TERMINATING THE BOUND The subject of morale, and the mechanics of its operation on the field of battle is of prime importance in military history. (Napoleon, rated it as three times as important as physical force or numbers of men). Morale, however, has received scant consideration by writers and rulemakers in the hobby in comparison to that given to the material factors of firing rates and fire effects. This has, principally, been the result of the fact that such factors are more easily researched and brought to mathematical terms and a tendency to regard morale as 'too difficult' to interpret in game form. It is this writer's contention that, although we may never represent morale perfectly, we must nevertheless try to do so. The battlefield is a place in which each force present engages in a battle with itself, as well as with the enemy, this is where moral forces operate. This 'internal battle' within an army is one between the dictates of orders and the instinct for survival, with commanders and soldiers engaged in a constant 'war' with one another as the former try to get their orders fulfilled and the latter try to stay alive. This effect of morale on the table should be field by the players in their ability to control their troops actions. THE POINT OF DECISION It is a maxim of war that the greater the effective range of the common weapons of the troops, the greater the distance at which they will consider the issue of 'win or lose' to be determined. In moral terms, the 'effective range' of a weapon is that at which, in the soldier's mind, his opponent has a reasonable chance of killing him, and at which it is safer to flee than to persist in his attempt to come closer, the 'morally' effective range and the (physcally' effective range are not necessarily the same thing. In the earlier periods of the history of war, when the common weaponry of the combatants was swords or other short implements which could not kill at any great distance from their user, and the ability to escape from an enemy who had bested one hinged largely on one's ability to outrun him, soldiers accepted that the point of decision and the point of contact were one and the same, and the physical clash of armed men in hand-to-hand combat was the normal precursor of tactical victory. As, however, the effective ranges of the common weapons increased, so too did the gap between the point of decision and the point of contact, until, for example, by the time of the Napoleonic wars, the former was considered to be some 100 yards from the enemy. Even in more modern times, although the capability of the commonly employed weapon has vastly increased, the inherent inability of human beings to compete with mechanical technology, and the wide dispersal of troops on the battlefield in comparison with the form of deployments practised during the earlier periods has resulted in the point of decision remaining at about the same distance from the troops. We can see that the effect of weapons on morale is to determine the point of decision and from our knowledge of the effectiveness of the weapons of different periods, to determine the 'point of decision' relevant to different periods of military history. Equally, we may say that, the less effective the common weaponry of the troops over longer distances, the closer to one another will opposing bodies of troops come before a tactical decision is reached - a contention which we may readily test by reference to works on battles in different periods. THE DELIBERATE MELEE 'Man does not enter battle to fight, but for victory. He does everything he can to avoid the first and obtain the second. -- du Picq Du Picq's basic premise that soldiers will not seek to come into hand-to-hand combat with opponents who are, or appear to be, determined to resist (and who, consequently, deny them an assured victory) denotes that one of the principal effects of moral force on the battlefield is to prevent combat unless one side or other has 'already won' and the other is more interested in escaping than in fighting back. In the Ancient period, the point of decision and contact were synonymous, and owing to the bulk of the troops having been deployed in massive phalanxes which prevented their rapid flight to the rear (part of the function of the phalanx, or 'column', which was still appreciated during the Napoleonic wars as we can see from primary accounts) the foremost ranks of the formation which first gave way to the impulse to flee could not get away from their opponents before the latter were on top of them. The 'melee' which developed was one in which one side had conceded the MORAL victory to the other, and was only involved in as much physical fighting as it found necessary to ward off the blows of the other side while it waited the opportunity to escape. Although the high casualty returns stated by contemporary and later writers for the battles of the Ancient period were in all likelihood true enough, by far the major portion of them would be attributable to the inability of the losers to get free of the winners and the virtually non-existant medical services, which meant that - particularly in the case of the losing side's wounded, who would be lucky indeed to get any attention - large numbers were left to die of their wounds. As evidenced by General S.L.A. Marshal's work on the Second World War, Men Against Fire, du Picq's words have, if anything, become more pertinent as the decades have gone by, with soldiers, as the general level of civilisation has risen, finding themselves less and less capable of trying to 'wipe out' their opponents. Thus, although a certain amount of 'cutting and hacking' would normally be necessary in the earliest periods of history to produce the 'assurance of victory' in one side or other. As we progress through history and the level of civilisation rises, the incidence of 'stand-up fights' become less and less with a rapidity happily encouraged by the ordinary soldier. For example, the number of men wounded or killed by the bayonet during the Napoleonic period was an infinitesimal fraction of those lost by the effects of enemy weapons - and that even the latter pales into virtual insignificance when compared to the numbers lost through disease and desertion. The weight of primary evidence points to the fact that one side or other - and sometimes both - always broke and fled before such a contact could occur. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF AGGRESSION Research into animal and human behaviour patterns when they are in 'conflict' situations is relevant to any study of the process of morale in battle. Surrounding all of us, there are certain 'psychological zones', within each of which the presence of a hostile body will represent a different degree of threat and will provoke a different degree of response. In conflict situations there is a set pattern of behaviour based on the right of possession. Because of this in-built attitude, the person being 'attacked', or even threatened with removal from 'his' ground, is regarded - by both sides - as having the right to be there, and the aggressor has to overcome not just the other's feelings of proprietary ownership, but his own feelings of 'illegal' invasion of those rights. There are three 'zones' within the furthest of which the presence of an unknown or obviously hostile member of the species will cause the defender to take mental note of the other's position and to watch for any further movement towards his own position. This zone we may term the AWARENESS ZONE. It is one which exists virtually all over the battlefield, since the soldiers are well aware of the fact that