Combat System -- John Lynn's Model

[Waldo_slith]

John Lynn's Bayonets of the Republic is an excellent tactical study of French Revolutionary armies. He develpos an elegant model for a unit's effectiveness.

I cannot locate my copy of the book so I cannot describe his model in detail but I recommend his model to the game designers.

Best of luck with the game.

wp

[kc_chiefs]

Thanks. I found the book on Amazon. Its a bit pricey (arent most books on Napoleonics lately) but I will probably pick it up for use in my next set of game projects.

[Le Tondu]

waldo,
It is indeed a great read. I too kept wondering about using the author's model even though the book only covered the Armee du Nord during years of 1791-94. One has to keep in mind that the author stated that the other Revolutionary Armys did things differently as well. A study covering all of the Revolutionary armies would certainly need several volumes at least. It took Lynn 20 years to finish his.

I kept fantasizing about about a Napoleonic version too.

Now, his model is quite large and it has items that might be kind of hard to simulate in a game. It seems to me that it would take many decades to nail down such things as : Basic Class and Societal Attitudes, Wartime Opinions/Appreciation, and Reactions to Conditiions of Service without being speculative during all the years of the Napoleonic Era. Some parts are quite fluid and can change quite quickly. Toss in Group Dynamics, the 3 types of Motivation (Initial, Sustaining, & Combat), Disciplinary Coercion, Standards, & Justification along with all the other parts of his model and someone might have more than a life's work on his hands if he wanted to cover the entire Era.

We need a small group of scholars to tackle it for sure. [8D]

Rick

[JRichert]

Holy cow! I didn't realize he had any more books out. I had the privelige to take two courses from Prof. Lynn while I was at U of I, they were easily the two best courses I took while I was there.