Reproducing the
Napoleonic Command Experience

Part One:
From Von Reisswitz to Machin

by David Commerford, UK

As some of you will be aware from previous articles, one of my firm beliefs is that wargaming can be an instrument for education as well as enjoyment. That is, education in terms of exploring the possible experience and actions of those involved in the events we portray in our games, in terms of both what they did and how they achieved it.

This first article traces the attempts to reproduce command and control (C2) through the medium of the wargame. I have focused on this area in particular as I tend toward the view that while the mud, blood and suffering of a Napoleonic battle can only reproduced in the most abstract form, the decision making process can be far more accurately represented.

Of course it is not possible, or even desirable, to show what it was like to continue to function after several sleepless nights, or having your horse shot from under you for the third time that day. However, there has been steady progress toward illustrating the mental process involved in commanding on the battlefield and the physical limitations placed on commanders.

I will admit from the outset that I have been selective in the genealogy of the rules I mention and that they form a particular method of representation. This is quite deliberate.

In my view, in order meet the demands of an accurate representation of the command and control experience, a rule set must have some acknowledgement of the Boyd or OODA/ Decision Cycle in some way. While this is most commonly regarded as a method of describing the components of such 20th Century principals as; Auftragstaktik, Schwerpunkt, Mission Tactics and Manoeuvre Theory. The basic principals of: Observation (of the enemy, your dispositions, the ground your fighting over), Orientation (to enemy actions, actual, as well as possible), Decision (what you do, in the light of, what you see) and Action (translation of what you have determined, into fact) are, in fact, timeless and transcend labels, in whatever language one might use. These together with the items that work against them, such as, visibility, training levels, reaction time etc. are essential if rules are to be considered as representational.

The hardware may have changed but command decisions and the factors on which they are based have not. The principals of OODA were as valid for the Romans as they were for Napoleon or Schwartzkopf.

To mention all the Napoleonic rule sets written in just the last two decades, would serve only as an exercise in repetition. With rules separated, for the most part, by the methods employed for combat resolution, there being little, or nothing, to chose between them in regard to the command decision process.

I wish to show readers the cross over between "professional" wargames and two specific authors. One of whom introduced ideas aligned strongly to an historical approach to games design, the other who adds this to a practical knowledge and experience of military wargames in the "real world".

I do not pretend that their work is the only way of cracking this particular nut but to date they provide the clearest examples I know off.

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