"Wargaming tactics which were 'wrong'" Topic

At the risk of stating the obvious, many battles were lost because the losing side used the wrong tactics, and the result would have been massively different had they employed alternative ones.

For example: I am doing a lot of research into the Matabele Wars at the moment, and all the contemporary reports mention that the results would have been much different had the Matabele either attacked the Rhodesian forces in denser terrain, or at night, or had discarded their rifles (which they were utterly useless with) and instead thrown themselves forward with greater gusto.

So where does this leave the wargamer? I would suggest there are four general options:

Should he be forced to simply replicate the tactics his historical counterpart used? If so, it seems he is in for a fairly tedious afternoon – and any 'victory' he achieves will (or at least should) only be possible through outrageously good fortune with dice rolls.

Should he be allowed to experiment with 'what if?' tactics? And, if so, to what extent? The risk is that – with no constraints – he could do something so ridiculous as to make a mockery of the whole game.

Should the historical scenario itself be turned into a 'what if?' one, perhaps taking place on more beneficial terrain or in darkness etc?
This option would be my preference – by altering history just slightly, and in a plausible fashion – one can enjoy a more balanced / interesting 'what if?' battle, without the game descending into farce.

Or should battles where the tactics used were patently 'wrong' (eg. the British not building a laager at Isandlwana, the Dervishes running towards massed rifles at Omdurman etc) simply be avoided?

Any thoughts?

PS. Please forgive my only using examples from the Colonial period, but I am sure this topic is relevant to most other periods.

I don't do refights, too many wargamers know the mistakes that were made and I usually can't pull enough figures to do something like TSATF Omdurman.
What you can do is build a scenario that dilutes the advantage from a one sided battle. Want to do a late dervish battle and make it competitive, then have the attacking force in the desert rather than one flank secure against the river with gunboats pouring out fire, or get rid of the zariba and make the British advance to winkle out the dervish. Another option is to drill down to a part of a battle or event that was dicey. The 21st lancers charge into the wadi would match here.

To some extent I'd agree that non-historical flexibility could be used in some circumstances – and that they would probably give more enjoyable games (at least for one side).

The problem comes in setting limits where such flexibility is either severely limited or even non-existant. Not only are limits set by the training and expereince of the troops but also by situations or even the tactical doctrines of higher command or simply the intelligence available to the commander on the ground.

Your example of the Dervishes is such a case in point – did they actually HAVE any other tactical options ? Was the command & control adequate for, say, integrated attacks by foot and cavalry or masking the Europeans while smothering the less steady Egyptian troops ? To be honest, I doubt it.

At Isandlwana, with the intelligence available to the commanders, there would be no point in building a laager, the Zulus were miles away. If you make the assumption that they knew, or suspected, that the Zulus were close then they probably wouldn't have split the column in the first place.

Take the French in 1940. Over-riding tactical doctrine was a defensive war to wear the enemy down. They had the kit and, in some cases, the training, for mobile counter-attacks but higher command decisions failed to use those abilities because of doctrinal and political reasons.

The more flexibility you allow in these cases the further you stray from 'historical' and you are no longer fighting the same battles or wars.

It is my opinion that you can try anything you want. They are your miniatures and your games.

That being said I think that if you want a game that reflects the conflict the rules should reflect that period and reward/restrict tactics to some degree.

In your example I think you would have to ask, did the Matabele have the stones to charge Rhodesian gunmen, where they able to pick the locations of their battles was there some reason they stayed out of the denser terrain?

Of course for a what if game, go for it. But on the whole I think rules should guide the players to stay within period. A bad example might be if 7 Years War French suddenly started using Napoleonic assault columns or British Napoleonic armies started fighting in skirmish order. There were reasons (some good/some bad) why armies adopted these styles. I think you have to be sure and take all of these other variables in to account and not just the game mechanics (like, these guys suck at shooting, in the game they would be better in hand to hand…CHARGE!!!).

Just my humble opinion.

Ed G.

