"Why are we moving so slow?" Topic

I was looking at an account of Gettysburg today – Picket's charge to be exact, and it appears that the infantry covered three-quarters of a mile, uphill, over a fence, being fired on continuously in less than an hour. Fair enough – less than a mile an hour in the face of adverse terrain and constant fire – while maintining formation. I then looked at Austerlitz. Less clear, but it appears that the famous boast that it would take 20 minutes to take the Pratzen heights involved a similar length of advance (although with much less resistance) – so maybe 3 miles an hour.

So lets look at a very conservative speed of 1 mile an hour…. and see how our rulesets compare. 1 mile an hour is 1760 yards in 60 minutes. Typical scale for large games is 1 inch = 50 yards. At that scale, infantry move:

In 60 minutes…. 35 inches
In 30 minutes…. 18 inches
In 20 minutes…. 12 inches
In 10 minutes…. 6 inches

Does anyone know of a game where these speeds are remotely accurate? Most games are half the above, very conservative, rates. If you take the Austerlitz speeds, you could treble the above rates and our rules are even more innacurate.

So why are our games so slow? My main theory is that our rules have cocked up command and control. Most units were idle most of the time – yet most rules allow us to move all of them (or the bulk).

So have we been making a big mistake the whole time? Is it time for a paradigm shift in our rules?

if you take a turn to be 10 minutes then Warhammer 40K is spot on.

I don't think most games are slow. The examples you used are fairly determined efforts to gain a specific goal. So maybe it would be better for a game to have more movement "types".

A lot do this based on formation already, maybe you could try using "motivational" movement as well. A unit assaulting or in good morale moves 1.5x normal speed or some such.

For most systems, you would probably need a drawback to counterbalance it without building a new system from the ground up. Perhaps disordering the unit, or slowing it on the following turn to show exhaustion?

I like games with a variable move movement such as Larry Brom rules. You never know until it's time.

Fire and Fury is basically on the mark. Especially if you allow your interpretation to flow over more than one turn.

Volley & Bayonet moves at about 1/2 that speed (more or less). IIRC, The designer notes claim that the speed was reduced to account for difficulties in moving a whole brigade (which each stand represents in V&B), keeping the companies together, undergoing formation evolutions, etc.

An interesting home-brew game whose name escapes me had the concept of "combat range", which was within a certain range of the enemy. Outside this range, you could move a unit almost completely across the battlefield, but inside this range you had to move more deliberately.

The fun part was that units could "block" this range, so you could (for example) put your first line just in blocking range of the enemy, then zoom your second line around the flank. If the enemy wasn't deployed deep enough, they couldn't move units fast enough to counter your action.

To a lesser extent, you already get this same effect in DBM and WAB with march moves.

I think it is because rules allow a constant movement, and disregard time spent discussing problems, issuing orders et. So the move forward of the units builds in all the time spent issuing the initial orders for the march and co-ordinating it.

Although a unit may actually stagger forward in lurches, this level of detail is far too low for the guy actually commanding the army. If we build in every little twitch, then we become super-micromanagers (even worse than now) rather than "big picture" commanders.

Also remember that although they move slowly, firing rates are lowered to compensate.

Finally, if you play a game where the delay in issuing orders, assessing the situation etc is not built into the rules, then you do need to adjust movement rates. I found that playing Red Actions Kriegsspiel-style, that I had to add a set of march rates to compensate for the time the troops spent idle.

Having played most JRIII Gettysburg secenarios the game runs about the same as the historical movements. That said I also find I can control a game to real time in JRIII as well.
VR
James Mattes

Stars N Bars has two movement scales; grand tactical is used outside the combat zone and allows marching at typical rates. Once contact is made with the enemy, units slow down a lot to tactical movement..

"if you take a turn to be 10 minutes then Warhammer 40K is spot on."

WOW! That must be a Game of 40K with only 20 or 30 minis per side :)

"if you take a turn to be 10 minutes then Warhammer 40K is spot on."

Except that in 40K it is 1-fig = 1-man which makes 1" = about 2 yards, so troops in 40K are at a crawl if a turn is 10 minutes.

