12:26 am I generally don't find them worth the points anyway. Their defensive Impact and ZoC is nice, but they get killed in melee, and their firepower is so negligible as to be easily ignored for several turns.

Indeed, all goes well for the Commanded shot, as long as it is protected by a Cavalry unit.

btw I like this idea of a fragile unit at the heart of the battlefield.

I have the feeling that this small company of 150 men can give one this tiny advantage one sometimes needs :

• when two equally powerful enemy cavalries meet, the small extra firepower of the Commanded force before the charge may make the difference during the charge and the melee.

• when the enemy cavalry charge your protected commanded shot, your cavalry can charge. And the enemy has to fight against two units (even tough the Commanded shot will resist only for 1-2 turns)

• a Commanded shot will defeat an enemy artillery

• their firepower can be doubled with two Commanded shots. The advantage of this order is that if one of your cavalry unit flee, both your Commanded shots remain protected :

The problem occurs when the Cavalry that protects the Commanded shot is attacked by an overwhelming enemy force and loses.

If I ain't mistaken, IRL commanded shots were mainly used during the initial phase before the charge of the cavalry at a trot to protect it and then as a rallying point.

However, I play only against the AI. In MP, things may be different

I played the French Huguenots (1589-1599) last evening :

• lots of Commanded Arquebusiers (the equivalent of Commanded shot for the period) : 2 (very small force size), 3 (small), 4 (medium), 6 (large), 9 (very large)

• lots of Skirmish Arquebusiers too (equivalent to the Detached musketeers of the following period)

I played in Skirmish mode with 3 Commanded Arquebusiers in a Small force size Army.Thanks to them, I first was able to weaken the enemy cavalry units before the charge, then fired at those who retreated and later to ambush in the nearby woods an enemy Light horse that had suddenly arrived as reinforcement (while preserving my 3 Commanded Arquebusiers).

Lots of fun

It could also be interesting to use one unit of Commanded shot (or Detached Musketeers) as Forlorn Hope/Enfants perdus to capture an enemy artillery if the feature "defeating an artillery with an infantry makes it switch side" could be indeed modded.

It is already nice to see them being protected behind an enemy fortification

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Some books mentioning French squadrons of cavalry interspersed with companies of musketeers (sometimes called 'pelotons' de mousquetaires or 'manches' de mousquetaires) in the first half of the 17th century :

- E. A. Bardin, Dictionnaire de l’armée de terre, vol. 2, p. 1100
- Jean Colin, L’infanterie au 18e siècle : la tactique, 1907, p. 19
- Éd. de la Barre Duparq, Histoire de l’art de la guerre, IIe partie, depuis l’usage de la poudre, 1864, p. 168
- Henri de Bessé, Relation des campagnes de Rocroi et de Fribourg, en l'année 1643 et 1644 (1673)
- Colonel Hardy de Périni, Batailles françaises, tome 4, p. 18
- John A. Lynn, Giant of the Grand Siècle: The French Army, 1610-1715, p. 497
- John A. Lynn, Tactical evolution in the French Army, p. 183
- General L. Susane, Histoire de la cavalerie, vol. 1, p. 75-76
- Stéphane Thion, French Armies of the Thirty Years War, 2013

Athos,
you should try a few multiplayer games, they are fun. But because its a human on the other side the enemy is less predictable. When you only play the computer you soon learn how it thinks and can adjust your disposition and tactics accordingly.

I use dragoons in preference to commanded shot, they are better at shooting up flank units and then getting out of the way, whereas commanded shot stand and die (magnificently). Both are good for taking the enemy artillery if they are left unguarded, but dragoons are faster and capture them earlier.

awesum4 wrote: ↑Sun Dec 29, 2019 2:17 am Athos,
you should try a few multiplayer games, they are fun. But because its a human on the other side the enemy is less predictable. When you only play the computer you soon learn how it thinks and can adjust your disposition and tactics accordingly.

I use dragoons in preference to commanded shot, they are better at shooting up flank units and then getting out of the way, whereas commanded shot stand and die (magnificently). Both are good for taking the enemy artillery if they are left unguarded, but dragoons are faster and capture them earlier.

Thx for your advice

Tell me if I'm wrong about Commanded shot and protection

The manual says that Commanded shots are protected when they "are not attacking, and (...) have unbroken friendly non-light mounted troops in an adjacent tiles (not including the 3 tiles to the commanded shot's rear", meaning the friendly mounted troop shouldn't be in the red zone :



Note : the direction of the friendly mounted troop is not taken into consideration for protection.