they may be killed or injured by enemy action at any time. Since, by the very fact of their presence on the field of battle, soldiers have shown their acceptance of hostile forces within their awareness zone (whether the soldiers themselves are present of their own free will or not). We may say that there is no need for us to allow for this fact within our morale rules - and that any troops who would have 'over-reacted' to the battlefield presence of the enemy would not have reached the battlefield in the first place. If an aggressor continues towards the defender, crosses into the next zone which we may term the INITIAL REACTION ZONE, the defender reacts by assuming an aggressive posture of his own. The purpose of this counter-threat is to indicate to the attacker that the defender has not been intimidated by the former's own threat (even if he has) and to intimidate him in turn so as to stop his advance or perhaps, cause him to withdraw. If the attacker's threatening attitude is powerful enough in its effect on the mind of the defender, the latter may consider flight a necessity. If the attacker's attitude is powerful enough to overcome that posed in opposition to it by the defender, but not sufficiently so to cause the latter to give up immediately, he will, as he comes closer, pass into the defender's closest zone, which we may term the CRITICAL REACTION ZONE. The defender has to make a 'critical' decision, and there are only two such in the soldier's vocabulary. These may be described as 'fight' or 'flight'. Owing to the proximity achieved by the aggressor by the defender's allowing him to come within the critical reaction zone, the decision made by the latter as to his course of action is unchangeable without serious consequences. Thus, having permitted their opponents to come within, say, 50 yards of them and made the decision to fight, troops who decided to flee just after that would be in greater danger of being cut down by their opponents, while troops who had initially decided to flee, and had then tried to rally to fight after starting to fall back, would be disordered when their opponents reached them. Therefore, in general terms, if the attacker's threat is sufficiently strong that the defender feels that he cannot stop his opponent's advance ending in physical contact, the defender will flee, while, if the defender's counterthreat is sufficiently powerful to overcome that posed by the attacker, and he shows determination to come to blows, the attacker will not press the advance to contact home and will either seek some other means of 'evicting' the defender (such as by shooting him away) or will give up his attempt and retire, depending on the strength of the moral power evinced by the other. The radii of the three zones are not constant but change with individuals and with circumstances. They are however, always based on the inherent survival mechanism within the human psychological make-up. Thus for example, in a crowded street, where we have come to regard the close proximity of others as normal, we do not feel 'imposed upon' at more than a few feet -while those who normally live in less-congested areas of habitation generally feel 'crowded' when they are in cities or towns. The zones extent may also be affected by 'outside factors' and it has been found, for example, that alcohol stimulates the extent of the zones, which explains why even limited imbibers show a reaction (not always hostile) to people and events which are further from them than they would normally notice. These concepts are increased where the defender is occuping buildings. This increase in the feeling of 'ownership' on the part of those defending and attacking buildings explain the greater degree of ferocity which defenders and attackers generally exhibit to one another when the are disputing possession of buildings and the like. The greater the fear engendered in a body of troops by their opponents, the more vicious will be the ,revenge' taken if they should eventually beat them - the basic cause of the terrible scenes which followed the enforced taking of towns. THE MORAL PROCESS IN WAR Let us consider well-known situations from the past in which the patterns of behaviour explained by modern research is described by primary evidence from the period. If we examine these accounts, we find that attacks which were met by a determined resistance in the open ground to a halt and, if made by infantry, deteriorated into fire-fights, with the issue ultimately being decided by a counter-attack by the defenders or the introduction by the attackers of an additional threat (ie. fresh units). When considering events which actually took place on the battlefield, in which attacks were immediately successful, we will find that this was normally brought about by the fact that the defender's MORAL power (or will to resist) had previously been sapped by, normally, the prior employment of artillery barrages or strong forces of skirmishers or both. During the Peninsular war many French attacks, in which the troops involved frequently outnumbered their opponents, were brought to a halt by the steadfastness of the British and Allied lines. They were finally repulsed by the latter's reversal of the moral position through the interjection of a counter-attack. It is significant that there is not one suggestion in the accounts left to us by soldiers who participated in these events of physical contact being the outcome of either attack or counterattack, and that the whole concept of the 'deliberate melee' was foreign to their understanding of what occurred on the battlefield. We also have the case of the Comte d'Erlon's attack at Waterloo, where the appearance of his divisions caused the Dutch-Belgians who had suffered most from the fire of the grand battery to flee without making a show of resistance, and which caused even the British battalions just beyond the crest of the ridge to fall back. In this instance, it was Picton's rallyng of his units before the French could exploit their success and his counter-attack with those units, supported by flank attacks by the British cavalry, which threw the French back. Perhaps the most famous account of what habitually occured when French troops attacked their British counterparts in Spain is that written by General Bugeaud. Although this account is not strictly 'first-hand', the General according to Paddy Griffith, unlikely to have actually been involved, it is culled almost literally from accounts by officers who were involved, and we may, consequently, treat it as factual. "The English (British) generally occupied well-chosen defensive positions having a certain command, and they showed only a portion of their forces. The usual artillery action first took place. Soon, in great haste, without studying the position, without taking time to examine whether there were means to make a flank attack, we marched straight on; taking the bull by the horns. About 1000 yards from the English line the men became excited, called out to one another, and hastened their march; the column began to become a little confused. The English remained quite silent with ordered arms, and from their steadiness appeared to be a long red wall. This steadiness invariably produced an effect on our young soldiers. Very soon we got nearer, crying "Vive l'Empereur! En Avant! A la Baionette "Shakos were raised on the muzzles of muskets; the column began to double, the ranks got into confusion, the agitation produced a tumult; shots were fired as we advanced. The English line remained silent, still and immovable, with ordered arms, even when we were only 300 yards distant, and it appeared to