Simply because the the designer wanted the units to move that slow – it makes the game work. Most games won't work right if you can move 20-30 inches in a single turn. The designer simply chooses a movement rate that looks good on the table and falls in line with what he wants to happen (ie – he might feel that a unit should get off 2-3 shots before an enemy can charge the unit, so the range the unit can fire at and the distance the troops can move must be adjusted to make that happen – we then retrofit a time and distance scale to that, with ground scale getting priority over time scale). That's why I've been leaning more and more to games that don't bother with trying to be "in scale". I just want a game that lasts 8-10 game turns, is fought to a conclusion in 2-3 hours, and has a "feel" for the period (ie – it LOOKS like an ACW game, and the game unfolds like an ACW battle and we get results that correspond to what we think an ACW battle should have, then I'm all set).

I think you are correct that most rules have command and control issues completely out of whack. There is little or no "hurry up and wait". The 100-foot high General is alive and well and gaming on tables all across the World!

JR movement….line formation 4 inches per turn, 25yrds to the inch, 100 yrds per turn each turn 15 minutes of real time.

Charge movement = normal movement (above) + up to 3d6 inches bonus. 22 inches=1/3 miles approx in 15 minutes. Seems much closer to what you are looking for. I LOVE JR iii and think they have done many things right. This is an example of one.

Madcam.

Another option is to use random event cards.. some examples:

"Unit Comander drunk.. unit loses 1/2 movement this turn..
Play on any enemy unit.."

"Heavy undergrowth.. unit loses 1/2 movement, after any
penalites are applied. Play on enemy unit in wooded area.
May be played during enemy move"

"Sound of the guns.. Unit gains 2x movement on raod this turn. Play on friendly unit"

"Green troops disorganized.. unit does not move this turn.
Play on any green enemy unit.."

"Wood obeys orders.. move any enemy unit 1/2 movement.
Play on any un-moved enemy unit immediately after
enemy ,ovement phase"

etc.. etc.. etc..

Also.. from an old old WI article.. variable terrain cards..
either random by terrain type.. or assigned face down at start. This puts a premium on scouting..!

"Woods denser than expected.. all units loses 1d6 inches
while in this terrain (type woods)"

"Local guide.. normal terrain move applies (any type)
play on one unit. lasts 1d6 turns"

"Swamp dry this summer.. Infantry units gain 1d6 inches
while in this terrain (swamp)

"Hill..?? This here's a guddam Mountin..! Slope steep..
Infantry lose additional 1" movement.. Cavalry 2".. Artillery 3" Waggons 4"

etc etc etc..

Hi!
lugal hdan you are not absolutely correct. At brigade-level in VnB an infantry brigade moves 16 inch per hour and one Inch equals 100 yards. At regimental-level your infantry unit moves 16 inch per 30 minutes. At this level one Inch on the table equals 50 yards.
So you are getting very close to the speed kerpob is looking for.
Greetings,
Lars

lugal hdan

hwcn.org/~ao421/fbg.html ?

As several other posters have already said, I would suggest that the 'slowness' of movement is simply an attempt to recreate the fact that while troops might be able to advance at (eg) 3mph, they didn't do so most of the time. More typically, there would have been an awful lot of hanging about, punctuated by the occasional burst of fairly rapid movement.
Restricting the maximum movement allowance is not the 'best' way to simulate this, I would suggest, but it is one way of doing it.

Well, as an 18th Century example:

"…the advance in line had to be an extraordinarily slow affair, if it was to proceed in any kind of order. We need only recall the example of the battle of Wilhelmsthal (1762), when the allied army took a good five hours to cover the equivalent of one hour's march." Mauvillon, 1794 quoted in Duffy, Military Experience in the Age of Reason.

With a battalion in line some 200 plus paces wide and the horror of any form of disorder, maintaining ranks and dressings would in itself necessitate frequent stops in order to dress the ranks. In later periods, with columnar movement and less concern about disorder plus more open-order formations units would obviously move considerably faster.

