Twenty years ago The Courier ran a series of articles by a Napoleonic gamer, George Jeffrey, describing his vision for improving miniatures games using a system he termed Variable Length Bound (VLB) wargaming. The Courier worked with George for several years to develop a VLB set of rules he called “Code Napoleon” (CN), but without success, before George had to drop out of the hobby in the late 1980’s. Last summer George returned to wargaming discussion via the internet, a discussion he participated in vigorously until his untimely death in November. (You can read all of the messages, and post your opinions and comments, at a free internet site). Through vigorous debate on the internet, George refined his ideas further, and plans were again put in train for George to develop a publishable set of rules with The Courier. He wrote the following article for the Courier, intended to be the first of many, to explain some of the essential “Code Napoleon” design concepts. - NED ZUPARKO THE CONCEPT Think of the game of chess. The actual rules of chess could be written on one side of a single sheet of paper since all they consist of are the moves that the pieces are allowed to make and how you check and checkmate the other side. Now think of playing chess. Does knowing the rules make you a good player? No. Its knowing how to put the separate abilities of the pieces together in a plan, and how to counteract your opponent’s movements that do that. So, when you are playing chess, you are not sitting there with the rule book, constantly looking up rules. What you are doing is developing your plan and reacting (if necessary) to what your opponent does. This, to my mind, is a great description of what a set of wargames rules should be about. It should basically be a table of facts‚ (e.g. how long infantry will take to cover a certain distance, the effect of fire from a battery of guns over a given time etc). What we should be doing when we fight our miniature battles is developing our plans and reacting to the other side’s actions. After all, Napoleonic commanders didn’t run about checking casualty rates. If they thought a position had to be attacked/defended, they ordered it done and waited to see what happened - reacting to the outcome if needed. So, how do we get this into our games? THE MAIN PROBLEM The main problem faced by rule makers is that of time. Time actually poses two problems. First, there is the problem of the time it takes us to actually play the game. As a general rule, it takes about the same amount of time to move the figures around at the end of each turn whether the turn represents 1 minute or 1 hour - at least in a big battle. The second problem is making game time(i.e. the time passing on the wargame battlefield), fit the time that real forces would have taken to perform the same actions. And still allow for the events to which commanders might react to be found in the game. In reproducing warfare on our table-tops we find that in real warfare, there is a lot of time when nothing happens other than soldiers moving around or marching across long stretches of ground to get to the enemy. If we are true to our cause, and depict the realities of battle, we would spend many evenings simply moving our troops around in small time increments, so as not to miss anything the commanders might respond to, without ever getting to shoot at anything. So, how do we resolve the conflict? It will surprise many to read that the answer to that question lies not with our time rules, but with our command and control rules. COMMAND AND CONTROL Command and control are separate functions which are both exercised by a commander. He exercises “command” by “controlling” the involvement of the forces of his subordinate officers in the battle. Thus subordinates do not elect to be involved or choose their own objectives. Those choices are made by their superior as part of his “command function”. The subordinates then exercise their own command duties by directing which of their subordinates will take action and what their objectives will be, to fulfill the instructions formulated by the superior officer. This can perhaps best be understood by looking at the chain of command, and calling the forces under one commander his “Command Group”. Each force within his Command Group has it’s own commander who is immediately subordinate to him. Those commanders, in turn, have their own Command Groups and control their own subordinate force commanders. Note that since a commander is superior to everyone below him on his chain-of-command, it is within his power to give orders not only to his immediate subordinates, but to their subordinates also – which may or may not be wise, according to the situation. Thus it follows that any commander’s Command Group is actually subject to the control of his superior, and is part of his superior’s Command Group, (all of which are are within the Command Groups of even more superior officers). A Command Group, therefore, can be anything from an army down to a couple of skirmishers if one skirmisher is in charge of the other. It is also important to note that a command group commander may only give orders to lower-ranking command group commanders - and only if their command groups are part of his own. For example, a Divisional General receives an order from his Corps commander telling him to “Clear that wood in front of you”. (Note that it’s the corps commander who decides what the division will do, not the Division commander. The Division commander will decide what his subordinates, the brigadiers, will do). So, in response to the orders he receives, the Divisional commander decides how to execute the task (that’s the “command” part). He decides its a small wood - only needs a Brigade - decides which of his Brigades - and sends his order to the selected Brigade