"Everyone Charge! vs. Real world tactics" Topic

So I put together a little blog post on my observations about wargamers and tactics.

link

I prefer rules where tactics work, but too often players don't (or won't) spend the time to set up the supports or preparation of the objective that you really need. How often have you seen an attacker keep firing on a target until it is disordered or pinned before moving in to assault. Usually they try to do it in 1 turn (and wonder why it failed).

VC, excellent points discussed on your blog

I think a lot of the gaming behaviors that you describe come mostly from two things: the scenario needs to be played out in less than four hours, and most players want to be involved in the most action in the shortest amount of time.

How popular and accepted would a rule set be if it gave benefits for reserves, defense in depth, mutual support, etc?

Mike

On another note – one of the ways to learn a new rule system is to engage quickly

Do your observations hold true with rules everyone is an old hand at?

Also, I am often struck how in major battles there are "quiet sectors" where little happened (in game terms). Artillery fire, skirmishing, a small probe. Players don't want to be in charge of that!

In addition, how often do you see a group develop a "real" plan of attack? Most of the "plans" I see are developed in 2 minutes or less, and amount to "take the tanks down the right flank while we push forward everywhere else."

That said I play with groups and we routinely see local reserves deployed all the time.

VC:

Yes, interesting observations that I have seen or experienced too. I do think there are other reasons for those behaviors:

1. How people learn: As an educator, you see that kind of behavior, ignoring instructions and advice in learning all the time. Part of the reason is impatience, but part of it is the drive to learn the rules/dynamics by experience. Would those same players do the exact same thing after playing the rules several times? As WD above, "On another note – one of the ways to learn a new rule system is to engage quickly"

2. Past Experience: Lining up troops in Squad Leader the way you did in many Napoleonic games, repeating patterns in new situations learned in other circumstances, is pretty typical behavior too.

3. Abstractions: Games are abstract enough and designer's explanations vague enough that the relationship between the game mechanics and reality, and therefore effective tactics, are rarely all that overt.

4. Differences in claims and reality: There are any number of wargames that don't reward historical tactics, so players may well ignore such advice and what might be seen as 'Hype' by the game designer. The players opt for 'trial and error' or the experiential method. Do something and see what happens.

Mike asks an interesting question about how accepted/ popular a rules set would be if it did provide a game environment where historical tactics worked. I can think of a number of current designers that promote that ability, either outright or by implication, for their rules sets, most of them popular. I doubt that any of them would bother claiming such things if it didn't promote sales. There, the question is do they, regardless of the claims?

Without critiquing every rules set with some arbitrary criteria, I guess the real question would be, depending on the answer, what would that answer signify? The options:

The rules providing the actual benefits of historical tactics and battlefield practices would:

1. Be accepted and popular
2. Be accepted but not popular
3. Be neither accepted nor popular.
4. Some of all three answers above depending on the players.

IF the answer is:

#1. The major portion of hobby want that game experience.

#2. The major portion of the hobby certainly see that as a part of the hobby, but most don't need or want that game experience.

#3. The major portion of the hobby don't see that game experience as important or part of their wargame experience.

#4. There are different groups of gamers in the hobby who want different things from their wargame experience.

I would suggest that #2 or/and #4 appear to be what we see today.

My opinion that the driving factor is what I'll call the "Millennium Mentality," where even if I'm having a great time, I'll only devote 2 hours to it. I'm old enough to remember games set and left up for two or even three weekends that allowed us to plan and execute a plan. We still do that now and then.

Now while I will ALWAYS make time for my hobbies, who would want to spend three fourths or more of your game time setting up and executing a plan to see it decided on the last turn available for play? The endings of these "quick and dirty" games is often unsatisfactory in its own right without introducing more.

McLaddie was posting while I was typing. Just wanted to give the +1. Great observations.

My opinion that the driving factor is what I'll call the "Millennium Mentality," where even if I'm having a great time, I'll only devote 2 hours to it. I'm old enough to remember games set and left up for two or even three weekends that allowed us to plan and execute a plan. We still do that now and then.

Millennials are working under some limitations:

1. More are living in apartments or in their parents' home, so do not have the space.

2. They are young, so career, family and many other things are taking up their time. [Millennials work an average of 50 hours a week and fail to take all their vacation time.]

