Book review: Fighting Techniques of the Napoleonic Age 1792-1815; Equipment, combat skills and tactics.
Robert Bruce, Iain Dickie, Kevin Kiley, Michael Pavkovic, Frederick Schneid
This book is hard for me to review, because what my expectations were and what it delivered were two different things. What I wanted it to be was an indepth look at tactics used by all the armies in the Napoleonic wars. I was hoping to get nitty gritty details on battalion deployments, tactics used in various situations and the counters to those tactics. What I got was a general overview of the tactics of the age, such as infantry formed square when faced by cavalry. While maybe a bit oversimplified, this gives you an idea of the level of detail covered in the book.
If you are new to the period, this is a great starter guide. But if you are already familiar with the basic tactics, you probably aren't going to learn much new.
The book is divided into five chapters -- the role of infantry, mounted warfare, command and control, artillery and siege warfare and naval warfare. Each chapter gives a basic overview of how that particular arm was used, and uses a battle to illustrate it in action. The battle is illustrated with a map, but be warned, the maps are confusing. They use a blue vs. red color scheme, but the combatants change colors through the book. In one map, the French are blue, but in the next, they might be red. I thought maybe the attacker was always shown as one color or the other, but that didn't hold true either. As a result, the maps take some extra study to really understand who is who.
Overall, this is a nice book with some nice illustrations. It reads well, but is essentially for beginners.
Pros: Covers all combat arms, including naval warfare.
Cons: Maps are confusing; not enough detail for grognards.
0 Comments