"Surrender in wargames." Topic

I specially visit all the sites and links where we can enjoy so beautifull battles that the people of this forum play and share with us.

But I had a question about "prisioners" on those wargames.

Are there some units which surrender because of lack of moral or because they took so many causualties?

I ask this (and pardon in advance if it is a fool question) because I had not remember read anything about that on those incredible well done and related battles.

In my own wargames I had this "factor" and some of the units involved in the middle of a hard combat decided to surrender.

Did any one play with that situation?.

Amicalement
Armand

''Are there some units which surrender because of lack of moral or because they took so many causualties?''

No. No one surrenders while they can run, so 'surrender' in wargames comes under the generic title 'rout' (unless you mean campaigns).

After all – surrender of a whole unit is a very unusual thing: they'd have to be trapped (like Cambronne's last Guard battalion at Waterloo) …… in which case, you might have a point.

For Grand Tactical surrender is factored into the casualty results – we do use surrender in the event that a unit is taken from both sides or cannot retreat, but this is mostly for campaign purposes

The guard at Waterloo did not surrender as a unit

While it seems more typical in ACW rules than Napoleonic rules – essentially as Cacadores says, broken units rout, if a routed unit is cut off and has no path of retreat it is generally assumed it dissipates / is captured.

Cheers,

The Bandit

Most rules I have seen just include it in the generic 'casualties' or even loss of cohesion. Any man that is not fighting for any reason: dead, wounded, surrendered, out of ammo, running away, too scared to fight… They are casualties.

I thought we covered this already?

TMP link

You can change the subject of the Topic, but its still the same subject!

?

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WRG – you can surrender any time you like. I think troops can reach a nadir in their reaction test where they cease to resist, at which point surrender would probably be a sensible option.

In North America with British Regulars fighting Americans mostly trained in French drill surrender happened.

The British listed 42 men taken prison at the Battle of Lundy's Lane. This did not happen during a general retreat, but during the fighting.

Here's an excerpt from "Where Right and Glory Lead!" a book on Lundy's Lane, 1814.

"Firing a volley the Twenty-Fifth advanced and overran the Incorporated Militia's easternmost companies commanded by Captain Daniel Washbur and Archibald Maclean. Some of the Canadians got of a scattered volley in return but in a matter of seconds the companies disintegrated – Washburn was hit, Lieutenant Daniel McDougall went down with seven different wounds and both captains and many officers and men were captured."
pg 138

Indeed, the WRG 1685 – 1845 rules set devotes a section to prisoners. A player may surrender a unit at anytime, in which case, a portion of their value is totaled in determining "winners and losers". The opposing player must accept surrender.

However, depending on the nationality of the captor (Red Indians, Spanish Guerillas, etc.), there is a test required to avoid a massacre. Avoiding a massacre is made further difficult if this took place during a siege or a massacre took place earlier in the game or campaign.

In our opening battle of Fort Venego, in the Americas 1757, a British battalion, cut off and nearly surrounded at the close of battle, surrendered to the French line. The Indian allies of the French were fortunately busy pursuing the Indian allies of the British at the time.

Cheers,
Robert
18thcenturysojourn.blogspot.com

surrender is only relevant in a campaign game.

Other than for such a game, surrender, rout, kill, whatever it all equates to the same thing on the tabletop, so most rules simply do not bother with a differentiation.

The Too Fat Lardies have a surrender rule in "I Ain't Been Shot Mum." If a unit ends up surrendering they must be treated well. The player that won combat must give up one figure to guard every five figures that surrendered. So the winner sort of ends up losing as well. The only units that don't take prisoners are SS and Japanese. An interesting rule mechanic.

As noted above, we use the surrender option for our campaign games

That being said, in three years of campaign with once-monthly turns we have had prisoners taken in a grand total of three games – and neither side has been willing to exchange them!

The old "Stars and Bars" ACW rules allowed surrender.

Maybe thirty years ago (oy) I played in a big convention Second Day of Gettysburg game using "Stars and Bars". There were four or six cafeteria tables jammed together, thousands of 15mm figures, maybe eight players, the terrain was nice. It took a couple of hours for the GM to set the game up. I had the Federal troops in the Peach Orchard and expected to be comprehensively dismembered, but meant to make a fight of it.

