(Editor's Note: Two issues ago, Clinton Reilley began a series on how computer-moderated rules should work. His first article examined the concept of "casualties" as opposed to "losses, " and which is a more effective indicator of decreasing unit morale. The second installment looked at levels of casualties and how they varied over different time periods. This article concludes the series.)

Do Unit Numbers Matter at All?

Even though the level of casualties sustained has little correlation with the reason units retire or break, there still seemed to be a certain undeniable importance surrounding how many troops a unit still had standing doggedly in the line ready to take on the next fire fight. Naturally, other factors such as fatigue and morale are important, but in terms of objective characteristics, the number of combatants a unit can muster must still be critical.

So, I started to question what happened to all those troops who became lost to the fighting strength of the unit in combat, and to search for a better way to measure the impact of numbers in a battle (and so, in a game).

Other Factors Affecting Losses

Since losses are essentially psychological (apart from the casualty component), there are a number of factors that can make them higher or lower. The main ones I could detect are now discussed.

What distance are you engaging at? With smoothbores, they did not seem to be effective on the battlefield over 100 paces (about 75 yards). The more effective range was at about 50 paces. At this range, the losses inflicted by the system are intended to be savage. This is the view taken by the generalists in the field of weapon lethality, such as Dupuy in his book, "The Evolution of Weapons and Tactics," and as far as I can see, the literature supports this view. I will discuss this further below. Inthe"Great Captains," the level of losses can be quite high, as troops were often more highly trained and could use Platoon fire in 3 ranks.

There are other factors the system needs to take into account.

Units with more efficient officers immediately in command tend to be more effective and suffer a lower level of losses. Such officers usually ensure that proper firearm maintenance is carried out by the commanding officers. For example, flints are checked and replaced if not in good condition, gun barrels are cleaned, good quality gunpowder is used and not sold to locals for grog, etc.

The orders seem to have an effect also. Those with hold orders tend tend to expect a firefight and would organize the troops accordingly, placing marker stones at certain distances to ensure the range can be known before opening fire (dense black powder smoke soon obscured them, but they would allow initial fire - the most effective done at the close range).

The leadership style (almost like the modern idea of a "management style") also has an effect. The more disciplined (old style) armies had a much higher rate of fire on the battlefield, but had other problems such as being more "brittle" under pressure. This introduces the idea of Chaos Theory, which I found a useful concept for thinking about the critical point where a unit "cracked" and what were the decisive factors. Have you tried to take these into account? It you have a well- rested, trained unit with good or excellent morale and a disciplined commander, it should stop most if not all charges and inflict a level of damage that cannot be stood by an equivalent unit for more than about 20 minutes.

The level of losses also varies over different historical periods. In the earlier 18th Century period, the higher loss rate reflects the tighter command and control exercised over troops of that period and the contemporary tactical doctrine of close quarters fire fights. The later Napoleonic period has a reduced rate of losses reflecting, in part, the lower average level of training.

Even at this rate some still find casualties too high and fire fights resolved a little too quickly for their liking, but most seem quite happy.

Another approach would be to reduce the duration of a bound to about 30 seconds, so as to allow a fire fight to occur over a longer game period. However a full battle would then take ages to playas movement distances would be short and we would spend a lot of time moving up and down the table shuffling the troops forward a little at a time. That approach was rejected as impractical in the extreme.

Application to the Tabletop

How to apply all this to the tabletop? This turned out to be not as straight forward as making the computer perform a calculation. In fact, the initial results of a strict application of this approach was somewhat unpalatable to some of my testers (all experienced gamers from various parts of the world including the US and the UK).

After applying these observations in test games, it became apparent that while many would agree in principle with the findings, most players found it very frustrating when some units broke in one bound. It was the usual conflict between game and simulation that is often debated in war games literature. We know what actually happened, but do not like to play that way as the game becomes too boring and disappointing for the loser. The game is more fun if there is something of a "cliff hanger" and units last a little longer.

This view was moderated by finding that units would sometimes spend time "shuffling" back from a firelight and then being pushed forward again by officers and NCOs. The "break" was not necessarily a total rout, but rather a rapid degeneration. I took Clausewitz's observation as the guideline and let fire fights extend a little further.

Conclusion

So, where does that leave the issue? The use of casualty levels to represent the effects of battle on troops would only be of use when the casualties are very high, such as some ancient times. Usually this is too late, as the unit concerned is already in such difficulties that the casualty levels are superfluous.

However, to reflect the historical level is too drastic in game terms to produce an enjoyable game -- in my experience -- unless you are keen to simulate an historic battle, rather than have a war game.