In most rules dealing with movement of lines in the 18th century to me the lines seem to move far faster than they should in respect of other formations. This would encourage units to deploy into line at the latest opportunity and, with no measuring, could lead to all sorts of overlaps and traffic jams forming in the face of the enemy.

K

Hmmm…you're merely wrapped up in the time-space continuum problem. The problem only exists when one is traveling in time, or when one is trying to transfer real-world ground measurements and related time to the wargame table. Both are impossible without fictional compromise and a suspension of belief in reality.

>>Both are impossible without fictional compromise and a suspension of belief in reality.

I agree up to a point.

What are the factors that control how fast a unit moves in the field?

1. Standard marching pace (which differed from army to army)but it is known.

2. Difficulty of crossing terrain. Perhaps standard marching pace allowed for some delays going up slopes, etc. so that moderate terrain could be ignored. This could be tested by re-enactors.

3. Formation and the degree to which they need to be kept in order. This could again be tested by re-enactors.

So it seems to me that it is possible to work out average movement rates. If some variability is desired, it can be done by a bit of randomisation. See Sam Mustapha's Grande Armee rules for details.

We're not moving so slow. We're moving so slowLY! :P

Hi

When we started on our rules "Art of War", we took a different apporach. Though the rules are ancients/medieval/renaissance, the movement speeds in drill are napoleonic. This was as far back as I could find clocks being used to time lines and column in movement!

Then we threw in rules to slow things down due to conditions. Like being volleyed.

Sometimes the cav strikes like lightening!

Rocky

"The 100-foot high General is alive and well and gaming on tables all across the World!"

Has anyone here ever played supreme commander on the PC?

JWE II,
I bought it but have not installed it yet as my processor is .4 GHZ slower then the minimum required. So I have to wait until I can afford to upgrade. However I saw a demo playing at a GameStop store and it looked absolutely fantastic.

Oh and to get back on topic, I think the time/movement slow down comes down to players liking to micro-manage every moment of an engagement. Thus allowing themselves much more time and much less pressure, then an actual field commander can afford.

Kerpob:

Game designers make all sorts of decisions that are never really explained, but it is true that most all game movement is slow compared to what real units were capable of. Stewart's book on Picketts charge details the distances covered, and other studies have been made because it is a very well documented compared to most engagements.

The Three divisions of Pickett's charge covered approximately 1600 yards in secessive lines in about twenty minutes.[between 18 and 22 minutes] This includes being under fire, crossing the fences and making TWO oblique movements. The did it at quick march, which comes to about 80 yards a minute.

Stewart says From a participant in Armistead's brigade, comes the one direct statement of the time the charge took to traverse the distance to contact. "…Private William Monte of the 9th Virginia,coming up the slope [to Cemetery Ridge– me], was heard to exclaim, ‘What a sublime sight!' Then drawing his watch from his pocket, he remarked, ‘We have been just nineteen minutes coming.' He thus supplied some valuable testimony as to the time consumed in the advance, and also his own last words, since immediately afterwards he was killed by a shell." [Stewart's book, p.204]

Neither JRII or Fire or Fury can recreate Pickett's charge with their movement rates. They both fall short by at least 1/3 of a mile. The actual combat was said to have been over in five, ten minutes at most.

During the Napoleonic wars, times were measured in a number of ways, and with pocket watches. A British officer did a number of calculations in Hyde Park for the Army in the late 1790s that I have, though I don't know where at the time.

An infantry unit could cover 1050 yards in 12 minutes at quick time or about 2/3s of a mile. At ordinary, it would have been 750.

That is more than 15 inches every 15 minute turn at 50 yards an inch. That is still at least 15 inches if you doubt the scale, 100 yards and 1/2 hour.

While units didn't move at this rate all the time, the point is they could when asked to. Saying that drunk commanders or terrain, or just muddled commands doesn't do it. Most rules ALSO have command rules, variable movement rates, and terrain rules.

For the officers on the ground, only real reasons to slow down were deliberate decisions to take advantage of the terrain, maintain order, or to spy out the land before crossing it.

