"Wargames' tactics that aren't historical" Topic

There is, despite our efforts, often a dichotomy between tactics we use on the table top & those used on historical battlefields.

For example, I'm sure I first read on TMP that skirmishing infantry was an ideal force to use against artillery. It's a tactic I've successfully used in games.

I dipped into Nosworthy's 'Battle Tactics…" & read that despite this wargamers' wisdom, generals from Suvarov to Thiebault preferred to use formed infantry & even cavalry in this role (Thiebault even describing skirmishers engaging artillery as "ridiculous").

What table top tactics do you know of that aren't really grounded in the history of the period?

Ochoin,
I think is documented quite vividly that French skirmishers were used extensively and effectively to drive off Austrian artillery in the April 1809 campaign. There are most likely more evidence of such in other campaigns.
Otherwise, I agree to non-historical tactics being used in our game….such as 3 attack columns hitting a single line battalion for one. I have yet to come across anything remotely resembling this in the documentary…

MG

@ marshalGreg…..thanks. I'll do further reading.

Nosworthy reports that the seemingly suicidal attack of formed infantry often succeeded because they would vary the speed of their approach, which threw the gunners off their aim. Additionally, infantry could succeed by using terrain advantages if possible.

Another tactic was to send in a feint attack (sometimes with skirmishers) in the centre whilst flanking columns of infantry took out the guns.

I'm under few illusions that wargaming isn't all that accurate a representation of real warfare but the nuances still surprise me.

The parcelling out of cavalry regiments into squadrons that are used in penny packets would be my top peeve. I first observed this in wargames at school, where the rules we used gave no benefit to depth in a cavalry charge, so four dragoons in line had an even chance against sixteen dragoons four abreast and four deep.

We fixed it by adding 1 for every rank deep, which meant that chucking a small force of cuirassiers against a deep column of lighter cavalry could still be very inadvisable.

I just wish we'd thought of something I've read here, which is to have a rule whereby cavalry must return to their start point after a charge. Ours would rally and reform in the ground they'd just taken, which is tactically inaccurate. They should vacate and let infantry come up.

Another cavalry travesty was to advance three battalions in column echelon. The enemy cavalry would take a morale test half way and then commit to the countercharge. The battalions would then form square, which took only a quarter of a move, so by the time the cavalry arrived they simply flowed around three formed squares who blew them away. I don't think that was very historical either.

Another ruse was to fall back half a move in the face of an infantry charge. The charge would then not make contact and would usually charge on blown and unformed in its following move, which was usually enough to get it routed.

On the skirmishers point, Mercer and others report the French use of these to harass the allied artillery between cavalry charges. It may not have been used a lot but it did happen.

Gamers do not behave like their historical counter parts. They do not follow orders, they do not care about casualties, and armies in games will fight effectively long after real armies would have quit the field. Many games require no morale checks unless you have lost half your strength! This despite 30% losses generally being considered catastrophic in real life.

Since the commanders have no reason to act in the same way as their counterparts, expecting gamer tactics to mirror the real world is a fool's errand.

When was the last time you saw a quiet sector on the battlefield in a game? Or a lull in the action?

"It's 10:30 and I have to get home. Time for a charge!"

Any number of treatises on light infantry give artillery as one of their targets. At Salamanca, Wellington sends forward a large number of skirmishers for just that purpose: Drive off French artillery.

Tactics weren't johnny-one-note responses to circumstances. There are a number of instances where cavalry rallied on the ground they had taken. I've read of at least five instances where French cavalry stood to receive an enemy cavalry charge, sometimes volleying, sometimes not.

The relationships between the various tactics--and not just the three arms--also needs to be considered.

I've read it was standard to have the army deployed in two lines, and a reserve. I have only seen deployment in one line, and rarely a reserve.

Often the effects of a a non campaign, 3 hours and go, secure flanks and we see all games.

I have only seen deployment in one line, and rarely a reserve.

In a campaign based on real terrain, the challenge is finding a defensible position small enough to allow defence in depth, that is not also easily outflanked.

