Every July, H.M.G.S. East sponsors Historicon, a convention for historical wargamers, arguably the largest such yearly event in America. The 4 day event is currently held in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. This years convention was teaming with events and tournaments from many historical eras (including around 50 Napoleonic events).
As at all conventions, there were many non-gaming distractions: The rich and powerful merchants sold their wears in the dealers area, and much coin was exchanged in the flea market. One could meet old friends, make new ones, attend the banquet, polish your painting skills or view the works of masters.
So much to do, yet so little time. I took a somewhat unorthodox approach to attacking this event. I elected to forgo all the above fun and games and instead go to school. The first 2 days of the convention, I continued my never-ending quest to learn the true way a Napoleonic army fought (and wargame said discovered truth), by attended 15 hours of seminars. From general review and Q & A, from the review of old games to the promotion of new ones, from the outline of theories to the announcement of new books. What follows is a brief "gossip tabloid" review of the highlights of some of these seminars. I think the topics I shall lightly gloss over will be the topics of many a gentlemanly discussion in future issues.
Of the 9 seminars attended, 8 were Napoleonic and one was on historical gaming in general. In my opinion, the general seminar was the most pertinent to this magazine.
Jim Getz and Scott Bowden hosted a seminar on the Campaign of 1806 at which they discussed some of their research findings for their future publications: "Armies of the Napoleonic Glory Years 1805-1807 and Napoleon's Grande Armee of 1806." (To be found elsewhere in this issue, Edit.) Items in their discussion which grabbed me the most were:
1. The different way the French and Prussians addressed woods and towns. For the French, these were an integral part of their offensive and defensive tactics. The Prussians thought of these as obstacle to be avoided.
2. Mr. Bowden proposed that the French: "deployed their formed infantry to fight in line (emphasis mine WGJ) verses opposing infantry". Did the French fight in line more often than generaly thought?
3. It was also proposed that the Prussian army may have been the combat equal of the French at the battalion / squadron level. It was above this level that Prussia's ancien regime baggage came into play.
Mr. Getz then discussed a soon to be released game, Chef de Bataillon. This game takes Napoleonic wargaming in the opposite direction of Napoleon's Battles. Your 6' x 12' table will not be filled by opposing armies, but opposing regiments! Having 100+ figures represent one battalion (I can't recall the exact scale) gives this game a unique tactical feel. Perhaps this game will reduce the "distortion" one can find in larger scale games. More on distortion later.
Major Bill Grey discussed the 1807 Battle of Friedland, in great detail. His conclusions on the superiority of Napoleon's Grande Armee of 1806-07 were very similar to Scotty and Jim's:
1.Superior senior officers
2. Superior command and control
3.Superior artillery tactics
4. Superior skirmisher capabilities
George Nafziger went into engrossing detail in his seminar on skirmisher. George brought up many points worthy of mention:
1.Skirmishers were trained to fire at officers.
2.Skirmishers were trained to enfilade the enemy, and when possible penetrate the gaps between formed enemy units.
3.Russian Oppolechinie(militia) were used as skirmishers!
4.Skirmishers caught in the open by charging cavalry could survive by forming hasty klumps, squares, or circles.
5.Skirmishers could capture unsupported artillery batteries.
6.British skirmisher pairs fought at 6", 2', and 6' intervals while the French fought at 15' intervals.
7.The British skirmishers were so dense, they were capable of Volley fire!
Did the British find the perfect balance whereby their troops felt (psychologically) like skirmishers, while the French saw them (once again,psychologically) as a formed line? Why is it so much easier to ask questions the answer them?
George Nafziger later graced avid pupils with a second seminar, on Cossack Operations in Western Germany, Spring 1813. George has 2 books coming out on the 1813 campaign, the pre-armistice one, Napoleon's 1813 Spring Campaign in Germany, is due out shortly.
A mostly Cossack force of 5800 men under Tettenborn, were sent on a raid into the Hamburg/Bremen/Lubeck region of N.E. Germany in early 1813 (at this time, part of this region was within French national boarders). The raid incited rebellion throughout the region. Mecklenburg defected, and a number of forma-tions destined to fight in Wallmoden's corp were born.