Moreover, the protected shot will remain protected during the impact and the following melee phases in cases A and B (accordingly to the rule), but not in cases C and D :



D : the Commanded shot will be protected during the impact phase, but then it'll turn towards its opponent and its friendly mounted troop will find itself at the rear of the commanded shot. Thus during the following melee phases, the commanded shot won't be protected anymore.

C : in case of rear/flank attack, protection never applies. The Commanded shot is not even protected during the impact. But being a light foot, it can try to evade.

Did I miss anything ?

Note : I had the friendly cavalry turning its back on the enemy cavalry just to show the commanded shot remains protected whatever the direction of the friendly cavalry. Obviously, during a real fight, in this case the friendly cavalry would certainly be attacked and defeated by the enemy cavalry and thus would leave the Commanded shot unprotected. But this is not the matter of this post.

Athos1660, you answered your question yourself.
D - after impact the Commanded shot turns its front 45 degrees and its friendly mounted unit finds itself at the rear of the Commanded shot. And thus the light infantry unit loses support, because the angle plays the key role in this (CombatTools.BSF): if (GetAngleFromTile(i, j, me) < 120) // Mounted don't Protect if in the 3 squares to the Commanded Shot's "rear" C - the protection function of Commanded shots is not counted in FUNCTION IsFlankRearAttack(me, enemy) (CombatTools.BSF):

@Cronos09 : Thx for this confirmation by the code

Cronos09 wrote: ↑Sun Jan 05, 2020 7:51 pm D - after impact the Commanded shot turns its front 45 degrees and its friendly mounted unit finds itself at the rear of the Commanded shot. And thus the light infantry unit loses support, because the angle plays the key role in this (CombatTools.BSF): if (GetAngleFromTile(i, j, me) < 120) // Mounted don't Protect if in the 3 squares to the Commanded Shot's "rear"

This situation is avoided and the Commanded shot remains protected during the following melee phases if the Commanded shot is one square behind its friendly mounted troop. That way, when it turns towards its enemy, its friendly cavalry ends up on the same line as it and stil protects it :



Any other case(s) ?

If not, the next question would be : in what way(s) can a commanded shot also protect its friendly cavalry ?

In the TT game commanded shot protected adjacent horse by reducing any PoA disadvantage when the protected horse were in combat with enemy horse. So a 2 poa disadvantage became only 1, and if 1 then they became equal poa wise. Comparable or superior protected horse received no benefit. I believe the intent was that generally, commanded shot was used when your Cavalry was inferior to the enemies., although historically it seems it became a vogue thing to do.

I’m sure it could be modded , probably be easiest to just give any horse/determined horse or cavaliers a modest poa bonus ( 25?) when protected by commanded shot. Remember though the Ai doesn’t really make use of commanded shot and mounted in the way to ensure current benefits let alone modded ones, at least in skirmish mode. In scenarios you can group said units so they act more in union.

Interesting!

I like it as it is in the Vanilla game.

But, as you made a modding suggestion about commanded shot, here is mine :

1) with Generals added to P&S,

2) If, in real life :

• Officers (and the bravest, most skilled, veteran, etc. cavalrymen) did charge on the first/front line of their cavalry squadron,

• Commanded shots followed such advices as d’Aurignac's (in Un tacticien du XVIIe s., p. 336) : "(...) if possible, choose to shoot at the officiers on the front line of each squadron"

3) and as Commanded shots are about 'shots', ie musketeers firing,

what about :

• if the enemy cavalry unit that was shot at (at short range) by a protected commanded shot was not led by a general, a cohesion test would be taken by this one and only unit ?

• if there was a General in the enemy cavalry that was shot at (at short range) by a protected commanded shot, there would be an high(er) probability that this General would be either killed or wounded. And as FoG2 manual states : "If a general is killed or wounded, all friendly units within 1 square if the general was a sub-general, or 2 squares if the general was a C-in-C or ally-general must take a Cohesion Test" ? (If probability is unmoddable, then 'cohesion test for all the cavalry units around!')

Note : when commanded shots fire, unprotected and/or at long range, their shooting would be like the current Vanilla one (ie. like any LF).

À la prochaine...