ignore the storm about to break. The contrast was striking, in our innermost thought we all felt that the enemy was a long time in firing, and that this fire, reserved so long, would be very unpleasant when it came. Our ardor cooled. The moral power of steadiness, which nothing can shake, (even if it be only appearance), over disorder which stupifies itself with noise, overcame our minds. At this moment of intense excitement. the English wall shouldered arms; an indescribable feeling would root many of our men to the spot; they began to fire. The enemy's steady, controlled volleys swept our ranks; decimated, we turned round seeking to recover our equalibrium; then three deafening cheers broke the silence of our opponents; at the third they were on us, pushing our disorganized flight.' We can clearly see the development of the 'battle of wills'. The French attackers try to frighten their opponents into retiring not just by their forward motion but also by the additional threats contained in their shouts. As they cross into the initial reaction zone, at which point the enemy should have been showing signs of unwillingness to contest the issue, the French are met by the 'the moral power of steadiness which nothing can shake being 'thrown back at them' by their opponents as a counter-threat. To add weight to this threat the British infantry, in apparent unconcern, silently bring their muskets to the firing position - further illustrating, the failure of the French to impose their will and the failure of their opponents to be in the least intimidated. The French soldiers, even if not their officers, realize that the game is up, their weaker elements start coming to a halt and opening fire to try to 'persuade' the British to go away, being quickly followed by the remaining mass of the force. The British, however, refusing to be 'bluffed' by this, counter it with a few disciplined volleys, (always acknowledged during the period to be less materiallyeffective but more morally-effective than other forms of fire), and at this point, although the French remain the 'tactical' attackers, they become the 'moral defenders' as the psychological balance shifts in favour of their opponents. It was at this point, which required skill to judge, that British commanders ordered their men to give three cheers and advance. Before the French soldiers could recover their mental balance, the enemy moved into their critical reaction zone covered by the smoke which hid the area between them. The three cheers given by the British acted as a signal to their opponents that they were coming as well as a 'lift' to themselves (it being well known during the period that, once soldiers had started firing, it was extremely difficult to get them to stop and move forward). Thus the French, blindly firing into the smoke of their earlier discharges, were suddenly confronted by their opponents advancing out of that smoke, almost on top of them', when there was only one way to avoid what appeared to be certain destruction. Taken at a disadvantage, the French troops broke and fled. The fear of the event, which always makes it appear more frightening than it normally turns out to be, begins to work on the French infantry and the failure of their opponents to break, or even look discomfited as a result of the French advance reduces the confidence of the French soldiers and starts to tip the scales in favour of the defending infantry. This swing in the fine baIance between good and bad morale continues as the French draw closer, and the British still do not show signs of being intimidated (although they may well have been but not showing it) and the balance is finally swung completely against the French when their opponents calmly, steadily, and with apparently unconcerned precision, bring their muskets to the shoulder. Paddy Griffith, lecturer in military history at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, pointed out to the writer that Bugeaud's account relied heavily on that given by General Chambray, which is even more cryptic and baldly evocative of a 'moral victory' by the British. As Chambray's account, which detailed events from the Battle of Talavera during the attack by the lines of French units in columns of divisions, (double-company front) on the main battleline of the army under Wellington, brings forward examples of other aspects of the moral process, we will recount it here. 'The French charged with shouldered arms as was their custom. When they arrived at short range, and the English line remained motionless, some hesitation was seen in the march. The officers and NCO's shouted at the soldiers, 'Forward; March; Don't Fire' Some even cried 'They're surrendering' The forward movement was therefore resumed; but it was not until extremely close range of the English line that the latter started a two rank fire which carried destruction into the heart of the French line, stopped its movement, and produced some disorder. While the officers shouted to the soldiers 'Forward; Don't open fire'(although firing set in nevertheless) the English sudenly stopped their own fire and charged with the bayonet. Everything was favourable to them, orderliness, impetus, and the resolution to fight with the bayonet. Among the French, on the other and, there was no longer any impetus, but disorder and the surprise caused by the enemy's unexpected resolve: flight was inevitable.' We can see the 'flight' which was engaged in within the advancing French formations as their officers and sergeants fought to maintain control over the men and get them to persist in their efforts to follow their orders and the soldiers 'rebelled' against the increasing chances of death or mutilation which doing so would bring with it. For both accounts, having lost control of their men, there was no question of the officers regaining it within a short space of time, and certainly not quickly enough to thwart the enemy's counter-attack, once the latter had come within the critical reaction zone. MORALE IN THE WARGAME Let us now consider the various factors which we have found running through our look at the moral process and see how they could be represented in the game. 1. Before a physical contact takes place, there is a moral conflict engaged in which determines the victor and the loser. Even in cases where the principal weapons of the troops are such as to cause the moral and physical clashes to occur simultaneously, the latter is only the final 'proving ground' for the outcome of the former, and does not last long as an equally determined fight. 2. There are two moral conflicts before any physical clash occurs that take place at different distances from the troops. While both may result in neither side 'winning', or in one side winning and the other losing the test will permit one side to 'win' while the other yet retains enough moral power to stand its ground, while the positive victory of one side at the CRITICAL DISTANCE will inevitably cause the moral breakdown of the other. 3. Bodies of troops which lose the moral battle, or become involved in an indecisive result, become unresponsive to the orders of their commanders, and their subsequent actions are dictated by their survival instinct alone. 