commander. (That’s his “control” part). Control is “personal” to the commander, and is usually less specific the higher up the chain of command - allowing more freedom of command to the “controlled” commander. Thus, at Army level, Napoleon sends to Ney, south of Quatre Bras,”Gather your forces and charge any enemy before you”. At the level of the Divisional commander in our previous example, the Divisional commander may say “Clear that wood in front of you”, or he might choose to be more specific and send to his Brigade commander “Group your light companies together and clear the wood in front of you - and send a battalion as reserve to support them”. Control is exercised “downward” by Commanders. This is done by the orders they issue, which state what the force belonging to a Commander immediately subordinate to them is to do. By stating what a subordinate’s force is to do, his superior’s orders equally, by default, state what it is not to do (i.e. anything else). There are exceptions to this, as to any general rule, which we will come to. Effect of Control Let us consider the implication of the effect of control. Simply stated, it is that what any Commander’s Command Group is doing what his superior told him to do with it, and a change to what it is doing must be ordered by his superior. For example, if a battalion acts, it is because the brigade Commander issued the order. If a brigade acts, it is because the divisional Commander issued the order, and so on up the chain of command. Of course, this means that, having been ordered by his corps Commander to deploy his division in a particular place, a divisional Commander cannot decide to order a brigade of his division to go do something else. Ultimately, therefore, no command group gets involved in the battle unless the Battlefield Commander has issued the order. This is not to say that the Battlefield Commander issues individual orders to every subordinate Commander. He issues orders to his immediate subordinates, but it is the issue of those orders that gives his immediate subordinates the authority to issue their own. And that is exactly the way the Battlefield Commander wants it! The point of the way in which control operates down the chain of command is to ensure that his forces follow the Battlefield Commander’s plan for the battle. If his subordinates were allowed to join in‚ whenever and wherever they wanted to, the battle would immediately descend into chaos. The Battlefield Commander knows that it will descend into chaos soon enough, anyway - so, the longer he can retain control over the involvement of his forces the better. Whilst a commander is free within the limitations of his control orders‚ to make his own decisions, he is most definitely not free to “do his own thing”. That is, he must comply with the orders issued by his superior to take action and achieve the objective which was defined by his superior. (Compare this with a typical wargames situation, where every unit commander, at the end of every turn, can make his own mind up what to do and where to get involved). There is one limited exception to this rule. A commander at any level has an over-riding responsibility to his superior to prevent his own command group being destroyed - it is his duty to keep his command group available for use by his superior. If the actions of hostile forces directly threaten his command group, a Commander may take defensive action in order to preserve his command group. An example of this would be a brigade of infantry that found itself faced by hostile cavalry. Its Commander would be within his rights‚ if he felt the cavalry threatened his brigade, to temporarily assume control of his own command group to order squares to be formed, even though his divisional Commander had ordered him to deploy in line. As soon as the threat was removed, however, the brigade Commander would automatically resume operating under the divisional Commander’s orders, return his command group to its previous position and formation and re-form line. The effect of control operates all the way down the chain of command, from the battlefield commander down - with each lower command level having less freedom of action than the one above it, until we reach the private soldier who is simply told “Stand there and don‚t move!”. Control’s effect is (on purpose) to put a brake on commanders beneath the battlefield commander’s level to stop them from “Doing their own thing”. This can all be summed up in the following statement: A command group commander, at whatever level on the chain of command, will keep his command group doing what he last ordered it to do - until the situation (in response to which his current orders to the command group were issued) changes. So, to summarize the effect of control as we would expect to see it operate both on the battlefield and in our games. First, no command group would intentionally get involved in the battle unless orders requiring this had originated from the Battlefield Commander. There would, consequently, be a lot of command groups hanging around‚ while the Battlefield Commander put the stages of his plan into effect, assessing the success or failure of each stage‚ before deciding whether or not to go on to the next stage‚ and commit more forces. Commanders, even those whose command groups were standing around‚ would be reacting to any hostile threats that were directed against their command groups - on the ground they occupied. Commanders would not be reacting to everything that happened on the battlefield - only to those events that affected them. So how does this affect the way we can play the game? THE OPERATING SYSTEM We need to determine when an event occurs to which a commander may respond by issuing orders, which may change the course of the ongoing action. We need to define what will cause a “change of