P.S. related to OP :
+ more and smaller commanded shot units (50 men)

I tried a little modding experiment for the fun (I'm not good with game designing) with Commanded shot, based on a possible use of this unit :

• Within 20 paces of the enemy, the Commanded shots and the first (one or two ?) rank(s) of the cavalry shoot

• Then the cavalry charge, with swords drawn, trying to reach the fastest possible speed to get the best impact possible

• Then during the melee, the cavalry shoots with the remaining pistols that were still loaded.

Here it is :

"Cavalry with Commanded Shot" is a single unit (like Late Roman units with 20% bow), not two separated units moving separately as currently : Cavalry and Commanded Shot.

The mobility of this cavalry is reduced to that of the in-game CS unit (as the cavalry has to wait for the slow CS on foot) : AP=12 instead of 16, so it can move 3 squares forwards instead of 4 squares.

The unit gets two attributes:
- muskets fire (50% = about 125 musketeers while the current CS has 150 men. Could be tweak later...)
- Impact mounted

I would have liked that, on (at least, the first) impact, the Commanded Shot would also provide some extra Impact PoAs to the cavalry (+say 25 ? +50 ?), as darts or 20% bow in Late Roman units do in FoG2. But that’s too complicated modding for me. Moreover, this unit would certainly work better with secondary ZoCs in P&S.

However here is the result :





Now I must test it

Any comment ?

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TheGrayMouser wrote: ↑Sat Jan 25, 2020 2:02 pm I believe the intent was that generally, commanded shot was used when your Cavalry was inferior to the enemies., although historically it seems it became a vogue thing to do.

Maybe Commanded Shot was also originally an attempt by Henri IV and Gustave Adolphe to combine the best of two worlds (à la Pike and Shot for infantry) : the musket fire and the charge with the bladed weapon at a fast pace against mounted troops that used mainly one single type of weapon (Gendarmes, Cuirassiers, Reiters...) and one single type of charge (or non-charge as some seemed to prefer using the pistol than the impact, caracole being an 'official' example of it). Maybe using CS was intended to transfer (part of) the firepower from the cavalry to the musketeers on foot by their side, keeping firepower during the charge, while allowing the cavalry to charge more vigorously, improving the impact.

btw another more complex variant of the unit above would be that :

• muskets fire works only till the first charge, whoever the charger is (the enemy or the unit),

• the extra Impact PoAs provided by the CS works only once, ie at the first impact.

After the first charge, the CS are considered as dispersed, having no more real impact on the battle.
And the cavalry unit gets its high mobility back (AP = 16).

btw curious to know if one can mod to make a unit shoot then charge during the same turn (instead of the current shoot or charge and while making charge then shoot still impossible).

The funnier option might be, during a given turn, clicking on :
- the charge icon = shoot (by the CS) + charge (by the cavalry)
or
- the shoot icon = shoot only (by the CS)

(ie 'only' turning the charge icon into a shoot and charge icon)

btw some thoughts after some testing :

I Increased musket up to 60% (= 150 men).
I created two units with 2 troop quality : average and superior (still Unarmoured).

I made this unit with the idea of making it fight against mainly Cuirassiers and Reiters. And it behave quite well.

So I guess this unit could represent the Gustave II Adolphe's Swedish cavalry working with Commanded shots ; so it could be part of the in-game 'Swedish 1630-1634' when they encounter armies with Cuirassiers and Arkebusiers + the Polish Winged Hussars.

Two possible additions :

• an additional amount of Impact PoAs provided by the CS shooting, useful especially against the Polish Winged Hussars

• a 'shoot+charge' icon that could be pure cosmetic, ie without casualty, if there are additional impact PoAs, as the musket sound and the smoke are always fun and in this case, shoot+charge is historical

If Gustave's 'Cavalry with CS' were given additional amount of Impact PoAs, I guess their 'Melee Pistol' attribute could also be replaced with the Swordsmen one that provides +100 Melee PoAs against 'any except (...) STEADY melee pistols'.

At Lützen, Gustave Adolphe advised his cavalry for the melee against Cuirassiers : "they (our cavalry) need only give the (enemy) horse a deep thrust with the sword, twist broadly with it and rip open the wound; in this way, horse and man would be quickly bowled over, and beaten just the same." ... ugh!

btw that does not mean they did not use pistols during the melee too.

Nice ! I've just figured out that writing say 150 as "Impact Mounted" in the squad file actually gives +150 Impact PoA to the unit, even though it is not mentioned in the gray "rectangle" :



I thought it would show Impact Mouted 150% like "Musket 50%"...
It is logical the way it is currently, but it misled me.
So no need of a script for adding extra Impact PoA by CS shooting ! Cool.