3. They are young and relatively new to the hobby overall. Who is to say that in another ten years they won't want their wargame experience to be deeper and more involved… and be able to keep their game up for more than an evening?

What time of night is it?
Is it late?
Is it a long drive home?
CHARGE!!!!

It is also easier to try and use tactics, support fires and reserves if you are the only player on your side.
Everyone wants to get stuck in. No one wants to be the reserve.

I agree with all of the comments especially the time constraint we all seem to be under.

Reading your responses have made me think about the scenario design and how that can affect a persons choices to use "real" tactics or the ever popular "lets charge and see if the rules fall apart" concept. Would eliminating the need to march all of the forces onto the board for 5 turns erase the need to charge the moment you get close enough? Possibly starting the forces just outside of knife fighting range would cause the players to reconsider their options?

I have noticed as DisasterWargamer points out that the more my group plays one set of rules the better they are at using the small nuances the rules provide but not everyone does it either. I have some in the group who will do the samething each and every time regardless of the number of times the rules have been played.

Never call out, Last Turn! Then all carefully planned strategy and execution of the last three hours goes out the door. Everyone charges.

I learn to wargame as a team sport. In my younger days we took the time to carefully go over the battle plan. Everyone played their part, it was fun.

We would take the time to prep the enemy before we attack. Develop our flanks, hold a reserve until the right time.

We always played all day Saturday. At least eight hours or more. If the scenario called for 28 turns then we played all 28 or until one side conceded. Sometimes we would leave the game setup and continue the next weekend.

Now a days, everyone wants to finish a game in about two hours. Many will play during the week instead of a Saturday. I don't know if this is because some many younger players don't have the time or it is a carry over from fantasy and sci-fi gaming. Defiantly shorter attention spans has something to do with it.

Conventions are the worst, nobody follows a plan. It is everyone for themselves. I like signing for a game as a group. We all know what to do and we develop a quick but effective plan. Can't lose.

Millennials have trouble paying attention. Between turns they often are fiddling with their phones instead of keeping up with the game.

This trend is bad for historical gaming. You can't form any kind of strategy. Even if you have the perfect plan someone will look at his watch and see that the Wife said to be home by 5:00 and instead of turning it over to another player, the person charges and gets the entire flank wiped out and then says "great game" got to go.

Forget about softing up the enemy with artillery.

Ummmmm…..
Dudes.
This is not Real Life.
You are whining about Kids Today, excuse me, Millenials, as if they are actually going to get out and VOTE, and not for who you want them to.
You want to play Austerlitz to a conclusion at 1:20 scale and are wailing and rending your garments that Kids Today don't want to spend 12 hours PLAYING A GAME.
I have more fun (is that a dirty word?) playing games the size of Cowpens or Bennington. And I happen to think those teensy weensy little battles are more important than Austerlitz. And we get them done in 3 hours too!

I would hate to play at a convention where The Gang shows up to do it right.

I remember a few years ago we were playing a WW2 game of a rear guard action. My buddy and I were ex-army, he a tanker and I artillery. We the game with zero casualties and inflicted significant casualties on the opposition. At the end of the game the scenario designer's comment was "I never saw anyone use real tactics before".

I blame movies. Every battle happens in well under two hours….

Winston: Uh, who exactly is wailing and whining?

I would hate to play at a convention where The Gang shows up to do it right.

>

Do what right? And why would you hate it?

Hey Winston old boy, lighten up. No one is wailing and whining (except for you) about this. Just responding to the OP. Why would anyone make this up? From my experience it happens to be true.

One of the best games I was in at a convention was a Middle Ages game. I think the rules were "Thistle and Rose" or something like that. My side ended up with me and two sixteen year olds against two very experience players.

We are suppose to defend and they were on the attack. I took the two kids aside and told them we are going to win this battle and here is how. The two kids wanted to charge on the first turn. I said they have to attack us. We are going to sit back and have our archers tear them apart and then we will counter attack.

That is exactly what happened. The guy running the game said that is the exact correct strategy but nobody does it. They always charge and meet in the middle.

Oh and it is "okay to have fun" some of my favorite games were six to eight hour affairs and we had a lot of fun. We only did one game a month, so it wasn't that big a deal.