My Confederate opponent thoght he could just sweep me out of the position. With no peparation or flank moves, he marched his division straight up to my front and charged right in. He took casualties from a vicious blast of musketry and cannon, lost the melee and had to make a morale check. He failed that dice roll so dismally that his whole division surrendered on the spot.

The Rebs had a clear path of retreat, could have beat feet while my guys cheered and reloaded, but the rules said that they were tired of the war and their silly officers, and preferred to go be PWs in upstate New York. "Take us prisoner, right here and now, please. Here's my musket and my Bowie knife. Can I have a piece of hardtack?"

The mass surrender effectively ended this elaborate game on turn two. We all stared and jabbered at each other for a couple of minutes. Then the GM ruled that it was time for a do-over, we moved all the toys back to their starting points and began the game over. My opponent didn't try that again.

Back in the 1970s we included surrender rules for tactical units in the middle of a battle. based on artwork and comments in many cases with few examples formal army battles had numerous huddles of POWs without attmpts to kill Napoleon or other high ramking officers.

Fighting irregular forces such as revolts or Spanish insurgents were a different matter in all cases.

Symbiotic Relationship 09 Nov 2009 8:02 p.m. PST

''I think troops can reach a nadir in their reaction test where they cease to resist, at which point surrender would probably be a sensible option.''

A very odd option if you can run away: hense you need units to become trapped. Guard units surrendered at Waterloo because there was no cavalry to protect them from the British and Prussian cavalry so they were trapped.

Only other thing, is that a 'retreating' unit might leave stragglers to be captured by an enemy unit hot on their tail. You might want to roll for lost men in that case.

Sometimes it's hard to outrun a bullet Cacadores, running away isn't always an option, and people aren't always aware of what options they have available.

Surrender should have an impact on both sides, prisoners have to be escorted to the rear and guarded

Surrender should have an impact on both sides, prisoners have to be escorted to the rear and guarded

The problem would be that we have no reliable information about what were the usual ratios guards-prisoners. Thus there would be a serious difficulty developing a model for wargames that would be not arbitrary.

I would think that, for wargaming purposes, any unit in a state of rout which is contacted by formed enemy units would automatically surrender.

You could work in a die roll which determines what percentage of the routed unit "escapes," but most would surrender on contact.

Funny this shouuld come up. I'm replaying Arroyo Molinos from General de Brigade's scenario books. Its about the 3rd time I've done this recently. In this current game, I have a unit of French that will be surrounded and isolated from freinds at the beginning of the next move/bound when I return to the table. No avoiding it. So I thought about a 'surrender' option.

In this scenario, they've not incurred poor morale YET!!! But clearly there is no escape. The Brits will have a strong battalion, a cavalry unit that pursued another unit and now the the French rear, and a horse battery within cannister range. I'm inclined to think the colonel would be thinking of the surrender 'option' as clearly the unit is doomed. I'll be thinking about it when I resume at my table…

Paulie

Dear Mr. Paulie, which was the steps to arrived at the conclution that the unit want to fight untill the last men and not surrender?

It's very interesting what you point on your wargame.

And about scort of prisioners, maybe one of the table unit can be retired with the prisioners?.

Amicalement
Armand

It would apply when a 'fast' unit is pursuing a 'slow' one and basically slaughtering them. They're not going to be able to run away unles they can get into terrain that reduces the pursuers' move to below theirs.
The matter of guards is ignored (I guess the number wouldn't be sufficient to reduce a unit's effectiveness significantly, and/or the surrendering officers could be relied on to keep their men in order, or it's a triviality not worth fussing over).

And about scort of prisioners, maybe one of the table unit can be retired with the prisioners?.

As I said before we don't know for sure how many guards per prisoner was common in Napoleonic times. For example, I've seen a letter that informed about 27 French prisoners escorted by 3 Spanish soldiers. However in other letter in the same box, the author mentioned just 2 guards on horse and 1 civilian guide escorting a column of 102 French prisoners (Italian actually). Neither letter was refering to captured soldiers in an inmediate battle, but to prisoners sent to depots in the rear; then they can't be used as evidence to the ratios in actual battle. May be the prisoners in the second letter were wounded, and thus no needed a big escort; may be the Spanish assumed that no French soldier would be foolish enough to try to escape into the Spanish countryside and being left to the "tender" mercies of the Spanish peasantry. We don't know for sure.

