Thomas's Franco-Prussian War

HAVING mentioned how much Neil Thomas's book, Wargaming Nineteenth Century Europe 1815-1878, is growing on me, it is as well to look at how he handles differences between armies in the Franco-Prussian War.
Prussian infantry are treated as elite and armed with early breechloading rifles, while most French imperial and republican infantry are average and armed with later breechloading rifles.
Elite units need to roll 3 or higher on a normal die every time morale has to be checked (otherwise they lose a base); average units need to roll 4 or higher. In other words, Prussian infantry are 66.7% likely to pass a morale test; French infantry 50%. However, French imperial guard, foreign legion and zouave infantry have the same elite morale as the Prussians.
Prussian rifles have a range of 16cm; French rifles 24cm. Both roll two dice per base to determine hits, the score required depending on the target.
French republican armies can also have garde mobile infantry, who are treated as levy and armed with rifled muskets. This means they need to roll 5 or 6 to pass a morale test (a 33.3% chance), have a range of 16cm and throw one die per base to determine hits.

Collage from Wikipedia's page on the Franco-Prussian War

Prussian guns are rifled steel, giving them a range of 60cm and throwing four dice to determine hits.
French imperial guns are generally treated as smoothbores - downgraded from rifled bronze, which is what the guns were in reality, because they suffered from what Thomas calls "inferior doctrine (they were invariably held back in reserve, never committing to the decisive point of the battlefield) and from defective ordnance (fuses often malfunctioned)." Smoothbores have a range of 32cm and throw two dice. Thomas does not mention it, but presumably French guns should not get the smoothbores' capability of throwing five dice at short range when firing canister. However, French imperial guns do get an extra die at short range (up to 12cm) to reflect batteries having Mitrailleuse machineguns.
French republican guns are treated as rifled bronze, giving them a range of 48cm and throwing three dice per base.
There are some exceptions to these classifications, eg one or two Prussian infantry units can be replaced by Bavarians who count as average and armed with rifled muskets, while one French imperial artillery unit can be designated as rifled bronze.
From the above it will be clearly seen that Prussian artillery has a big advantage over French artillery, but the differences between the rival infantry are more nuanced.
The other major difference between the French and Prussian forces comes at the command level. Prussian command is rated as good, which means that each turn the Prussians have (depending on a die throw) six, seven or eight units "in command." French imperial armies have poor command, meaning each turn they have two, three or four units in command; French republican armies have average command, meaning four, five or six units in command.
Units "out of command" move at half normal speed. They roll only half the normal number of dice - fractions are rounded up - to determine hits by firing, except that units being charged never have their firing penalised.
Thomas calls the French imperial forces "a potentially fine instrument of war ruined by execrably poor leadership." He adds: "Wargamers can take comfort from the excellence of the Chassepot infantry rifle, and deplore the inferiority of the artillery."
He says the Prussian army "was a truly formidable instrument of war by 1870, and its quality leadership ensured its troops outclassed their French opponents."
The French republican armies raised after Napoleon III's downfall "perform(ed) rather better than (their) imperial predecessors due primarily to superior leadership … expressed not only in the command level but also in the artillery classification."