"FoG(N) Artillery a Question of Feel" Topic

I'll preface this by saying I like FoG(N) very much but as with most rules there's nearly always a part where you go "Are you sure about that?" and either you put up with, it or it starts to eat you.

I'm getting to that stage with FoG(N) artillery. Not so much how it works in the rules or its effect but rather its representation.

For those not in the know, Artillery is represented as either ‘Units' (described as one or more batteries acting together) or ‘Attachments' which equate to a single battery although not described as such.

‘Units' are represented by two bases (12-19 guns) or three bases (20-30 guns). ‘Units' function separately in a bombardment type of role and ‘Attachments' move with their Brigade within a Division and fire in support of it.

What's puzzling me is the accuracy of having Army lists and/or historical use that doesn't fit this model.

Take the Anglo-Portuguese Army shown in the rule book. Its listed as having between 2 – 4 bases of Foot Artillery (24-38 guns) and could have one ‘Attachment' per infantry Division.

The latter being the equivalent of a Battery per Division is accurate but I can't recall the regular use of what would be the equivalent of 4-6 batteries in the same place by Wellington, except at Vitoria.

Of course similar points can be raised in connection with Continental armies where these ‘lumps' of artillery exist as batteries of position, representing the equivalent numbers of several batteries acting in one place, these have the numbers of Grande or Massed Batteries but aren't classed as one in the rules while drastically reducing the flexibility of the artillery arm by forcing firepower into distinct places on the table.

I guess I got the breeze up when I read the authors comments describing that Grande Batteries "grew to be up to 200 pieces strong" Er name one!

Not to mention the fact that the Grande Battery at Friedland was the same size as represented by two "Small Units" (2 x 2 bases) under the rules!

OK so FoG(N) is a representation that allows for big actions and the manoeuvre of Brigades and Divisions but the artillery is starting to look like an oversimplification that undermines a set of rules that otherwise work and manage to feel historic at the same time.

It's an eternal problem for all grand-tactical horse-n-musket games. Once you go above the scale where one base can comfortably represent one battery (and even then you've got problems with batteries anywhere from 6-12 guns), then you're in FudgeLand.

And there's really no good answer.

* You can abstract them off the table altogether, represented into factors that are applied elsewhere, such as Nap's Battles or Grande Armee. People don't like that, because they want some ART on the table, so then you have to decide, Okay, which ART, and why this battery, but not that battery…

* You can merge them into game "units" that never existed as historical units, in order to get some approximation, such as FOGN or Volley & Bayonet. That's always problematic because you end up with concentrations of ART that never occurred, and you still have trouble rounding the numbers.

* You can insist on including every single battery on the table, as in "Age of Eagles," and then you get nightmarish OBs for the late-war battles, where there are more guns on the table that anybody would ever reasonably purchase or paint, and since gun bases are very deep, they take up all the free space and turn the table into a parking lot which then imposes bizarre movement and placement problems that didn't exist historically. (The Dresden scenario in that game book is case-in-point.)

There really isn't a good solution, because we're limited to these fixed figures and base sizes, trying to represent something that was actually quite fluid and flexible.

You wonder if someone shouldn't invent something like "gun points." You'd have some means of reckoning the artillery output of an army, then leave it to the commander as to how he would apportion those resources accordingly. Grand battery armies could choose to use a grand battery, and piecemeal armies could go penny-packet, apportioned as the commander chose.

"You wonder if someone shouldn't invent something like "gun points."

Not just for artillery, but for everything. I've often used the example of the French BNs being crammed into the village of Blenheim, or the chateau of Hougomont. I've never seen a wargame – at any scale – that could allow even half of those historical units to fit in there, and yet they did. Disastrously, yes, but fit they did.

The only answer I can think of is units whose strength is not in any way related to its number of bases, so that you can grow and shrink them based on formation, by adding or taking away bases.

But with artillery, that's not really an option because the gun miniature is just too large. Specifically, it's just too deep. The bigger the figure scale, the worse the problem is, until in 28mm you're so out of whack it's hopeless.

It's a general problem with minis games -- the minis have to fit on the table, so most of the formations end up too deep.

Regarding the artillery problem -- and Hougomont -- it's one of the things that board-and-counter games can do better, because you can use the concept of stacking to squeeze all the units together.