GildasFacit

I think you make some excellent comments, though would point out that Lord Chelmsford's own standing orders were that all camps were to be fortified. If I was put in charge of the British for a re-fight of Isandlwana, that's exactly what I would do – but as you rightly point out, then you are no longer fighting a historical encounter. However, if I were NOT allowed to do what was logical / completely plausible and actually in support of standing orders of the time, then I would find this somewhat annoying and thus a purely historical refight would not appeal to me.

Using the Matabele War as an example again, the Matabele plan for the first battle of the 1893 war was to attack the Rhodesian laager at 2200 hours – obviously, they did not use times like we know them, but you get the idea. This did not occur as, when they were forming up to attack, the Matabele were scared off by some signal rockets which were sent up to help a patrol find its way back. The attack therefore started instead at about 0200 – 0400 hours (the reports vary wildly) and was driven off only when daylight allowed the Rhodesians to properly deploy their firepower.

So I would suggest that a 'reasonable' what-if in this case could be that the attack did indeed commence at 2200 hours, rather than +/- 0300 hours. This gives the Matabele another 5 hours of darkness and we can be sure they had the training / doctrine / wherewithall to conduct night attacks as that is what they were planning in the first place and that is what occured (though not at the 'right' time) – so we are not messing with history in too heavy-handed a fashion.

I do completely agree with you that altering historical tactics / doctrine in a willy-nilly fashion makes a mockery of the hobby and I do not want to see Wellington's redcoats behaving like modern-day SAS.

There's a difference between using the wrong tactics and acting out of period. French SYW infantry in Napoleonic attack column, and British Napoleonic infantry in skirmish order are two examples of the latter. The notion of masking the European troops at Omdurman while attacking the Egyptians is an example of the former. Those first two simply are not possible -- troops were not trained for it, commanders were not capable of maintaining control, and so on. The latter was possible and only required some imagination on the part of the Khalifa.

So, once the troops are on the table, IMO, the players should be able to do whatever they want, within the constraints of the rules for the period. If the British at Isandhlwana want to form a wagon laager once they sight the Zulus, I'm in favor of it; if they want to keep their troops consolidated, I'm in favor of that too -- those are within the realm of decisions that the original commanders could have made because it was within the framework of military art and science of the time. Under such conditions, I'd happily play either side.

The issue seems to be how to get to the battlefield. If you want an exact recreation of the actual battle, then play it with the original constraints. It does, indeed, then become a dice-rolling exercise, especially if you limit the player's decisions to the actual decisions made at the time.

But if you want to allow one side or the other to capitalize on special capabilities (like night fighting), why on earth wouldn't you start the scenario earlier than it actually occurred? We have sometimes rolled dice to indicate when a battle starts. We have also sometimes allowed one or the other player to pick the start time, but that always incurs some kind of additional factor. In the case of the Matabele, it might have a percentage chance that some troops lose their way and arrive late; or, fighting in the dark is inherently terrifying so the army break point is lower; or, casualties count double towards the breakpoint.

If you change just that one single variable that allows one side or the other to play to its strength, then even that kind of "historical exploration" will be just as unsatisfying as replaying the battle exactly, but for the other player.

A lot of good points listed here!

A couple of other things that are worth thinking about:

1)The time we start the action makes a lot of difference. An Isandlwana game that begins the day before the battle – with the situation as it appeared – is very much different from the one where the Sotho horsemen come streaming down a hill warning that they've found 20,000 upset Zulus. The day before, it seemed clear that the Isandlwana camp was a temporary stores depot, which would be dismantled and moved forward shortly as the column moved further into Zululand.

That's why the wagons weren't laagered. It was slack, but completely understandable given the perceived situation.

That's far different from 'Isandlwana Camp – the fortress'.

2) 'Disguising' scenarios helps a great deal. I've only ever played Isandlwana once, and I can say that the Italian garrison was very surprised when the hills swarmed with Abyssinians.

