If we look at the Prussian force defending the St Amands, it looks impressive.
The Prussian force consists of most of the Army of the Lower Rhine's I Korps: three of its four infantry brigades, though none of its cavalry and only one battery of its artillery. Here I've arrayed them all in lines going from left to right and top to bottom; first brigade, then second, then third. Impressive lot, aren't they? The scenario handicaps them by freezing 3rd Brigade in place and holding 2nd Brigade out of action until the French take St Amand La Haye. So to begin with, the Prussians are fighting with only a third of these numbers. Still pretty potent, especially given they are holding good defensive terrain.
The corps commander, von Ziethen II, is the 0-10 at the top (as with the French officer, 0 meaning that as an officer with his staff, he has no gross combat strength, and being all mounted and with numerous staff aides, he can move/effect up to 10 hexes per turn).
Below von Ziethen is 1st Bde. commander von Steinmetz. Up and to the right from him in the 12th Infantry Regiment (three battalions: F, 1, 2, meaning fusilier and #1 and #2 musketeer battalions) and a jaeger company attached to the 12th. The next row below them is an artillery company and the 24th Infantry Regiment and two companies of Silesian schuetzen (also rifle-armed skirmishers, like the jaegers, but organized in their own battalions). Then below them the three battalions of the 1st Westphalia Landwehr Regiment, with their attached jaeger company.
The 2nd and 3rd Brigades are much the same: a commander, an infantry regiment numbered 12 or lower, an infantry regiment numbered higher than 12, and a landwehr regiment, with various rifle companies added in.
After the defeat of Prussia in 1806/1807, Napoleon had cruelly stripped the most famous army in Europe of its riches and dignity. Prussia was only allowed a small standing army of about 40,000 men. In order to rebuild the army without openly defying Napoleon, the army trained men in batches, many of them being dispatched home to act as a sort of trained reserve. The core of the army remained a disciplined professional force, to be supplemented with these "reservists". When Prussia joined Russia in 1813 in war with France, the infantry brigades created included one each of the "old" line regiments, Nos. 1 to 12, the regiments formed of reservists (13-24), and the landwehr or militia regiments. IN 1814 and 1815, further reserve regiments were created, Nos. 25 to 31. Some of these were formed from freikorps, volunteers who had enlisted in 1813 in military units raised privately to serve alongside the regular army. Others were transferred more or less wholesale from the army of Berg, a German state that had been gifted to Prussia after Napoleon's defeat in 1814.
You'll notice there's a pretty wild array of uniforms. Officially the Prussian army in 1808 had adopted a simple, spartan uniform of short blue coats, grey or white trousers, and black shakos with very little lace or frippery. But crippled by French indemnities and cut off from international trade by the Continental System, Prussia had become poor (or poorer). Greatly expanding the army had stretched the country's resources, and two years of campaigning had work out the uniforms of 1812. Many line and reserve units had simple fatigue uniforms of grey cloth. Others had to be clothed by handouts from Great Britain, which shipped tens of thousands of uniforms to Prussia of all sorts of colours--some blue, but also green, black, or red. The Berg regiments still wore their former white regimental coats; according so some accounts, French soldiers recognized them and called on the Berg troops to desert their new masters. Jaegers and schuetzen did their best to keep to the traditional huntsman's green uniform.
There's a wide range of quality as well. Here are the backs of the 12th Regiment (on the left) and a landwehr battalion, a jaeger company, and the artillery company (on the right).
Like French legere infantry, the fusiliers have a hunting horn and a range 2, showing they can skirmish. They also have a slightly better fire factor (8) than the musketeers of the same regiment (6) and better ratings for melee (20 versus 16) and morale (22 versus 24--again, unlike all the other ratings, the lower a morale value the better). After the campaigns of 1813 and 1814, which both hardened green troops and wore away the core of solid soldiers, regular and reserve regiments were much the same in 1815, with a few exceptions.
The landwehr (top right) were also more experienced, at least those that had fought in the earlier campaigns. But Berg was not the only territory Prussia had picked up at the conference tables in Vienna, and some landwehr units in 1815 were formed in these newly Prussian lands, had not seen the campaigning that their Pomeranian or Silesian opposite numbers had seen, and may even have been resentful and surly about being pressed to fight for their new overlords. This landwehr unit shoots almost as well and his regular counterparts, and his melee value is good, but his morale is several steps worse then the regulars.
Looking at the jaeger below him, keep in mind that this unit consists of about 200 men compared with the line battalions' 800 or more. Jaegers are also trained to fire and retire, not stand in line of battle. And the artillery has much the same values as the French battery with Girard; same trained professionals, same number and quality of guns.
Last but not least, the Prussian officers. The French divisional commander Girard is a dashing 4/-/2/4, superior to any of his opposite numbers, the Prussian brigade commanders. Ziethen, the corps commander, is more Girard's equal. Ziethen also has a cavalry rating, and a good one (4). And no wonder--Generallieutenant Hans Ernst von Ziethen had served in the Prussian army since 1785, when he joined his father's regiment of hussars. He had fought in the wars of the French Revolution, in 1806 at Auerstadt, and in the campaigns of 1813 and 1814.
Up Next: La Victoire Chantant!
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