Time for a new feature, a game topic taken to pieces and examined against some accounts of the period. Please note this is not a full review and only looks at the historical angle. CHV. Anyone who follows the threads of conversation on the Internet or reads the average boardgame magazine (of which there are a lot) will know that historical knowledge is not widely available and not greatly sought after. Most designers (or developers who do most of the work) design "Map & Order of Battle" games. Once they have those two elusive ingredients they stop looking further. If things are bad enough with battles, with strategical games they get truly awful. Where a US developer is lucky to find one book on his topic he will take what he can, but the chance that he will be able to access more than that is not good. Why does he need to? Because most campaigns (certainly before the age of mass armies capable of making fronts) are exercises in choice, and we need all the choices. Do I invade the north (population probably favourable but few supplies) or the south (the reverse)? To make that decision available to the gamer one needs to have read a lot of historical, geographical and economic information. The developer can be trusted to produce some of the elements in the plan that was actually chosen, he may even manage some of the next "best" plan but the range of choice - only rarely and only if he is an expert. The risk therefore is that far from playing the historical campaign one is recreating it (not at all the same thing). Even worse, because the edges of the design will be in shadow a naughty gamer slipping into the shadowlands may be able to win a victory in a way that is totally unhistorical. The developer must be concerned with the dog that did not bark in the night - the plan that was rejected but might have worked. So when a new game comes out on a non-core topic (core topics might be ACW and Eastern Front) like the Great Northern War, one would very much like to know whether it is a game about (say) the choices available to Marlborough OR (more likely) Marlborough's activities thoughtlessly compressed into a system the designer had found lying about. I recently purchased On To Moscow on the grounds that I had re-read Duffy's Russia's Military Way to the West on my holidays. I made the above points to Mike Siggins. He agreed and said I should review it. But was not there anywhere else to read a good review of the historical content, I implored - a firm negative from Stony Siggins. What no-where? No, if PA did not do it, no-one would. The Scourge of Warfrog is not a man to be tangled with so back I rolled to the game. Since my most likely opponent would be Earl Simon of Tonbridge (a man who has published more historical books than anyone I know) I realised that I had better begin (wearily) at the beginning. Scenario Let's start with the scenario as Joe portrays it. The map runs from the Karelian forests to the northern edges of the Carpathians, and from Warsaw to beyond Moscow. The main combats of the actual campaign were fought along the border lands of the Kingdom of Poland and the Russian Ukraine. The Russian border runs roughly Narva-Smolensk-Kiev so that much of Bielorussia is still Polish. The Swedish Baltic provinces (occupied by the fortresses of Riga and Reval) have Russian forces operating in their area from the captured fortress of Dorpat. Action then runs across the open plains to Minsk where the main Russian army under the Tsar watches the Swedish king at Vilna and down to the Dneipr where Prince Golitzin waits at Kiev. Apart from the forest south of St Petersburg, the Mazovian forest, the rivers and the Pripet Marshes there is only the occasional town or fortress. This is an empty map. The main Swedish army at Vilna is seconded by small forces in Riga (Lewenhaupt who was intended to join the main army), Lybeckr in Viborg watching Karelia and Russian Ingria and Krassaw in Warsaw. Strung out the major armies line up like a game of five-a-side with Warsaw and Moscow as the goal-mouths, and the two big players marking each other. What brought our Gothick Prince to Vilna? According to Peter Englund (in Poltava) events begin back in 1699 with arguments over the duchy of Holstein-Gottorp. The Danes, Russians and Saxons agreed by the Treaty of Dresden to attack Charles XII in early 1700 (so they could use their new diaries). The Danes entered Holstein-Gottorp and got thrashed and sued for peace immediately. The Saxons (whose Elector was also King of Poland) then muffed a siege of Riga (which commands the mouth of the Dvina). The Russians arrived in late 1700 to find their allies surrendered or scarpered. The Swedes who landed from Denmark in Livonia found the Russians massed at Narva and defeated an army three times greater (six times greater if you count militia). Caramba! [Joe provides Shock points to give the Swedes a chance to do this.] In 1701 the Swedes entered Courland and beat the Saxons. The opening of Courland provided good supply areas and fresh ports. The