I would hesitate to blame the players too much. One problem (outside of scenario design), is that our rules make real life tactics too slow and boring, so why not make them faster and more explicit e.g. longer move distances to allow the use of reserves, simply disallow assaults against units which aren't suppressed, give massive bonuses for flanking etc. People do cotton on quite quickly.

I agree with what is being said about scenario design. Starting the two sides closer is often the way to go.

The only thing is when doing a historical scenario where artillery played a big part in weakening a defensive position or on units. You can assume damage has already been done and just start the battle at a later stage to speed things up.

When I was having my first course on Infantry tactics in the army, my initial thoughts were, "This can't be right, we play it differently on the table."

Not all rules allow you to play real-life tactics (granularity of action), nor do all rules reward real-life tactics.
But even if you have a ruleset that does so, players often go for the most fun actions, rather than the 'correct tactics'. Lack of a good scenario or context is often to blame.

Anyway, miniature wargaming is all about moving miniatures on the table, not about miniatures being static and rolling dice. Moving the toys is were the fun is. So players subconsciously gravitate towards that.

For me one or two hour games are not worth the effort. I spend a good deal of time and money to set up a great looking game with all the figures, for such a short time. Just not worth the time and effort.

Fortunately most of the guys in our club can hang for three to five hours plus. Otherwise not worth it.

Whereas I have to try and put on 'realistic' and fun games which last no more than one and half hours.

So a degree of abstraction is required.

I think historical tactics can be easier to use if there is only one player on a side. I have played a version of Gettysburg where we essentially had three days of battle happening simultaneously because otherwise two players on each side would do some fairly inconsequential fighting while the other two players fought tooth and nail over part of the field.

I have rarely fought in campaigns but it really concentrates the mind that you have to achieve the objective as efficiently as possible. Losses that you take are unavailable for the following battles but objectives unachieved have further impacts on how the campaign goes. The main campaign that I was part of had the enemy run by an umpire – the reactions of the enemy were effectively pre-planned so it didn't turn into a sequence of one player vs. another across the table which I often see. Players had to co-operate and each could take a useful role.

It did still give opportunity for individual skill and attitude to play a part, though rash players soon found that their men had a shorter life span than others. OTOH, cautious players could let down the team by providing insufficient cover. As the campaign progressed, each player had the chance to be overall commander and it could provide opportunities to match a role with what you (thought you) knew about a player.

What it can come down to is that for some players, a glorious charge with plenty of action which leads to their troops' destruction is more fun than a well executed plan which achieves an objective but has minimal combat.

I've heard people say that with multiple players per side there's no need for command control. True, people start doing what they please and devil take the plan. How often have you seen troops in an excellent defensive position leave and attack?

I would posit that in a real battle the tendency of most commanders is to sit and wait for orders to attack while keeping gamers on their start line for more than a couple turns is nearly impossible.

I would not blame the length of the games, mostly the rules don't reward or penalise the actions of the players acting or failing to act using real life tactics. Sometimes this is deliberate as the tactics are not really relevant to the level of the game. At a Corp level game is it up to the commander to order formations, I would say probably not.

A two hour game that brings out the relevant issues and circumstances of a battle is far more interesting to me than 6 hours of rolling dice, making sure I am in the relevant formation for the rules. I want to learn something about the battle, technology, personalities, that is a great game to me.

Given that I have played in some great all day games where the focus was on supply lines, communication, finding the enemy, or avoiding the enemy?

Martin is correct design the game to give rewards to the correct actions.

Also to stick my head up, I also read the first part of this as a bit of a whing at the yoof of today, so I'm with Winston on this one. Btw everyone remember back to the blunders we made when we started, how else do you learn. Plus short attention spans are not age dependent in my experience.

Very interesting comments and thanks to everyone for responding.

A couple of my group are at least 35 years old but the majority of them are over 45. The whole whining of the youth thing doesn't really apply and the convention games I've run I don't think I've had too many under 25.

Time wise our games last about 4 hours not including setup and take down. I've played in games that take all day and some were great and others tend to drag on and on, while you are waiting for one side of the table to finish rolling for close combat and they have ten of them to do.

As for scenario design, I've found when I develop a scenario where I'm picking the battle up at the critical point and one army is already "battered" the players on that side aren't as enthusiastic as if they were starting with a fresh army. In their heads the battle is already lost. So I try not to do that anymore. However if I'm creating a scenario with the purpose of not recreating a specific battle, I try to add in worthwhile goals/objectives for each side so they have to work together in some format to win.

