History Channel show on Waterloo

[coach3play4]

Very good show tonight on Waterloo. It was called history detectives, and it covered various topics, using modern research techniques, on why the French lost.
For example they drew a computer model of the Hougemont farmhouse, and showed lines of sight and the lack of cover - explaining the huge losses of the French, and the time delay taking the farm/fort.
The main point - why didn't the French bring up artil to blast the structure? The answer was no good command and control. Other interesting points included a demonstration of why horses would not break a square, and the "herd" effect. Another was the better range of the british rifles versus the French mustkets.
Looking forward to this game - I know the first thing I'll do is bring up the big guns first on the farm house!

[sol_invictus]

Watched this show several months ago and again tonight. I usually like these shows and the one on Waterloo is really nice. A very good series imo. Bring on the GAME![&o]

[Capitaine]

The main point - why didn't the French bring up artil to blast the structure? The answer was no good command and control.

LOL, I made this very argument years ago to a number of anglophile wargamers who were arguing for a nearly invincible defense modifier to Hougoumont in BG:Waterloo. They insisted that Hougoumont was an impregnable fortress, resistant to artillery, that Wellington recognized this, and any attempt by the French to take the place was doomed from the get-go. Having been to Waterloo to study the farmhouse and also knowing a bit about real artillery forts, I maintained that a couple of cannon could've breached the walls easily, but the French command failed in a number of respects that could've made the assault successful (which the gamer could rectify in his own strategy). I never made any headway with these fellas, who maintained to the bitter end that only by bypassing Hougoumont completely could the French have averted disaster.

When the myth becomes legend, sometimes it is impossible for fact to intrude. Was glad to see this History Channel feature set the record straight.

[Le Tondu]

Silly Capitaine,

Don't you know? The Anglophiles are right. It was the Superhuman British that defeated Napoleon at Waterloo and nothing else. [X(][8|][X(][8|]

Things like poor command and control, treachery, muddy ground, and Germans -- they had nothing to do with it. [;)]