Swedes proceeded southward into the Polish Anarchy where Charles XII was to remain for some years. In the interval the Russians resumed their invasion of Ingria and Livonia. St Petersburg was built, and the Swedish subject population given the same treatment as the Swedes meted out to Poland - fire, slaughter and mass enslavement. In both cases the capture of supplies and depleting of enemy supply areas were the common feature of warfare. In 1705 the Swedes and Poles signed a peace, and the year after Saxony surrendered promptly. Augustus abandoned his Kingdom in favour of his Electorate. The Swedes had only Russia left to deal with, a Russia which had re-armed and captured key strongpoints in Ingria. We approach the beginning of the game. In December 1707 King Charles crossed the Vistula and re-entered Poland marching towards Russia with 44,000 men; many veterans enured to victory. The Russian Zholkiyevski Plan involved the usual retirement of the army as it destroyed the area abandoned. The invaders would need to make war in a desert. In the interim the Swedish march had much the same effect on Mazovia. By late January 1708 Charles entered Grodno (Hex 1638 on the map) and moved on to Smorgoni (which in not far from Vilna) and recuperated throughout February. [The game starts at this point with the Winter Impulse of 1707, I suggest it is three months adrift and that you start in Spring 1708 on the above analysis]. Supply problems continued to affect the Swedes and they responded by oppressing the population while preparing for the Summer campaign. Movement up to that date was heavily curtailed by mud. Lewenhaupt at Riga was ordered to mass supplies and march to join the main army. [In the game the Marshal does indeed have two trains of supplies]. Leaving units to support King Stanislaus of Poland 38,000 Swedes marched on 6 June 1708. Englund sees the Russians as foreseeing two strategies open to the Swedes: north into Livonia and Ingria to restore the frontier or east through the Smolensk land-bridge (so well known to all of us who have commanded panzers) towards Moscow. Land Bridge The land-bridge does have some rivers crossing it, and the Swedes manoeuvred the Russians off the Beresina [not marked on the game map] but were not fast enough to trap the Russians. A battle at Holowczyn in July 1708 saw the Russians defeated but not in the style of Narva. The Swedish army massed at Mohiliev [not on the map] awaiting Lewenhaupt who trailed behind them not having left until July 1708 [he has all his supplies assembled in December 1707 in the game]. August and September saw the Swedes trying to bring the Russians to battle but failing. All the time moving towards Smolensk [an area of less than five hexes in the game]. The harvest was poor, the Cossacks pressed close, and the Russians avoided combat. Continuing towards Smolensk meant continuing to move into a supply vacuum (but also forced the Russians to destroy their own countryside rather than that of the Lithuanians). The lack of supply meant that Lewenhaupt could not be awaited with his wagons. Rather than retreating to link up with Lewenhaupt Charles chose to march south-east towards food and potential Cossack allies in Severia and the Ukraine (down the Dneipr river). The choice of retiring on Lewenhaupt does not appear to have been considered. The march through the Severian forests [missing entirely from the map] was, in practice, no more easily supplied. The southward swing of the main army left the Lewenhaupt supply train open to Russian attack and defeat at Lesnaya in late September 1708. [In the game Lewenhaupt moves at exactly the same speed as anyone else]. The Swedes (presumably because they were overconfident) had allowed themselves to be driven away from the key cities and to lose such supplies as they did have. The same knockout blow which Napoleon sought was to delude the Swedes (who should have known better than our midget Corsican chum). By November the Swedes were established in the Ukraine with a potential ally in Hetman Mazeppa. But those naughty Russians were not slumbering, instead they stormed Baturin [in the game they own in already] and slaughtered the locals and swiped the supplies. Instead of a land of plenty the Swedes were back in a war zone. At least this war zone was not completely plundered by the Russians. The cold closed in fiercely and the Russians persisted in offensive operations, forcing Charles to move towards them. The Russian campaign of capturing towns towards Kharkov continued [these are not on the map] and ended in February with the Swedes shadowed on three sides by Russian forces. The Zaporozhian Cossacks formally allied with the Swedes in March 1709. Situation The situation appears to have been that although the Swedes in the Ukraine had better supplies and some allies they were still suffering attrition at a rate that damaged the army. Although the Russians suffered greater losses they could recruit their replacements closer to home (or that is what the Swedes believed, invaders