Assuming that the rules have covered command delays, terrain obstacles, and the like, then there is no reason to slow the units other than for positive tradeoffs like I have just mentioned. And even then, officers could be ordered to move at a particular rate. [As Lee did for Pickett's Charge--he even drew out the route and where to do the oblique movements to the center.] This involved very little chance once the terrain, command deplays and combat results have been provided for.

In other words, there is no reason for most rules to keep units from being able to move quite a distance, except that they didn't and to allow it would create 'unrealistic' results. Most of this has to do with player hindsight, perfect knowledge of the enemy, and their willingness to maximize all advantages.

Some designers don't even know WHY the actual units didn't move as far as they could--they just limit it because it is more 'realistic'.

So many reasons units didn't move quickly have to do with deliberate decisions on the part of commanders, which gets lost in the translation to a game. Issues like being sure that everything is in place, officers are ready, the enemy has made certain moves which were part of the plan etc. etc.

The game slowness in the end has little to do with the historical ability of units in many ways, and everything to do with reining in players and their perfect knowledge of history and the table.

We have taken Fire and Fury and let infantry units move 36 inches a turn, but changes of formation, terrain and such actually take the minutes they did historically. Players most plan their moves, and if done well can move very quickly. However, they can get bogged down too and move very slowly. It all depends on the players and the chances they are willing to make. One of the biggest delays suddenly becomes coordinating units so they arrive together, rather than just slowly…

From Command Decision design notes by Frank Chadwick

One concern I have always had with many miniatures rules was the tendency to look at the most it was possible to do in the course of a given amount of time and then use that as the rules standard. Players will always tailor their actions to accomplish the maximum allowed by the rules (and they are absolutely right to do so). Therefore the theoretical maximum becomes, in the game, the norm, and this is a bad thing…

I don't have my copy of V&B handy but he goes into some detail about the move rates in those rules in the V&B design notes.

Yes, the theoretical maximum, whether fire ranges or movement usually isn't what happens on the battlefield. However, the examples I gave are theoretical, but actual. Soldiers counted paces, beat the steps, practiced marching in paces, and timed the rates for very practical reasons: So they could control the movement rate and could anticipate the actual time involved. When Soult told Napoleon that it would take him twenty minutes to move twenty thousand men up to the Pratzen heights at Austerlitz, he wasn't talking theoretically. Nor was he off in his estimate in traveling over 1600 yards that morning.

We definitely have to remain in the realistic and practical. Frank C. doesn't discuss movement rates per se in his V&B design notes. No reason is given for the actual movement rates of infantry, cavalry or artillery. He DOES go on at length about road march rates, and how armies would be strung out for miles when moving.

When Frank says that "many miniatures rules was the tendency to look at the most it was possible to do in the course of a given amount of time and then use that as the rules standard", I don't know which rules he is thinking of.

What I've seen game designers do most often, including Frank in Command Decision, is 'average' movement, and make THAT the standard. It can be like families with 2.4 children. It is the average, but no families ever have that many children. That isn't a dig at his rules, or even a criticism, as I don't know all that he considered to come up with his movement rules, other than he did average from a number of instances according to his Design Notes.

We have to look at what was done and what was possible, realizing that military men were always practicing, either regulations [the norm], or pushing the envelope of what was possible. To some extent both should be considered in wargames.

I am more than willing to keep the conversation to the norm. Pickett's Charge and Soult's estimate and actual movement has never been described as outside the norm as far as I know.

That should read "However, the examples I gave are NOT theoretical, but actual." Kinda loses its meaning otherwise.

The problem is while units are moving the enemy is reacting. Most rules use lower movement rates to give the enemy time to react.

That is can be one reason for slow moving units, to give the enemy time to react.

But again, that doesn't wash, as you are putting the brakes on play, keeping units from behaving in historically reasonable ways simply because of the players. It is like tying one hand behind opponents' backs so they won't do too much damage too soon. Not a real boxing match.

