It has long been painfully apparent to perceptive wargamers that most hobbyists have no conception of what generals do on a field of battle. The canaille consistently seem to misunderstand the function of command and its problems - those very factors whose simulation distinguishes table top combat from a simple checker game. Wargaming checker players (and their name is Legion) typically handle a shock-era or horseand-musket period army as if they were hovering above it in a Huey with instantaneous telepathic links to every unit. Each battalion is treated as a separate and independent "checker", instantly available for whatever convoluted maneuver the omniscient C-in-C back at headquarters imagines is representative of the period.
This all too common attitude confers a certain bogus flexibility on a wargame army and allows some gamers to boast of what passes for generalship. But the cost is realism and a true test of the commanding general's skill. After all, any fool can play a good-enough game of checkers. It takes a great deal more to manage and command.
What does a commander-in-chief do, anyway? "in battle", says the acute Frederick Lewis Taylor in his scholarly Art of War in /taj/y 1494-1529, "a commander has to ask himself two questions: How am I to dispose the different parts of my army? and, In what sequence shall I bring these different parts into the fight? These two considerations, the one involving problems of space and the other problems of time, are fundamental to all military engagements."
History tells us that the concept, at least, is about that simple. U.S. Grant once rebuked a jittery staff officer for imagining that the Rebels were going to turn a doublesomersault and land on both Union flanks and their rear at the same time. Complicated detailed maneuver of that type is never the business of the general-in-chief. Grant summed up his job with the following advice: "Find out where your enemy is. Get at him as soon as you can, and strike him as hard as you can, and keep moving on."
America's greatest battlefield soldier, Robert E. Lee, remarked that his function was to "plan and work with all my might to bring the troops to the right place at the right time. With that I have done my duty." Similar examples could be found in the writings of any number of the Great Captains, but perhaps the most succinct is from William Wallace, who led his Thirteenth Century Scots into the Battle of Falkirk with this simple summary of his work: "I have brought ye to the ring; hop if ye may!"
So the C-in-C plans the action, arranges his army for it, gives operational orders to his immediate subordinates, and commits the reserve. Oh, from time to time the supreme commander may have to get his hands dirty rallying some routed squadron or steadying some shaken battalion, as Napoleon did at Arcola, or as Taylor did at Buena Vista.
But, if the commander makes a regular habit of interfering where colonels and sergeants should do the bloody work - the examples of Henry of Navarre at Aumale in 1592 or King Victor Emanuel at Palestro in 1859 will immediately occur to the well-read gamer - it probably indicates that the player is not fit for the top job and is seeking his own (lower) level of competence. Marshal Bazaine laying a gun at Metz, or Samsonov acting as a cavalry brigadier at Tannenberg are perfect illustrations.
To accomplish his job, then, the commander-in-chief player must write orders, and it is here that the structure of the average table top contest begins to deteriorate into a Parker Brothers game of Stratego. Most wargame generals do not know how to give an order in the first place. And certainly the rabble do not realize how important it is to obey one. Rules are useless as a compulsion in this area. Developing a tradition of maturity is the sole solution.
The opaque bombast of most wargame orders amounts to little more specific than "act at discretion". The huge majority of unthinking wargame subordinates need no encouragement to do just that anyway, and the wargame played by the typical club is an every-man-for-himself, devil- take-the-hind most, free-for-all in which the function of the C-in- C is limited to seeing who's still on his feet when the shooting dies down. That's King-on-the-Mountain, not wargaming, and one remedy for this unsatisfactory state of affairs is to educate players in the meaning of written orders and why they are important.
The Heart of America Tactical and Strategic Order of the Followers of Featherstone (HATSOFF) has successfully established a useful tradition about written orders. "Thou shalt obey thy orders to the best of thy ability" is HATSOFF Bylaw #5 - and public opinion sees that it is enforced. Each gamer has a chance to act as commander in rotation at the club's weekly games (in any one of a dozen separate wargame periods), and therefore each gets the opportunity to shine as the hero or blunder as the goat on his own merits as supreme warlord.
Given a reasonable parity of force and luck, those who write good orders will tend to win battles, and those who do not will tend to be beaten.