of Russia tend to lose their perspective). The Swedes needed time for fresh troops to arrive to build up their army. In the interim they besieged Poltava, a minor Ukrainian fortress. And by June 1709 both sides were in strength in the area. Strategically the Swedes (so clever, so skilful on the field) were in the wrong area of the map for the wrong reasons. In this strategic incompetence they rival the Wehrmacht. The Swedish armies that had set out from Lithuania (12,000 and 38,000) were now reduced to 24,000 of which losses the greater part were non-combat. To rebuild the army, in order that it could attack its entrenched opponents, additional forces must be summoned from Poland [missing entirely from the game] and Krassow's corps in Poland. Unfortunately (for the Yellow-and-Blues anyway) these gentlemen were pinned behind the San by Goltz's Russians and the pro-Saxon party led by the Hetman of Poland Adam Sieniawski [missing from the game]. As with Lewenhaupt in the previous year the main Swedish army could only be reached by breaking through an intervening Russian army. The Swedes led by a military genius were up the creek with only one paddle, for whatever the food situation the ammunition was barely sufficient for one battle. That battle was Poltava where the Swedish morale finally cracked, after a campaign of strategic incompetence that only seems credible on the basis that these were the Russians of Narva. Looking at the Swedish performance one is tempted to believe that they did not know the rules. Like Napoleon they believed the Russians could be brought to a decisive battle, and in a fashion this was true but not in favour of our blond chums. They then seemed to have believed that the Russians would permit them to occupy the Ukraine and hold it at their leisure. The supply difficulties of either the Ukrainian or Moscow drive seem to have been underestimated, perhaps an Ingrian campaign was rejected because the area was played out itself. Finally, the Swedes appeared to have fallen for the oldest argument in the annals of self-delusion, that allies will rescue a bad play. They depended on Cossacks, Tatars and Turks to turn things around without considering why these gentlemen should risk themselves for a blown strategy. To summarise; the Russians (who had the rulebook) played the best they could with a restricted hand, the Swedes seem to have chosen the high risk strategy every time, and to have followed short-term gain to long-term defeat. Although much of the campaign happened on the borders of Russia the role of the Polish-Russian parties is not shown at all. Turning to Norman Davies' God's Playground I discover that the Saxon army in Lithuania in 1700 was not only trying to capture Riga but putting down Lithuanian magnates (notably the Sapieha clan) who automatically joined the Swedish faction. Charles' repeated defeats of the Polish army and the Polish magnates' fear of their own king led to the foundation of a Swedish bloc - the Confederation of Warsaw with its head Stanislaw Leszczynski (grandfather of Bonnie Prince Charlie), opposed by the Saxon-Russian Confederation of Sandomierz. Charles' invasion of Saxony proper brought Augustus to abdicate and put Stanislaw on the Polish throne. (Which of course meant that the Confederation of Warsaw was now the danger to the freedom of the magnates). The Confederation of Sandomierz magnates prevented Krassau in Warsaw from reinforcing Charles and contributed to cutting off the Swedish army from the West. The two Hetmans (of Poland and Lithuania) who were supposedly army leaders were first and foremost men of their faction and the whole Polish army was in trouble. However, a force of at least Mazeppa size should be available. The "Poland Revolts" Event is both not enough and wrong - revolts against whom? This was the most free Republic in the world. Gamers, equipped with the rules and hindsight may be taken to have the opportunity to avoid the errors of the past. However, to make a historical game of it (and we hardened PA people only care for historical games) we need to have the underlying situation as it was (and of course the possibility that the Swedish high-risk strategy was, in fact, correct). So what do we derive from the above history lesson: Avoidance of combat: The Swedes found it ultimately impossible to oblige the Russians to stand and fight. The Russian Zholkiyevski Plan: The Russian army has to have the capacity militarily to ravage and retreat even if this has political difficulties. The Mud: Travelling can be materially more difficult at certain times of the year, and the movement of forces cannot be predicted exactly (as with Lewenhaupt). Lewenhaupt: One of the great questions of the campaign is why Lewenhaupt was left with the wagons rather than protected (or joined) by the main army: a Swedish mistake or something which we do not understand? Collecting supplies: Many (if not most) of the campaign decisions are linked to finding supplies, movements being occasioned by famine - not military planning (to the extent this is outwith logistical planning). It was so in the Thirty Years War and again in the Seven Years War (see Savory) Attrition: The marvellous Swedish army lost more men before Poltava to the elements than to the Russians. In war doing anything causes losses to your own side. Allies: The belief of the Swedes was that Allies would rescue them and could be persuaded to join them as the Swedes drew near Political realities: the existence of Russian factions in Lithuania and among the Dneipr Cossacks make for a more complex picture than might be expected. Let us now examine how the game deals with these matters. 