In the end, this is a fake solution imposed on players because the designer can think of how to come up with a better solution. So, they tie the players' hands and make units move far slower than they actually could reasonably move. Hence, no Pickett's Charge, no advance a mile up to Pratzen Heights in twenty minutes.

Timing was everything in battle. Creating time advantages is what battles were about.

1600 yards in 20 minutes is 80 yards per minute and that`s just fractionally under the French "pas de charge" or "pas de manouevre".
That`s the speed I have my columns move in, so that 1600 yards is doable in just under five game turns.
Mike.

Hi Kerpob
I've been saying this for a couple of years now,but it's falling on deaf ears.I play Grand Manner where each move is supposed to represent twenty minutes. We move six inches a turn or 150yds in gaming terms. I would suggest that each turn only equates to five minutes of a battle.
John

I suppose another obvious solution is just to get away from the notion that a turn equals any particular length of time.

A "turn" or whatever, can just be the time it took the units to do what they just did.

I Fear:

Well, it's a way of approaching turn mechanics, but all you've done is posponed the time reckoning. If you are trying to actually create a game environment where historical decisions can be mimicked, time can't be ignored, even if you delay the accounting to 'the end of the day'. You STILL have to ask if units on the table were capable /incapable of doing what they did in that day- length of time. You are resizing the question, not getting away from it.

It is rather breezy to simply say a turn is whatever the units *just* accomplished, because players are still thinking in terms of time/turns and what can be done in that 'time'. A rose by any other name is still the same size, whether alone or by the dozen.

Mr. Wurst and Mr. Scotsman,
Sirs,
We`ve debated the pros and cons of variable length before.
It`s a bit of a shame that some of the people who could have defended the concept better chose to remain over on the VLB group and not to engage in battle here.
Still, the positive is that the VLB yahoo group acquired some new members who are going to benefit from associating with that group – I hope as much as I have!

Much of this perceived problem of time management in games springs from the absence of an umpire – they`re so useful and yet so much marketing of games is done with claims that the are not needed (the rules being so good?).
If time needs to be compressed; if nothing appears to be happening, if nothing is actually happening, if the outcome of a minor engagement is absolutely guaranteed, well, then its an inpartial umpire is best suited to push the game along by a turn or two, an hour, a day or whatever and make the turns variable!

Sorry, kerpob`s question was about moving too slowly wasn`t it?

Well, it depends on how all the other rules in a rule set tie in together.
Shako has always baffled me; the units in it do not seem to move fast enought. (15mm distances here):
Foot moves at 6 inches in column, cavalry move 12 inches, canister fires at 12 inches, infantry fire at 4 inches and all in half an hour?
That 4 inch musketry range can`t be more than 100 yards can it – and the canister would be about 300 yards which seem close to reality?
But, the infantry are taking 30 minutes to go 150 yards?
Even the cavalry which can charge in AND bounce out again doubling their movement (and gaining the benefit of recovering their blown status), can only go up to 24 inches 600 yards in half an hour. OK they weren`t modern race horses then, but I think that even a fat old wargamer like meself could out-pace these mounts! Now, that really is too slow!

The original point re. command and control:
Its partly down to players being reckless with commands and being extremely brave with toy soldiers.
Perhaps the conditions of the game or the particular circumstances of the historical battle being re-fought needs to be made clear to them – by an umpire maybe?

As for C3, well we`ve been there before too! And I`ve slagged off PIPs, points and cards enough, but what the units "just did" was largely down to what their orders were.
Perhaps the activation of too many commands by players is down to time limits that players impose on their games.
They`re wanting to "rush it" far too much I feel!
And dare I say it, but its also partly the fault of those naughty rules writers who seem to insist that to have a good time we must be able to refight Borodino in two hours and without skirmishers – a lot of gamers are lapping it up at the moment – hopefully the general fashion will change!

Over to you,

Mike.

Mike

Excellent points.

I think there is a tendancy to consider it a 'selling point' that rules permit a battle to be fought very quickly, or on such-and-such a size table, or without an umpire or whatever – and maybe these points do appeal to some players.
Of course, any set of rules which mean it takes longer to replay the battle than it took to fight it in the first place, or requires a football field to play it on are not much better, but there does seem an enthusiasm to 'dumb things down'. Rules writers will adopt a movement allowance based on what 'works' – not on what happened.

