Napoleon said “In war, moral is to physical as three is to one.” he won over 60 battles. George Patton thought the number more like five to one. A look at most sets of tactical rules shows them to be driven by the physical effect of weapons, rather than by the behavior of men under severe threat. I remember old rules that were based on trials done by the British and Prussian armies, when battalions fired at cloth targets. Hits were scored by some sixty to twenty percent of shots fired, depending on range. Yet analysis of selected battles shows the percentage of hits at five percent and often less. Paddy Griffith says analysis of many firefights in this period show battalions scoring about one hit per minute. Many think the lack of effectiveness was caused by excitement or fear. Dave Grossman, in his book “On Killing”, wrote that it is because most humans have a deep aversion to killing, which can only be overcome by specialized training. (He believes computer shoot-em-up games do this to our youth.) This aversion does seem to lessen greatly when the enemy turns their backs to flee after a fight. Veterans often remarked on how most shots were high. Thousands of rifled muskets were recovered from the Gettysburg battlefield with multiple rounds in them. Soldiers stood their ground, loading as many as twelve charges without firing. It may have been fear; it may have been a deep aversion to killing, or some combination of the two. It was in any case the all too-human response to the intense stress of combat. Thousands of soldiers acted in a profoundly illogical way. Most of our tabletop battles are very bloody. Usually the casualties are around the level of Shiloh or Waterloo. These battles were noted for bloodshed, yet they are an everyday occurrence in our games. One reason for this is that we players are eager for the fray. A real life Union veteran noted: “It was always some other regiment that had the ‘itch’ to fight. We could wait for another day.” Another reason for the carnage is because the physical effects of weapons, rather than human behavior drive the mechanics of our games. Infantry Combat Note how many rules resolve melees. Once the forces close, the side causing more losses wins. That is not always what happened. At Gaines Mill in 1862, Hood’s Texans broke a line of rifle pits and two lines of earthworks, marching with their muskets on their shoulders. The steady advance of these troops into a hail of fire unnerved the defenders. After gaining that last line of works, the Texans finally stopped and fired into the backs of the fleeing defenders. Although many prisoners were taken in the ensuing rout, Hood lost more people in this fight. The defenders were tired, having driven off many other attacks that day. But the side that won this fight lost more men. On the second day of Gettysburg, the 1st Minnesota regiment made a flat-out bayonet charge into Wright’s Confederate brigade. One in four Minnesotans were shot down during this charge. Then Wright’s first line bolted from this small but determined band that did not flinch. Having made an incredible effort, the Union men stopped and fired into the second line. Some ten minutes of close range fire against three times their number finished them. But Wright’s first line had broken after causing many losses and taking none. The Confederates had just crossed Plum Run and were in some disorder. The winning side in the first clash lost the most men. In both of these famous bayonet charges, no actual bayonet fighting occurred. It was the moral threat of cold steel that panicked defenders. Firefights took longer, but were also often decided by moral force. In 1777 British and Americans clashed at the Battle of Hubbardton, Vermont. Some 850 British Grenadiers and Light Infantry attacked about 900 Continentals posted on a steep hill, discounting some 300 sick and stragglers who burdened rather than aided the defense. No artillery was engaged on either side. The heaviest fighting lasted a little over two hours. The Americans were slowly driven from two positions, rallying on a third where they held off two assaults. Brunswick reinforcements arrived to flank and defeat the American right. British Grenadiers enveloped the left, as the American colonel commanding the center was shot down. The British now charged with fixed bayonets and the Yankees fled in disorder. The Americans lost some 140 dead and wounded, the British and Germans some 200. Some 240 Yankees were taken prisoner after the line broke, many of them from the group of stragglers. Note that the Americans were driven from the first two positions by smaller numbers of elite troops who advanced firing. One American wrote that he had fired “nearly 20 cartridges” before running from the bayonets, which gives us a clue about the intensity of this fight. If each of the 900 Americans fired 20 rounds, we have perhaps 18,000 shots fired to get 200 hits, a little over one percent. Again, the side that took the most hits prevailed. Note, game designers, that a heavily engaged soldier fired 20 rounds in over two hours. That’s less than 10 shots an