I used my Napoleonic morale rules as a basis for further tables of rules in the American and English Civil Wars' periods. Whilst it is obvious that some morale factors would remain the same e.g. tiredness, others must alter due to the various effectiveness of 'arms' and indeed the use of entirely new weapons, e.g. rifles, shellfire, pikes, etc. In the transitional period between the working Napoleonic rules and the 'infant' Civil War rules I experimented with what had first appeared to be new situations or factors I had missed. I was eventually to realise my pitfalls and triumphs in these, not- by my own labours but by group discussions in order to gain better answers.
One of my earlier colleagues (a stickler for detail and a lover of the Imperial Guard) mentioned that surely a deduction should be made in the rules not only for the quantity of enemy faced, but also for the quality of enemy faced. (This all came about because his Old Guard Regiment were being continually shot to pieces in the Peninsular by British rifles). Toying with this idea we (the group) thought of ourselves in the Riflemens' position cowering as the Old Guard came nearer. Yes! We would definitely be demoralised as we knew the Old Guard were coming for us; then came the thought "How on earth would we know it was the Old Guard? After all, the French had the practice of putting together Line Grenadiers Companys into battalions and all these foreign grenadier types look so much alike!
This latter statement is certainly true if we think of the Old Guard depleted of their plumes and wearing their blue overalls instead of their parade dress as indeed most wargamers have them painted up. Other armies too had their Guards regiments who looked like the line troops once in their service dress. British Guards did not wear bearskins (fusiliers wore a cut down version), Prussians would normally appear in their overalls and shakos covered, with the plumes removed; Russians would look very much the same as the Prussians, etc. All-in-all we thought this the answer and rejected the claim of our erstwhile companion.
We introduced into our morale rules a page or so of morale rules for use in campaigns. Things like - won last battle +1; nearing objective +1; guerilla actions -1; supplies high or low + or - 1 respectively; disease in camp -1 and so on. We came unstuck however with how weather affected the campaign. For example, during the early days if it rained heavily, or was extremely windy or was in winter, we generally deducted one from both sides' morale. Imagine however if you would a battlefield not unlike Borodino with 3 redoubts massed on a hill and two others to the left in a valley. The main difference being that both flanks are covered, one by the sea, the other by high rocky impassable ground. As the defenders stayed in their earthworks and prepared themselves for the assault, the attacker's vanguard (after a first day's unsuccessful assault) also dug in and waited for their reserves. (+1 reserves known to be within 1 day's march?).
The weather unfortunately at this stage of our three day long battle broke, and with it came several days of continuous (well, almost) rain. Previously we had deducted from both side's morale but now we saw that in fact that the rain and the consequent mud were on the defender's side (a la Waterloo?). The battle now resembled something like a Napoleonic version of the Somme uphill. Even if musketry was almost non-existent (cannons had been canopied), the defenders still had the edge in defending their redoubts and breastworks. The attackers it was deemed therefore deducted 1 for every day it rained and they did not attack. They finally did attack during a lull in the weather, during a light shower, a week after arriving. With an additional -3 to their morale throws, needless to say they never got within a hundred yards of the redoubts and were repulsed with heavy losses.
The defenders, having had this lull were able to jubilantly follow up on the next few sunny days and the campaign ended thus. Campaign morale rules were here to stay! (And, in case you hadn't guessed it, I was defending). Weather it seemed, could be incorporated into the campaign morale rules dependant on whom it favoured. I still have not decided to incorporate "weather morale" into the tactical rules and disregarded it as being far too difficult to apply more than generally. One other point stopped us from doing this and this was the fact that there are no decent enough weather rules.
One of the better discussions arose when someone challenged the existing 50% rules -- it was still a 4, 5, 6 to stay on and fight down to 25% when 50% casualties were incurred. "How come no one ever fights down to the last man?" In our rules this was impossible due to the above 25 and 50% ruling. "Surely there must be some instances of it happening?" The Old Guard at Waterloo and the whitecoats at Marston Moor immediately sprang to mind. Alright then we decided, there must be a point where men decide that it is hopeless to continually rout or that it would conceivably be suicide to fight on.
The Romans also had a very similar doctrine to this in that they did not pursue their enemies from the battlefield wholeheartedly for, if you press a beaten enemy too hard he may just decide he has had enough of running and will turn and fight selling his life dearly no doubt. Another point was brought in to the effect that he may also turn and surrender if sufficiently pressed, after all, his running away in the first place was to avoid death or capture. The rule was therefore made with the thought that morale can go full circle i.e. you can oppress someone for only so long and so hard before eventually they are no longer demoralised but are ready to die to the last.
We therefore said that if, when working through the morale tables, a final score of -15 or more is reached (remembering that 0, 1, 2 rout) then the unit in question will throw another die with the result 1, 2, 3 Unit surrenders to a man; 4, 5, 6 Unit fights to the last man. Either way the opponent loses out having to take care of prisoners or tackling a thorn in his side which is bound to be in his way. After this I mentioned the extreme at the other end of the table where your morale is often so high as to give a false "reading".
A unit with morale so high as to make it cocky, foolish and perhaps careless! I remembered something from the Ancient Research Group rules under their reaction tests (which are really morale tests) and so I dug out a copy of their rules. I myself, I must add, am not an "Ancients" fan and remembered watching one of these Barbaric slogging matches wherein about 10 Pictish sluggers, sorry slingers, (representing 200 men) ran out and assaulted a whole Roman Legion! Not understanding this (or even how to load a javelin) I put it down to "one of those things they did then in Ancient Times." The fact remained of course that they had done this for a reason and the reason was because their morale was far higher/better than it should have been. Couple this to an exceptional morale throw (one of these 1 - in - 36 double sixes or whatever!) and off they went rushing to their doom at 30 yards from their target by pila. We new incorporate this into our morale tables by saying that if, after a morale throw, the total is 30+ (good morale at +15, 16), then the unit will advance uncontrollably (e.g. British cavalry at Waterloo). A unit thus advancing will charge an enemy when within a ,reasonable distance to be able to do so. To stop this uncontrollable advance would seem a contradiction but nevertheless we allow the C-in-C to be able to, do so. We assume couriers would carry no weight in this matter.
Even when we had incorporated all this into the original rules we still managed to come up with hitherto missed events. Briefly, these being - elated if charging an enemy in the rear (I would certainly feel happier if in such a charge) and the other being fired upon by a concealed enemy revealing his presence for the first time. As this latter case is mostly a short range surprise element, from behind a wall, hedge or ditch perhaps it could only be applied once or twice in a game as once it was revealed that troops were hidden it might be that it would no longer be a surprise to find more of the enemy hidden. Indeed it may be that you would be apprehensive of all concealment.
In the modern wargame the individual must be taken into account when forming the morale of the unit. A platoon or section would be the largest possible unit as other formations would tend to be far too large and diverse to connect sufficiently. I have seen far too many heroes and far too few morale situations applied in 'moderns' and I think morale wise it is as important as in any other period, unfortunately it is very difficult to apply.
All in all, I think I will just stick to trying to win "Horse and Musket" wargames by morale, after all I did agree that morale was to physical as 3:1 so I really should stick to my guns!
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© Copyright 1976 by Donald Featherstone.
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