1. Avoidance of combat: Joe Miranda believes that there is "no historical support for [retreat before combat] in the 18th century" commenting further that "Evasion was very costly in terms of morale, baggage, and reputation". Which would, with respect, suggest that evasion did at least occur, and this fact should be simulated. In this particular campaign it has to be simulated (as one must simulate the attrition it causes) because no matter how many Russians died counter-marching the Swedes were not persuaded that they had won unless it came to a battle. Joe has a mechanism to simulate elan (called Shock) which can be won only by battles or by capturing fortresses. In this he is correct, but he is so wrong as to retreat before combat as to shatter the simulation. If the Russians can be brought to battle then the Swedes will pick up Shock, and win more battles. Joe has fallen for Charles XII's strategy. Look at the number of battles comments Joe. Indeed I see three battles: Holowczyn, Lesnaja and Poltava. This in eighteen months of campaigning. At least one of these (Lesnaja) was the result of a slower force being caught with its supply wagons. Poltava was consensual. Only Holowczyn looks like a forced battle and even with a retreat before combat rule this must fail sometimes. Joe does permit a Withdrawal option in the Advanced Game (both sides making a chit draw) but requires a discipline check for all troops which can leave some units behind - where they can be killed in battle and Shock points gained. Given the poor quality of the Russian army's military discipline this will mean they often fail, yet it is transparently clear that in hard marching the Russians were easily the masters of the Swedes. Clearly Russians did get caught, and would lose men in the retreat as much as in battle but the mechanics of it are not directly related to marching skill. This area of simulation is an abject failure, and sadly the most important feature of the game. Unlike Joe Louis' opponents the Russian army has proved repeatedly that it can both run and hide. To record its less than spectacular qualities is fair and proper, but to treat it as leaden-footed is nonsense. It has forced-march abilities most armies (including the Swedes) could not dream off BUT it pays in the attrition of its armies. 2. The Russian Zholkiyevski Plan: Units draw supply from a number of sources in the game. A line of communication to a friendly unbesieged fortress is the usual one. One can also pillage a fortress, or use supply trains. Deep in Russia the LOC (three on land, four on road and six on water) is going to mean that the Swedes are operating in a supply vacuum very quickly. Effectively beyond the Russian opening line there are either no friendly fortresses and none within LOC. So although Joe does not permit the Russians to ravage their own countryside the effect is the same. Well it is almost the same. Because once the Swedes capture a fortress they can project supply forward. Of course the Russians can pillage their own fortresses and in the centre there are insufficient to supply units forward by themselves. There are such numbers in the Ukraine but oddly they are all in Russian hands so that the unravaged nature of the area is not simulated. Joe's ravaging solution thus succeeds in the centre and fails in the periphery. Oddly enough the historically ravaged Livonian and Ingrian areas may be the only ones be able to support a depot driven Swedish attack. The more destroyed fortresses the harder for the Swedes to project wagon trains forward. Because pillaging is removed at the end of a year the Russians will always want to prevent the loss of a fortress early in the year (and would rather pillage it). Less bad than it looked, the concept still needs some attention. 3. The Mud: Units march according to a March Table which is a true piece of Chaos stuff. To measure the effect let us send out a force of infantry (move 6) led by a dim commander - Kniasz Karol Karolovitch Foppingtonski (so no modifier) and these are his moves Dice 1 2 3 4 5 6 Summer Fall Back 6 6 6 12 12 Autumn Spring Fall Back 0 0 6 6 6 Winter Fall Back 0 6 6 6 12 Fall Back involves moving back to a friendly fortress (if there is none then No March). Double movement will bring losses the further into a season you go. It is very possible for the razputitsha to grip an army and for it to appear to stand still while the enemy sweep around it. Equally a move of twelve would take one from Smolensk to Moscow. A good piece of simulation work 4. Lewenhaupt: The uncertainty of the movement of this force can be picked up by the points above, and by the notes on collecting supply trains below. In terms of speed I believe each extra supply train (up to what number??) should act as a Movement deduction (but not to cause a Fall Back) so that massed trains have a more than proportional effect. 