I've run the Little Big Horn several times, each time with a British mounted column pursuing Cetshwayo to prevent him getting away into Portuguese East Africa. Don't take the Gatlings, they'll only slow you down.

I agree with all of the above statements !

I would like to add one caveat to the discussion. Sometimes the rules/restrictions are in place to "teach a lesson" to the gamer. In the few historical games that I have played, I have used "modern" tactics and been mopped all over the board…I have also won several, my opponents have "harumphed" that "That isn't they way [insert historical commander] did it."

Recently I have taken to playing the 'losing' side in a couple of battles simply to see why they lost. I often found myself saying, "Why didn't they do this?" Or "Why wasn't this evident to them at the time?" Which often leads me to greater historical research on the tactics of the period.

Yeah, I hate losing. I hate having to use the tactic of sacrificing three or four M4s in a platoon to get to the flank of the Tiger to get advantageous shots on it. But…that's the historically accurate tactic that worked at the time. I learned the hard way, that going front on at a single tiger with two platoons of Shermans means the Tiger often wins! Talk about a battlefield littered with scrap metal! I have had to learn the historical tactic of sacrifice to use manuverability and speed to get to the flanks. Or use coordinated tactics between infantry, armor, and artillery! That's the huge advantage I have found the U.S. seems to have in WWII situations.

So, if you look at it from an "educational" standpoint, recreating the tactics as historically accurate as you can will give you a visceral feel for why a particular outcome was "inevitable." Once you have done that…then go play the "what if's"…like what if Pershings had been available immediately after D-Day? Or even better, what if the Me-262 had been deployed at a fighter in 1943 when it had been originally designed!? :-o

Andy Welkley
"Your PHrendlee Hevy Phzyx T-chrr"

Isandlwana is interesting.
Cetsawayo gave standing orders not to attack the whites unless they were in the open and not behind fortifications.
So if both sides followed orders, there'd be no game?

Except for the total eclipse.

Quite how you stick that into your game, I'm not sure.
I can't help feel that the camp would only have been half heartedly fortified at best. Sudden total darkness tends to favour the Zulu, I'd have thought.

Otherwise, the redcoats will likely just slaughter the zulu and it's not much of a game.

Consider 1945 Germans vs Russians.
A common historical tactic would be for the Sovs to nuke an area of the german line with so much artillery there's little chance of anything surviving.
Then roll over it with overwhelming force.
Not much of a game there.
Then you get the Sealow heights where the Soviet commander screws up and his "clever" idea of blinding jerry with lights backfires and just outlines all his men making great targets as they struggle forward in the mud and shell craters.

Re-creating battles isn't such a great idea, IMO.
Something "a bit like" is often more interesting.
Something completely ahistoric is called fantasy.
I also play fantasy.

jizbrand

An excellent post and some good ideas. I think the distinction you make between using the wrong tactics and acting out of period is a good one and I am tempted to agree that a player should be allowed to do anything which was plausible at the time.

I also agree that 'balancing' a battle too far the other way becomes a waste of time – indeed, I am not interested in making a battle 'fair', and more interested in experimenting with finding out what might have worked. I think it would be interesting to play two or three versions of the same battle and to see how much difference a small change in timing or terrain can make.

We've all got PhDs in hindsight and it's one of the biggest curses of wargaming.

AONeill

I tend to agree that plenty of historical battles do not lend themselves to great wargames and that your idea of 'something a bit like' is maybe the way forward in such examples.
My interest in military history has always been in 'but why didn't they do this?' and 'what would have happened if…' and so I do enjoy tinkering with actual battles and changing just one or two things and seeing what might have occured.

Mexican Jack Squint

Completely agree with the 'depends when the scenario starts' point you make. Personally, I do not like being parachuted into a position at the 11th hour, and having to make do with dispostions / decisions which have been made but which I wouldn't have made. I suppose you could always hide it by saying that the commander is killed in the opening salvo and you are suddenly promoted from 2iC.