But! To be "good" means more than just knowing the right thing to do. It also includes getting it across. Confusing or ambiguous orders, as Grouchy found out during the Waterloo campaign and Lucan learned at Balaclava, can lead to results the C-in-C never intended.
In order to conduct a proper wargame, therefore, the top general must school himself to write proper orders. These orders should not be elaborate, but must clearly tell a subordinate: 1) where to deploy, 2) how to deploy, 3) what to do, and, 4) when to do it.
See how simple it is? Keep it that way. Complicated plans and overly detailed orders lead easily to disaster - as the Marquis of Mantua learned to his cost at Fornovo in 1494, or as Van Dorn discovered at Pea Ridge in 1862. On the other hand, Wellington crushed Marmont at Salamanca with a dozen well-chosen words, while the Iron Duke's estimate of Napoleon was "Damn the fellow! He is a mere pounder after all." If that was good enough for Bonaparte, it should be more than ample for any wargamer.
Now, check some of the orders you've issued lately against this standard and see how thay measure up. Then, honestly review the other side of the coin - how well you've obeyed the orders you've received. If you can improve these two aspects of your game, chances are your total hobby enjoyment will increase as well. And, once you've seen the light, contests on a lower plane will assume their true juvenile proportions and cease to be worth the trouble.
A normal HATSOFF game, depending on the scale and period, begins with a "deployment order". This is a directive from the army commander to a subordinate, telling that subordnate how to array the troops allotted to his command. To issue such an order, the C-in-C must first plan his own offensive or defensive method of giving battle, weight the known intentions and capabilities of the enemy, and exercise his coup d'oeil, his "eye for country". In short, the wargame commander must consider most of the things the leader of flesh-and-blood troops would have to. Having done so, the C- in-C then writes orders and passes them out. Here's a sample on which a lower commander would have to act:
- TO: General Hood
FROM: Headquarters
Deploy your Division in column of brigades astride the Wire Road south of, and parallel to, Gravelly Run. Your artillery should be held in immediate readiness to accompany any advance subsequently ordered. General McLaws' Division will be on your left and General Hampton's cavalry brigade will cover your right.
The general-in-chief has wasted no words and nothing can be omitted from his order. If, for instance, the C-in-C had failed to specify "column of brigades", the Hood gamer might perhaps have marshalled his Division in only two lines, thereby occupying twice the frontage with half the depth desired by the commander, and masking both McLaws and Hampton on either flank. But, from the narrow front and great depth specifically ordered, the Hood player can deduce that he will later be ordered to attack. He is, in fact, practically committed to do so by the original deployment instructions - which is the whole idea.
Too often, immature players want to hedge their bets. They want to leave their options open so that any fleeting advantage may be seized, any error redeemed. Such players desire wargame rules which require no forethought and forgive them their mistakes by minimizing inevitable consequences. These players have not grasped the unforgiving nature of the combats they are attempting to recreate, nor must they be aware of the elder Moltke's dictum that "A mistake in the initial deployment can hardly be rectified in the course of the whole campaign."
A battle between tens of thousands of men and hundreds of guns is not extemporized, but planned in outline beforehand. If the original plan is faulty, if the commander's "eye for country" is off, that's just too bad, and the outgeneralled gamer should be responsible enough to yield the advantage gracefully to the superior planner. Seldom indeed can such inadequate plans be corrected either. The enemy may not permit a Division desperately needed on the left to disengage from a firefight in the center, while a cavalry brigade once committed to the charge can hardly be recalled to do anything else. The principle "order + counter-order = disorder", though beyond the comprehension of most wargamers, should nevertheless be the keystone of any good set of wargame rules.
But once deployment orders are issued, there our Hood gamer sits, the color bearer of the middle regiment of his lead brigade squarely between the two ruts of the Wire Road, just south of Gravelly Run. The next communication to reach Hood from a HATSOFF Headquarters would be the "operational order". This will tell Hood how to employ the Division he had deployed, and it might read like this:
- TO: General Hood
FROM: Headquarters
Advance your Division immediately upon receipt of these orders across Gravelly Run. Storm the heights to your left front with the bayonet. After securing the high ground, establish your batteries in position to enfilade the enemy lines upstream along Gravelly Run, and poise your infantry for a later attack in that direction upon receipt of my subsequent order.