The other problem can be that routing units often take other nearby units with them. This means there is no point defending in depth because rather than one unit to either side joining the impromptu retreat, three more immediately behind also join in, plus maybe some of the reserve.

"It's 10:30 and I have to get home. Time for a charge!"

:) Brilliant !!!! The pizza is waiting, charge those guns !!! I love it….

Many games require no morale checks unless you have lost half your strength!

If the rules don't reflect some level of historical reality, then neither will the game or the tactics used.

It's 10:30 and I have to get home. Time for a charge!

And along that line, the worse line any GM can probably utter would be, 'okay guys, this will be the last turn!'…. Because common sense and considered playing decisions tend to go out the window, as everybody and his uncle declare charges.

1) Brining every artillery piece into action because there is no penalty to blaze away at even the farthest target

2) Using a shot up battalion to use as a screen against enemy artillery blazing away see #1

3)Packing battalions into phalanx like formations to get better close combat odds.

They do not follow orders, they do not care about casualties

What's so historically inaccurate about that?

There's one in the groups around here whose answer to any tactical situation is: bayonet charge! You learn quickly to assign him to the right part of the line…

WOW! If this one's not candidate for the "How long have you got?" posting of the Year!

However, there is one stunning presupposition – that the games are historical in the first place!

Bring up a cavalry unit against advancing columns of foot. Infantry not in square usually get destroyed by cavalry so the columns change into square. They are then easy meat for friendly foot and in many sets of rules cannot moved while in square. so the Cavalry often both halts the enemy advance and sets them up for a devastating infantry attack.

so the Cavalry often both halts the enemy advance and sets them up for a devastating infantry attack.

Isn't that fairly historical?

4th Cuirassier--I feel your pain on the penny-packet cavalry approach. That would be a command and control horror show. We had one guy who used it all the time, until we created a command and control system. This is the same guy who, in the face of a cavalry charge, would order his unit to lay down flat--under the assumption that horses would not willingly step on a prone group of men. I made sure I always had a unit of lancers in ios area code. Poke!

The army is wall to wall from one end of the "earth" to the other end of the "earth" with no gaps between units with perfectly timed cohesion and movement
Regards
Russ Dunaway

In the Renaissance players will strip all the arquebusier/musketeer stands from the pike stands and brigade both into "shooty" groups and "sticky groups" and use the one like Submachine gun formations and the latter like Phalanxes. This lasted till I glued them on the same stand. (Yup! 32 pikemen and 36 musketeers on the same stand." It was like watching chickens trying to get to the corn on the other side of the pain of glass. I could see their grubby little mits working, thinking to tear them off.

1) Several massed columns in phalanx jumping on individual enenmy units.

2) Counter attacks by cavalry hitting the enemy halfway across the artillery zone – usually due to it taking several turns to cross the artillery zone. Cavalry counterattacks were usually after the enmy had hit ones own line first.

Opponent on assault order handles Battalion Columns as if they were carrying out section battle drills. If faced with enemy forces has the ability to stop, start, change direction and move off again without a single change of order or consideration that he may have command of a couple of thousand men.

Sometimes though, cavalry were used in squadrons. I've read plenty of memoirs/diaries/letters etc that describe odd squadrons being used on their own. Maybe more in smaller actions rather than massive set-piece battles, but it did happen.

There were some Austrian OOBs, for example, that had a couple of squadrons of a regiment in one Corps and a couple from the same regiment in a different formation entirely!

A 'historical' set of rules has to cover a massive variety of different situations!

I took 3 ballista in a Roman vs Gauls game and used them to punch holes in the Gaul lines.

Kinda like assault guns and just kept moving them forward to the next firing position.

Don't think that ever happened in real combat, but worked great on the game table.

There were some Austrian OOBs, for example, that had a couple of squadrons of a regiment in one Corps and a couple from the same regiment in a different formation entirely!