4. All soldiers do not react to a threat at the same distance from it. The least experienced troops react before those with greater experience, and we may deduce from this that, the higher the basic degree of morale of a body of troops, the more closely will they permit a threat to come before it affects them. Our morale rules should also follow a set pattern. First, morale tests should be contests between the opposing sides, Second, morale tests should be taken at different distances depending on the basic moral strength of the troops involved. Third, the decisive victory of one side should cause the defeat of the other's will to fight, so that there should be no question of both sides willingly coming into close combat, and, fourthly, there should, in both cases, be the chance that the failure of one side to convincingly overcome the other's will to resist will bring about an indecisive situation, with neither having the moral power to force a decision. Morale tests should also be different in their range of possible outcomes depending on whether they are taken at initial or critical distance. In terms of the results of moral tests, we can see that the principal effect of unsound morale is that the soldiers are removed from the control of the commander (or player), with their further actions being determined solely from the rules, with the latter being designed to show the dominance of the survival instinct in such situations. THE MORAL BATTLE Wargames in general have not failed to allow for the pertinent factors in their mathematical tables but after assessing the 'moral power' of a body of troops have not used that 'moral score' correctly. We may redefine the 'morale score' as the 'moral force score' - since the moral force generated by one body of troops is not on its own members, but against those of the hostile force, thus if a unit achieves a 'morale score' of say, 10, this would indicate to us not that its morale should be 'boosted' by that degree - but that that of the opposing force should be reduced by that extent. In wargaming, it has been the practice to award points to the side possesing the relevant characteristics. Thus, we find that 'formed' troops are generally given a bonus for being so rather than those attacking or being attacked by formed troops being penalised in their morale score. To be formed, however, which is a physical not a mental state, the soldiers of a unit need only be standing on the correct spot in relation to their comrades. It is perfectly possible for a 'formed' unit to be absolutely scared stiff and lacking in all moral power. One instance of this was the case of the Dutch-Belgian units on Wellington's right at Waterloo, which were formed (because the officers and sergeants literally 'clubbed' the young soldiers into position as Mercer informs us) but were, mentally broken and only held in place by the close-packed British cavalry behind them. Under battle conditions, such instances are far from rare, and it is, therefore, ludicrous to add to the morale scores of such units simply because they are standing in some pre-ordained spot which they would be far happier if allowed to vacate. However, troops, attacking or being attacked by formed troops cannot know the state of their opponents' minds. They will, consequently, naturally assume that the order and cohesion of their enemy denotes a willingness to fight. Therefore, we would be far more accurate in deducting the effect of such factors from those faced by them rather than adding them to the troops evincing them. The same can be said of most of the factors regarded as relevant to the moral situation of a body of troops, but not all. Certain factors whose presence in a body of troops would bot be apparent to their enemies, would not cause any effect on the latter. When we determine troops' 'morale score' we have really been calculating the degree of effect which the unit is having on its opponents. It should be against the latter that the 'morale score' is applied. By doing this we would not, in the case of the Dutch-Belgian units previously mentioned, enhance their moral status because they were formed - when, in fact, their morale would have been higher if they had been left to flee, and was reduced by being compelled to stand fast - but would cause the effect of their standing fast (which would not be known to the enemy to be a facade) to be felt by any troops moving on the frightened infantry. Had we been dealing with material effects we would, after assessing the fire effects of our troops, apply this to the loss of the other side in terms of men. In the moral battle, however, even though the 'ammunition' may consist of appearances not bullets, both sides 'fire' their ammunition in order to obtain an effect against the other. That effect is not the loss of men, but the loss of confidence - and hence the lowering of the enemy's morale. In our games we need, having assessed our 'morale scores' in whatever manner is currently employed, set them against one another so that we may determine which side has won the moral battle. For example, where opposing bodies of troops have morale scores of say 10 and 6, their effect on one another would be found by subtracting their own score from that of their opponents. The result would be scores of 4 and - 4 respectively, with the unit having the positive result 'winning' the moral battle and other losing it. INITIAL AND CRITICAL REACTION TESTS There are two points in the closing of bodies of troops on one another at which the situation would require a test of morale. The potency of the threat presented by one to the other was affected by whether it was delivered within the INITIAL or CRITICAL REACTION ZONE but might equally will cause them to turn and flee if it was delivered from within their CRITICAL REACTION DISTANCE. If we simply adopted the practice of 'swapping' morale scores, we would, always have an outright winner and an outright loser. All that we would achieve would be the transference of the present erroneous procedure of the deliberate melee from the point of contact to a point some distance away. Morale does not operate that way, and tends to bring about indecisive result where there is not some distinct advantage operating for one side or other. We are required to move away from the concept of morale as a 'black and white' issue into one which sees it as 'several shades of grey'. We tend to see the zero point as being the point of balance between good and bad morale. However, it is possible to have a moral state that is 'good, but not good enough' or one which is 'bad, but not bad enough'. Therefore, we must introduce a band lying above and below zero point (which I call the 'shaken' band) within which scores will produce indecisive results in our morale tests. It is possible within the initial reaction zone for one side to obtain an indecisive result while the other achieves a decisive result that permits it to press on into the critical reaction zone. To reproduce this in the wargame we need to cause the shaken band to fall further than it rises in relation to the zero point - so that, for example, in my own rules for Napoleonic warfare, the shaken band to initial reation tests lies from -5 to +2, permitting morale results of +3/-3, +4/-4 and +5/-5 to produce situations in which one side retains sufficient confidence to press on into the critical reaction zone while the other does not, although the latter has not been so intimated as to rout. The critical reaction zone, is somewhat different. Here, if one side shows sufficient determination to come to grips with the other, represented in our games by its achieving a sound rating Q or more in my own rules) then the other will lose all confidence and break. To reproduce this simply the writer has provided the following basic tables. Initial Reaction Tests Morale Status Critical Reaction Test -6 or under Broken -3 or under -5 to +2 Shaken -2 to +2 +3 to +8 Sound +3 to + 5 +9 or over Over-Confident +6 or over It is possible for units at critical reaction distance from one another to fail to