But it's nowhere near as pretty.

Are artillery models really too deep if one imagines the base under the gun and crew also representing the area occupied by limbers, caissons &c.? Probably not, in most common scales.

"The only answer I can think of is units whose strength is not in any way related to its number of bases, so that you can grow and shrink them based on formation, by adding or taking away bases."

"..you can use the concept of stacking to squeeze all the units together."

The Prussian Kriegsspiel of 1824 stacked the rectangular or square troop blocks in this way.

Why shouldn't wargamers remove bases from the tabletop when the unit adopts a formation with a smaller area?

Provided one uses a roster, rather than relying on the number of figres and/or bases to indicate unit strength, there will be no problem. Just agree a set of conventions about how to portray the various common formations.

"Are artillery models really too deep if one imagines the base under the gun and crew also representing the area occupied by limbers, caissons &c.? Probably not, in most common scales."

It's more a problem of flexibility. That area for the historical battery might have taken up that much space… and might not have. It might have been exactly behind and rectangular… and might not have. And so on. The miniatures base, though, never changes.

Sam,

So its a lost cause then? :o)

Well for what its worth I agree. Certainly where the British are concerned "Army Level" games don't work – well at least the ones in your original post that I've played anyway. Although this is largely their singular organisation – no Corps and no reserve batteries etc.

However FOGN is a bit different in that its primarily a Corps level game that you can chose to play at a multi Corps level to produce a whole battle. Although personally I couldn't see that working unless you had a player per Corps on each side.

The point here being that giving the option to have representation for a battery per Division, in your lone Corps, the forced construction of "lumps" out of the other five or six batteries that would have been available, seems odd.

OK less guns to paint and less dice to throw but also no idea as to how the artillery was really used.

I understand your points on the logistics of having battery models on table when you are talking about 40 of the darn things per side but at a Corps level 3-4 hour game I just feel the authors could have come up with something better.

I don't see the problem. It's one of command and control,
which grand tactical rules should address.

On the grand tactical battlefield divisional batteries were beyond the control of army and corps (the level at which gamers ostensibly play a grand tactical game). Batteries assigned to support infantry divisions were very rarely removed. They coordinated their movements and locations with the division they supported, or wherever the infantry went so went the artillery. To represent this you simply build their effects into the fire of the infantry.

Those batteries which can be controlled by the gamer would be the army and corps reserve and the horse batteries. In a game it is these batteries that should be represented on the table.

An 8 gun battery would occupy about 150 yards of front and including its first and second caison lines at least 100 yards of depth. This is an area no sane commander would willingly place infantry or cavalry. At one inch equals 50 yards the depth of an artillery stand would therefore be 2 inches, plenty of room to place a miniature gun.

The remainder of the equipment, 3rd caisons, forges and equipment wagons were deployed even further to the rear of the gun line, 200 yards or so but 100 yards was the danger zone and infantry and cavalry could and did deploy there in relative safety.

Bob Coggins

I don't see the problem. It's one of command and control…. divisional batteries were beyond the control of army and corps… They coordinated their movements and locations with the division they supported.

Those batteries which can be controlled by the gamer would be the army and corps reserve and the horse batteries.

An 8 gun battery would occupy about 150 yards of front and including its first and second caison lines at least 100 yards of depth. The remainder of the equipment, 3rd caisons, forges and equipment wagons were deployed even further to the rear of the gun line…

Bob, you don't see a logical inconsistency here?

You're using the question of command, to determine which artillery batteries are subject to the laws of physics, and which ones aren't.

Those brigade and divisional guns weren't controlled at the army level, therefore they're invisible, infinitely flexible, and can take up any amount of physical space, from zero to to the maximum space of whatever infantry unit they're assumed to be "in." No matter how the infantry formation changes, no matter how many or how few bases it has, those artillery units magically conform to that space, and never present any positional problems for any other unit. If the infantry is in a long, thin line, the caissons magically disappear.

But the reserve guns are controlled by the higher commanders, and therefore they're on the table, and thus they have to have their caissons and limbers represented, and take up a fixed amount of space on the table.