There is other problem in your suggestion. A formed body of troops, in the middle of a battle wouldn't be probably detached for such a task as to escort the prisoners to the rear. If the CiC did it, he would be effectively negating himself of a reserve of soldiers, that could be needed for more pressing tasks.

From a wargaming point of view would introduce a layer of complexity, that would slow the game without a perceptible benefit.

For those reasons I would opt for an abstract system, perhaps an aleatory percentage of PoW for the each side (lower for the loser, bigger for the winner) over the total of casualties inflicted, i.e. suppose you have won the battle and due to the scenario victory conditions let us suppose you have won a Tactical victory; then we can establish that at the end of the game you can roll 1d20 to represent the percentage of your opponent "killed" or "routed" miniatures that will be PoWs; meanwhile your opponent would do the same, but by rolling 1d10 instead.

A.

'After all – surrender of a whole unit is a very unusual thing: they'd have to be trapped (like Cambronne's last Guard battalion at Waterloo) …… in which case, you might have a point.'

There is absolutely no evidence that any Guard battalion surrendered en masse at Waterloo. The idea is not only not backed up by any evidence, it is ludicrous in the extreme. Finally, Cambronne was not a battalion commander at Waterloo, he was a regimental commander-the 1st Chasseurs a Pied was his regiment and he definitely didn't surrender it. He himself was wounded and captured, and he might have uttered 'le mot de Cambronne' (merde), but he never said 'The Old Guard dies but never surrenders.' That phrase was invented by a Paris newpaper editor after the campaign was over.

Five Guard battalions were involved in the final Guard attack at Waterloo-none of them were from Cambronne's regiment. The other Old Guard infantry battalions were either involved in the fighting at Plancenoit on the French right flank under Pelet. The others were engaged during the retreat and rout of Nord, the 1st Grenadiers, as well as the Grenadiers a Cheval, leaving the field in perfect order.

For the Guard, I would recommend Lachouque's excellent work, as well as that of St. Hilaire and Fallou. For Waterloo itself I would highly recommend Ropes work, as well as that of Siborne and Houssaye. In none of those works will you find any material regarding a Guard infantry battalion, let alone one of Cambronne's surrendering en masse. If that had actually happened, it would have been played up in the British press and would have been exploited by the many pro-British books that have persisted in popping up since 1815, especially by the anti-Napoleon faction and group of authors which unfortunately persist to this day and continually cloud what actually happened on the battlefield, much like this erroneous and absurd statement regarding Cambronne.

Sincerely,
K

10th Marines 11 Nov 2009 6:56 a.m. PST
''There is absolutely no evidence that any Guard battalion surrendered en masse at Waterloo''.

Who said they did? Most of them ran away in disorder.

Lordy.

Anyway, getting back to Armand's topic, it has been said that one of the reasons why Bonaparte's soldiers at Waterloo ran or surrendered so humiliatingly quickly (apart from the fact that Bony himself was bolting like, well, Usain Bolt), was the previous threat from the Allied conference, that soldiers fighting for the userper (Bony) would either be sent to the cold wastes of Siberia or left in a prison ship hulk.

Reading so interesting points about a possible surrender of a unit in a wargame, how if it can be take as an strategic or tactic movement?.

For example, you had a weak batallon that you know it is not going to resist the charge of another much more strong unit and you need time to retreat another troops, well, what about to "order" your batallon to surrender and with that move the other strongest unit had to "wait" some time to continue their atack because they had to scort or order the prisioners to their own camp?

In the maintime you move your troops in consecuence.

Amicalement
Armand

'Who said they did?'

You did, boyo, read your posting. And you might want to reread good reference material on Waterloo, not the usual propaganda. Most of the Guard did not run away. There is no evidence of this either. All you're doing here is propagating nonsense.

Sincerely,
K

In the Carnage and Glory rules system when units fail moral or lose a melee some men run away and some surrender. The severity of the loss dictates the number who give up. The system keeps track of prisoners and gives totals at the end of the battle. At the same time standards are taken and general officers are captured and its all in the final results.

db

After all – surrender of a whole unit is a very unusual thing: they'd have to be trapped (like Cambronne's last Guard battalion at Waterloo) …… in which case, you might have a point.

clearly a lack of understanding as to what happened with the guard.