I am a huge believer that wargames need a neutral umpire or 'games master' who controls the defending forces. As you rightly say, he can 'fast forward' the action as required and apply a bit of common sense when needed – something which seems to be utterly lacking in many games I've seen.

I would guess that most gamers play most games as pairs (two players, one on side A, one on side B.) Thus the selling point of not needing an umpire.

I have played umpired games. They have the drawback that depending on what happens, what the players decide to do and how much it upsets the umpires' plans, you can end up with the feeling that you as a player are being played by the umpires. Of course it does not always happen, I have played plenty of good umpired games too.

The point is that the game comes to depend on the quality of the umpires as well as the rules.

I came up with what I believe is an interesting concept that I designed (and probably not the first). In empire Scott designed the idea of Impulses which are worked out on a chart to determine how many you have in a given hour. You end up with either, one, two or three over the course of an hour.

I came up with a similar idea in what I called, Hourly Intensity. This is a chart which both sides consult and can manipulate to raise or lower the number of turns in a given hour. The max being 6 turns while the min is 1 turn with the mean being 4 turns.

So what happens is the players decide if they wish to cram a lot of activity into a given hour or to lower the intensity thus lowering the number of turns in the hour. Factors plus a random roll (which will only alter the turn number slightly)from both sides are cross referenced on the chart and the number of turns determined. Individual Commanders can also alter the Intensity of combat such as Generals like Ney for example, aggressive commanders might cause higher rates of intensity while more placid or timid commanders will possibly lower the intensity on average.

For example a formation might be force marching to the battlefield so the commander wishes to up the tempo on the field and try to crush his adversary before the reinforcements arrive. He tries to force up the Hourly Intensity by placing say, General Ney in command of an attack to gain extra turns of combat. The opposite side may wish to try to lower the number of turns in order to have a better chance to stand for that hour awaiting the arrival of the reinforcements.

It seems to work well and everyone is happy with it. The advantage with it over Empire is that the French do not have the greater advantages to increase their Impulses (turns) over the enemy. Where Empire many times arrives at a situation where the French may have three impulses while the enemy has only 1 impulse in my system both sides will have an equal number of turns for the hour no matter what the Intensity becomes.

So in the system of 1 to 6 turns each turn might equate to the following amount of time per turn :

1 turn = 1 hour
2 turns = 30mins each turn
3 turns = 20mins each turn
4 turns = 15mins each turn
5 turns = 12mins each turn
6 turns = 10mins each turn

Its not the length of turn so much as the intensity of activity and combat produced or desired within the One hour time-frame which is important.

Regards,
Shane

[…If you are trying to actually create a game environment where historical decisions can be mimicked, time can't be ignored…. It is rather breezy to simply say a turn is whatever the units *just* accomplished, because players are still thinking in terms of time/turns and what can be done in that 'time'.]

Eh, I don't know how many players, once a game is underway, are really watching some sort of historical clock and thinking, "Okay, this ought to be happening in X-minutes, which equates to Y-turns…" Actually, I suspect that – much like historical commanders – they might envision a starting time for some operation or other, but when the fit really starts to hit the shan, they get caught up in the momentum and lose track of precise increments of time. I don't think I've ever read a battle account in which the chronicler has a wargame-like sense of incremented time. It's always more vague, such as: "General von Schlumpf's attack was delayed as the men struggled across the creek, which was unexpectedly deep… it wasn't until about 1:30 that their leading elements finally came into contact with the Rastafarian army…. The firefight lasted for considerable length of time…."

Besides, why are we trying to backwards-engineer the battle, analyzing all the movements ex-post-facto and then deciding that because they happened in such-and-such a way, taking X amount of time, that therefore the game needs to adhere to that same structure? Isn't the whole point of wargaming to give players a sort of toolbox, but then let them write their own script and make their own decisions? Surely, if the historical commanders had made other decisions that day, units would have moved differently, required different times to do things, and commanders would have encountered different unexpected delays or taken advantage of different opportunities.

