Grossbeeren (Oudinot's advance on Berlin, 23 August) Katzbach (Macdonald vs. Bluecher, 26 August) Kulm (the end of the Ist Corps, 29-30 August) Dennewitz (Ney takes Command, 6 September) After winning a great victory at Dresden early in the Autumn Campaign, Napoleon saw his chances for victory gradually slip away in four lost battles over a two-week period after the Allies adopted the 'Fabian Strategy' of avoiding the Emperor in person and concentrating on his subordinates. I've given these rules a good reading, and will set up the games to see what they obtain. I have some concerns at first glance, particularly with Dennewitz and Kulm, but also the other two. I am guided by your admonition to change as little as possible, and only for good reason. Alessandro is basing the rules on NLB, but perhaps NAL is better (1st edition, with some of the changes from the later editions). Also, your caution about idiocy rules is well-taken, and Kulm in particular adds a lot of that, when it really isn't necessary or historical. Vandamme didn't know the Prussians were coming, but then neither did the Prussians know it. He should simply have fewer forces to spare rather than being prohibited from occupying 3 hexrows along the mapedge. Perhaps if the Prussians can come in someplace else if their entry hexes occupied, that would prevent the French from doing something like trying to garrison the mapedge with forces they can't afford. The French can't man the whole darn map! Or just allow them to enter ZOCs from the moment they arrive. At Dennewitz, Ney would not have combined forces with Oudinot if it meant handing him a commander's role. He would sooner have fought a duel with him! This seems like wishful thinking and a convoluted departure from the system. Does Ney really require an idiot rule of his own (and then be given the capacity to share command with Oudinot)? I prefer the advance after combat rule (applied to all attacks, not just cavalry), where there is a measure of doubt as to what the units will actually do unless a commander or officer is present. This gives the player the temptation to put Ney into battle to assure advances rather than forcing him to do so with a rule. As for getting Oudinot into the battle, why is that a concern of the rules? Better to use aides to deliver orders and take the chance of orders arriving outdated or not at all. If Ney had to use one of his precious 2 command points to get action out of Oudinot (delayed by space and time and Cossacks!), that is enough to stall his own attacks and time-consuming enough to portray the difficulty of far flung command without special rules for each personality. I don't think reorganization played a part in these battles, with the mild exception of Dennewitz. When units broke they fled (right through standing formations to rout them in turn!) and that was that for their part in the battle. One Prussian brigadier was mortally wounded by his own lancers at Katzbach, trying to rally them. In Katzbach, LOS was two hexes all day long. Something to think about, but doesn't effect the game in any way (maximum range is two for artillery, so the question of LOS is moot except for rally (and like you said, word of mouth---especially the word CAVALRY--was enough to keep units with wet powder from reforming just about anywhere on the battlefield.) The "bridge out" idea is good, but not historical. There was only one good fording place anyhow (other bridges existed on the Katzbach, but they were underwater at the time). The French had a pontoon bridge at the good ford, but it got washed away. The others were awash from the beginning. I think if you give the French a pontoon, let him place it wherever he likes, and roll for its destruction from the turn it appears. That will kill two birds with one stone. On one hand, this gives III corps the ability to cross the Katzbach sooner (at the risk of losing the pontoon sooner), which is something that III Corps could and should have done instead of marching clear around to arrive too late for the battle. On the other hand, the pontoon could enhance the one good crossing point (which was its historical use before it washed away), letting more French troops cross the Katzbach sooner, and to heck with III Corps. Good gamer's choice. At Gross Beeren, I see the need for only ONE exclusive rule, and that is to make all roads equivalent to trails. They were sandy and difficult to use, particularly the lateral roads between the French Corps. Isn't that the main feature of the battle, that Oudinot took a risk of separating his corps so that they couldn't support one another?...they emerged from the woods unable to assist each other to any extent, and their commander was off tending his own corps instead of coordinating the battle. Fighting was sporadic on all fronts, which is already modeled by having the French depend on officer initiative (or delayed communication by ADCs). The Allies had much the same problem. But exclusive rules aren't really needed to make this happen (certainly not to throw out the command chain altogether). The optional second day of battle is good! I have some alternatives and optional rules to propose, but will play out the games as laid out first. I hope you like my new ideas on detachments (which I haven't shared with you yet!) From: Kevin Zucker In really good game design, a rule may be deceptively simple and carry a lot of thought and careful calculation. A simple rule may contain much more compressed information than an elaborate one. For instance, take the Command Span limits of Napoleon's Last Battles. What is a Command Radius and What does it represent? A commander or an aide carrying an order can reasonably travel about 5.6 miles (18 hexes) on the battlefield in one hour. On the other hand the 'C cubed loop' (the time it takes for word of an event to reach the commander, for him to issue an order and then have the order executed) in an hour's turn may allow 15 minutes to get an order off in response to some event in the battle, hence the 4 hex Command Radius. The officer's 3-hex radius, on the other hand, is based on keeping his entire corps in visual contact; he has to be in visual contact in order to coordinate the action of his units. Possibly the officer's radius should be subject to LOS, blocked by crests and woods, but to avoid imposing a burden on the players, some latitude was allowed for the use of gallopers in the case of officers too. It is of course desirable for the commander to be in visual range of at least some part of each of the corps under his command. Visual contact enhances effective control of forces. On a completely flat surface such as the ocean, the horizon is seven miles distant, or about 23 hexes at 525 yards. No European topography will allow the ability to control large forces at that range, even though one might be able to catch a glimpse of something at that distance through a gap in the trees and hills.* In order to move, all units beyond command span distance might be required to have a written march order directing them to a certain location; though that destination could be changed by another order sent by courier: but even that would require an hour or two depending upon how fast we allow aides de camp to travel (no more than 18 hexes per turn in the saddle, if the aide rides directly to the general in charge; and then he'd need time to pass down that order through the chain of command, and, once received by each Colonel, further time to respond). NAL allows gallopers a radius of 10 hexes per turn, but it could be up to 18 if we said that the execution of the order is delayed until one turn after delivery. *At Jena, Napoleon on the Landgrafenberg hill near Jena could see the Prussians marching eastbound on the Apolda road, about seven miles away (they were troops that were to fight at Auerstadt, but he didn't know that). Time A lot can happen in a short hour's duration. Units can await orders for up to 15 minutes, then start in motion at a rate of up to 3 miles per hour (on roads), then potentially attack as well (that has to take some time, say 15 minutes). Hence, it is unlikely that a single unit could march for more than 30 minutes in a turn when it also attacks. And we haven't even considered the time taken up by the enemy player turn. I envision that enemy and friendly interaction in a Game-Turn are partially simultaneous and partially a matter of shifting initiative: one side does something and the other side stops in their tracks to oppose that. So that the sequence of a turn might appear thus: First Player Time Second Player Command :00 - - :10 Combat Move :20 - - :30 Command Combat :40 - - :50 Move Command :00 - - :10 Combat, etc. Back to OSG News November 2002 Table of Contents Back to OSG News List of Issues Back to Master Magazine List © Copyright 2002 by Operational Studies Group 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