Skirmish units must be declared separately either as independent units or as light companies or voltigeur pelotons from a battalion. HOWEVER, under these rules a skirmish unit starts as an independent unit and remains so until the end of the game or until it is DESTROYED. They can not return to the parent unit (if there is one) in the game at the present time.
A skirmish unit represents 1 company or peloton of a battalion and at a 1:24 ratio this means that skirmish units can be no larger than 4 figures for British and 6 figures for French. This assumes a 100 man company for British and allied armies and 140 man peloton for the French (i.e. post 1808 reorganisation)
There are specific rules for Skimishers but it leaves them fairly free to use their intitiative at each round level. In the DOSDEMAYO game skirmisers cannot form lines or columns or combine with other skirmishing units to do the same.
At a scale of 1:24 this means that for a French Column standard frontage will be 4 figures with 6 ranks. This won't necessarily look like an actual column of battalion by divisions but given the scaling of figures it is the nearest that is going to be achieved. Smaller battalions will have fewer ranks but if reduced to 3 ranks or less then the formation is to be treated as a line.
At the present time a British and Allied column is going to be the same.
In the current rules, an attack column will move quicker than a line and this is reflected in the movement tables. Also, under the current version of the rules, the attack column when it charges home will do so in column order. However, it is recognised that in reality in the last 50 metres of so, the column would have attempted to deploy into line. This rarely happend successfully in the Peninsula , arguably as a rsult of the quality of the French army deployed there and as a result of the britih reverse slopes tactic. That is very much a point for discussion but as the rules mature it is inteded to consider how this formation change might effectively and realistically be achieved.
Whilst the benefit of firepower is obvious for a line, the formation was particularly vulnerable to flank and rear attack. It was also less easy to move into square in the event of cavalry threat.
In the DOSDEMAYO rules these vulnerabilities are present in the rules engine. Whilst a unit charging a line ( such as column or cavalry) is likely to recieve heavy casualties from volley fire, if they charge home then they will almost invariably break the defending line.
A British or Portuguese line will bring 100% of muskets into play in the BLACK POWDER phase whilst French and Spannish armies will only bring two-thirds of their muskets into play in a phase. The nu,ber of casual;ties infliceted (reflecting better rate of fire will vary with the calibre of the unit. rangoing from 4 ropunds per minute through to 2 rounds per minute with variations laso for weapon type ( musket or rifle)
It is therefore assumed that other than exceptional circumstances (shaken, routed or impetuous) infantry will form square if within range of cavalry attack. This makes the unit vulnerable to artillery or line musket fire and these weaknesses can be exploited by the opposing side.
When attacking a square, cavalry will suffer casualties from one-quarter of the muskets of the unit and this can be sufficient (with other morale issues in the rules engine) to stall the charge. If they charge home (and this did happen occasionally) then they only have one move to do any damage and put the square to flight before they become shaken and disorganised in their own right. The rules engine takes account of these matters and hopefully reflects, in so far as is practical, the kind of results that happened in real life.
In the DOSDEMAYO rules, squres can move if the units are either veteran or experienced and movement is not penalised. There are some clear examples of movement from column to square as well as in square, notably in Crauford's light division. However, such movement is dependent upon the quality of the troops undertaking the manoeuvre.
Artillery pieces are scaled at 1:3 rather than the 1:24 for figures. This is to enable artillery pieces to be present without overpowering the game and in keeping with the typical levels of artillery used in Peninsula War battles.
Artillery may not move and fire in the same round. This refers to gross movements and not to alignments in direction of fire.
DOSDEMAYO does not allow hits on the artillery piece itself but rather calculates the number of surviving individual figures to determine the number of pieces in operation.
Close combat actions with artillery by infantry or cavalry will determine whether the pieces are spiked or not as a part of the settlement of the CLOSE COMBAT phase in the DOSDEMAYO rules engine.
Artillery will fire cannister if there is an enemy unit within range to the front (alignments can be made). Otherwise if firing, the type of projectile can be chosen by the player in the BLACK POWDER phase.
Rockets are not currently deployed in these rules.
The French primarily also used dragoons but they were taught to fight both on horseback and on foot. There were technically very few true heavy cavalry other than drgoons deployed by the French in the Peninsula. There are specific rules for French Dragoons set out in a following section.
At the present time other cavalry cannot declare skirmish order.