If your argument is, "Hey, I had to fudge it to make it work in the game, and now it works, more or less," then OK, I'm down with that. I'm always sympathetic to that argument.

But if your argument is that it's historically accurate, then… where are all the caissons, limbers, horses, and wagons for those divisional and brigade batteries? And how come they get to be invisible and flexible, having no effect on table space or interpenetration, when the caissons, limbers, and wagons for a horse battery, aren't?

Those brigade and divisional guns weren't controlled at the army level, therefore they're invisible, infinitely flexible, and can take up any amount of physical space, from zero to to the maximum space of whatever infantry unit they're assumed to be "in."

Interesting point, although not quite the same a having the game rules force you to use the army/corps assets in a non historical fashion.

Trajanus,

I don't understand what you are trying to say. Could you clarify?

Thanks.

Bob Coggins

As I see it, the problem is primarily that – using most of the representational and ground scales found in wargames – the area occupied by one model artillery piece and its crew is far too big, just as infantry lines are far too deep because of the figure bases. This can be overcome, IMHO, by declaring that one gun model and its base represents not just the gun line of a battery, but the lines of limbers, caissons &c. to its rear as well. Whilst it is true that this imposes one, rigid deployment of an artillery battery, this is a practical compromise that ensures there will always be some areas where commanders cannot deploy other troops because of the artillery vehicles &c., so they have to work within those limits. This will be the same for both sides, so will be fair, and no worse a 'fudge' than many others we make to create playable historical games. Perhaps the artillery base has to become the determinant of groundscale, as we cannot make this base smaller than the model gun?

If we stop insisting on deploying all the bases on the tabletop that recreate a units' frontage when in line when the unit is in a formation that, in reality, occupied a smaller area than the sum of those base areas – battalion squares are the most obvious example, we will be able to achieve unit/formation 'footprints' that are a better portrayal of the space such units took up historically.

In order to do this, we must abandon the idea of either the number of figures or bases always being in direct proportion to unit strength, and not use figure or base numbers in fire or combat calculations, but record unit strength on a roster. Personally, I think this a price worth paying.

arthur1815,

Thanks for your post. Can you clarify what you mean by "representational and ground scales found in wargames?"

I don't ever recall not being able to accommodate figure (or base) scale to linear scale. What seems to be the problem?

Historically, infantry in the 2nd line never deployed closer than 100 yards (200 for cavalry) to the rear of those in the first line. This kept the 2nd line from being disordered were the first routed. Thus, unless the depth of an infanry stand is greater than a scale 100 yards, there is no problem.

Bob Coggins

Artillery range is a problem as well with the brigade sized games. I'm trying to modify FPGA and 2x2 Napoleonics for use with my 3mm figs right now. How do you figure out how things like swales and mild ridge lines effect artillery when they're barely large enough to show up on the terrain board? For instance, say your FPGA brigade represents 300m of frontage, or say that your ACW brigade base represents 500m of frontage, which is about average. The roundtops at Gettysburg aren't too much bigger than that. And then take a terrain feature like Cemetery hill and the fields of fire it covers that Picket's Charge came across. How do you distinguish between "super-open" cover for artillery and "regular open" cover like a modestly sized farm field? There comes a point, especially in the ACW where you just can't throw the terrain factor into the dice rolls and say "it equals out the commanders, troops and the terrain." After kicking it around I don't see how a one-base-one-brigade system can work in the ACW, even if you want to call it Grand Tactical. It can work in some situations, or maybe if you play on a map instead of a terrain table, but that's all I can think of right now after spending a week trying to figure something out.

This is what happens sometimes when too many tubes are represented by one piece. You might simply want to change the scale of the artillery. Maybe find a way to represent one 6 gun battery with one base, instead of 12 tubes. It might ease the representation of smaller batteries instead of the "massed batteries" you mentioned that do not fit smaller armies.

Colonial gaming is kinda the very tail end of Horse&Musket, and what I ended up doing for the Ambush Alley mod I've been working on was to declare a 1:5 figure ratio except for artillery. From machine-guns to 5.4" howitzers, 1 gun and crew represents one section of two guns.

Not perfect by any stretch of imagination, but it seems to work at a reasonable approximation.

Sam,

There is no logical inconsistency.