secure a decisive result over their opponents and for such situations, without orders, to degenerate into a very close range fire fight. When a unit becomes over-confident, although it is infrequent, the troops involved go beyond control and pursue their immediate opponents without thought of the consequences. To represent the increased chance of such a state of affairs occurring when the units are within CRITICAL REACTION distance of one another, the overreaction point is lower than it is at initial reaction test distance. During the Napoleonic period and the wars which preceded it, once troops had begun to fire, it was an extremely difficult matter getting them to stop doing so. Psychologically, troops who have settled down to fire at their opponents feel that that fire will prevent their opponents from moving on them, so that no greater danger will be introduced into the action from that source. This, of course, is based on no more definate a principle than that which makes men tend to crowd together or hide behind objects which they know cannot stop the enemy's fire in the belief that, by doing so, they are somehow 'safer' than when they are in the open. Notwithstanding its false basis, however, it is a factor which we must take into account. Troops whose morale falls within the shaken band will not have lost enough of their confidence in eventual victory to cause them to give up trying to overcome their opponents at that point. Neither will they retain sufficient confidence in the power of their moral threat alone to cause the opposing party to quit the field to press on into the critical reaction zone. Thus, where both side's morale falls within the shaken band - by far the most common occurence in battle - a'moral stalemate'will be reached which can only be resolved by the introduction of other factors. As John Keegan remarks in The Face of Battle, 'The offensive usually fails in war only after real fear has been excited, real humiliation inflicted, real blood spilt.' In terms of our wargames, once infantry have become shaken they will open fire without orders and 'settle in' to a fire- fight with their opponents for as long as either side is prepared to continue. In the case of cavalry, the inability of either side to impose its will on the other would cause both to come to a halt, or break away from the otherwise inevitable collision. Even should the opposing bodies of cavalry actually come at one another, this does not signify that a 'melee' would take place - a rare occurrance. In this context Mercer, in his Waterloo journal recounts seeing two opposing bodies of horsemen come together, 'in collision. They were at a very short distance from us, so that we saw the charge perfectly. There was no check, no hesitation on either side; both parties seemed to dash on in a most reckless manner, and we fully expected to have seen a horrid crash - no such thing! Each, as if by mutual consent, opened their files on coming near, and passed rapidly through each other, cutting and pointing, much in the same manner as one might pass the fingers of the right hand through those of the left. We saw but few fall.' It was for these reasons that cavalry commanders were, when faced with an apparently determined enemy, even more concerned to 'go for the flank' than were infantry commanders, unless they had accompanying artillery to compensate for their inherent lack of firepower, and the art of cavalry battle- handling was to engage the enemy in order to disrupt his troops while retaining a reserve with which to deliver the'coup cle grace'- it being a welldocumented belief of the cavalry commanders of the period that he who was able to commit the last formed reserve habitually won the engagement. Infantry, as stated above, would open fire no matter what the officers thought. In such situations, therefore, the only options available to the officers were to deploy those parts of their force not actually firing and therefore likely to be still amenable to orders or to order the force to retire. The latter was rarely a serious option, since the commanders could not know but that a few minutes of fire from their troops might tip the balance in their favour and cause their opponents to break off the engagement. They might also have a hard time explaining such a lack of devotion to duty to their superiors at a court martial for 'cowardice in the face of the enemy'. Thus commanders, in such cases, tended to deploy such of their forces as were not already engaging the enemy so as to add as much weight to their side of the firefight as possible. Frequently this option was adopted by French commanders in the Peninsula, for example, when their attacks had ground to a halt. Cavalry rarely actually came into contact unless one side had a decided advantage either in morale or in position. Thus, as Tomlinson recounts in Diary of a Cavalry Officer, 'one side or other, and sometime both, always broke before contact'. The accounts of cavalry actions, therefore, undoubtably authentic, are not accounts of two opposing bodies of troops deliberately engaged in fighting but accounts of 'running fights' between one side which had already overcome the other's determination and another which was more concerned with getting away. That such situations are rare in wargames shows the superiority of 'real' cavalry commanders over their wargames counterparts in the manner of employing their troops. Simply ordering cavalry forces to frontally attack morally sound forces of the enemy's cavalry without having prepared the way with fire or having reserves to hand to exploit the disorder caused by the attacks -whether successful or otherwise - was not the way that cavalry should be handled in battle. REACTION TEST DISTANCES Wargames rulemakers have always accepted that threatening situations on the battlefield will not affect all troops in the same degree at the same distance. The morale table is based on the mechanical principle that all tests be taken at a distance at which the threat would only affect some of the troops on the table. We can see that this application will not only remove those troops who would not be affected at the given distance by the threat from the repercussions of morale but will also permit those who would be affected further away to ,remain unaffected' for longer than realistically would be the case. The basis of the morale table as currently employed is the point at which a threat will affect the 'line' or 'conscript' soldiers who form the vast bulk of armies. This is shown by the granting of bonus factors to 'superior' troop types, such as 'guard', 'elite', 'veterans' etc., and the deduction of points from 'militia'. This reflects the greater or lesser effect of a threat on those troops given bonuses or penalties - and is valid, but only when it is qualified to state that the factors are relevant at that point only. To illustrate the inaccuracy of the current morale table system we may use the example of the Spanish infantry in the Peninsula who fled from the mere threat of French cavalry when the latter were 1000 yards away at Talavera. If we were to base our morale table on this occurrence, and to take the Spanish infantry as our 'base type' troops, giving bonuses to all others who would be morally superior to them (about everyone else), we can see that very very few other units would not 'pass' their morale tests. As a consequence, therefore, of the morale test being taken by everyone at a point at which the threat would only be felt by some, we would (in this case) permit virtually all of the troops on our battlefields to operate within 1000 yards of the enemy without having to