Reproducing the
Napoleonic Command Experience
The Move to Hobby Gaming
by David Commerford, UK
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While the use of Kriegsspeil continued in military circles, the spread of wargames into the wider public arena is generally acknowledged to be the work of H.G.Wells. Although, another famous author, Robert Louis Stevenson actually beat him to it! However, given the period in which Well's "Little Wars" were written (1913) the concept of playing games in a large garden, or in a suitably large house (the lesser known, Floor Games, 1911) with 54mm lead figures, can hardly be viewed as a popularist movement! I couldn't begin to tell you the relationship between the cost of a box of Britain's and the average male income of the time but I can guess! However, it does not take a genius to see why wargames of any kind took a back seat to world events for the next forty five years until the Scruby, Featherstone, Young and Grant era of the late Fifties early Sixties brought about the birth of the modern hobby. Looking back the level of realism, in terms of complexity or modelling of events, things were somewhat simplistic. In fact the first edition copy of Featherstone's War Games (1962) which I have owned since boyhood, contains nothing remotely like C2 anywhere in it! It was history as recreation, not replication, far removed from the level that Livermore had reached, all be it that his work was founded in and for the military, rather than the hobby game. For many years the essence of command and control, in any measure of sophistication, was little beyond the concept of written orders, the possibility of changes made through command figure contact and physical LOS on the table top. This style continued with some embellishment, such as national characteristics, command radius etc. for something like twenty five years. Until our next influence, George Jeffery, came upon an unsuspecting wargame world and introduced a level of radical thought that has meant Napoleonic gaming has never been the same since. VLB and The Command SituationWriting in 1984 George said "our games should move along, not from time point by pre-game arbitrary decision, but from one change of situation to the next to occur". In this he rejected the notion of the game turn or hourly round. Forming a position that once orders had been given, unless a command or commander was confronted by a situation that warranted deviation from, or alteration to, those orders; they/he would continue on the prescribed course of action. He rejected concept of time dictating activity and sought a more, fluid and realistic alternative, where matters were event driven. In effect it took the concept of the player/commander in an airborne command post head on and asked the question. Why and in response to what stimulus, are you changing that order? Then, as now, the answer would often have been; because it's my turn and I as the player can see what the opposition is about to attempt. However, in Jeffrey's system, the matter of viable cause, at table top level, became paramount. The players had to have "real" reason for making alterations to their initial plans a "change of situation", be it enemy action, threat of action, or observed movement, was required for commanders to be given a new order. In keeping with historical activity, the man on the ground could, when faced with a situation outside the existing order, stand and do nothing but preserve the integrity of his force. Over and above this a Brigade commander could not deviate from the orders outside of those transmitted to him. C2, as in reality, was dependent on communication up and down the chain of command and relied on observation of events through the command structure for its effectiveness. The system relied not on turns but on a dialogue, in which players described their actions to one another and then moved their forces until the "change of situation" occurred. At that point and only at that point, was a command alteration allowed. This process had to be strictly adhered to, in order to avoid, constant backtracking, as players adjusted their intentions in the light of events. These rules were aimed at the move away from "Divisional" level games toward the recreation of entire Army actions. Fighting an army from the top down in the manner of a Wellington or Napoleon rather than using rules that were based around scaling up the actions of numerous Divisions to create a battle as a whole. They were also among the first of what has now become known as "simulations". Meaning, in this instance, that the concept was to simulate the command process in such a way as to give players the opportunity to play and conduct their games using historical tactics. Where playing in period was more important than knowing that moving a unit to position "x" was worth a "+ 6" on the melee chart! Other rule sets such as Empire, which also adopted the simulation approach, differed in that they were still locked into some form of turn based interaction. So why aren't we all playing George's rules today? Well those of you who have read some of my earlier articles will know the answer to that one already. They relied on a lot of player commitment and without him, or someone of a similar high level of Napoleonic knowledge, to act as umpire, they did not really work. The root of this stemmed from three main causes.
(2) Player dialogues had no established format to follow, thus the players themselves were free from any restrictions that required them to comply with any type of doctrinally correct procedures, or actions, pertaining to the movement of the forces under their control. (3) The time control principals were not clear enough to allow most players to determine what the proper sequence of events should be in any particular case. Particularly when multiple contacts were made between one or more units. Valour and Discipline the Differing ApproachWhen I was first introduced to James Machin's rules, Valour and Discipline, I thought he was a disciple of Jeffery, however outside of a common aim to produce a more realistic C2 environment, this is not the case. Machin approaches the decision making process from a purely independent point of view. Jeffrey did not see the need to worry about time until the units involved arrived at an engagement point. Once the two sides had arrived at that point, the amount of time could easily be backward engineered from the two known points in time. The starting point and the resulting engagement points. As I have already stated he relied on strict adherence to orders, set sighting distances and Line of Sight procedures, to help constrain the players decisions until the point of contact (engagement) could be ascertained. Any discrepancies could be compensated for when the player dialogue began. This helped to smooth over minor conflicts and provide a method of accounting for some of the lesser tactical decisions being made by both sides, or those of the notional entities contained within that particular player's Chain of Command. In this consideration time is only important at the Grand Tactical level. The lesser tactical use of time is only significant in its effect on determining the eventual point of the engagement. This led to some very predictable outcomes, because the larger, higher quality force is almost always going to be the winner in an engagement. By comparison the heart of V & D system is the Observation Cycle which regulates all passage of time. This establishes and acts as an independent time clock. It is not a form of turn, or hourly round it has no other purpose other than to keep all the different game functions and systems in synchronicity. Time, is a continuos process that is only interrupted at 10 minute intervals to allow players to input their decisions. While, Jeffrey was a firm believer in "cause and effect", he wasn't overly concerned about the exact sequencing of events, just as long as the cause and effect relationship made sense. Unfortunately, you exclude many opportunities for players to influence matters when you assume forces will act in a strict cause and effect manner. In history unforeseen and irrational actions have often lead to decisive results. For example the part Kellermann's small cavalry force played in the closing phase of the Battle of Marengo. In addition the ability to synchronise one's forces is absolutely essential to producing the maximum combat power from many independent units. The essence of the tactical concept of "Schwerpunkt" for example, is the concentration of force at the point of incidence . If you don't retain the ability to synchronise units and activities by having the use of an independent source of time, then the player cannot judge the actions unfolding before him and the speed at which he himself must act to capitalise on "windows of opportunity". In such circumstances the simulation is fractured, in that the range of options to exercise command and control over the force the player is supposed to be in charge of, are no longer those exercised by his historic counter part. You remove the ability influence outcomes by giving everything over to cause and effect. Chances may have not come often to commanding Generals but they did have an opportunity to both create and exploit them. In the second part of this article I will expand on the work of James Machin in greater detail. Where I hope I will be able to show how his rules open up a previously unseen range of possibilities for the Napoleonic player. In demonstrating the difficulties and choices faced by commanders in the field. More Reproducing the Napoleonic Command Experience Back to Table of Contents -- First Empire #53 Back to First Empire List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 2000 by First Empire. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com |