What's a Hinge?

Arquinsiel posted in the SA Historical wargame thread:

For those of us unfamiliar, what's a "hinge" in Napoleonic warfare?

If you attack the enemy in line, you end up all in one long straight line. Everyone blasts away at each other and you're fighting at 1-1 ratio.

SO you hit them in one flank. But you're marching slowly, so they reform their flank to face yours. The armies now have a right angle.

THEN you send in the reserves you have carefully kept to the right movement, and hit them right there, in the hinge of their line. You're hitting them from 3 sides right at the corner, and they won't be able to take it, facing 3-1 odds. The hinge breaks, and you send in your cavalry into the hole to roll up the enemy army.

In my battle, my Guard brigade was about to have two divisions firing at it- from the front and flank. If I hadn't charged down the hill, even they would have broken and the as yet uncommitted Russian cavalry could then exploit the hole....

Though it might not still have worked. I also had an uncommitted brigade behind the Guard unit which could fill the hole..but then they would have faced the same problem of being attacked on 3 sides. Once your hinge develops, it's very hard to break out of it. You either fall back your entire line (and in FOGN and Napoleonic warfare, falling back when close to the enemy makes you disordered and you need a morale check to succeed) or try and outflank the enemy outflankers. Because my British Troops had been blasting away at the Russians at the bottom of the hill for some time and weakening them, I was able to commit to a charge across the open ground - which is totally British tactics to do. You don't need to create a hinge to win a battle, but it forces the enemy to do something they may not want to do normally.

I couldn't outflank his end of the line as I only had cavalry to the right of my flank (which the Russians were keeping busy) and there was a forest blocking my reserve infantry from getting there in time (which I had placed there myself as a rookie mistake. Whelp).

A lot of battles work out this way (ie- you have more troops in one smaller area than the enemy does aka get there fastest with the mostest), but in 17-18th century warfare it's really obvious when it happens because the armies all fight in line, so you see it easier. One of the reasons Napoleonic warfare can be fun is you can see the elementary tactics in action. I think a lot of ACW battles that Lee won were because of this.

Both at Waterloo and Gettysburg they didn't try this, and just went into frontal assault mode, and we all know how that worked out. At Gettysburg the Union got stuck in a hook/hinge, but they were in a very good defensive position and Lee's attack on day 2 was uncoordinated.