Rules are a big pain when it comes to creating a battle on the table top. Lets say you wanted to recreate a fight in the woods, the rule set can really hamper your ability to play that scenario depending on how it defines and instructs you on how to move/fight through terrain that isn't flat grassland. If you pick a rule set that really penalizes you for moving/fighting in the woods then both sides aren't going to be happy. For example: I played in a game where each time you moved in the woods you rolled a d6, depending on what you rolled would depend on how far you would move. I couldn't roll above a 1 that entire game and spent my gaming time just trying to get into the battle.

There are so many factors to almost mind boggling to think about.

I've never understood the argument that games should require players to use "historically correct tactics."

Tactics in the real world are developed in the context of that real world: where the commander can't see more than about 10% of the field at any time, can't be certain about the enemy's whereabouts or strength, and knows that his every decision may send men whose lives he cares about, to their deaths.

Since none of those conditions exist in the game world – regardless of what rules we're playing – of course there's no relationship between the game tactics and the historical tactics. The most you can hope for is some sort of artificial mimicry or replica of the real tactics enforced by game rules, which is just yet another artificial thing that didn't exist in the real world.

Something like "bounding overwatch," for instance, is a tactic that makes sense only in the real world of limited intelligence and limited control. It makes little sense in the game world where we have omniscience, and the worst that can happen is that we lose a few lead figures.

"design the game to give rewards to the correct actions."

I suppose we could all concentrate very hard and imagine that we don't know that there's a Jagdpanther hiding behind that farmhouse, and force ourselves to move out into the open and get ambushed. That would be the "correct" action for our column of vehicles in that situation, most likely. But I'm not sure how a game could "reward" the allied commander for having done that historically "correct" thing that gets him killed.

If the historical commander had been able to look down on the table and see the Jagdpanther hiding there, the "correct" thing would have been not to move into its field of fire. In other words: if real battles were like games, the "correct" tactics would be like game tactics.

McLaddie, as often, has nailed it.

To dim the problem:

Get smacked a few time by proper tactics.

Play campaigns or sort of. One gets really more attentive to losses, even of irregular cossacks.

Of course use rules that reward good tactics.

Garth in the Park: Thank you for your perspective. I like it.

Just as footnote to all of this and how I feel about putting on games. I want the people who are standing around the table to have a good time and go home not feeling like they wasted 4 hours. Maybe I care too much about how things mesh together.

PS – Thinking about the idea that a game should "reward" players for the "correct actions," it's worth noting that you can't reward both sides simultaneously. A battle is usually a zero-sum affair in which one side's success and reward is the other side's pain.

I actually played a WW2 game in which we German players had a PaK-40 and a StuG in an ambush position and the Americans came on with a column of Shermans and M3s. The referee forced them to come down the road and as they emerged into the clear we of course blasted them.

After five Shermans were burning and the American players were pretty discouraged and looking for the door, the referee informed the players that it was pretty obviously a German victory, but we could keep on playing if we wanted to, and he'd "give" the Americans another tank platoon and they could do whatever they wanted this time, for the sake of having a better game.

That was a great example of a game that forced the players to do the "correct actions," and rewarded one side for it. The American players went away grumbling. They had been forced to do the correct actions, and paid accordingly.

Generally I think that players are happier with ahistorical tactics, as long as the game provides everybody with some good fun that resembles the war in some reasonably acceptable way.

"I suppose we could all concentrate very hard and imagine that we don't know that there's a Jagdpanther hiding behind that farmhouse"

Or use some system where one side don't know that there is a Jagdpanther hiding behind a house. Hidden movement and drawn ambushes can be a pain and I wouldn't want to use them most of the time but they can make for interesting games. All of a sudden, scout cars actually have a use.
Some games use a system of blinds – units are hidden until identified and might be dummy units. Again, recce units/light cavalry etc actually play a more historical part. Had a great game where an enemy advance was very slow because they feared what we had in a wood – turned out they were only faced by a small number of light infantry which they could have swept aside if the figures were actually deployed. If they had sent their own LI into the wood ahead of the main body, they would have discovered that and been able to redeploy to fight our main defensive force.

Hi there

Rallynow said
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

I agree with what is being said about scenario design. Starting the two sides closer is often the way to go.

