In issue 4 of Operations, Wig Graves and Jim Dunnam espoused some ideas on how to deal with the ability of players in the CWB to circumvent the orders system delays by planning operations far out in advance. In effect, by stacking the deck in his favor, a player could guarantee concert of action. This matter is watered down in effect greatly by the one major presupposition involved in it---during the prolonged period that a player uses to prepare for his big action, the enemy must do either nothing at all, or something close to it, so that the best laid plans of our "pre-thinker" are still valid in the distant future.

While this assumption rarely proves true and I would prefer to reward players who have the ability to plan so far ahead and to make it stick, I see Wig and Jim's point. At first I was hesitant to adopt any of their proposals because I felt that they were either too artificial or hard to work with, here I'll propose my own. I'll invite any comment the readership would like to give on this version (as well as Jim and Wig's original ideas) with the aim at developing the best solution to the problem at hand. The problem itself is quite real, although I have rarely (if ever, in fact) seen it raise its ugly head. Besides, I think there is some room here to apply some rather neat (and, dare I say it, "realistic") leader effects.

Procrastination as an Art Form

If they have anything at all in common, all humans can relate to putting off things to the last minute. As college students (at one time or another), we have all found ourselves with that %*@## paper due Monday, but decided to, er, enjoy life Friday night anyway. In my cadet days (back when 15 minutes was a damn long time) I found myself squeezing in 4-6 minute rack sessions, timing my ping over to class down to the final second. In the military, especially during the Civil War for some reason, commanders habitually analyze the amount of time given to them in an order to determine how much time they can allow to elapse (read: lay back) before "jumping" to it. Usually instructions such as "go NOW" leave little room for such lazy thoughts, but those instructions where the higher commander seems to have given generous time to accomplish the preparations, the drive to wait before acting becomes ever so strong. Good commanders will take the available time and be set to go at the hour requested, poor commanders will find the estimation of either the time available or the amount required to get the job done a difficult (if not impossible) task. One need only think of what the result would be if Burnside, McClellan, or Polk were given instructions to be ready for movement in three weeks. They would stall for two weeks and five days, and then attempt to throw it all together during the last two days. More than likely, they would not be ready on time, even though they were given a generous amount of time to get ready. Time is like that.

So what can we do with the CWB to show this tendency? I think the tools are already in place and readily usable for this reason. The procrastination rule I would propose is the following:

A player may automatically check for acceptance only those orders received which are to be acted on in the next hour or less. Orders which are to he acted on more than one hour from the current time may not roll on the Acceptance Table unless the receiving leader rolls for, and gets initiative. If the leader cannot get initiative, the order cannot be checked for on the Acceptance Table until it becomes one hour or less away from action. The player may have the leader check for initiative each turn (until the one hour mark makes acceptance rolls automatic) to see if he can try to accept the order.

The implications of this rule should be quite obvious. A poor commander will probably not be able to check for acceptance prior to the one hour mark and will undoubtedly still be in some form of delay when the kick off time occurs. Good commanders will find themselves checking for acceptance hours ahead of time, and will be ready when the time comes.

Let me know what you think.