Often, we read of victories marred by the lack of pursuit. This is an error that historical generals are accused of regularly. Table top generals rarely make this error. Most campaign rules allow victorious armies to pursue their beaten opponents. A typical pursuit rule would allow the victors to inflict additional casualties, based on a die roll. Yet reading accounts of historical battles yields very few cases of effective pursuit. In most cases, pursuit consisted of chasing the foe off the field of battle and then celebrating. Why was effective pursuit so rare? Exhaustion is one very good reason. In hard fought battles, the victors were often happy enough that the opponents had gone. After suffering the terror and stress of combat, and finding themselves alive and whole, the last thing most victorious troops and commanders were looking for was another opportunity to get shot. We gamers have had a little excitement, a little stimulus, but are not exhausted (unless we are playing complex rules involving a lack of sleep to resolve the battle) and most likely not in a state of near panic. So we want to pursue, and inflict some more casualties on our foe. Morale rules usually keep troops from routinely doing suicidal acts. Now we need to make it difficult for them to do highly unlikely acts. At Eylau, in 1807, Napoleon called a council of war to consider withdrawal. The fact that the great Napoleon had a council of war is proof enough of how shaken the French were by an extremely hard day of combat. As they contemplated retreat, Marshall Davout put his ear to the ground and said they need not run, because the Russians were already going. And the French were happy to let them go, unmolested. I have not seen miniature campaign rules or board game rules that stop a victorious army from pursuing. Once we, the player, have won a victory, then we must exploit it, unlike the historical characters we are representing. In most games, the first victory has a snow ball effect. Unless the losing side gets heavy reinforcements, they are on a downhill slide. When have you seen a victorious war game army stop to re-organize? Or retreat, like the British armies who won costly victories over the American General Greene? One of the most famous pursuits is after the Battle of Jena, when the Prussians were hounded so that most of the army eventually surrendered in little bits here and there. A close look at Jena reveals that Napoleon had some 96,000 troops against 48,000 Prussians. The Prussians were poorly led and defeated in detail. Only 50,000 French were actually engaged during the battle. This left 46,000 fresh troops available for the pursuit, including several divisions of the cavalry reserve. The fresh troops outnumbered the surviving foe. And every Prussian formation on the field had been routed. There was not a single formed battalion left. Ruchel’s 10,000 strong force, which might have made a significant rearguard, had been wasted in a Quixotic counter-attack. So what we have is a one-sided battle, and huge numbers of fresh troops available to exploit it. Hardly the usual case in our table top warS. The French seem to have made a very effective pursuit in Italy, in 1797 after the battle of Rivoli, without fresh troops. A close look reveals that the Austrians were deployed in a mountain pass, with only one exit. They had been repulsed on the first day of the battle. Bonaparte rushed off to deal with another threat, and left Joubert in charge. The Austrians, instead of escaping from the pass, attacked. They were driven off in disorder, and Joubert trapped many of them in the pass. Rather than a pursuit, this is a second day of battle, which one side should not have fought. The Austrians’ real problem was that they put troops into such a hazardous place to begin with. This would be better simulated with special scenario rules, rather than generic pursuit rules. Blucher made an energetic pursuit of Napoleon after Waterloo. Here we have some similarities to Jena. The Allies totaled some 140,000 troops, about twice the French strength. Napoleon had pushed his army until it broke. There were only some four or five Old Guard battalions available for rear guard duty. The Prussians had several thousand fresh cavalry from Zieten’s and Pirch’s corps available for pursuit, supported by thousands of fresh infantry. It is worth noting that none of Wellington’s cavalry pursued further south than Rossome, effectively remaining on the battlefield itself. Pursuing with tired troops can be a hazardous undertaking. Consider the highly unusual example of Marengo. The Austrians stormed across the muddy Bormida, seized the town of Marengo, drove the French back in disorder, and then began a pursuit with the entire army. The Austrians had several problems. General Melas, in his 60’s and burdened with a light but painful wound, retired to his bed and passed command to his chief of staff. Almost every Austrian unit had already fought during the battle. Unknown to them (and Bonaparte), fresh enemy troops were headed that way. If the Austrians had reorganized around the captured town of Marengo and called it a day, they would have had a very tidy victory, and First Consul Bonaparte might never have become Emperor of the French. A couple of miles back from the initial battlefield, a fresh infantry division arrived, and combined with Kellermann’s weary but still pugnacious heavy cavalry, routed the Austrian advance troops, who stampeded the rest of the weary column. The Austrians fled back to their starting positions, reversing the verdict of the battle. I can’t conceive of a rule that would take this into account. The best solution I’ve seen is the artificial one in the Volley & Bayonet scenario, where the Austrians not only need to capture Marengo, but also San Giuliano, miles in the French rear. Table Top Games In table top games, pursuit should not even be an option unless the victor has fresh cavalry. Not those guys who rode down enemy opposition and won the victory, but un-engaged troops. And not those guys who got beaten up earlier in the fight and have been licking their wounds in the rear, imitating reserve troops. Fresh troops have not fought today. They may have force marched to get to the field. The French at Jena and the Prussians at Waterloo both force marched to the battles, and then pursued. But troops who have just experienced the terror and exertion of combat are highly unlikely to pursue anyone. Make a special rule for Nathan Bedford Forrest if you want, but I’ve not heard of anyone else doing it effectively with troops who fought in the battle. It was