George went into great detail about the events of this seldom discussed "mini-campaign". These 5800 Cossacks distracted over 30,000 French and allied troops away from the decisive Eastern theater. Without the raid, over 4,000 additional cavalry would have been available in the east. This is the cavalry Napoleon was disparately lacking at his victories at Lutzen and Bautzen; the cavalry which may have made these battles decisive.
Jim Arnold conducted an excellent seminar on Napoleonic battle tactics. All three arms of Napoleon's army (infantry, artillery, and cavalry) were reviewed, with emphasis on their joint operations. Supported by beautiful slides from various continental battlefields, Jim discussed his theory on combined arms tactics:
1.That the most decisive battlefield results were attained through the use of combined arms. Having 2 arms involved was good, all 3 was ideal. 2.That the attacker and defender would make every use of terrain so as to negate the enemy's ability to use combined arms. Jim's favorite example was the defenders use of Heavy buildings (the Essling granary, the Hougomont farm) to negate the attackers cavalry and artillery, thus forcing the assaulting infantry to go in "unsupported".
Last but not least we have a seminar by Mr. Tim Dwight on the Use of Miniatures Wargaming in Leadership Training. Tim discussed the philosophy behind his rule system that was used to teach leadership at the Department of Military Science at Sienna College in Louisonville, New York.
Tim feels that when we convert the realities of war to the table top, rules and scale changes overly distort physical realities, thus making the wargame and not a simulation. Tim's goal: "I want to know if I could have been a successful commander" in a given historical era. He feels that: "people who are Intelligent, have an orderly mind and can think logically, win wargames". Tim Dwight's system demands more than the above, it demands leadership abilities. He claims his system represents a new genre of games, the "Military Tactical Simulation" (MTS). The details of Tim's philosophy shall have to wait, hopefully to be discussed by the author himself. What I will touch on now is how his talk effected my own thoughts on wargaming.
By merging the discussions of Jim Arnold and Tim Dwight, I hold the following opinion with the greatest conviction: One must have extremely accurate terrain in order to have historically accurate wargaming. A rules system which gives you unhistorical results on a poorly terrained table top may be the ultimate system,(producing historical results) if the terrain was more authentic. Of course, everyone's perception of a historical outcome is different. I am skeptical that a wargame completely playtested on bad terrain could produce historical results on a realistic table top.
Unfortunately, terrain is not my specialty, and I have not had the opportunity to visit the great battlefields of Europe. In general, I'd say the average wargamer's table has too much open space, not enough artillery dead ground, and lacks terrain prohibitive to certain troops.
The knowledge I gained at these seminars was well worth the numbness I experienced after the final one. More was learned here than in many a college course, and I would recommend to any and all this approach to you next convention endeavor.
More Historicon 1992
by Jean A.Lochet
I also attended the fine lectures at Lancaster. There are a few things I would like to add to Bill's comments.
Bill is right in saying that there is a new trend in Napoleonic wargaming. More and more wargamers show the desire to include in their games as much realism that is possible. Beside the question of authentic terrain, unfortunately, as it was mentioned to me at Lancaster by several wargamers, very few rules impose the use of true Napoleonic tactics, transmission of orders through the chain of commands etc. But this is not the place to discuss the topic of realism in wargames.
Fortunately, at Lancaster, beside an impressive demonstration of "Chef de Bataillon" rules, a few wargames presented new realistic rules. One of the most impressive was the battle of Borodino using "Legacy of Glory" rules which ended sometime around 3 in the morning with a French victory. These rules are very realistic. During that game, I was pleased to see the referee, on several occasions, imposing the strict usage of Napoleonic formation (Note 1).
Then, I was also very impressed with the presentation of a new rule system "From Valmy to Waterloo" presented by William Keyser. William is using in most of his battle 5mm figures. I tend to agree with him that the 5mm scale is the one to use for large battles as the 15mm figures, in which the scale of 1inch = 50 or 60 yards, restricts the maneuvering capabilities of the armies.
There were many other events to numerous to mention, among which were the "Clash of Titans" a battle between the French and Russian Imperial Guards, in which our Bill Jessop was a participant.
Note 1: See the review of "Legacy of Glory" rules elsewhere in this issue in the "WARGAME IN REVIEW" section.
Note 2: These new rules are not yet commercially available.
Back to Empire, Eagles, & Lions Table of Contents Vol. 2 No. 1
Back to EEL List of Issues
Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List
© Copyright 1993 by Emperor's Headquarters
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