Battle Tactics of Napoleon and His Enemies

I love this book. Originally I had borrowed a copy from a friend but I enjoyed it so much I was stalling to return it, savoring and saving reading it for special times and returning to it time and again to reread sections on unit tactics.. Finally, I realized I needed to have my own copy because I knew I'd be returning to it for tactical ideas and historical reference over and over.

Musket, Cannon and Sword is an excellent read. This book uses the subtitle of the book I just mentioned as its title. Not really sure what is going on here, the publication date is a year later. The covers have the same art. Is this a second edition? Is the title due to a dispute? Is this the exact same book as M, C and S?

Happy with the purchase

Great book, again bought to replace a long lost copy.

While many books focus on the historical side of Napoleonic battles, they concentrate mainly on what happened in broad terms, and not the mechanics of how tactics were use to arrive at that result. However, Brent Nosworthy brings information from multiple first hand accounts and insights of military men of that period as well as other sources to explain what the tactics were, how they were applied, and their effect on the troops and the battles. In doing so, his explanations range from individual soldier level to formation level. He discusses the way the various weapons were used, the history of how tactics evolved and importantly, how various tactics affected the morale of soldiers on both sides. An excellent resource if you want to really understand how battles were fought during this period and how units moved and fought on the Napoleonic battlefields.

I have read the first chapters of this book and I am quite disappointed about the references the author takes about the Dutch method of attacks. As all the British authors do, he ignores the Spanish military history and its infantry that beat the Dutch in almost all the open field battles during the 80's years war.

Durch Filme und andere Werke entwickelt man nur eine vage Vorstellung ueber die mechanischen und moralischen Elemente der Napoleonischen Taktik. Nosworthy erklaert eindeutig, warum einige Einheiten standgehalten haben, waehrend andere gefluechtet sind, und es geht in den meisten Faellen eher um die Psychologie der SItuation als die physikalischen Gegebenheiten.