take another morale test. Thus, because other troops were not frightened of enemy troops at the same distance as were our Spanish troops, they would, by the application of the current morale table system, be able to operate anywhere within 1000 yards of the enemy without in any way being affected by moral forces or refusing to obey orders through fear. Obviously it would be wrong of us to assess everyone's morale at 1000 yards simply because the Spanish infantry had felt threatened at that distance. Equally obviously, morally stronger troops could hardly be left free to operate without moral consequences within such a distance as 1000 yards of their opponents. It would be necessary for the purpose of realistically reproducing the effects of morale in battle for us to test morally' stronger troops' reaction to a threat when that threat was closer than 1000 yards - because it would only be when closer than it actually appeared as a threat to morally stronger troops. This example was deliberately chosen because it is an extreme case. However, if conscripts are taken as the base troop type, and 100 yards as the morale test distance, exactly the same arguments hold good. On the other side of the coin, where 100 yds is the morale test distance we would not (unless we made special arrangements) even require to test the morale of the Spanish troops until the French cavalry came within 100 yards of it. An identical situation exists in respect to morale tests taken as a consequence of loss of personnel. In this situation, the 'moral test distance' is replaced by the ,morale test degree' and it is the percentage loss at which the base troop type should be required to test its morale that defines the 'degree' of threat employed. In order to ensure that morally stronger troop types do not suffer at this degree of loss, they are awarded bonus points as a safeguard. We can realistically represent the moral process where there are troops of differing moral strengths involved by testing each at the distance at which - to it - a threat would represent a danger. The effect of the 'superior moral strength' obtained from training and experience (with the latter being far more important) in terms of the wargame should be a reduction in the distance from a threat at which the troops require to test their morale. Current practice of giving bonuses to troops considered to have superior moral strength (such as 'guard' and 'eterans') is also wrong since their opponents would not be able to see the effects of such factors - and could not, therefore, be impressed by them. The only case for the inclusion of such factors is if they were made known to the enemy in some way - such as when the French Imperial Guard donned their parade uniforms during a battle, when the enemy were left in no doubt as to who they are fighting. (On several occasions, Napoleon ordered the guards to remove their trappings so that the enemy would not now until too late just what they were facing). The whole point of testing troops' morale is that a threat to their lives is of such a degree of potency in their minds that they are at the point of balance between their willingness to obey orders and their instinct for selfpreservation. This must be the case since, if there was no question of the troops obeying orders, there would be no need to go through a time-consuming but pointless exercise such as a morale test (although that is just what does happen when we test the morale of troops superior to the base type under current systems). A battle is not just an engagement between hostile forces it is, concurrently, an engagement between the commanders and the commanded in each army, in which the dictates of orders and the instinct for survival constantly vie with one another. The purpose of discipline, and the effect of successfully surviving previous engagements, thus gaining experience at how to do so again, is to redress the balance to some degree away from the survival instinct and towards obedience to orders, so that troops possessing these 'advantages' will be less likely to adopt the course dictated by self-reservation. The effect of one body of troops having greater discipline and/or experience than another body of troops would be, if they were both opposed by the same threat, that the less- disciplined/experienced would come to the point of balance sooner. It also follows - and this is crucial- that, once it does reach its point of balance, a unit with greater discipline or experience than others will have used up the benefits bestowed by those factors to allow it to delay its arrival at its point of balance. It will be just as much affected by the threat if it comes within its reaction distance as would be any other body of troops with less discipline or experience when its own, further away, reaction distance was reached. There would, therefore, be no need for us to allow bonuses for more disciplined/experienced troops when they tested morale since those bonuses would have been replaced by the more authentic allocation of different reaction distances. THE POINT OF BALANCE Human beings have an inherent degree of moral strength which is merely added to by the operation of 'internal factors such as discipline and experience. Since we have allowed for the effects of internal factors by decreasing the reaction distances of those who possess them, we have brought all units to the same inherent level by the time they reach their respective reaction distances. Thus, our troops are no longer 'guards', 'elite', 'veteran'. ,militia', simply men, and their inherent moral resilience at that point will be equal. The factor allocated to the basic degree of moral strength in ordinary soldiers once they have been 'reduced to the essential factor', is impossible to determine with any exactitude. We may, for example, just as correctly place it at 10, 50 as 100 points. However, to the simplicity of our game mechanics, it matters a great deal how we allow for the basic strength of morale in our units. Let us say that we allocated a factor of 10 as our basic moral strength. It would be against this factor that the ,moral force' of the opposing side should be set in order to determine its effect on the troops in question. Thus, two sides with scores of 6 and 4, would bring one another's moral strength down to 4 and 6 respectively in the moral battle - a difference of two points. Regardless of the basic number employed for the inherent moral strength factor, it will, when the opposing 'force' scores are deducted from it, produce identical variations between the two sides. However, where a basic factor is employed, we could be led into 'playability' difficulties when we come to setting the limits of our 'shaken band' and determining the points at which troops will still be sound and will definitely be broken. Since the inherent moral strength of our soldiers, once they have 'used up' any extra resilience given by the operation of factors such as discipline and experience, will be equal and will 'neutralise' the basic strength of other units at the point of balance, we may, in fact, disregard it. It is not so much the effect one side has on the other that is important, but the difference between the two sides that that process produces. We can clearly see that one side has 'won' the moral battle while the other has lost it, and all that we require to do is set the boundaries of the shaken band so as to require a decisive victory in order that a force may remain sound. This, of course, requires us to set a 'point of balance' somewhere from which our shaken band would spread upwards and downwards. If we disregard the basic factor, since