How did they forage?

[henri51]

Just curious....How the heck did armies of 60,000 men in those days forage? Did they knock on doors and ask for food? Did they run around and try to steal 60,000 chickens off farms? Did they eat grass?Eat their boots? Eat each other?

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Henri

[Mus]

ORIGINAL: henri51

Just curious....How the heck did armies of 60,000 men in those days forage? Did they knock on doors and ask for food? Did they run around and try to steal 60,000 chickens off farms? Did they eat grass?Eat their boots? Eat each other?

[&:][&:][&:]

Henri

Read about the way Sherman moved through the South... Thats probably similar to how they foraged on enemy soil. On Friendly soil the violence would have probably been mitigated with less looting and civilians being killed (thats a unit set to forage and pluder I imagine) but still a lot of theft of crops and livestock regardless of where its taking place.

[morganbj]

...and the other thing is that they probably weren't all foraging.  I look at it this way.  The depot represents extra effort to provide adequate supply, not necessarily a real "thing."  (Think about it.  How could there ever be a depot in the Med with no ships present?)  So, even if the extra effort isn't there, troops would still get a lot of what they need through the "normal" supply system.  Some things, though, would have to be "volunteered" by the local populace in this situation.
 
So, to me, foraging means that SOME foraging had to occur.  It does not mean that the troops were entirely on their own.  Understanding that everything is abstracted to one degree or another in a game keeps me sane while I play it.  Otherwise, I'd say "Wow!  That couldn't happen!" too many times.
 

[sol_invictus]

The normal supply system usually attempted to give the minimum required to survive; mainly bread. Anything else would be up to the individuals to gather. Many people had fod accumulated for winter and grew their own food, so an army could usually find something to augment their bread. An army moving through an area could devastate the region and bring the civil poulace to the point of starvation. As the old saying goes; "Men with guns don't go hungry".

[morganbj]

That's true, but you miss my point.  The "normal" supply system had it's depots where weapons and ammunition, mostly, were accumulated.  I don't necessarily see those as the depot units in the game.  I see the depot system in the game as simple representation of attempting to provide enhanced supplies to troops, however it needs to be done -- doing everything possible to put meat and 'taters in the bellies of the troops and bullets in the pouches.

[WallysWorld]

Just reading "The Napoleonic Wars: The Rise And Fall Of An Empire" by Todd Fisher and Dr. Gregory Fremont-Barnes. It vividly describes how the French Army foraged in Spain and Portugal from an already barely surviving population.

With their long supply lines being very vulnerable to Spanish guerillas, the French had to resort to foraging big time. They basically went into a town, dismantled it and stole anything they could find and left a complete mess when they moved on. No wonder so many Spaniards joined the guerilla movement.

The British were pretty well supplied as long as they stayed close to the coast, but even after moving in-land, their supply problems were nothing compared to the French Army's problems.

[Ironclad]

The French were just so more effective than other armies when it came to productive foraging; although it was often tough for the local population who had to endure their presence. In contrast Russian armies were frequently more destructive and had a worse reputation but their poor organisation and gross ill-discipline produced much inferior results. Wellingtom marvelled at the French ability to sustain a full army through barren territory in Portugal/Spain where a British division would have been unable to survive.

Veteran French troops acquired and passed on the skills to new recruits over many years of campaigning. It was noticeable in the desperate times of 1813 that the mass of young and poorly trained French conscripts suffered heavy non-battle attrition not just from the demanding route marches and the weather but also from their inexperience in foraging (in the end some were close to starving). Admittedly they were having to survive in areas of Germany that had been terribly depleted by the constant campaigning and enemy cavalry superiority restricted the areas the French forces could access which eventually led to drastic reductions in the already low level of French rations.