Right - in the normal HATSOFF game. But elsewhere (I am told) the Hood player, even though clearly understanding the order, might be excused for doing something entirely different! He might, for example, decide to delay his advance until he judged the omens right. Or, instead of hurrying up and making a frontal attack with the bayonet as ordered, he might be more deliberate and try to work around the enemy's flank while pinning him with a cannonade. Worse yet, the Hood gamer may survey the whole table, apply knowledge that he very probably would not have possessed in the first place, and conclude that his commander's plan is the wrong one altogether.
Anyone can see, he might reason, that the attack should be made to the right front, with a subsequent wheel downstream. Perhaps the whole Division should forget about the C-inC's orders entirely. If commanded to attack, it may be that a stout defense would really stand a better chance of winning the battle. If earmarked as a reserve, it may be obvious that an immediate headlong assault will gain a glorious victory.
As I'm sure better wargamers are well aware, such reasoning is widespread. It is regrettably typical of ignorant players who, though they may have memorized some cumbersome volume of rules, have yet failed to comprehend the far more important concept which Sir Charles Oman termed "military psychology". This term encompasses the habits of thought common to officers and generals in any wargame period. Their attitude toward orders is well typified by the informal motto of the Royal Flying Corps: "We'll do it; what is it?"
There are, of course, Nelsonian precedents for "turning a blind eye" to orders, but such incidents are rare and only noted in history because they are exceptional. In fact, generals acted on their own initiative, contrary to the commander's intentions, at their peril, while to flatly disobey an order was most often professionally (if not literally!) fatal. The careers of Runstedt, Warren, Admiral Byng, Smith- Dorrien, and Sackville, the blunders of McClellan, Steinmetz, Sickles, Rennedkampf, and von Muck - to note but a few - all stemming from disregard of orders, are far more illustrative of this principle than Rommel's occasional good fortune or the proverbial "Custer's luck". On a real battlefield, a subordinate either obeyed orders or was quickly replaced by someone who would.
Thus, when a wargamer ignores the clear instructions of the wargame general-in-chief, he is guilty of a breach of the military code which would almost certainly result in rapid relief from command in favor of a more reliable officer. The methods of Marshal Zhukov or Marshal Joffre will leap to the informed wargamer's mind as obvious illustrations. Yet, the harassed wargame C-in-C can neither relieve a player from command nor, like the First French Republic, shoot one "to encourage the others". His selfwilled and undisciplined juniors risk nothing by acting like Habsburg Archdukes at the expense of the overall plan and other players. Neither armies nor wargame clubs can thrive on cheap heroics and selfish neglect of this sort. yet, it happens, in most cubs, quite regularly, to the fury and frustration of the better members. Such a style of play is the Mark of the Beast which distinguishes military checker- players from the small minority of more mature and better- researched wargaming generals. These more perceptive gamers have realized three important truths - truths which have eluded those of lesser mettle: 1) My judgement is not necessarily always right. 2) Even if it was, the other guy is entitled to his own mistakes. 3) My turn at command is coming soon, and how will I react if disobeyed?
Obedience is the foundation of any army and should bulk large in the relationship of players in any good club when fighting a wargame. Garners who feel that they have the stuff of Belisarius or Marlborough in them and therefore have a divine right to ignore the wishes of lessor mortals should reflect more closely on the military history they are trying to recreate.
Even being right is no guarantee that you can do what you want. General Lanrezac was cashiered in 1914 for that very offense, even though he was the only high-ranking French officer to figure out the Schlieffen Plan. Colonel Ompteda knew he was going to his death when the Prince of Orange ordered his brigade forward at La Haye Sainte. Every man in the Union army except Burnside had misgivings about attacking Marye's Heights. Yet they were so ordered, and they carried out those orders to the utmost of their ability and the last extremity of sacrifice. Good wargamers should demand no less.
Take a hard look. How does your club measure up?
Responese
Back to Table of Contents -- Courier Vol. III #5
To Courier List of Issues
To MagWeb Master Magazine List
© Copyright 1982 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