"Command and Control rules in Napoleonic Rule Sets" Topic

What Sort of Command-and-control Rules Suit a Set of Napoleonic Wargames Rules?

Before I start clearly there are many variables to this not least the level of the force commander a set of rules is trying place you in the shoes of.
By command and control rules I mean rules that try to limit a player's omniscience and try to introduce some sort of friction, so a player doesn't have a free hand with his miniature armies.
Below I've listed a few of the sort of rules I've encountered or seem popular across wargaming rule sets of all time periods. I'd be interested to know if people think a particular one suits the way Napoleonic battles played out historically better than the others. Or if there are other ideas not on the list below, I'd like to hear them.

1) Written orders or order counters. Basically, give written orders to your units and make them carry those orders out as close as possible. Pretty old school these days and usually containing a rule to allow you change orders during the game by sending a messenger or ADC.

2)Unit activation Black Powder is a good example as are the Rampant series of wargames. Create a number roll above (or below) that number on some dice to activate a unit failure means the unit doesn't do anything success allows the unit some sort of activity. In Rampant style games failure passes initiative to your opponent in Black powder you can activate a unit multiple times with good dice rolls.

3) Command pips. Basically, the DBX school of games. At its simplest roll a dice and move as many units as you scored from your command. It can be made more subtle by adding things like command radius (i.e., units beyond 12" need two pips to move)

4) Card activation. Use a deck of cards to activate units. Two ways to do this the card activates a specific unit or a card activates a side the player then chooses which unit performs an action.

5) Don't bother. One other option very old school again I guess you could call it the Warhammer way. Just keep games a simple ugo-Igo system and allow players free reign to react with their troops however they want the only real constraint on unit behavior being inflicted by morale rules.

I like the general de Armee system personally. Anything that says orders, write orders, change orders, issue orders, immediately meets mr. dusty shelf. It spoils a rule set for me, no matter how well the rest of it was put together.

Really bummed that the orders mechanic was used in Snappy Nappy, otherwise great ruleset. March Attack was another slick set ruined by "orders". Shako 1&2, draw a sketch- really?! Countless other Napoleonic sets botched by this restrictive and unnecessary mechanic.

6) Your opponent knows how many "pips" you've got and you keep using them until you're told you've run out. Blucher I think . . .

7) You calculate your "pips" by rolling a dice per skirmisher factor. Each 6 is a pip. The highest scoring player has initiative, but certain move options result in initiative being surrendered to the enemy. Bound ends when both sides have used their initiative, so a sort of semi Igo Ugo. Lasalle II

Cheers,
John

Thanks Mike. I have to agree with order writing in some ways its probably the most realistic that's what real world generals had to do after all. Having played games back in the 1980s where it was all the rage to write your orders down they never seemed to provide very satisfactory games. Orders were quickly forgotten by players in the heat of battle or pushed beyond their real intent plus it was just time consuming.

Having not played it what sort of Command and Control rules mechanic does does General de Armee use?

Erzherzog Johann@ thanks interesting both those are new mechanisms on me.

I do not like rules that use command radius! Command and control is a process…NOT a radius! Command and control consists of 5 elements:

1. Commanding Element- Issues orders.
2. Commanded Element- Receives the orders and does all they can to see those orders carried out.
3. Downward flow of communications.
4. Upward flow of communications. This is reporting up the chain to keep them appraised of the progress of carrying out the orders assigned. Also to better inform HHQ if resistance is greater than expected. Communicate needs of the unit.
5. Friction at all of the 4 levels. Enemy resistance, discovering that gully that wasn't on the map, messengers getting lost or killed, effects of time and/or distance during communication, conflicting new orders from HHQ's HQ, enemy showing up at the wrong place at the wrong time, etc.

I think that we gamers have a great helicopter view of our battlefields. Our miniature counterparts shouldn't. Before new orders that react to a tabletop changed situation, the HHQ should prove that they were made aware of it.

