It been some time since I have written an article for MWAN so I thought I would share a conversation I had with Herb Gundt recently about war game design. The general topic was how to design a game where a player could not deploy in such a manner as to refuse a flank using the back edge of the table to avoid having his flank turned by a larger enemy force. Even worse to prevent a defender from slowly withdrawing away from the flank attack extending the time needed to achieve contact and hence providing the defender the ability to concentrate forces against this maneuver. In essence, because war gamers focus on their army and not its line of supply, it is not unusual to see opposing sides rotate on the game board and completely expose their line of supply to the enemy. In real life, this would mean both sides were willing to risk starvation and destruction of their tents, pontoon bridges, ammunition reserves, baking ovens, etc. Ah, you say, we will live off the land like the Napoleonic French armies... From my understanding, only a handful of areas in all of Europe and in North America during the 18th and 19th centuries could support large armies living off the land for even a short period of time. Hence the reason why 18' century generals spent most of their time attempting to maneuver against one another's supply lines or besieging the enemies fortresses which served as both supply magazines to friendly forces and supply line interdiction forces to enemy forces. To a large extent "living off the land" primarily applied to fodder for the horses (fodder being the largest component of any supply requirement) and food for the troops the second largest component). As a result, living off the land really meant reducing the amount of supplies being transported to the essentials (ammunition for one, money chests, tents, baking ovens, medical supplies, forges for repair, etc.) not actually eliminating them. When viewed from this perspective, wheeling back a flank on the war game table is akin to inviting the other player to pillage your supply and potentially destroy the ability of your army to maintain its concentration in the field. History abounds with examples of armies that suffered tremendous losses and some that even disintegrated after the loss of their supply train. As a result, your army could be destroyed or severely compromised by an enemy without them firing a shot. This explains why armies that were out flanked tried to hang on by sending troops in piecemeal rather than refusing their flank and exposing their supply lines. With this line of thought in mind, our discussion moved to establishing a rule that would dramatically change the way players deploy on the war game table. The rule works like this-for every unit a player is able to exit off his opponent's backline expressed in terms of points, the opponent must withdraw that a multiple of that number of points. For discussion purposes let us use a 1.5 multiple. The units selected should be those least engaged and most able to exit the table to cover the line of communications. In addition, point values should be based on the ability of the unit to threaten supply lines and communications defended by low quality troops. The thought here is that light and medium cavalry would serve best thus each casting would be worth 3 points each. Heavy cavalry and light infantry would serve the next best, thus being worth 2 points each. And other infantry would serve the least well being worth I point each. Artillery was deemed to be worthless for this purpose as its ability to raid an enemy's supply line was seen as negligible. As an example, a 12 casting unit of light cavalry exits the opponent's backline. Light cavalry for purposes of this example is deemed highly threatening to a supply line given its mobility and therefore each casting is awarded 3 points or 36 points. The opponent must withdraw 1 .5 times the number of points that exited the map or 54 points. The opponent has a 16 casting unit of heavy cavalry which has a 2 point per casting value (good for melee but not as good as light cavalry for raiding or guarding a long supply line) worth 32 points. The opponent has two 18 casting line infantry units worth I point a casting or 36 points. The defender must withdraw all three units and has a 14 point credit against any subsequent units that exit his backline. I recognize that in most instances the rear supplies were guarded so that a small raiding party could be repelled. As a result, it would take a large force in most instances to actually pose a threat that would require the defender to withdraw troops from the battle at hand. Therefore, the exiting of one unit of light cavalry may not cause quite so much commotion as in my example. But since we most gamers use a reduction system to simulate larger battles, a cavalry regiment is often substituted as the equivalent of a brigade, etc. I should point out that in my rules light cavalry and light infantry must maintain 50% of the unit in formed status and the remainder may be in skirmish order within a designated distance of the parent unit in order to be able to move, Otherwise, skirmishers are positionally bound (i.e. in a cluster of buildings, wooded area, etc.). This is important as light troops may move more quickly than other units, but cannot bob and weave as in some rules which would make them impossible to stop from getting off the opposite end of the game table. Imagine now, how players will deploy their light cavalry on the flanks to try to exit the map and block their opponents from doing likewise. Imagine the incentive to deploy forward to maximize your response time to a disaster on your flank. After all refusing a flank it is no longer an option and a disaster close to your backline could result in the loss of your army as the enemy marches units off your backline draining your army of its reserves. Suddenly, the battle hinges on securing key terrain that can be used to tie up a disproportionate number of the enemy so you can concentrate your forces to breakthrough to your opponent's backline. Games are based on maneuver and not merely hammering one side to some predetermined army morale level. These proposed war game rules clearly apply to actions where the opposing forces are relying on supply trains to feed themselves... as such there are other types of encounters such as sieges, skirmishing between small parties, and raids to which the rules would not apply. As I said at the beginning, these thoughts came from a discussion with Herb and I have not yet had time to test them, but I like the idea. If others have used a similar system, it would be interesting to hear their experiences with this approach. Lastly, I suspect that the scenario will require each side to have enough troops to cover the battlefield adequately. Anyway, the basic rule concept I hope has been explained and I am certain it will need some refinement to be applicable. But it sure would bring back the art of maneuver and provide for interesting tabletop tactics. Back to MWAN #106 Table of Contents Back to MWAN List of Issues Back to MagWeb Magazine List © Copyright 2000 Hal Thinglum 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