that of each side would neutralise that of the other, and employ zero as our point of balance, we can simplify the mechanics of our morale rules to a great extent. This is accomplished by the simple process of deducting each side's morale score from that of its opponent, so that one will always be positive and one negative, except when they start the same, when the result will be zero for both. Thus, our previous example scores of 6:4 would produce final scores of 2:-2 when set against one another. NUMBERS Soldiers do not run around the battlefield with pocket calculators, totaling the numbers of men within enemy units/formations. They are concerned, when it comes to the numbers opposed to them, with the number of enemy units in terms of the tactical unit within which they themselves are operating - thus infantry see the enemy in terms of 'battalions' or 'companies' and cavalry in terms of 'squadrons' or 'regiments' as far as the men are concerned, and in terms of 'brigades', 'divisions' etc as far as the generals are concerned. For this reason, soldiers belonging to a battalion which is, for some odd reason, on its own in the open and being advanced on by two enemy battalions of 700 and 500 men each, will not see the latter in those terms but simply as 'two battalions'. Even were the hostile battalions to be in column formation, which alone would reduce the 'visible' number of men, they would still be known to their enemies as two units to their one. In terms of the wargame, therefore, we may basically define the physical threat posed by the strength of an enemy force as being equal to the number of its opponents' tactical units. Our basic definition of the physical threat posed by one body of troops on another is not, however, sufficient. If we return to our example battalion standing out in the open unsupported, but this time assume that it is being advanced upon by ten enemy battalions, all in line and all in line with one another, we can immediately see that this whole division of enemy infantry is in no way 'threatening' the solitary battalion opposed to it. The battalion directly opposed to it would be, of course, as may a small part of those on either side of that directly opposite it in the enemy line - but, with battalion frontages of the order of of 200 yards or so, it is patently obvious that the vast majority of the opposing infantry would be too far away to threaten our solitary unit. The same argument can be advanced in the case of a solitary company of troops opposed to an enemy battalion. In this case, although the distances involved are less, the situation is no different. The solitary company of infantry may feel threatened by that of the enemy battalion directly opposite to it, and by some fraction of those on either side, but it will in no way feel threatened by soldiers up to 100 yards away. To calculate numbers in the wargame, therefore, purely on the basis of the strength of a unit without regard to the vital matter of whether or not those numbers are actually threatening the enemy's soldiers at that point is unrealistic. The 'threat' posed by the physical presence of the enemy's soldiers is the threat of a fight, the threat of physical contact. It is no large step from the definition of the 'threat' involved to that of the portion(s) of the enemy force which may present that threat - namely the number of the enemy's soldiers which can come into contact with those against whom the threat is posed without having to alter their formation or disposition to do so. If we relate this definition to wargames, we can see first of all that, since soldiers see their opponents as 'numbers of units' relative to their own unit, and since the lowest tactical unit employed on the battlefield is generally the company, we need only count the number of companies involved or where cavalry is involved. Since the numbers to the left or right of a company who would be able to come into contact with it would be small (and we are talking here not of flank attacks but of 'face-to-face' situations) we can define the part(s) of a force which are physically threatening another as being that (those) which contain part of the hostile force within their flank axes (lines drawn through their flanks at right angles to their fronts). Since those parts of the force which would have to alter their formation or disposition to bring a physical threat to bear would not be presenting that threat at the moment of testing morale, they should not be counted towards the 'physical threat value' of the force. In wargames terms where the figure represents the depth of the basic tactical sub-unit (see the writer's article on Ground and Figure Scales in a previous issue) we may discount all but the nearest rank of figures to the enemy force for physical threat purposes. REALITY TEST Now let us test our four principal factors against the current system by seeing how they would permit us to deal with a common wargames situation. To illustrate let us turn to the situation dealt with by our accounts from the Napoleonic period. Wargamers generally assume that the British had greater moral strength than their opponents, although this is highly debatable as a general situation, and more to do with the positioning of the British troops and,, later, the addition of their successful experience. However, regardless of the correctness of the arguments concerned, since wargames rulemakers do habitually treat the British as 'morally superior', and give them a moral bonus in respect of that superiority, they would be treated under the moral battle system to a reduction in their reaction distances so that they tested morale later than their French opponents. As reproduced under the current system the common situation which arose during French attacks in the Peninsula would involve the two forces coming within morale test distance, throwing a die as a 'base point' and then adding or deducting points to reproduce the effects of relevant factors in the situation. This would, unless some special loading was made in favour of one side or the other, normally result in both side being 'sound' and charging home to melee. The outcome of the contest would, therefore, be determined not by the moral issues involved but be a physical contest which is contrary to primary historical evidence. Under the moral battle system the first significant difference is that in both cases, there would be the possibility of two moral tests prior to any contact being brought about. In this case, since the French were the morally-inferior troops, they would test their morale first - at, say 100 yards as in the case of the writer's rules - and would have to overcome the threat posed by their opponents, as depicted by their (the opponent's) score which whether they were testing or not, would be taken into account. The range of possible outcomes to this test would be a complete breakdown of the French morale, causing them to rout, a set-back to their morale, causing them to become shaken and open fire indiscriminately at the British or no effect on their morale, permitting them to continue closing on their opponents. Under the author's rules, where the 'tactical threat value' posed by numbers would be even, the most common outcome of the situation under consideration would be for the French to become shaken. Assuming that, at the INITIAL REACTION TEST distance, the French became shaken, we have the first major difference between this system and that commonly employed in that, although the French have been affected, the British have not yet tested their morale, and therefore remain under orders. Should the British 'commander' decide to