The only thing is when doing a historical scenario where artillery played a big part in weakening a defensive position or on units. You can assume damage has already been done and just start the battle at a later stage to speed things up.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Yes, too many games / rules exhaust an hour or 90 mins of game time as players move their armies to where they were always going to go. So allowing either or both to start much closer to (or over?) the center line makes sense.

Advancing under guns can be computed by moving the non-gun troops to the point they can challenge the guns. Then compute how much punishment they took under the notional x turns to get there.

The advancing player, if having taken hits more than he can tolerate could retrospectively call off the advance (having been assumed to ordered a halt mid-way, your rules might have a mechanism for the order to fail) push the troops back to a position he feels comfortable and randomly retract hits that were notionally scored in the now retracted move(s).

The artillery player would now gain some initiative depending on how your rules work.

A mechanism like this advances the game without exhausting hours of game-time – the advancing player might try to press home with his damaged troops or the artillery-player counterattack on the repulsed enemy.

Regards

David F Brown

We will sometimes measure winning or losing against the expected result, so you may fail to take the position, but if you did better than the actual event ( for a recreation) then you can say you "won".

However the best way we have found is to not even try to work out who won and lost just to have a fun evening. My favourite quote was when we were talking after a game once, a new player declared after finding out we thought there was no clear winner that "so everyone lost " and we all looked at him and said err no.

I would also be disappointed if any of us designed a game with a deadly ambush and made someone drive into it without giving them something else to balance it up.I believe giving the players choices to make is part of having a great evening.

"I would also be disappointed if any of us designed a game with a deadly ambush and made someone drive into it without giving them something else to balance it up."

Sure, that's what he did. But for me, at any rate, that's also the point at which the game veered away from historical tactics and decisions, and off onto pure "game."

(Which is fine with me, by the way, but it just shows that we don't really want games to be quite as accurate as we say we do.)

I see a lot of people talk about realistic scenarios and whatnot, but most gaming tables I see feature two textbook strength forces with every man accounted for, and ends with the winner taking "only" 40% casualties 5 turns later.

As far as time, Gaming is like sex. Too quick and the only one satisfied is the one bloke who got to roll the dice, but drag too long and things start to chafe.

Weasel, please don't link sex and wargaming that is an image I don't want next time I go to a wargame show !

I agree casualty rates are far too high which shows it is a game not a simulation.

Gareth, what I meant about getting the game to reward historical tactics is the mechanisms should encourage an historical approach but not limit you. So for example design a rule allowing you to get suppression of an enemy force, then give a bonus for attacking a suppressed unit. This might encourage a fire and movement approach. However you don't have to do that it's not just the optimum result, then then people don't live in an optimum way.

At the end of the day if you win or lose its because you were lucky or know the game better, not because you are a general of Alexander the Great status. Real warfare involves a vast more variables , is slower and more bloody and includes things which we don't want to game such as logistics.

Another problem with "following historical tactics", is that often, the historical tactics were not the most optimal way of doing things, but were rather the consequence of doctrine, training, traditions, conservatism, etc. Even though a commander might know a specific decision was suboptimal, it was perhaps the best decision he could make given such constraints.

It's difficult to capture that in rules. At the simplest level, you could award some modifiers for doing x or y. But these modifiers in turn might influence behaviour in players that have the exact opposite effect. E.g. suppose one army had suboptimal fire ability. We might give them a -1 in firing. But perhaps this means the player will stay away from open firefights, while in reality, the soldiers might not have done that. They just were bad at firing, which is something different from evading firefights.

Tactical doctrine is best inserted in a wargame by roleplaying, irrespective of the rules. Brief the player that his force behaved historically in a specific manner, and that he should try to do that as well. If players are approaching the game with that spirit, historical tactics have a better chance of being reflected.

In the end, it's a question of what the gaming rules (esp. combat resolution) are for:
- simply to resolve combat that is the result of earlier decisions w.r.t. movement and manoeuvre?
- to guide decisions w.r.t. movement and manoeuvre, such that optimal combat resolutions are obtained?
Although subtle, there is a difference … :-)

Umm, I think there might be a degree of overthinking things here.