Your argument that the rules must account for the location of the equipment of batteries assigned to support infantry is not valid, expecially if the rules have a linear scale. All the equipment is where the battery commander determines. That's his job, not the job of the Army or Corps general and certainly not our job as designers.

There is nothing which requires the supporting guns to be next to or within the brigade, rather they could be hundreds of yards from the unit they support. Neither are the guns presumed to be deployed as a battery. Rather it is just as likely they are, at the discretion of the battery commander, deployed by section or half battery. The only thing the designer need be concerned with is how much a battery of guns should add to the firepower of an infantry unit.

Your concern for something beyond your control "to fit" is misplaced, especially as, historically, divisional artillery in support of infantry did "fit." Because you cannot understand how it "fits" doesn't mean division generals and battery commanders with 15 or so years experience didn't know how the infantry and artillery "fit" in order to support each other.

Bob Coggins

I don't understand what you are trying to say. Could you clarify?

Bob, no problem.

Before, in the finest traditions of TMP, this tread shot off into matters of frontage, space taken on the table, command issues and God Knows what else I was referring to a specific issue with FOG(N)

In Field of Glory Naps the player is a Corps commander controlling a number of Divisions made up of Brigade size units that are represented by either 4 or 6 individual infantry bases.

All individual bases in the game have the same frontage be they Infantry, Cavalry or Artillery. The specific size of that frontage is not a relevant item in this discussion.

Players can have up to one Artillery base attached per division – this has no specified number of guns associated with it and is not compulsory.

Any other artillery is designated Small (2 bases) or Large (3 bases) these are deemed to be 12-19 guns and 20-30 guns respectively.

These groupings or 'Units' are the only permitted formation for the available artillery not attached to a Division as an individual base.

So, at Wagram, Davout would have three Infantry Divisions each with a Large artillery Unit and a fourth Infantry Division with a Small one, plus one Large Unit representing the Corps Artillery Reserve.

Attaching individual artillery bases would not be appropriate due to the numbers of guns with each Division.

In the game no guns are allowed to leave these Units and all have to fire within the confines of the Unit's front.

So we are asked to accept that if all these are committed to action, Davout and his subordinates would deploy in only 24, 22, 22, 18 and 30 gun blocks, regardless of the situation facing the individual Divisions.

Therefore on attack or defense, sticking these big chunks of artillery in the line of battle are your only option, which wasn't how they were used all the time and on every occasion.

Finally, as I said in my OP the British didn't really work this way in any case.

Bob,
Apologies for not expressing myself more clearly. By 'representational scale' I meant ideas such as one figure portrays 50 real men; one gun portrays a battery &c.
Logically, if one model figure equals fifty real men, then surely one gun ought to equal fifty guns? But it can't, because we need to deploy separate, smaller groups of guns to reflect historical deployment and attachment of artillery batteries to brigades/divisions.
So, instead, we look at the area occupied by the base according to the groundscale. Which is fine, except that lines of infantry are too deep, because of the actual figure bases, but we can mitigate that when troops deploy in successive lines, as you quite rightly suggest, by measuring deployment intervals from the front of the first line base, not from its rear. With artillery models, however, we must simply accept that the depth of the gun model, in many groundscales, must include the area occupied by limbers &c., and that these must always be deployed directly to the rear of the gun line, because we cannot subdivide the base of the gun. Hence my suggestion that the size of the gun base be used to determine ground scale.

Wherever guns are sited, be it next to or way behind a unit, they take up physical space in which other troops cannot deploy, and through which they cannot move easily without throwing themselves and the battery into disorder. The fact that this siting was not done by the army or corps CO doesn't matter – the guns existed. So we must, surely, portray them on the tabletop?

All the equipment is where the battery commander determines…That's his job, not the job of the Army or Corps general.

There is nothing which requires the supporting guns to be next to or within the brigade, rather they could be hundreds of yards from the unit they support.

If they're hundreds of yards from the unit they support, then why do you trace the effect of their fire support from that unit's front edge?

*

Look, I've said this a thousand times: I am very much sympathetic to abstraction. I do it all the time, and I have no problem fudging-away inconvenient things in order to make a better-flowing game. But you've always been insistent that this kind of abstraction is not historically accurate, and that a game can't compromise the laws of physics. You have scoffed at what you call "post-modern" thinking in game design. That's been your (very consistent) position, not mine.