The use of non-era (improper) tactics is very common for the gamer. This seems to be especially true in skirmish gaming. I have seen numerous WW2 skirmish scenarios in which a player may be using Vietnam era bounding overwatch tacics.

At the larger tactic level, I have seen numerous players playing Napoleonic or ACW battles and rely on boaonent and melees instead of the more common tactic of thetime to use artillery then expend a unit's small arms allotment before advancing into contact.

A melee without proper softening of the enemy will often result in a toss up of a engage,emnt with lower chances of winning that attacking a depleted unit would offer.

Most wargames are wrong in this respect.

Usually, scenarios try to set up evenly matched forces, when everyone knows the attackers usually need at least a 2:1, or 3:1 advantage to succeed in their assaults. 5:1 in city fights.

So they are destined to become bogged down slogging matches, requiring a fight to the bitter end, in many cases, which is also unhistorical.

Ideally, if possible, rules should be written to encourage and reward historical tactics, and an overview narrative of the period should be provided to facilitate that.

I don't know if "most" wargames are wrong in this aspect, or simply a "most" wargamers throw together meeting engagement-type scenarios with approximate parity (i.e. point values) out of convenience.

Historical wargames typically handle play balance in that respect with a mix of modifying historical forces/deployments and a strong counterbalance of victory conditions. In the latter case, it's not so much a case of "Crockett and Bowie kill all Santa Anna and win the Alamo!" as "the Alamo defenders hold out a few more days and inflict 15% more casualties than their historical counterparts, and we call it a Moderate Texican Victory."

Except for the total eclipse … Sudden total darkness tends to favour the Zulu, I'd have thought.

Having witnessed a total solar eclipse, I would like to point out that it is nowhere close to a total darkness – more like a very cloudy day, rather.

Griefbringer

A couple of problems with wargames: 1) Battles in wargames almost always take place in a vacuum. Commanders do not need to worry about explaining the result to the Home Office, the little lead widows and orphans, lack of supplies, strategic (or tactical) surprise etc. We know pretty well what we'reup against, and the outcome doesn't really matter.

2) The Ten-Thousand-Foot-Telepathic-General. This one is obvious. Frank Chadwick had a great suggestion for increasing friction in wargames, simply add more players.

3) We tend to set up games for balance and fun. Real battles are fought because at least one side (usually both) feels there is no alternative means to resolve the situation. Need means that commanders must make do with the terrain and troops they have at hand.

4) We have tactical flexibility that our historical counterparts didn't. We are free to use any tactic we like. Even if it is patently suicide. Want to charge ACW cavalry up a steep hill against emplaced artillery loaded with canister behind abatis? You can very likely get you troops to do this. In real life your troop's self preservation may get the better of you. Not to mention issuing orders not covered in the drill book of the day are not likely to be understood or followed. Try convincing 18th Century soldiers to disperse and take cover behind any little hummock. Even in America most battles were stand up affairs. Likewise try ordering Vietnam era USMC to stand shoulder to shoulder in close order firing line.

Likewise try ordering Vietnam era USMC to stand shoulder to shoulder in close order firing line.

Well, they were actually trained to form such a line – though only on the parade ground, not under enemy fire.

Griefbringer

"Should he be forced to simply replicate the tactics his historical counterpart used? If so, it seems he is in for a fairly tedious afternoon – and any 'victory' he achieves will (or at least should) only be possible through outrageously good fortune with dice rolls."

I would greatly hesitate before allowing troops to carry out evolutions they weren't trained, experienced or equipped to do. 1914 British Infantry operating as blobs? Mahdists conducting advances by alternate rushes covered by rifle fire? I don't think so.

I would however:

a) pick historical battles where I can set victory conditions which give both sides a chance of 'victory' by varying their command decisions.

b) if doing a hypothetical game, again design it so both sides had a chance of achieving something, even if one of them is going to get shot to bits in the process.

The most unpromising historical scenario can be made into an interesting game by fiddling with the victory conditions.