I'm not suggesting that you ask players to close their eyes and pretend they can't see an ambush (although I know some players who will happily do that), more that the game mechanisms and/or scenario provide some incentives to do sensible things in the context of the period. Like maintain a reserve, or bombard a target with artillery before attacking it, or outflank/win fire superiority before an infantry assault. e.g. the supported formation bonuses in Shako or Twilight of the Sun King are a brilliant means to encourage players to deploy their infantry in double lines. They don't have to, but there are considerable benefits from doing so, and it encourages the sorts of deployments Jomini and Clausewitz would recognise.

Neil Thomas has much to say on this in his various wargaming books. But it really doesn't need to be complicated.

Martin, +1

Phil, I agree it's always nice to see some roleplaying of the period flavour.

Another problem with "following historical tactics", is that often, the historical tactics were not the most optimal way of doing things, but were rather the consequence of doctrine, training, traditions, conservatism, etc. Even though a commander might know a specific decision was suboptimal, it was perhaps the best decision he could make given such constraints.

It's difficult to capture that in rules. At the simplest level, you could award some modifiers for doing x or y. But these modifiers in turn might influence behaviour in players that have the exact opposite effect. E.g. suppose one army had suboptimal fire ability. We might give them a -1 in firing. But perhaps this means the player will stay away from open firefights, while in reality, the soldiers might not have done that. They just were bad at firing, which is something different from evading firefights.

Maybe reward players for suboptimal but traditional tactics with "doctrine/historicity points" which can be used to raise Morale/Confidence ("we trained this and it always wroked at the excersie and they told us that at boot camp co we are confident") or even for VPs.

Excellent thread, overall. Thanks VicCina. :)

I've been giving this some thought and it seems to me that at times the rule systems we use don't allow the tactics to happen either.
Whether that be a constraint on firing and moving or the sequence of when a fire phase happens or when the movement phase happens. I believe this to be true whether its IGOUGO system or a randomize card driven system.

I've never understood the argument that games should require players to use "historically correct tactics."

Garth:
Me neither. There is no 'should' to it. It all depends on what a particular player wants and what designers attempt to design in the way of wargames. Obviously, a lot of gamers don't have any requirement to use 'historically correct tactics." A lot do, but there is no should, only want.

Tactics in the real world are developed in the context of that real world: where the commander can't see more than about 10% of the field at any time, can't be certain about the enemy's whereabouts or strength, and knows that his every decision may send men whose lives he cares about, to their deaths.

So wargames might need to focus on those issues in creating a game environment and context of real tactics.

Since none of those conditions exist in the game world – regardless of what rules we're playing – of course there's no relationship between the game tactics and the historical tactics. The most you can hope for is some sort of artificial mimicry or replica of the real tactics enforced by game rules, which is just yet another artificial thing that didn't exist in the real world.

Uh, that is what any simulation is: A replica of reality. A simulation game is simply created with game mechanics. The real world connection is in what that wargame [artificial environment…that is fake] asks the participants to do and the decisions they need to make.

There is no design reason that real world tactics can't work in a wargame, depending on what it was designed to do and how well.

Another problem with "following historical tactics", is that often, the historical tactics were not the most optimal way of doing things, but were rather the consequence of doctrine, training, traditions, conservatism, etc. Even though a commander might know a specific decision was suboptimal, it was perhaps the best decision he could make given such constraints.

Phil:
Yeah, that is what doctrine is. The tools but constraints
a commander worked with. Doctrine is what troops trained for, what sub-commanders were expected to do. Much of that was to avoid confusion and a lack of uniformity to tactical situations that a commander could only direct in a very general way. Trying to make the army act outside of doctrine and training might work, but the odds of it working were far less than following doctrine.

Look at the French I Corps at Waterloo. They might have fared better if they'd followed doctrine.

Tactical doctrine is best inserted in a wargame by roleplaying, irrespective of the rules. Brief the player that his force behaved historically in a specific manner, and that he should try to do that as well. If players are approaching the game with that spirit, historical tactics have a better chance of being reflected.

I think that misses what doctrine was all about and how hard it was to counter training and doctrinal tactics on the battlefield. Doctrine was all the way up and down the army hierarchy. I am thinking of the Austrians during the 1866 war. Would historical tactics be followed by an Austrian player 'with that spirit'?

That isn't to say your approach doesn't have merit. It does. It just doesn't cover what 'following doctrine' meant for different armies in different eras.