Every so often a gamer new to OSG encounters the striking differences between our games and other wargames. Unlike so many other wargames, combat is not the defining moment. Our focus has always been on command and organization. We have to have combat, but we have made a decision to have the minimum amount of time spent calculating and resolving combat, so that time can be spent elsewhere. Napoleon ensured his success on the battlefield by decisions made hours, days or weeks before the battle took place. Napoleon himself stayed out of the way during battles and preferred to leave his subordinates in charge of tactics. OSG games are asking the gamer to consider what it takes to get an army to the point of fighting: 'amateurs talk about tactics, professionals talk about logistics.' Not only logistics, but command and leadership, are the important factors. Read Napoleon's Correspondances: there are 32 volumes, and you would have to search for days to find one word about tactics. For example, it is a very commonly-held belief that a unit gets weaker and weaker as it suffers losses. This is not the case at all. The step-loss system is not valid for games at grand-tactical scale or above. The reason is that only a small portion of a brigade or higher echelon unit is ever engaged at one time. It is the 'meat-grinder' theory. When one regiment is decimated, you send in another, and another as necessary, but your fighting strength in contact with the enemy remains constant; it is not decreased due to losses until the unit loses its cohesion, which may happen at around 40% of losses for the French, and when this happens the unit is simply not there (until reorganized). Back to OSG News July 2003 Table of Contents Back to OSG News List of Issues Back to Master Magazine List © Copyright 2003 by Operational Studies Group This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com