Napoleonic Wargame Club (NWC)

"Interesting idea, but I think that there may be a problem. If I advance my units in formation on my move and a couple are routed by defensive phase fire, this could leave holes in my formation that could be exploited by my opponent on his move and a very quick end to the battle! The logical consequence as I see it, is that it would be better to sit back and await your opponent to advance."

You are joking Mark, right?

That's been the basic problem faced by historical commanders ever since one person attacked another. You try to get the other guy to attack in order to mess up his formations, disrupt his plans.

I think more players would spend more time 'softening up the target' before advancing upon it, so that the enemy was too, disordered to take advantage of any holes in your advance. WOW! almost like they really did it back then, what a concept! [:p]

Fresh troops, hold reserves, take risks, feints, pinning attacks, bombardments ... that's how you counter the risk of your attack falling apart, and the enemy ripping you apart in his turn. This is war man! Not checkers!

Remember Mark, your offensive actions could cause the defender to DISRUPT or ROUT as well, so he may not be in good enough shape to exploit the situation.

Colonel Al Amos
1er Dragoons
AdN

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Al Amos</i>

You are joking Mark, right?<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Nope!

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">That's been the basic problem faced by historical commanders ever since one person attacked another. You try to get the other guy to attack in order to mess up his formations, disrupt his plans.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

I think the sequence of events was more a case of advance, waver, stop advancing, give ground, rout - which is why I prefer the morale check for moving into threat zones. To avoid being routed first turn in the advance, players would probably advance the (un-routable) guard from the start.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">I think more players would spend more time 'softening up the target' before advancing upon it, so that the enemy was too, disordered to take advantage of any holes in your advance. WOW! almost like they really did it back then, what a concept! [:p]<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Something I always do. Although the wise player will have a second line, maybe a third line and a reserve, which should may have been softened up, but will certainly be close enough to exploit routed enemy - players will simply adapt to the game engine - a bit like the reason for the embedded skirmisher rule - as far as I understand it.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Fresh troops, hold reserves, take risks, feints, pinning attacks, bombardments ... that's how you counter the risk of your attack falling apart, and the enemy ripping you apart in his turn. This is war man! Not checkers!<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

This is what I mean, how can you perform a pinning attack with any confidence, if you don't know until after your opponent's defensive fire how many of your units have been routed? You may wind up with a lone battalion there at the mercy of the enemy - especially after the others have been hit by the 7 shot / phase artillery using auto-def. fire [;)]


<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Remember Mark, your offensive actions could cause the defender to DISRUPT or ROUT as well, so he may not be in good enough shape to exploit the situation.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Does this mean that the disorder / rout would not occur immediately after the opponent defensive fire phase, is the advancing units would still get a chance to fire before they were routed?

Regards

Mark
VII Corps

I personally don't have a problem with gaps in my formation if units rout during my offensive turn. It would be an acceptable risk in terms of improvement of a simulation.

Is there any other rational that might explain why offensive fire is so much more effective than defensive fire in terms of disorder/rout?

If not, why isn't it changed?

The change would produce a much better simulation.

Does anybody really care? Or has everyone given up on any substantive changes to the system?

Mark,

I keep forgetting that you're not into the new engine. In the dinosaur BG engine my suggestion wouldn't be too good, but then that's why most of us have moved on to the new, dynamic engine. [:D]

Currently, in the ONE PHASE TURN, during your turn IF you take defensive fire and require a morale check it happens immediately. The unit goes disrupted if it fails.

So if routing were an option it would happen right after you took fire. Therefore, you may have a chance to repair holes during the turn the rout occured.

Colonel Al Amos
1er Dragoons
AdN

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Al Amos</i>
<br />Mark,

I keep forgetting that you're not into the new engine. In the dinosaur BG engine my suggestion wouldn't be too good, but then that's why most of us have moved on to the new, dynamic engine. [:D]

Currently, in the ONE PHASE TURN, during your turn IF you take defensive fire and require a morale check it happens immediately. The unit goes disrupted if it fails.

So if routing were an option it would happen right after you took fire. Therefore, you may have a chance to repair holes during the turn the rout occured.

Colonel Al Amos
1er Dragoons
AdN
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Al

I understand now - that's logical Captain!

Regards

Mark

I've always been fascinated with resistence to change, even if that change <font color="red">improves</font id="red"> a situation. (Mark Eason excluded, of course.)

In a gaming situation, folks get comfortable with the ways that they're used to. They feel threatened when something different comes along, because they might have to re-think how they play the game. For some, that might take a lot of work. If they're used to winning, they could end up losing. Logic and historical correctness be damned.