situation”‚ and then carry the action in the game from one “change of situation” to the next. Having done that, we calculate how much time has passed between the two changes of situation to find the length of that particular bound. Since changes of situation do not occur at regular intervals in battle, the intervals between consecutive ones will differ, and we will end up with bounds (or “turns”) of varying lengths of time (hence the term Variable Length Bound, or VLB). Although our bound lengths will differ from one another, they will all consist of a number of minutes. To be able to measure their individual lengths, therefore, our movement and fire effect rates must be in “rates per minute”. In this way, where a change of situation is caused by the movement of troops or the transmission of orders from a command group commander, we simply divide the distance covered by the movement rate of the troops (or ADC in the latter case) to determine the bound’s length. Where the change of situation is caused by losses to fire, we would then divide the number of casualties lost by the rate per minute at which they were being inflicted. The use of the VLB system allows bounds involving large scale maneuvers (bringing major forces into contact, for example) to be played through in about the same amount of time as it takes to play through bounds involving smaller scale actions (generally less since there is little calculation to do). This should allow us to fight large-scale battles within an accurate time span. The system also allows players to fight small-scale actions, since it is universally applicable. What the player must remember, however, is that he will not be able fight Waterloo in a couple of hours of his time if he is going to allow for the thousands of individual changes of situation affecting the many skirmishes on an army battlefield. If time is not a problem, of course, there is nothing to stop him doing so. It is entirely up to the player to decide how far up (or down) the chain of command he wishes to set his minimum (or maximum) level of operations. Although we can get through literally hours of “real” time in our games, it is easy for us to keep track of the overall passage of time. As we calculate the length of each bound as part of the game process, all we need do is add each bound’s length on to the total time for the bounds before it to see how much time has elapsed since the battle started. If, for example, the battle is part of a campaign, and we have forces approaching the battlefield and need to know when they will come in sight (and cause a change of situation for our opponent) all we need do is note the start time of the battle, adding the duration of each succeeding bound to it, to know at which point in the action our off- table forces will appear. The VLB system requires us to first locate the next change of situation in the battle, then find out how much time must pass and where troops will be at that moment, and then finally move our miniature figures to update the battlefield to that point. (This is, of course, the exact opposite of the traditional fixed-turn way of doing things, where each “turn” is a predefined time or distance interval after which players have an automatic “change of situation” opportunity.) We must, therefore, provide ourselves with a “snapshot” picture of the current “situation” for which eligible commanders can issue appropriate orders if desired. By then examining what the opposing sides are committed to doing, we can determine when their conflicting actions will cause the next change of situation, and where it will occur. This is exactly what we do - we have both sides TELL one another what their forces are doing so that we can compare their actions. This procedure is known as the “Game Dialogue”. Amazing This may seem an amazing idea to players used to having to hide their orders from their opponents in case the latter make use of the information. The difference here is that the game dialogue does not mean players must tell each other what their “intentions” are, or any “secrets” their “orders” may include. Rather, the players must tell each other what their opponent’s commanders would be able to observe to be happening as those orders are carried out. They must paint a picture that portrays what the opponent would see at a point in time and space when troops were acting according to their instructions. That picture is the “new situation” snapshot upon which a commander would base new orders. If players later discover that something in their description had been omitted or changed (intentionally or not), the game can be put back to that situation so a player can make his decisions based upon an accurate rendering of his observation of the battlefield at that time. Under the VLB system, players are only able to react for a commander who is affected by a change of situation, so what your opponents know doesn’t matter. After all, the player cannot react to the information for any of his commanders for whom the information doesn’t cause a change of situation. If the information you give your opponent does cause a change of situation for one, or more, of his commanders, then those commanders would have “seen it coming”, and would have been able to react so we lose nothing by informing each other of our forces’ progress. Equally, since commanders always have the right to respond to changes of situation, we gain nothing by “forgetting” to mention some part of the action that would cause a change of situation. In such cases we simply take the game back‚ to the omitted point, and resume the dialogue description from there. The VLB Playing Procedure Back to Table of Contents -- Courier #85 To Courier List of Issues To MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 2002 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