If you're saying that guns, men, horses, wagons, and caissons take up space somewhere… and if by doing so, they have physical location on the table, with resulting issues for interpenetration, etc… then why do those laws of physics apply only to certain batteries, but not to others?

To give a concrete example:

1) A six-gun battery of horse artillery. By your definition, it is represented on the table. Therefore it can only fire with a narrow template from the front of its base. Therefore, you cannot leave an infantry unit sitting "on" it at the end of a movement phase. Why? Because all those men, horses, wagons, caissons, are stretched out 150-200 yards deep, and taking up space.

2) An eight-gun battery of foot artillery that has been attached to an infantry division. This battery is invisible. It takes up no space whatsoever, no matter what formation its infantry is in. It can fire – with full effect – from any and every point of the infantry unit's front edge, no matter how long that edge may be. (Even though it might theoretically be hundreds of yards away, we still trace the effect of its fire using the infantry unit's position, range from the INF unit's front, and any terrain in front of that INF unit.) And if the infantry deploys into a thin linear formation, those 200 yards of caissons and horses and wagons simply disappear.

This doesn't even begin to touch upon the various "magic movement" issues with formation changes. For example: if a battery is represented on the table, then it is only allowed to move during the phase of its turn, when units of that side are allowed to move. But if the battery is invisible somewhere in, or around, an infantry unit, and that infantry unit is attacked by the enemy… then the invisible battery can magically redeploy during the infantry's "reaction" move, because the infantry changed formation when attacked.

So you've got one type of artillery that is invisible, takes up no space, has a very broad fire zone, can redeploy instantly, and is never in anybody's way. And another kind of artillery that must be on the table, taking up space, has a limited fire zone, and can only move once per turn.

And the difference between those two types is… the player's imagined position in the chain of command?

That alone is enough to earn you an Honorary Lifetime Membership in the Fudgy Post-Modern Game Designer's Assosciation. (FPMGDA). I am the association's treasurer. (We don't actually have any money, or a treasury, for that matter. We've abstracted the whole thing.)

Going back to Trajanus' original post, I don't have a problem with how the FoGN rules represent artillery.

However, I do agree that there is an army list issue in Emperors & Eagles (which covers 1792-1807, plus the Peninsular). The near universal tendancy in E&E lists is to require every army to field at least one artillery unit (ie 12-19 guns operating together).

We are addressing this here in NZ with a local amendment for all lists drawn from Emperors & Eagles, as follows:

All lists in Emperors and Eagles have the following amendment:

For every artillery attachment chosen, the required minimum of that type of artillery in a unit is reduced by one. The maximum of that type of artillery allowed is also reduced by 1.

You may field as many attachments as allowed under a list, no further deduction is made from the artillery unit minimum/maximums after these reach 0/2 for that type of artillery.

Note: Concentrated artillery was something that developed later in the period. Most E&E lists allow players – by maxing out on both artillery units and attachments – to field historically unheard of quantities of artillery. This amendment allows players an option to spread all their artillery out as individual batteries (attachments) rather than being required to concentrate some batteries into pairs (units).

Brett,

Confused here. When you say you don't have a problem why are you Kiwis introducing amendments if not to fix a problem?

The near universal tendancy in E&E lists is to require every army to field at least one artillery unit (ie 12-19 guns operating together)

This is a problem to my mind as its based on an assumption that this always happened.

Most E&E lists allow players – by maxing out on both artillery units and attachments – to field historically unheard of quantities of artillery

Totally permissible in the rules and so an author created problem.

However, regardless of what I've said previously, the rules do actually give a size to individual gun bases of 6-9 guns which is as I had assumed. Its mentioned on page 82 and I missed it! Doh!

This gives a battery frontage of 67 yards in 15mm. OK for 6 but rather tight for 9.

As the rules give each attachment just one 'to hit' dice most of the time, which kind of fits with the larger allowance for 'Units' I can only assume the instance on Small (2 base) or Large (3 base) deployment is purely a game device to prevent single bases being dotted all over the table. With all the additional dice rolls it would involve. Bearing in mind the use of these rules for Tournament play not a desirable effect.