In any event, trying to hold game actions to definite increments of time is all but futile. Every game designer I've ever seen has always inserted the caveats about how "One Turn equals 20 minutes BUT… actions might not require all of the turn, or perhaps they were unexpectedly delayed… or perhaps part of an action is carrying-over from one turn to the next…" and so on.

In other words, the imprecision of things like movement and combat necessitates a flexible approach to time. Some games admit as much up-front; others don't. But whether they admit it or not, everybody does it.

Well, I wasn't suggesting that a game has to equal a turn to an exact period of time, nor was I suggesting that players are clock-watching as they play. I was saying that:

1. Players, like historical commanders, are always estimating WHEN something can be done, and
2. That WHEN is dictacted by how much time it takes to do something, whether planned or not,
3. Which means that at SOME point time becomes an issue, like your example, like Napoleon asking how long it will take Soult to reach the Pratzen Heights at Austerlitz, like how long in has taken to reach the clump of trees at Gettysburg.

There are any number things that can delay and speed up the expected time it takes, that imprecision. That imprecision is only an issue because time is an issue. There are any number of ways to slice that time with game mechanics, that flexibility you speak of. But sooner or later, time becomes a clock issue.

The issue isn't about what does or does not delay actions, or the imprecision of movement or combat, or even the need for flexibility in a game system because of those things. The issue is that to EVEN say those are issues is only possible because you are referencing time and what can or can't be done within a finite unit of time, call it a turn, an hour or a gazebo. Which means, at some point you have to ask, like commanders like Napoleon, what is a reasonable expectation of completing an action within a set amount of time.

That is why paces were counted, troops were timed in their evolutions, contests on speed were held, and officers constantly asked each other 'how long will it take you to …' knowing that there were all sorts of things that *could* happen to negate that estimate.

So there is nothing wrong with counting on that imprecision and having a flexible approach to time, as long as you remember that to do that in any meaningful way, you have to start with a precise understanding of time vs effort, as did military men of the time.

What might be more important is recognising the level of activity of certain troops as compared to others when considering movement rates.

Murfin's "The Gleam of Bayonets" has some good maps of troop movements at the Battle of Antietam. These are broken down into small units of time. What is absolutely apparent is the inertia of average troops compared with the likes of the Union Iron Brigade and the Confederate Texas Bde both of which are extremely active. I guesss this is one of the reasons why they were regarded as elite troops.

And you can see this phenomena in many other battle accounts with some units being highly prominent in the action whilst others are content to look on or hide. This can go right down to small unit level – for example Sgt Summers one man assault at WXYZ in Normandy while the bulk of his squad watched.

With movement rates based on March Rates rather than miles per hour. A standard rate must be used as a point of reference.

Our Guard du Corps (which uses the 1":50 yards that you cite) with a movement rate of 8 inches per turn for French Quick March would move 24 inches in the hour (3 turns of 20 minutes) or 32 inches in an hour at the 1 turn = 15 minutes that many use. Using a Charge bonus of 2 inches on the turn of contact is almost spot on with your numbers.

The same system was used in 'Century of Glory' for post Nap 1800s warfare published by Xeno games.

Paul Stevenson:

Is that Stevenson of the Civil War wargamer's guide? I can remember the exact title, but I really liked the book. Very useful. I still have it on my self.

You say, "What is absolutely apparent is the inertia of average troops compared with the likes of the Union Iron Brigade and the Confederate Texas Bde both of which are extremely active."

It is apparent, but why is the question. You have supplied one reason. It could also be that because they were dependable troops, they were simply called on more often, and had little to do with how much ground they could cover compared to other units--or as the 'firefighters' they were asked to cover more ground, more quickly. You know, 80% of the work is done by 20% of the workers. Generals depend on some troops more, which means they move more.

Another possibility could be the officers' mentality. A unit could move, but didn't because of hesitancy of their leader.

