I set up what I termed a Napoleonic game, using my 15mm figures. This was a French attack on a British-held line of several small towns. I noted that the French had some blue painted on their uniforms, and the Brits had some red on theirs. So far, so good.. very historically accurate. I also noted that, back in the early 1800's, Napoleon had infantry and I had infantry, Napoleon had cavalry and I had cavalry, and Napoleon had artillery and I had artillery... now what could be more Napoleonic than that? I was interested in the tableside comments as the game progressed. As is well known, every wargamer is a military history expert, and I, for one, bow my head to no one in that regard. Regardless of the era, regardless of the tactics, regardless of the weaponry, my expertise is on a par with that of anyone... and I noted that those who gathered around my ping pong table seemed to have the same opinion of their own knowledge and background. The rules used an 'artificial' sequence, 'artificial' in the sense that it didn't employ the usual you-go/I-go sequence, but used an 'initiative' sequence which permitted a side that continually won the initiative to keep on moving and firing, while, for the most part, the opponent was caught flat-footed. Perhaps 'artificial' is the wrong term to use, for isn't a simple 'alternate' sequence artificial?... one side moves and fires while the other stands immobile, and then the positions are reversed. The same, in essence, holds true for any card driven sequence. Bound The entire bound had 8 phases, but the 5 key ones were: (a). At the start of the bound, the active side would move his troops (b). The opposition, the non-active side, would get a cavalry move in reaction (c). The non-active side would get to select 2 units to fire defensively (d). The active side would dice to see how many units it must fire successfully, i.e., units that must hit their targets, to maintain the initiative for the next bound. Percentage dice were thrown, and the following table referenced: 01 to 33 2 units must fire successfully 34 to 66 3 units must fire successfully 67 to 100 4 units must fire successfully The side could select any units to comply, obviously choosing the ones with the highest probability of hit. If all the selected units hit, then the side could continue firing with every unit on the field. If any of the selected units failed to hit, the active side would immediately stop firing, the phase was ended, and the next phase would begin. (e). Resolve all melees This sequence was an attempt to employ the initiative ideas contained in Arty Conliffe's CROSS FIRE (CF) to a larger scale game. CF is played at the squad level (one stand is a squad), and the active side, by moving and firing, moving and firing, can continually maintain the initiative, giving the opponent little opportunity to counter. The procedures work well at the 1-stand squad level, and my thought was to see if the same techniques could be applied to a battle in which the forces were composed of multi-stand battalions and brigades. In the above listing of the five phases of the sequence, Phase (d) is the most important, for if you get to do everything right in this phase, you get another chance to repeat in the next bound, while your opponent does virtually nothing. In our battle, looking at the entities (maneuver elements) that could provide fire-power for Phase (d), each side had 3 artillery batteries, and about 12 battalions, some 15 units in all. The Probabilities Of Hit (POH) were around 50 percent per unit, and when dicing, the listing of the number of units that must fire successfully is quite critical. For example, if the list contained the requirement that 8 units fire successfully, that pretty much nulls the chance of any side maintaining the initiative. Looking at how the probability of hit (POH) was derived for a battalion, each battalion consisted of 3 to 6 stands, and each stand contributed to the POH total. The battalion started out with a base POH of 40 percent, and this was modified: +5 For every stand in the battalion -10 If the target was in cover Thus a 5-stand battalion, firing at a target in the open, started with 40 percent, and added +5 percent for each of its 5 stands, giving it a total POH of 65 percent. The melee procedures were handled in the same way... a base 40 percent, plus additions for the stands in the unit. Units that were hit were given a casualty marker, and the winner of the combat was decided by 2 parameters. First, the number of your stands, S. And second, the number of hits the opposition had taken (its casualty markers), C. These were combined in a calculation to get a product, P: The higher product won. P = 10-side die (S + C) What the parameters did, in being multiplied by a die roll, was to set up a matrix. Since the dice which were used were 10-sided, the matrix was 10-by-10 and contained 100 entries, and each side had a specific probability, when the dice throws were compared, of coming out on top. Various Comments, Questions, and Criticisms Back to PW Review April 1999 Table of Contents Back to PW Review List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1999 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