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http://www.cigarboxbattle.com/amazing-waterloo-diorama/

Also thy sell some nice battle mats.

Absolutely stunning. 30 square meters, that's about the same size as my flat

Now he should get working on a Peninsular diorama!

It reminds me of the one done by Siborne in the 1830s, which can be viewed today at the Leeds Royal Armouries.

However this new one is even bigger!

Good Lord, epic stuff, really great.

On a tactical level what is with the huge square formations of troops?

I know it was to scare off cavalry somehow. Gotta read up on this, but it could have been to minimize casualties in case of a cavalry charge, only letting them "chip off the edges" rather than destroying an entire formation.

Just a guess.

The tactical formation of square was a defensive tactic by infantry against cavalry. It had two effects:

1. Horses are not stupid enough to charge into a thick hedge of men with bayonets.

2. It is impossible to run away from inside a square, so it is easier for the officers to keep the men in their ranks. This maintains the Hedge.

During the whole Napoleonic wars there are almost no occasions recorded when a firm square got broken by a cavalry charge.

Square sadly makes the troops vulnerable to Artillery though.

I love the rock-paper-scissors challenges of Nappies.

Edit: Handcasted and painted every model! Holy.... Respect man, respect. That's too hardcore for me.

It was very rare indeed but cavalry did indeed break ready squares on more than one occasion. If you get a chance read the book "Charge." It describes in detail these actions.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
It reminds me of the one done by Siborne in the 1830s, which can be viewed today at the Leeds Royal Armouries.

However this new one is even bigger!

I saw the Siborne one at Leeds just last week, it is pretty damn awesome, with each of the thousands of minis posed to be interacting with the ones around it. Where the two cavalry formations meet there were two riders with crossed swords, such attention to detail in such a massive piece was truly impressive. And that's just the 'lesser' display, I believe the larger one was 40+ square feet.

On a side note, the Royal Armouries really is a most spectacular museum, anyone who gets the chance to should get there. Free entry and open any day but Christmas, it is so very worth it!

The weak points of an infantry formation to cavalry are its flanks and rear. Horses can’t get through a bayonet wall. Muskets at the time did not have the range and rate to successfully defeat a cavalry unit before they could close distance and engage infantry in close quarters so for an infantry unit to have its flanks and rear exposed whilst enemy cavalry was near was suicide.

The Square formation works by presenting a cavalry unit with nothing but a frontal facing. It sacrifices movement but enemy cavalry find it difficult to engage you unless they have supporting infantry or artillery to makes holes in the square. It was a common tactic to use cavalry to force infantry in Squares and then destroy the now stationary infantry with artillery or skrmishers.

The Square fell out of use by the mid 1800’s when rifles became more common, thus extending the range and rate of fire of infantry allowing them to rout enemy mounted units before they could close in. The most famous example of this being at Balaclava when the 93rd Highlanders destroyed a Russian cavalry charge whilst being in a line formation (this action is where the phrase ‘The Thin Red Line’ to describe British infantry came from) something that would have been impossible 30 years earlier.

LuciusAR... You were Exalted. Great story. Great history. I gotta quit sci-fi and start with the real wargamming. Radical bro.

 Generalstoner wrote:
It was very rare indeed but cavalry did indeed break ready squares on more than one occasion. If you get a chance read the book "Charge." It describes in detail these actions.

For example there was an occasion during the Peninsular War when a horse and his rider of a cavalry unit simultaneously were fatally wounded just at the point when they would have broken off their charge into a British square. Instead the combined bodies ploughed into the otherwise steady square like a bulldozer, and other cavalry followed them in.

This situation is exceptional of course.