The battalion of French infantry, deployed in a firing line with a battery of horse artillery on each flank, calmly moved up to within effective range of the enemy and halted. Officers gave the command and muskets were leveled. The gunners primed their pieces and sighted in. The enemy, a battalion of Prussian Grenadiers supported by a battery of foot artillery, lining the low stone wall, brought their muskets up to the firing position as the officers raised their swords. All was silent as the troops on both sides waited for the words. And then, from above, came those fateful words, "Simultaneous Fire!!" Like most other War Gamers I have heard "Simultaneous Fire" in some form on a regular basis for the past 25 years. Where did it all start? How have we all gotten caught up in the myth of Simultaneous Fire? With all the reading, studying, and research that has been done through the years we should know better! According to the dictionary Simultaneous means, occuring at the same time," and, in regards to a volley of musketry, I take that to mean "at the same instant!" In my personal research I have been unable to find enough definitive information to indicate that in musket-period warfare simultaneous volleys were the normal occurence. In fact I believe that field commanders of that time were exerting every bit of influence, skill, and leadership they had to insure that they didn't get involved in a "simultaneous" exchange of musketry. Obviously, firing first had all the advantages both on a field of battle and, as we all know, on the table-top. Bit the Bullet So I have decided -- if you will pardon the pun -- to "bite the bullet" and change my rules according to my beliefs. The matter of who fires first on an actual battlefield is controlled by many factors ie: condition of weapons; training in musketry, visibility; troopdiscipline; terrain conditions; unit posture (moving, standing, deploying, etc); and officer influence to name a few. Now, how do we equate the effect of these real life factors to an inanimate miniature table top? Very simply, we use the war gamer's favorite instrument, the six sided die! Here then in its basic form is my technique for determining who fires first in any exchange of fire during a war game. Let us say that during the movement phase of a game turn two battalions of opposing Napoleonic infantry move to within firing distance of each other and halt. They are ready to fire. Who fires first? Neither has an advantage. They are each line infantry and they each have moved forward in line. We should assume they are equal in training, discipline and leadership. Now, let the "gods" decide. Each player rolls a die and the high roll fires first and inflicts casualties. If the die roll is equal we have the occasional "Simultaneous Fire" where casualties are inflicted at the same time and do not effect either unit's fire until the next turn. To cover some of the other influencing factors that determine "first-fire" we shall add some simple modifiers: A Troops that did not move or change formation add one to the die roll. B Elite units (however you define them), add one to the die roll. C Units with resting muskets (in buildings, fieldworks, or behind walls), add one to the die roll. D Units with Staff Officers present, ad; one to the die roll. These modifiers are all cumulative, and if you really want to break with tradition include artillery batteries in the "first-fire" determination. Who says that artillery always fires first? Just because 90% of the rule sets in use today specify this there is no reason to consider it a "Great Law" of war gaming. Obviously the mechanics of how this technique is used depends on the rules system being used and that I won't get into. Suffice to say it is workaLle. I also realize that all the pure mathematicians and computer guys will not like the 6-sided die approach and shortly will be using 20-sided dice, a dozen modifiers and two pages of probability charts. That's fine! All I'm offering is a concept. Try it in whatever form that suits you, but please let's do something so we can banish forever the age-old, mournful, war gamer's cry of "Simultaneous Fire". If we accomplish this we've made a great step forward in advancing the Art of Wargaming Rules -- which haven't really changed in concept in 25 years. Back to Table of Contents -- Courier Vol. 1 #5 To Courier List of Issues To MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1980 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