Fair enough I suppose but I still wish the authors were up front about it and not go masking history by their abstraction without some explanation of why they are doing it.

I guess from my point of view the kind of action you are taking if it increases the use of 'attachments' at the expense of Units is heading in the right direction.

Hi Trajanus

Sorry, not clear. By not having an issue with the rules, I mean I have no problem with the rule mechanics which model artillery both as attachments (indivdual batteries in close support of an infantry regiment) and/or as units (2-4 batteries operating together at a Divisional or Corps level).

The issue to my mind is actually a list issue. Many early and Peninsula lists allow (in some cases require) unrealistic numbers of artillery to be massed into artillery units, rather than being spread as attachments.

So the amendment is an attempted army list fix, rather than a rule fix.

Cheers
Brett

Hi Brett,

I think idea of attachments and batteries operating together is OK too. In fact the way artillery contributes in the rules altogether is fine.

Its really only the fact that the lists in the original book (it may be different in the supplemental ones) appear to insist that you have to have the Artillery Units where their real equivalents were not used – British for example.

Also the suggestion from the way the lists are constructed the that all armies always used batteries operating together at a Divisional or Corps level simply isn't the case, as often indvidual batteries would be parcelled out to support an attack or defence and not combined with others to do this.

So I guess we are saying the same thing really.

I should have posted earlier, but as I am from Baltimore my attention was distracted by the Super Bowl.

For reasons known only to himself, since way back in the MWAN days, Sam every so often criticizes traditional rules design. And since Napoleon's Battles is a representative of traditional rules design on occasion, as now, he jumps in when I post.

The topic is FOG-N and what to do about artillery. I don't appreciate Sam's decision to use the topic or my post to raise questions about NBs' artillery rules.

If Sam wants to queston NBs I suggest he start a topic to do so.

These thinly veiled attacks smack of self-promotion and do not advance game design. I don't make them. Sam does. Obviously he thinks otherwise.

Now back to the topic.

Bob Coggins

Generally, when one does self-promotion, one mentions one's own products, or even one's own name. I have not done either; that was your contribution.

I was responding to the fuzzy thinking and blatant contradictions, on their own merits.

An interesting point about "traditional rules design".

I would suggest that the definition of "traditional" is subject to change. Otherwise we would all still be playing on the floor and firing matchstick cannon at each others troops, or indeed using nothing but maps and small metal blocks for our units!

I would also suggest that Naps Battles was not "traditional" when it first came out. A long time ago I know but I don't recall anything else at the time that had ideas like units representing brigades in line or column, which in turn were representing regiments/battalions where the majority were supposed to be in those formations within the brigade foot print.

Not to mention the physical exclusion of artillery models from the table top where they were not representing reserve or horse batteries.

Maybe not as different as some of the stuff Sam has come up with over the last few years but it was still different.

Different is not inherently "a bad thing" nor for that matter always a good one.

Sorry, duplicate posting deleted.

Klumpenproletariat,

Start a topic. I'll be there.

Bob Coggins

Trajanus

Don't know if you still look at this forum. But if so, you might like to know that your concerns about artillery representation did generate some discussion in the development of version 2 – so thanks.

The outcome may not fully address your issue, but artillery units in v2 have been more clearly conceptualised as massed batteries of position (ie 2 or more batteries operating together).

So artillery unit numbers have been greatly reduced in many armies – most British peninsula lists for example have 0-1 artillery units (and even allowing a single unit is probably generous). There are no lists that allow more than 2 artillery units (at 800 points).

Also, to better model artillery of position as a Corps level asset, all artillery units used must be under the same divisional commander (rather than being required to be spread amongst divisions as in v1). And because the minimum size for all divisions is 2 in v2, a formation consisting of 2 artillery units and a commander is permissible for many armies.

There are other changes in v2 that result in the rules for artillery units overall being considerably simpler, having better effect at long range, potentially having a pre-game bombardment and also costing more points!

The section on converting historic OOBs does state you can ignore the lists and follow history.

Looking at my list for 1809 French III Corps, each division has a small artillery (2 bases) unit. If you ignore the FoG limits, you could instead do 2 units with an artillery attachment.