Cerdic:

Yes, and the Austrians did that kind of 'penny-packing' of squadrons all through the Napoleonic wars. The Russians and Prussians also did it. The Russians and Austrians had large regiments that often were broken up among the divisions and corps. It is was entirely wonky and a command control nightmare, I doubt that it would have lasted.

The idea was to have 'combined arms' tactics available at all levels of command, from the division up. It certainly did make it difficult to mass cavalry though.

A 'historical' set of rules has to cover a massive variety of different situations!

Ain't that the truth.

In my experience practically everything we do is not really historical. But it still looks damned good on the table top.

Columns packed next to each other but only absorbing casualties in the one column. Not all of them.

Squares moving TOO slowly.

I've read of at least five instances where French cavalry stood to receive an enemy cavalry charge

Usually because the French cavalry were not good troops. It worked so well at Sahagun.

But it looks damned good on the table top.

Ain't that the truth!

Just get stuck in and roll 6's, or 10's if you are playing Fire and Fury.

The army is wall to wall from one end of the "earth" to the other end of the "earth" with no gaps between units with perfectly timed cohesion and movement

Agreemsg. This one really bugs me because it's easily fixed in almost any rules, just by altering setup and/or scenario design. Keep the troop density too low to use table edges as flank anchors and make the players deploy their own troops, and all coordination evaporates like mist in the morning sun…

It also helps to have irregular terrain features at varying distances/angles to the table edges.

(No, that picture isn't mine, but that looks like my kind of scenario. I think I'd like playing with these guys.)

I'm often bothered by tactics which are not only unhistorical, but also different from any real battle. For example, in so many battles a detached force works around the enemy flank under conditions which would never allow a commander to see that this was tactically useful, while ignoring a visible enemy he would have disregarded at the risk of court martial in reality. Many rules actively encourage a general commanding a Leuthen-level army to concentrate on micro-commands of companies which would certainly be left to very junior commanders in real life. And how often does one see gambit play, where a unit is deliberately sacrificed to gain a favourable situation for another (I remember myself once throwing away a small unit of noble cavalry to take the pressure off a unit of peasant levies that my line depended on)?
It's my impression (and, this site being what it is, I'm digging trenches already in anticipation of the barrage of vociferous and contemptuous disagreement) that even in the most brilliant victories a general usually made about three of the major rearrangements of formation and objective that are the stuff of every move in most wargames. And I'd suggest that a good set of wargames rules should strongly encourage an army largely to run on automatic once the forces are engaged.

Mallen – ordering them to "lay" someone on the battlefield? I'm as randy as the next man, but under fire?

Edge to edge troops is one of my pet peeves, but the worst one by far is the coordination of far flung individual artillery units using 19th century equivalents of cell phones to coordinate a time on target strike on some poor fool enemy unit that is not directly in front of any of the artillery! Aaaarrrgggghhhhh!

YA-That's a great table set-up although the how-to always struck me as rather masochistic. Didn't it take several hundred hours to make, or some such? Of course, any really finely detailed set-up has to be a work of love.

LOS for artillery,arty ranges, wall-to-wall deployment, helicopter POV… so many bugbears to choose from. I've been reading Longstreet's memoirs (again) and increasingly I'm realizing that it's not a case of the rules out there getting it wrong some of the time, but rather that they rarely if ever get anything right. Which isn't a problem, because really the games are more about the pageantry on the table, I think, more than anything else.

Kriegspiel, if you want to fix all the problems, is in the end the only way to go.

EDIT: I always thought it would be interesting, as an experiment, to play a game of Warhammer 40k with Nap figs, using the basic rules, but to treat every battalion as a single figure, and each brigade as a squad. Treat every infantry battalion as a Nurgling base with 3 wounds, WS3, BS2, T3, LD 4-7 depending on vet status. Put in some very basic IGYG formation change stuff and let two fourteen year olds with no historic knowledge fight it out. Would the end result of the game be any different than a more historically researched game? I think the results would be quite interesting…

" but the worst one by far is the coordination of far flung individual artillery units using 19th century equivalents of cell phones to coordinate a time on target strike on some poor fool enemy unit that is not directly in front of any of the artillery! Aaaarrrgggghhhhh!"