Martin Rapier

I completely agree that any alternate tactics used / decisions taken should not be far-fetched to any extent. I think the difficult thing is to determine what is a reasonable range of alternatives for a player to consider.

Again, using the Matabele War example, I would suggest it is not unreasonable for the Matabele player to bring the Rhodesians to battle in darkness or in dense terrain, as the timings and locations of the battles in the 1893 war were determined by the Matabele. However, it would be unreasonable for him to have his warriors use completely ahistorical tactics like pepper-potting, or, for example, for him to order his men to discard their rifles altogether.

Cetsawayo gave standing orders not to attack the whites unless they were in the open and not behind fortifications.

Then why was Rorke's Drift attacked?

One thing still bothers me about that. To Martin's point, our battles are in a vacuum in more ways than one. There are certain events (not necessarily tactics) that simply couldn't occur in that place and time for social or political reasons.

An example is that the Zulus didn't push on into Natal after Isandhlwana, although they certainly could have. The social/religious conventions required the Zulu warriors to purify themselves first, which effectively put an end to the first campaign. Such things must certainly be taken into consideration when planning a scenario (for all I know, the Matabele may have had a prohibition against fighting at night at that time of the lunar cycle) -- more incentive to read more than just the military history.

To disagree a bit, though, I'm all for allowing ahistorical tactics -- providing the rules handle such things appropriately. I'm thinking of the fire and maneuver example above. I'd allow it, but I'd expect that the player would have some kind of adverse impact on control of his troops as they moved out of immediate voice range.

I'd also suggest that the SYW troops who were put into skirmish order would have a similar problem, in terms of control. In other words, real-world tactics were developed for a reason; let the players stray out of that realm at their own risk!

If you game steadily with the same players, rather than focus on pick up games at conventions, in which you don't have the same players…it makes a difference at least in advice given to each side. Players who will come back time after time to participate in games should be allowed to make their own mistakes and learn from them. Gamers I play with do not like the GM (me) making any suggestions to anyone. I am pretty much told to shut up by both sides. So, it's Let Them All Die…They Can Sort It Out Later at my house.

Well, to paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld: "You go to war with the miniatures you have."

We've got so many ahistorical necessities built into our games that I've never seen the point of being a stickler for historical accuracy, or for that matter, historical tactics.

Our table size and shape creates an artificial horizon and "end of the world" upon which we anchor our flanks and which shapes all our thinking.

Our horse-and-musket figures are wildly out of scale in depth, thus having flanks about 5000% percent deeper than they should be, resulting in flank attacks being much more common in games than they ever were in real battles, and of course making them every gamer's fixation.

Our tanks never run out of ammo or gas.

And perhaps most importantly, we get set up knowing roughly when the whole thing will end, because we've got to pick the kids up from soccer.

Our senses of space and time are so different from those of actual combatants, that it's a bit much to demand "historical tactics," methinks. The wargame creates its own rules and its own tactics. If the result looks right and plays well, that's good enough for me.

Griefbringer ,ever read Phase Line Green,under orders by their Lieutenant ,USMC advance to phase line and hold in Hue .Not having been ordered to engage they are promptly shot to ribbons.As the author of said book was their commander i fully believe his remorseful tale.

Complete title of said book is Phase Line Green ,Hue 68 by Nicholas Warr.

donlowry

"Then why was Rorkes Drift attacked?"

Maybe the Zulus gave as much heed to their standing orders as the British did to theirs?

jizbrand

There was no Matabele superstition about attacking at night – that was their initial plan and they were simply scared off by the rockets which the Rhodesians sent up. But I do take your point and, as you say, its always well worth doing a bit of reading around a topic, not just focusing on the military aspects.

A Nice Hot Stack of Pancreas

Your list has just reminded me why I don't enjoy 'traditional' wargames!

Rorke's drift was attacked because their leaders ignored standing orders.

Their guys were the elite 40-odd year old warriors.
Their column also missed out on the glory of Isandlwana.
Here was their chance.