hour, in a steady firefight. What seems to have happened in these fights is that the side with the greatest determination succeeded, not the side causing the most casualties. Once the fights were decided, the losers gave up many prisoners. It should be noted that infantry who won fights usually halted and celebrated. Hood’s brigade, which continued to attack, was an exception rather than a rule. Indeed, because victory disorganized the winners, immediate counter-attacks were often successful. In the opinion of many British officers, the strongest effect of earthworks on American militia was that it emboldened them to stand up to regulars, rather than the physical effect of cover. Artillery Many musket period gamers mass their artillery the way WWII Germans massed armor. Massed reserve artillery, not divisional guns, formed most grand batteries. The lack of command structure was one reason divisional and brigade artillery were not routinely massed, but another was that the infantry needed their artillery support. The sardonic young officer of the 9th Indiana, Ambrose Bierce, said about being deprived of artillery, “The privation was much greater in a moral than in a material sense. The infantry soldier feels a confidence in this cumbrous arm quite unwarranted by its actual achievements in thinning out the opposition.” Though it must be noted Bierce was not happy to be on the receiving end of Confederate artillery fire. Union artillery General Hunt described the artillery barrage preceding Pickett’s Charge in Battle and Leaders. Hunt ordered all the Union artillery to hold their fire, in order to reserve some long-range ammunition for the expected infantry attack. Hancock, commanding the sector that was the obvious target for this attack, countermanded this order for his corps artillery. He thought it more important for his infantrymen, under heavy fire, to hear their own guns shoot back. Hancock, one of the most competent Union Corps commanders, thought it more important to bolster the morale of his troops. This decision is not one that makes sense in any rules that I’ve seen. Cavalry The mounted arm is the essence of moral effect. Do the troopers have the nerve to charge? If they do, will the targets stand or run? Cavalry vs. cavalry fights usually ended with light losses, unless the losing side had some sort of obstacle to their escape. Dead men and horses were more often produced by contact with steady foot soldiers and artillerymen. Valiant horsemen and unsteady foot soldiers were the ingredients of glory. Valiant horsemen and steady foot made a recipe for mounted tragedy. Other Matters of Heart We look to trap enemy units, because retreat ends in surrender instead of escape. But Sun Tzu, the ancient Chinese military sage advised against cornering one’s enemy. Indeed, this can be a problem. At the battle of Oriskany, in 1777, Tories and Indians ambushed American militia who were attempting to raise the siege of Fort Stanwix. The battalion at the rear of the column could only hear the ambush, but it routed. The three battalions that were caught in the trap, afraid of massacre, rallied and fought back. While Oriskany was not an American victory, the militia persevered and eventually escaped. They did lose many more men than the enemy did. A similar fight occurred at Milliken’s Bend in 1862. Veteran Texans attacked a Union force that was mostly Black troops so green they had not even had musketry training. Pinned against the Mississippi River, they stood and slugged it out at point blank range, taking more casualties until the Texans backed off. Again, green troops with no escape route who feared massacre fought on. And the side taking more casualties stood. In our games reinforcements are usually used to plug holes in the line. While this was also done in real battles, more often they were sent in while the line was intact to raise the morale of beleaguered friends and dishearten the foe. This is another time-honored tactic that has no place in our games. Our little troops fight until the dice call for them to break, but they need no encouragement; indeed get no benefit from it. So perhaps troops who have just been reinforced should get a temporary morale bonus, and troops who have just run into fresh enemy get a temporary minus. Infantry in firefights should check morale if their opponent has better morale. Certainly melees should be determined by morale first, casualties second. Troops broken in melee should hemorrhage prisoners. Infantry deprived of their support artillery should have a morale penalty. Troops who have taken an enemy position should be likely to stay put in disorder. Troops who are cornered and legitimately fear massacre should ignore all but the most dire negative morale results. We should spend at least as much effort attempting to model the behavior of humans under severe stress as we spend modeling the effects of firearms. Back to Table of Contents -- Courier #87 To Courier List of Issues To MagWeb.com Master Magazine List © Copyright 2003 by The Courier Publishing Company. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com