emulate his historical predecessors and order a counter-charge after a few volleys, this will be acted on and the British line will move forward until it comes within its initial reaction distance at, as under the author's rules, 50 yards. Since this is also the distance taken for the French troops' CRITICAL REACTION distance, the latter will also have to test morale at this point. Under the author's rules, shaken troops are taken to have half of their normal tactical threat value, therefore, assuming a single battalion versus battalion engagement, this will reduce the value to 1/2 if the French are in column, one point per company being the basis. Against this the British, whom we will presume not to have altered their linear formation in order to 'fold inwards' on their opponents, would have 1 point for the company directly opposed to the column, and to/from these basic factors adjustments would be made for those factors within the situation which would effect the moral state of those involved. Also to be taken into account is the fact that the French, under the circumstances depicted, generally found themselves on lower ground than their opponents. Under the author's rules, this involves them in a further halving of their basic value, giving them, therefore, a value of 1/4 to the 1 retained by the British. This is translated into 1:4 by multiplication by the denominator to reflect the fact that the French, owing to the factors involved, are now seeing things in terms of one quarter of their normal value. Thus, without either dice throw affecting the scores, as is commonly the case, the morale scores will be -3 (French) and +3 (British) which leaves the British sound and the French, who are at critical distance, broken. The British would now continue their advance and melee with the French. This melee, however, would not be of the ' toe-to- toe' variety currently the case, but would be one in which the British would be doing all the killing while the French were trying to escape. The writer's rules requiring a broken unit to 'wait' 1 minute per rank of figures deep before breaking to denote the greater time that deeper formations took before their front ranks could actually get away due to the need to wait for the pressure behind them to dissolve. Under the system proposed in this article, both sides cannot pass the morale test at the same time, so that they must either falter together or one must obtain a decisive victory over the other, which will be enough to cause the other to break in the final analysis. Thus, although melees can and will arise under the proposed system, they will do so for authentic reasons - namely that the moral ly-defeated side will be unable to get clear before the other comes to grips with it. RALLYING Having dealt with the moral battle proper, we may now look at representing its outcome and effects on the troops. We will be required to represent the effect of troops being sound, shaken, broken and over-confident, and, as we have seen, the principal effects of a moral clash between bodies of troops will be felt in the 'command and control' aspects of our battles. Troops that remain sound after a morale test do not present us with any problems. Since they retain their confidence in their ability to cope with the situation, they will respond to the orders of their commanders without hesitation. It is, therefore, in the other three categories that we must allow for the breakdown of discipline, the hand-maiden of command, and for the moral and administrative effects of a body of troops going beyond the control of their commanders. When troops become shaken they are not so adversely affected as to consider flight a necessity, but do not retain enough confidence to permit them to 'force the issue' any further. The troops will remain shaken for as long as that situation continues to exist. Thus, where two bodies of troops have come into close proximity and have both been shaken, for example, they will remain so, blasting away at one another if they can do so, until one or other retires voluntarily or as a result of having been ordered to do so (the only order which will be obeyed by troops in such circumstances). Furthermore, having become shaken, and having, therefore, lost a degree of confidence, troops will not become immediately sound even if the threat which affected them is removed, but will have to regain their composure and, in all probability, their formation. Thus, we will have to allow for a lapse of some minutes after a threat has been removed before the commanders may 'take over' again. When troops become broken, as when they become shaken, they may do so to a greater or lesser degree - as shown by their actual morale score. We would expect that this would be reflected in our games by the former running away for less time than the latter, and taking less time to be brought together into their units once more. Under the writer's rules this is shown by requiring broken troops to flee for one minute per point of their morale score below zero, and taking that total time multiplied by the number of units present to re-group. When troops become over-confident, or 'battle-crazy', they act, in effect, just the same as broken troops - but in reverse. In such circumstances, the troops 'take-off' after their opponents regardless of personal danger or the positions of other hostile forces than those they are chasing. We must cause such troops under our rules to go beyond the control of the commanders, to pursue their immediate enemies regardless of how idiotic a maneuvre that appears to us with our god-like views of the battlefield, and to 'head for home' utterly disorganized once they have 'run out of steam'. CONCLUSION The writer hopes that this article will stimulate the reader's thought process on the subject of morale in battle, since the moral element is by far the most important and deserving of wide-ranging contributions and analysis. He contends that the 'MORAL BATTLE' system proposed in this article produces a far greater degree of realism and authenticity in this vital aspect of the reproduction of battle in game form, and also that it gives to the moral issues their proper pre- emminence over the physical aspects of war which, although they operate against the material strength of the troops, record the effect of that operation against the moral strength of those subjected to them. Since the whole art of war is to destroy the enemy's will to resist - his morale - the writer contends that the moral battle system will cause the player to work towards that end realistically in a far greater degree than is ever required under systems commonly employed at present. Even such a small contribution to the wargamer's effort to authentically reproduce the realities of warfare in his games as is represented by this article could not have been made without the assistance of others. The writer would, therefore, like to re-emphasize his obligations to Derek Sharkey and David Burnett, of the Capital Wargames Club, Edinburgh, and to Dr. Paddy Griffith, lecturer in military history at the Royal Military Academy, England, and Chairman and founder of Wargames Developments, for their unstinting willingness to listen to the ideas of the writer and to 'help him across the hurdles' when these have seemed too high. More New Concepts New Concepts in Wargaming 1: The Time Scale New Concepts in Wargaming 2: Game Mechanics New Concepts in Wargaming 3: The Moral Battle Back to Table of Contents -- Courier Vol. III #5 To Courier List of Issues To MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1981 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