Will the makers of JT's game have any courage and adopt Al's great idea? I certainly hope so. The engine needs a boost, IMO. Rich Hamilton's work has been exceptional to say the least. He along with friends have made important inroads, but I fear that we need a lot more of where that came from when one considers the competition that is about to dawn. <font color="orange"><b>Les Grognards</b></font id="orange"> being published by the makers of COMBAT MISSION and <font color="orange"><b>Black Powder Wars: Battles of Napoleon</b></font id="orange"> being published by Matrix Games and Double Shot Design are nothing to snear at.

<center>Chef de Bataillon Rick Motko
1er Bataillon, 33° Régiment d'Infanterie de Ligne
2eme Brigade, 11eme division
IIIe corps, Armée du Nord</center>

I will jump in here with a defense of the current situation in HPS> Units advancing that get shot and fail the morale check disorder. This effectively halts the attack since the units melee attack at 1/3 strength. Cuts your 900 man battalion down to 300 effectives.

For example - you advance two battalions of 900 each against the defending 600 man battalion. The defenders disorder your troops and your 3-to-1 melee drops to a 1-to-1. If the defenders shoot enough of your troops to drop you under 600 effectives you could be looking at a 2-to-3 melee. A huge difference! So you stop and skip the melee. (the hesitation). During the offensive fire phase the defenders now pour it on and rout the erstwhile attackers with direct fire. The attackers stream to the rear causing morale checks and disorder as they flee. If you have rout limiting off, you could see the entire attack stream to the rear (I have seen this happen!).

All in 15 minutes of games time. I think it works.

Lastly, IMHO, the realism in the game engine is at the division/brigade level - not the battalion/squadron/battery level. Play the games as if your maneuvering divisions/brigades and you will be much more successful.


General de Division Doug Fuller
Comte de Hainaut et Duc de Lutzen
CO Brigade de Voltigeurs de La Jeune Guard
I Corp CO
AdN

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">

.........Lastly, IMHO, the realism in the game engine is at the division/brigade level - not the battalion/squadron/battery level. Play the games as if your maneuvering divisions/brigades and you will be much more successful.


General de Division Doug Fuller
Comte de Hainaut et Duc de Lutzen
CO Brigade de Voltigeurs de La Jeune Guard
I Corp CO
AdN
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

At the stock level of the HPS games that is very true. I do however believe that does scale down a bit when you play the company level scenarios that Rich Hamilton, et al were so kind to present to us.

They were a very good idea indeed.

Cheers,
Rick

<center>Chef de Bataillon Rick Motko
1er Bataillon, 33° Régiment d'Infanterie de Ligne
2eme Brigade, 11eme division
IIIe corps, Armée du Nord</center>

Thanks Jagger for the formula. Now its effects.

First this is a HUGE change from the BG games for people switching. Using the example of a 500 man morale 5 unit (no other modifiers), lets look at the differences between HPS and BG.

Offensive Fire:
BG: 100% disorder (always generates morale check). 17% chance of rout.
HPS: 67% chance good order, 28% chance disorder, 6% chance rout
Defensive fire:
BG: 17% chance of disorder
HPS: 6% chance of disorder

Now make it a 1000 man unit, BG numbers DO NOT CHANGE! (Size does not matter[;)])
Offensive Fire: HPS: 80% chance good order, 17% disorder, 3% rout.
Size does matter!!![:D]

Now the big difference. In BG I teach that once you get a 25+ hit shoot at a different target. You have gotten the morale check and more killing is not as effective as getting more morale checks on more units (in general). In HPS this is no longer the case.

Continueing our example on our original unit (500 man, morale B), but up the dead to 100. What changes?

Offensive Fire:
33% Good order, 56% disordered, 11% rout
Defensive
11% disordered, 89% good order

4 times the losses but only a doubling the chance of routs. Something to think about.

How helpful are the modifiers? Shoot my original unit for 25 men, but the unit is disordered, and in the flank (-3). Numbers change too;

Offensive fire:
BG: 67% chance of rout, 33% chance stays disordered
HPS: 44% chance of rout, 56% chance stays disordered.

One last example: What is the effect of a 10 man loss? BG nothing(its a miss!)
HPS: Offensive: 83% good order, 14% disorder, 3% rout
HPS: Defensive: 3% disorder, 97% good order.

Because of the partial losses in HPS and based on the formulas, I would expect to see more disordering and less routing than in BG. (Even a 1 man loss has a 2% chance of disordering a 500 man unit in the offensive fire phase). In HPS size does matter and this gives and advantage to the big Austrian and British battalions.

I hope this didn't bore to many, but I do combat analysis for a living in the Pentagon...


General de Division Doug Fuller
Comte de Hainaut et Duc de Lutzen
CO Brigade de Voltigeurs de La Jeune Guard
I Corp CO
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