Maybe they reckoned they massively outnumbered the defenders and that'd be enough.
Maybe they looked at the gardens and other terrain and thought they could move up close…. and running 40 yards would not allow the British enough time to cause casualties.

<<A bad example might be if 7 Years War French suddenly started using Napoleonic assault columns or British Napoleonic armies started fighting in skirmish order.>>

<<There's a difference between using the wrong tactics and acting out of period. French SYW infantry in Napoleonic attack column, and British Napoleonic infantry in skirmish order are two examples of the latter.>>

Actually, an equally difficult problem is when wargamers don't read widely enough about their own period to know when tactics are anachronistic or not.

During the middle of the 18th Century there was a major debate within the French leadership – possibly prompted by the writings of de Saxe – as to whether linear firepower-based tactics, or columnar bayonet charges (bearing in mind that columns in this era are simply a series of lines) should be the defining tactic, in order to make use of the perceived superior elan of the French soldier (Suvorov had similar thoughts concerning the Russian army, albeit for slightly different reasons). IIRC, in some of the early actions of the SYW (under de Broglie?), columns were preceded by grenadier companies being used as skirmishers.

Equally, there are numerous instances of actions during the Peninsula War where British line troops – not just light regiments/companies – formed skirmish lines to engage the French in broken terrain. I can't find it now, but there was a recent thread on TMP where somebody quoted a staff officer who simply ordered a line battalion to advance in loose order, suggesting that it was simply assumed any unit could do it.

"Again, using the Matabele War example, I would suggest it is not unreasonable for the Matabele player to bring the Rhodesians to battle in darkness or in dense terrain, as the timings and locations of the battles in the 1893 war were determined by the Matabele."

I quite agree. Similar considerations apply to e.g. the Sudan. Even once Lee Metford armed British infantry turn up, quite playable games can be and if you set the scenarios up to give the Mahdists a chance – which basically means open flanks and lots of terrain for them to hide in/behind.

I think two great points have been raised.

One is that we simply do not have the mindset of our historical counterparts. We do not have the training, military philosophy, sense of time and space, the unknowns to them which are known to us, etc. Very big in this is the fact that for us it is only game, for them it was life and death.

Second is that victory conditions can be adjusted to give each side and enjoyable game with an equal chance of a "win". In real war ultimately a "win" is coming home alive, a "loss" is coming home dead. Cold comfort to the defenders of the Alamo that they "won" by delaying the Mexicans.

Some "wrong" tactics probably arise on the wargames table from players who are not well versed enough in te period they are playing to know what they are doing is "wrong". If I deploy with a cavalry center and infantry wings, I may simply not know that this is an unusual deployment.

A second reason for "wrong" tactics on the wargames table is the same as the reason for many "wrong" tactics on the battlefield. People make mistakes. Could the British have constructed a laager at Isadlwana, could Hitler have bypassed Staligrad, could Napoleon have timed his Russian campaign to avoid winter? The answer to all of these is of course "YES" and history could have been changed as a result.

And the fact is that while some situatios make good history, they make lousy games. Anybody want to play Belgium in 1914, Czechoslovakia in 1968? The Alamo can be a decent game only because the defenders held out for so long. Roarke's Drift the same. I do not think the Roman siege of Masada would make a very interesting game.

"What ifs" are probably the most fertile ground in historical wargaming. What is Napoleon had attacked on the left instead of the right? What if the Matabele atack had come a few hours earlier? What if the relief column had reached Gordon in time?

From a certain perspective all historical wargames are "what ifs" simply because the players and the dice will see to it that events unfold differently. If we do not allow the players freedom to act of their own accord, we do not have a game but rather a reenactment as everything will have to follow the script already writte by history.