OR it is an issue of terrain or enemy fire or smoke or…that doesn't show up on Murfin's maps or maybe even in the accounts.

All of those things *might* be issues. All are certainly justification for delays and 'flexible' units of time. Of course, the issue is still one of unit ability versus actual unit performance. And the desire to make actual ability at any point pure chance or uniform across unit types again loses some of it's attractiveness.

Having kicked off this debat – and discovering that my rates were out by a factor of 3 (so the thread should be titled: why are we moving so excrutiatingly slow) – I thought that I should give a few opinions myself. First one caveat – I am concerned with games where 1 unit = 1 battalion or 1 brigade scale. Not small scale tactical/skirmish games. I am looking to play a whole battle of the scale of Austerlitz, or Gettysburg. My opinions are:

1. Current rules are based on WW2 games. All units potentially move in those games and communication is usually instantaneous and reaction rapid. I think that the musket scale games need a re-thinking in how orders are communicated and acted on. Our command and control is flawed and "thinks" in a 20th century way.

2. We plainly are moving too slow – but we are moving too many units too slowly. We need to concentrate on the behaviour of one corps/division at a time. If a single player has more than one corps/divison moving at one time then this should be very much the exception.

3. Movement should be the theoretical maximum. Having said that, once a unit is ordered to move, two factors come into play: the time taken to get going (a commander rating) and the terrain behaving unexpectedly (as in principles of war terrain rules). The enemy might be considered a third, but usually not.

4. I suspect that once a corps/division is ordered, the army commander would anxiously watch for at least 20-30 minutes before acting again and ordering support or whatever else. Meanwhile, the opposing commander would take a similar amount of time to react.

We are therefore concentrating at the wrong end of our games. Our musket era games should be move/counter-move and akin to queens in chess where pieces can move a vast distance, although only in a straight line. The art of our games should be in deploying well and ordering well. Many of the games I play end up with all units commited very quickly. This does not tie with readings of battles where quite large reserves are maintained and often end up uncommitted through most of the battle. We concentrate on the combat when we should be concentrating on getting the units into that combat.

The key is to get this into a game that not only simulates well, but also plays well. Big movements are off-putting: these are not armoured units we are moving and they shouldn't feel that way. But maybe that is our own prejudices from WW2 games where infantry are slow and armoured vehicles are fast.

A theoretical set of rules: Players alternate and can only move one division/Corps, but the movement is huge (4 foot on a 6 ft table for a 1 inch = 50 yard game and 1 turn = 30 mins) and combat should produce a resolution.

Here is movement system that may be of interest to some. I've put together a set of rules in which most unit types (infantry, artillery, cav) have a base movement rate of 4." 1"=100 yards and 1 turn is almost 30 minutes. All units essentially move the same distance because movement is governed by a phase movement time continuum. Briefly stated, all units are assigned a unit grade that coincides with phase movement activation points indicated on a sequence of 64 turn cards. So heavy cavalry will phase move twice as fast as D class infantry. B class infantry will move 25% faster than D class infantry etc. Adjustments are of course made for formations and terrain. I've managed some limited play testing of historic battles with results that seem to reflect historic times. A kind of regularized randomness occurs with the interaction of movement phases and phased fire points. John S

kerpob

I think you make some excellent points. I agree that once a unit is given a set of march orders, it sets off and is essentially 'lost' to the player for a pretty lengthy period of time. As you rightly say, the general would watch its' progress and might well send a galloper after it with new orders, but he is not going to be tinkering every minute, telling it to march to the left of that tree or something.
I also agree that a general's main function on the battlefield should be to get his men in position, at the right time and in good order. Even at a much lower level, a platoon commander's job is essentially to get his sections in the right place and the right time and thereafter, the corporals fight the battle.
When I was taught this in the army, the image we were told to imagine was the platoon commander being a man with three big dogs on leads, all pulling and straining to run off in different directions. He was there, pulling them into position and, at the correct time, letting go of the leads.
He certainly wasn't micromanaging a platoon attack, or tinkering with the routes his sections moved, and there is no reason to assume that a more senior officer would do so.