10th Marines 11 Nov 2009 1:12 p.m. PST
''Who said they did?' You did, boyo''

I wrote 'en masse' did I? Er..think not, old chap. Try here:
TMP link
Convergence insufficiency: why else is your 'usual' reading 'propaganda' (only the French and possibly Prussians had state media contol)?

It seems cacadores has been watching the battle of waterloo "movie" just a little too often, is this what you base your study of the period on?

the term, 'en masse' used by Kevin here is merely using a different word to signify a group, or as you put it, 'last Guard battalion'…..(which is a group)

Your context was to make people believe the French Old Guard "last btln" under, Cambronne (he was not anywhere near them for a start, he was already captured) were trapped and had to surrender. This is clearly the result of a total lack of understanding and research of the situation with the French guard so you make a story up to once again belittle the efforts and fighting capabilities of the French, Napoleon and more to the point, the Guard.

You hide under the mask of pretending to initiate open and amicable debate but as soon as someone questions you or tells you, you are incorrect you attack, insult and defame thus the real cacadores is revealed, as usual. And if confronted you cry, "it was only intended as a joke", can't you take a joke…but what inevitably happens is you go too far soon enough and get DH'd so lets watch history repeat itself here once again.

Shane

There is a gentleman on these boards who gave his word not a little while ago regarding a misunderstanding of humourous ribbing and putting words into someone's mouth combined with oppposing viewpoints degenerating into humourless ad homina comments and his word was believed. This is the second time I have had to point this out (there won't be a third reminder) and it would be good if he could recall what we both promised then so that we can leave it at that now.

(there won't be a third reminder)

ohh, this sounds like a threat. Tell ya what, you stop your personal attacks on people who do not agree with you or explain to you when you are wrong and "I" will then leave you alone mate.

I have had to point out to you several times when you have been rude, condesending or worse but I am not going to threaten you about it so my advice to you is to keep the snide remarks directed at others to yourself

practice what you preach buddy

What are you going to do, Cacadores, call the 'reminder police?'

If you're kidding, then you should have an indicator that you are. It is difficult enough getting tone and emotions across on a computer without playing silly games. Shane has been quite civil to my mind and he is a gentleman.

Sincerely,
K

Oh boy, bricole alert.

Ah, the Napoleonic boards…………..

but John, I did not mention my rules once….:-p

You mean those rules we used last night mate? The good rules?

Cheers,

Glynn

I meant to come back to this earlier but got side tracked.

When I returned to the table I played it out. Again, I was playing GdBde. My cavalry unit halted a pursuit on the spot. This completed surrounding a French infantry unit. The French took a canister blast from an RHA battery, now had 2 units of Brit infantry on its flanks, and cavary behind it. The French took a 'falter' morale result. Mon Frere's pals were not in a position to help extract the unit.

I also had no general within the command radius and could not affect a heroic charge out through the Brits. So I tossed in the towel for this unit.

Assessing the Brits overall situation, it seemed practicle for General Hill to have the depleted cavalry unit escort the French unit away. The artillery and infantry were all up to good strength so I didn't think Hill would assign any of these guys to escort duty when there were more French to engage.

For a short while I considered letting the unit take more punishment unit it got a retreat or rout morale, the re-evaluate if it should surrender. In the end I didn't think my colonel would let his unit get wiped out for no apparant gain.

As an extension of this, there were some Spanish on the table, although in considerable distance to this particular fray. From my personal perspective, had it been Spanish surrounding the French unit, I'd have done an 'Alamo' and fought to the last man rather than surrunder. Better the British brigs than being skinned alive.

…. or perhaps the French colonel had a brief glimpse of sitting it out in the Kent countryside and enjoying parole, and his soldiers be damned!

Paulie

On the tabletop it's pretty rare. As a couple of the guys mentioned, usually only when a unit is completely surrounded and the die result indicates a retreat that can't be made.

In Fire and Fury, losing a combat by seven plus to the pip results in captured stands.

Historically, probably until the ACW, I don't think prisoners were really taken. It was more a matter of signing a parole of a certain duration, during which time the captured man agreed not to take up arms until the time was up.

The logistics of feeding, housing and clothing were beyond the resource technologies of the time and the food was earmarked for the allied fighting man.

And I thought the Guard died, but never surrendered.

JW