5. Collecting supplies and Attrition: As noted above without fortresses only supply trains can bridge the large spaces. Supply trains are thus very important, and have to be recruited in the Winter turns at friendly fortresses. This is a simple rule but it is WRONG. Supply units cannot (in my view) be recruited in Winter but must wait until later in the year for harvests. The fact Lewenhaupt could not move until July is indicative to me of the non-applicability of this rule to supply. Ceres does not bow to Mars. Supply is considered once a Season, so you can in theory march out, bash the enemy and then run back without so much as tiring a single man or running out of food. Naughty, naughty Joe. This needs work What though if we have cut off our contacts with Poland and march directly towards Moscow? Once we have eaten Minsk and all the supplies we must subsist on forage. [Although it is worth remembering without wagons (speed 4) the armies will be much faster (how very Napoleonic)]. In this case we consult the logistics table. In clear terrain a force of 28 SPs (Charles' army) would suffer the following losses: Dice 1 2 3 4 5 6 Non-Winter 14 SPs 9 SPs 9 SPs Nil Nil Nil Winter 14 SPs 14 SPs 14 SPs 9 SPs 9 SPs Nil An average loss of 20% in summer and 35% in winter. A few turns of that is enough to encourage anyone to retreat or capture a fortress. I would suggest that units not moving add 1 to the dice and forced marchers deduct 2. The Strategic Value of the Leader would also reduce this (wrongly in my view), but even Charles could find that a couple of turns of no supply is the same as a military defeat. One would want to question whether the mere capturing of a small town by a weakened army was enough to supply it, but there are the beginnings of an idea here. Overall not a bad piece of simulation but someway short of good. 6. Allies: As you would expect with Joe there is a historical events chart that covers a lot of ground and important bits refer to the possibility of allies. Infuriatingly, you cannot guarantee that your desired event will come up though if you do get it you can improve the chances of success. Assuming an 18 month campaign the chances of a Cossack revolt will come up twice. The Swedes have a 50% chance of the Cossacks (these are purely those Cossacks under Mazeppa) joining them and can improve it by having an excess of Shock Points over the Russians and by being in the Ukraine. Similarly, the Ottomans could be encouraged to arrive if Charles was in the south but might not necessarily ever appear. A good piece of work 7. Political realities: I thought only some elements of this were included. The historical events made for some measure of reality, but it still lacked detail. In ECW terms it stopped well short of the clubmen! A poor performance historically but possibly better than might have been expected given the topic. Carl Gruber (the renowned polyphone sent me an e-mail). Thanks for the review you sent from PA. You know a hell of a lot more about the campaign than I do. Still, what you said fairly well justified some of my own objections to the game. First, the Russians cannot do anything but run from the Swedes because of the lousy Russian leaders and lousy troop quality. They run because they cannot afford to fight and concede shock points to the Swedes. And the game does not let them scorch earth. The Swedes do not suffer any ill effects from winter as long as they do not move during the winter (giving the entire invasion a sense of leisure I do not think it had). The Russians suffer all manner of really bad historical events like Cossack uprisings and Turkish intervention that are in no way at all tied to Swedish performance. I do not know what it is about the S&T games of the last few years. I think Doc Decision has a scatological variant of the Midas Touch (Merdas Touch?). The result is they take a potentially unique and interesting situation and make it dull as dishwater. But back to your review: where I just raved about how bad a game it is, you really put it into an great historical context, that probably being the result of having a more literate audience than you find here due to our great all-American anti-intellectual know-nothing business-as-a-state-religion mentality (if mindlessness can even be called a mentality). Oh well, I do get grumpy at 3:45 a.m.! Back to Perfidious Albion #93 Table of Contents Back to Perfidious Albion List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1996 by Charles and Teresa Vasey. 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