I got so sick of this, that in our homerules two batteries can only hit the same target if part of a grand battery:-)

Pet peeves?

1) Wall-to-wall troops/no unoccupied areas to either flank. Particularly annoying with H&M period games.

2) The tendency for the game to end as soon as a result is in sight, removing what is often the most intriguing part of a battle – dis-engaging/withdrawing in the face of a superior/victorious enemy.

3) Time-wasting in multi-player games – I have found that the number of turns is usually dictated either by the player(s) least familiar with "the rules", or by those most familiar with them who argue every point.

Artillery engages distant target for 4 turns and then switches fire at charging unit to assist friendly unit being charged just so charging unit takes negative morale. No requirement to adjust facing as long as it is in arc of fire. If target unit halted in charge guns automatically resume fire on distant target.

Kriegspiel, if you want to fix all the problems, is in the end the only way to go.

True enough. If the person running the game knows their stuff it's pretty much unbeatable. Not so nice to look at though.

Firing ranges. Smoothbore muskets fire out to about the distance of a battalion in line. NOT out to the distance of a Corp in line.

Terrain that is completely flat so the entire board becomes a first graze beaten zone for artillery.

Rolling a die and finding out that your fresh unit has forgotten to bring any ammunition to the battle.

Probably all of them. Wargames have only a tenuous connection to real war. But we love our toy soldiers anyway!

Dear Old Glory

You should be at one of my battles when the wall to wall, edge to edge guys suddenly find out that movement off the table top and around the flanks is quite easy and liberal and I just haul up another table to accomdate the flanking move.

Turns into a real Cluster dingus as they try and form square with an entire army.

Otto Wives take a dim view of drunken men slege hammering down a wall in order to do that flanking attack.

so the Cavalry often both halts the enemy advance and sets them up for a devastating infantry attack.
Isn't that fairly historical?

I don't think so. Artillery pinned in square was vulnerable to artillery but not so much to infantry as I understand it.

At QB the Brunswickers held off the French infantry in square. At Waterloo Bachelu's division could make no progress against the Allied squares. As always there may be contextual issues that explain this – but that would also be true of cases where squares were beaten by infantry attacks (I can't think of any though!)

It's quite difficult to get get squares right in wargames rules – but the idea that they could get blown away in short order by infantry lines is a bit of a fantasy I think.

I think the three problems we all face in dealing with the question of what constitute historical tactics are:

1. Game designers don't tell us what the abstract game mechanics are specifically designed to model. As wargames can't model everything, knowing exactly what is and isn't portrayed becomes a guessing game.

2. In the last fifteen years, the amount of primary and hard to find secondary sources are becoming available for free on the internet, so the possible sources of information has exploded, making that guessing game harder, but easier to see what wargames don't do, visa vie history.

3. Long-held beliefs such as 'column vs line' tactics etc. are being challenged, even though any number of gamers like those game mechanics, which creates all sorts of tension.

This thread discussion is a good example of those dynamics.

YA-That's a great table set-up although the how-to always struck me as rather masochistic. Didn't it take several hundred hours to make, or some such?

I don't know, but that wouldn't surprise me. It looks like a labor of love.

I find terrain boards to be too time-consuming to make and inflexible in use, so I lay pieces of cloth over hills and throw terrain bits on top of that. It doesn't look quite as nice, but I've been able to use the same motley collection of stuff for about 15 years, and I get plenty of compliments.

- Ix

I agree that terrain boards tend to be either one-battle deals or complicated to provide some flexibility.

Battle clothes work well and with styrofoam hills and structure underneath, anchored with pins, it looks great.

Here's a real eye-catching example with some explanation:

link

Maybe we should start games in the knowledge that any figures killed or captured have to be actually handed over to your opponent or confiscated for ever and vice versa with opponents figures at the end of the game

I reckon there's be lots of stand offs!