Dave Crowell

A plethora of right on the mark comments

Most ,or at least many, of our favorite historical encounters do not lend themselves to good "games" if we follow too rigorously the realities that brought together the two sides and the conditions they dealt with. Our hindsight on the various battles and commanders is also a restricting factor on making a "historical refight" also a good game! Simply speaking it is a hard thing to do, even for the best game organizers and coperative players!
There have been and will be some exceptions, of course, but usually these are the "Spectaculars" that some devoted individual or group spends huge amounts of time and expense to provide an entertainment game that is simply just too good to miss out on. Some of Dukes setups at Historicons, and several others come to mind. These are not really "games", but events,not to be missed out on!
So can you make a game out of say " The Little Big Horn" without changing too too much to give the 7th a good chance for victory? I think not, you can ,however, make it a special event that is so good to look at, that you want to be in it even if you draw Tom Custers troop as your command!!

Maybe the 'inevitability' aspect applies to a certain scale of battle.

Skirmish wise anything can give each side a chance. Strategic level again what ifs galour with both sides knowing all the angles.

But in the middle – the regiment kinda stuff. Thats where the wierdness crops up and wear the 'inevitability' of some results occurs.

Hi

My observation about tightening rules to make the players do "the right thing" results when a would be napoleon get smaked down by some novice. Rather than admit he lost, it must be the rules, the dice, or "glitches in allowed moves".

One, often the complaining player doesn't quite understand what the troops were trained to do. Or they only remember the extraordinary rather than the ordinary when talking "tactics".

Two, sometimes, like Nelson at Trafalgar, the commander does have a better idea than the manual.

" BUT I CANNOT LOSE!"

grin.

Rocky

IMO "refights" are only fun if you rigidly stick to 2 principles:

1/ the players have to labour under the same handicaps as their historical equivalents.

This can be a problem for rules that do not have sufficient weird & wonderful C^2/3/4 mechanisms to give appropriate handicaps. Players can still try house rules of course….but IMO house rules often fail to give exactly the required result or have the right influence due to lack of testing.

For example from the original post – was there actually any realistic prospect of not using the firearms they had or using tactics that lessened their reliance on them? And if so was that possible within the time frame of the battle, or should it be a "campaign" option of some sort?

2/ victory/defeat is only determined by how well the game seemed to mirror reasonable outcomes, and in comparison to how each side did compared to it's performance in eth actual battle.

So if one side can't possibly "win" the battle, then requiring them to win the game under "realistic" conditions is nonsense – instead they "win" by lasting longer or inflicting more casualties or getting more troops away, or some similar comparison with the actual event.

Getting back to Mexican Jack's first point;

"1)The time we start the action makes a lot of difference…"

Usually when you see Rorke's Drift played the game starts with the British defenses already laid out. In fact, some manufacturers mold the melee bag barricades in lengths and shapes that form the historical set up. I like to back things up a bit and hand the British players a number of barricade sections and tell them to lay the defenses out themselves. The battle is altered drastically by changing the layout of the barricades, and I see this as an important set of decisions that should be part of the game.

To my surprise, the British players rarely set the barricades out in the historical fashion.

Actually, we should be careful as to how we use the term "historical." Historically, the British had a certain amount of materials to use in forming barricades (plus a certain amount of men to do the labor and a certain amount of time to accomplish the task, this all amounts to giving the player a certain number of barricade sections), and they decided how to lay them out. In my games, if the British lay them out very differently than what was actually done, is this "unhistorical"? I don't think so.

When refighting a specific battle we pick a point in time for the beginning of the game. The referee sets things up to represent the historical situation at that particular point in time and then allows the players do what they want from there (within a set of ‘historically realistic' constraints). Mexican Jack's comment is a good one; a referee should consider the possibility of backing up the starting point.

Chris PzTp

Some good ideas. I agree that a player should have a reasonable degree of flexibility in the set-up of his defences and troops – as you say, if this makes sense historically, then why not?
I suppose the only thing to be careful of is players using prior knowledge and setting up their defences in such a way as would have been unlikely, but advantageous to them. This is not really relevant in a Rorke's Drift situation when the player can reasonably expect to be attacked from all sides, but might be important in other situations, when – for example – an attack came from an unexpected angle, one which historically was poorly defended.