A few years back, I read two books by Paddy Griffith (the titles escape me) where he discussed horse and musket era tactics and what men did under fire. He had two basic theories. The first, boiled down, was that men were either under control of their officers and obeying voice commands, or out of control and just blasting away at will or advancing helter skelter or failing back on their own. The second theory, was that when formed infantry advance against formed defenders, most of the time, if the defenders hold their position and don't run, then the attackers will stop at close range and begin firing at the defenders, out of control of their officers. If the defenders run, the attackers will continue to advance and take the position. Occasionally, the defenders will hold their ground and the attackers will continue their advance, and we wind up with a hand to hand combat. According to Paddy, men avoid bayonet fights. They would rather stand and shoot. So either the attackers or defenders will shy away from a fight. This sounds very plausible to me and is something I'd like to model on the tabletop. So Bob Hurst and Wally Simon helped me generate the following chart. When units are about to touch and fight a melee, stop the attackers several inches short of the defenders. Then, have first the attackers check on the chart below, and if they keep advancing, have the defenders check.                                   Attacker                 Defender                                   Fallback                 Fallback Morale Level            ----------------------------------------------------------                                   Stop & Fire        Hold Uncontrolled 1/2 Morale Level      ----------------------------------------------------------                           Continue Advance         Hold Controlled 0                     ---------------------------------------------------------------- So, for an attacker, if he rolls above his morale level, he will stop and fall back. If he rolls between 1/2 his morale and his morale level, he will stop and fire. If he rolls less then 1/2, he continues his advance. You'll notice that this chart will make hand to hand fights rather rare, and that it's hard to succeed in the attack unless your morale is very good and the defenders is very bad. Back to PW Review January 1997 Table of Contents Back to PW Review List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1997 Wally Simon 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