tried at Marengo, and failed spectacularly. And if the loser has actually kept cavalry in reserve, this should really slow things down. At Koeniggratz, the Austrian cavalry stopped the Prussian horse cold and chased them back into their own infantry. Now I will present some rules to simulate pursuit in table top battles. They are based on Volley & Bayonet, but should be easy to transfer to most sets of rules. Volley & Bayonet often uses a scale where one strength point equals 500 troops or six guns and each turn equals one hour. A brigade 2,000 strong is represented by 4 strength points, and is removed from play after taking 4 hits. The brigade is presumed to have taken 50% losses, becoming ineffective for the remainder of the day. It will be available on the next day, 2 strength points strong. A close look at most hard fought battles reveals thousands of unwounded soldiers lurking in the rear. One shirker for each casualty seems like a good ratio. This is a good place to start, with each side recovering half of their losses after the battle. Volley & Bayonet has divisions that can become exhausted, and then collapsed. There is no rule for army morale. But a good rule of thumb for campaign battles is if 2/3 of an army’s divisions are exhausted or worse, it’s time to go. And one side can always declare a general retreat. So if either of these occurs, stop playing and consult the pursuit rules. Pursuit Rules First, call the victor player A, and the loser, player B. Only fresh, unengaged cavalry and horse artillery will be considered for pursuit or rearguard duty. Does player A have any cavalry/horse guns? Otherwise there will be no pursuit. Does Player B have any cavalry/horse guns? Allow each strength point of player B’s cavalry to neutralize two strength points of player A’s cavalry. Set all of these troops aside. This is the rearguard combat. We will resolve this later. But first, the pursuit beckons. Player A is allowed to make pursuit attacks on player B’s fleeing troops with any cavalry that has not been neutralized. For each hour of daylight remaining, Player A can make one melee attack per stand of cavalry. There will be no morale checks. Just count casualties. Player B selects which troops will be attacked according to the following order. First, any disordered troops are liable to attack. If no disordered troops are available, then ordered troops are liable. They cannot count as stationary, since they are retreating. If no ordered or disordered troops are available, then any routing troops are liable to attack. Player B’s troops do not fight back. The reasoning behind the order is that pursuing cavalry would first go after disordered easy targets before they tackled formed troops. The routed troops come last because they are running so quickly. After this has been done, then resolve any rearguard combat. This will be one round of simultaneous combat. Player A’s cavalry rolls two dice per strength point. Player B’s cavalry rolls one die per strength point. Again, don’t bother with morale checks. The pursuit and rear guard fight are over, and the battle is done. Count up the losses. Campaign Game Effects Once we have dealt with the immediate post battle pursuit, we come to the question of the armies in the campaign game. If your campaign turn represents a month or a longer period of time, both forces would have ample time to recover. For shorter periods of time, we need to consider the effects of combat on the survivors. Victorious war games armies invariably chase after the loser, unless another enemy force is in the area. Historically, many times the victor sat around recovering for quite some time. We usually have categories of shaken, demoralized, and routed units in our tactical games. Now we need to do this at the army level. Count up the casualties a force has suffered, after recovering 50% of losses. If a force has taken less than 20% losses, then they can attack the beaten foe again, if they can catch them. An army that has suffered 20% losses is shaken, and it will follow its opponent respectfully, needing some time resting to recover morale and cohesion. An army that has suffered one third losses or more is demoralized, and incapable of offensive movement. It could hold its ground, or fall back to a safer place. In either case, it would have to lick its wounds for a while, before it ceased being demoralized and improved to shaken. And an army that has lost 50% or more would be routed. It’s hard to imagine this force being the winner, but if so, it would definitely not pursue or advance. These same categories should apply to the beaten force. Certainly, if the beaten force is routed, then they must fall back to along their line of supply, or tuck into a friendly fortress. Recovery of cohesion should take at least one week. That is the simplest rule. Slightly more complex is to consider regular forces to have a morale of 5, and militia or otherwise inferior forces to have a morale of 4. Each turn that the force does not march or fight roll a D6. If the die roll is less than the morale number the force recovers one level. A routed force would improve to demoralized, and a demoralized one to shaken. A routed force would require three successful turns of recovery to be able to attack enemy forces again. A beaten force should be able to get one day’s march head start away from the battlefield. Napoleon’s rabble at Waterloo got two day’s marching done in one night. I will cite one more example, and then derive a rule from it. During the Waterloo campaign, the Prussians were defeated at Ligny. They lost some 16,000 casualties. They withdrew towards the north, instead of along their lines of communication. This meant they would be able to intervene at Waterloo, and thus sealed Napoleon’s fate. But they lost some 8,000 additional stragglers who retreated towards home, shelter, food and all. If the entire army had fallen back the same way, most of these troops would have been prodded back into the ranks by the cavalry. The rule: If a beaten force does not retreat towards their supply line, they recover one third of battle losses instead of half. This gives pretty much the result listed above. All told, I think these rules are not very complex, yet convey some of the actual problems with organizing pursuits, and with exploiting hard-fought victories. I hope they will be of use to those of you considering campaigns. Back to Table of Contents -- Courier #81 To Courier List of Issues To MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 2001 by The Courier Publishing Company. 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