Line Or Column: Which Is Better?
A tactical analysis of which formation is better, and in what circumstances
By Mark Coomber.
It is the question that military commanders and historians have argued over for decades; the line has firepower, the column has brute force. The column favoured by Napoleon, against the line used by the Duke of Wellington. Yet the conclusion decided by the result of The Battle of Waterloo (1815) could be questioned by other confrontations like Jena (1806) and Austerlitz (1805).
