"cannon fodder" Topic

As you do, I was thinking about wargaming tactics at a particularly boring staff meeting, I decided I could use a poor quality Pike & Shot unit to soak up my opponent's nasty heavy artillery fire whilst I did things on the flanks with my better units.

I thought I could position them just within maximum range so they'd lose about 1 base every turn & when they broke they'd be far enough away from the rest of the army not to provoke drops in morale.

And it hit me. Did any real life general act so callously or is this plan a perfect example of "gamey" behaviour?

The real-life commanders probably couldn't calculate the whole thing out on a CRT as exactly as you can, had to approximate factors like 'how many men they'll lose each hour' and 'when the poor quality troops will break', but…

We have the example of Gen. Greene at Guilford Court House, slowing and wearing down the British regulars' attack with militia before hitting them with a counter-attack by his Continentals.

We have the example of Hannibal at Cannae, absorbing the Roman attack with his Gauls, while extending his flanks to double-envelope the Legions.

We have Mel Gibson's interpretation of Edward Longshanks, bawling, "SEND IN THE IRISH!"

So yeah, some generals in history probably played this sort of trick…with the troops they were less emotionally attached to.

If we come to a minefield, our infantry attacks exactly as it were not there.

-Georgy Zhukov

The Dutch-Belgians on the forward slope at Waterloo?

This sort of tactic is perfectly valid, historically speaking, and not just with crap troops. The gamey bits are accurately estimating the effect of the enemy fire and the morale effect of your troops retiring.

As Zippy suggests, real life has no hard and fast CRT. There should be at least some chance that your sacrificial lambs will crumble a lot quicker (or hold longer) than you anticipate, even after the first salvo of artillery fire.

As to the second, I'm not sure whether the morale mechanic you indicate is based on the other units being too far away to "see" the friendlies route, or just not caring. If the latter, I would say this is the sort of thing that drives me nuts. It's a very rare phenomenon where a commander can say with any degree of certainty that the destruction of unit X will have no impact on the rest of the army.

Clearly I am not ruthless enough to have been a real general. I don't know much about WW2 but that Zhukov quote is perfectly horrible.

"Diversionary attacks" have been part of warfare for a good while, and are likely to remain so in future.

Essentially, the plan is to engage enemy on multiple locations of the front. One of these will be the main attack, while the diversionary actions are just intended to distract enemy command and make them commit reserves to wrong spot.

Back in 1944, certain German dictator initially insisted that the Normandy landings were just a diversionary attack by the western allies, and that the "real landings" were still to take place somewhere closer to Pas de Calais.

We have Mel Gibson's interpretation of Edward Longshanks, bawling, "SEND IN THE IRISH!"

And as we know from the accuracy of other historical epics that Mr Gibson has been involved with (I'm thinking specifically of "The Patriot") his interpretation is usually beyond question.

Ahem…

John T

Sorry John, but Mr. Gibson has only been involved with hysterical epics, nothing historical.

…..nothing historical.

Aaah, now, let's not be unfair. Poultry specialists have assured me that "Chicken Run" was pretty much spot on.

HMS Coventry was used as a virtual sitting duck during the Falklands to draw enemy planes away from other operations. She was so close to land she couldn't even get proper targeting with her missile systems, yet still maintained position. She was eventually sunk.
As the survivors rowed away they sang Monty Python's, Always Look on the Bright Side of Life….. balls of steel.

'you see that old fellow on the hill, he's testing your firepower with the lives of his warriors' :)

Please remember that its a game played with tin soldiers – if the rules let you do, then you can do it.

Depends on your rules.

Depends if the angel in charge of irony is looking.

In one game the Old Guard attacked the Moscow Militia three times in three separate games and each time got a butt-whupping for their troubles.

ch time

They may not be Generals, but modern [name of countries withheld to avoid flame war] warlords are very cavalier with the lives of their most junior recruits/conscripts/[insert other term here that would cause another flame war].

And, yes, if I am playing that side (or any of a number of others that would do similar things), I will play it like that. While it is "just a game", that's not my rationale.

If the game is specific enough to identify specific forces that would use that tactic (even if they are fictional rather than historic forces), then I assume there is the intent to create part of the experience of that type of combat. So it is appropriate, under those circumstances, to use the tactic.

From the standpoint of an educational experience (not necessarily a formal classroom wargame, just from the perspective that a waragme is an experience and you can learn from it just like any other reasonably complex and engaging experience), it is beneficial to present the good guys with representative bad guys.

And from the bad guy perspective, there is educational value in "getting your head inside" the bad guy mentality. It provides the bad guy player a type of understanding of the options available to the "other side" and can either create or ameliorate empathy for their position.

Didn't Mussolini famously say he needed a few thousand casualties fighting the French in ww2, so he could get at the negotiating table?