Since time and distance (and delays acting upon incoming info from the commands – like actionable intel) are facts of life and only get better with inventions like all terrain motor transport, a mile will always be a mile and 60 seconds will always be a minute. Perhaps the only linear (MEANING ALWAYS) standard we have. Everything else is non-linear (can be variable due to the effect of external factors upon the possible result).

So my point is that designers use command radius to represent what they feel is a reasonable distance that can be covered within the time the turn represents. They do not take into consideration the effect that friction could play on battleplans(misunderstood orders; poorly written orders; chances messages never get received; etc. "It's too much trouble" yet the designers tout that their rules are historical? While the new car may be shiny, good luck driving it off the lot if it doesn't have any wheels!

Last, why do we allow new orders to be issued to all commands every turn? My gosh….imagine being told to do something different every 15 minutes…before you have even had a chance to accomplish the first ones received? A commanding general would need a cracker jack staff AND a continuous flow of fresh, updated information to base those decisions on! (See item 4 above.)

So my dear Prince, a wonderful point you bring up. The topic is sure to create a deluge of responses. (In my book, a good thing if it can be discussed decently and insights shared.

Remember folks, a game simulates many things but the better ones try to address important issues beyond moving, shooting and general categories that rate unit behavior in a linear way.

The General d'Armee system is very good, with tactical orders for each brigade mitigated by ADCs.
Shako's system with arrows on a map is also good; nice and simple, and less ambiguous than written orders

It depends on what playability v Realism balance you wish to achieve. In a playability focused set of rules command and control is minimal. You can have things like command bonus, special movement bonuses and so on, but you need to avoid any type of rule which restricts what you can do without a commander doing something. At the other end if you wish a realism focus, then what your units can do or not do is dependent on command. I tend to prefer rules which keep is as simple as possible, but if the rules are well designed the realism rules can be very enjoyable.

An interesting discussion ! Perhaps it is necessary to formulate some base principles ? First question: playable OR as realistic as possible ? Certainly Dye4minis is right about the command radius. However: using a command radius could help playability (so sacrifice some reality). Johnny Reb III (and perhaps other rules that I do not know of) uses counters for "first fire" (before any movement), "disengage","hold", "charge", "move" (with an arrow to show the direction). At the start of every movement players lay down the counters in front of every unit and then turn them to show the results. An elegant solution of the order/helicopter-problem, at least IMHO. See the comment of Mike Petro: writing orders in a micromanaging way (for each unit for instance) ican be funkilling. Perhaps we should accept a gliding scale not only in Napoleonic wargaming but many periods more, between playability and as realistic as possible (because never the twain will meet ;-)) and each of us is too individualistic to accept only one standard. We just have to compromise with each opponent, and why would that be a bad thing ?

Option '1)' is the ONLY one that actually represents command and control, all the others settle for introducing 'friction' that prevents all units from acting as desired in accordance with the gamer's God's-eye view of the battlefield. The latter methods give an element of uncertainty and/or a limit on how much can be done and do force gamers to priroitise their actions but it isn't really command and control.
The problem is that writing orders and representing their transmission is hard to achieve without lots of book keeping – I know I'm trying to develop a simpler method at present. So it all comes down to what players want from their games and many just want a game played with toy soldiers, and why not?
Personally I prefer battle plans drawn up in advance and then played out with limited opportunity, and much delay, to change the plan, but horses for courses and all that.

In Empire III, a activation has to be rolled to get your maneuver element ( basically a infantry division or cavalry brigade) to move in the beginning. Have had a ME not move for turns. But as I see it there is no command radius at all otherwise. I always assume the officer in high command of a Brigade, division or Corp would not be riding around outside of his command anyway.
You can take any of these commanders and downgrade their command and attach a division to a particular Regiment or Battalion for a moral boost.

Et Sans Resultat and Cold Steen and Cannister;

Each force (corps or division). Has an objective. It must move full speed toward that objective until it (a) gets there (b) runs in to the enemy or (c) gets a new objective normally requiring a die roll.

Grande Armee:

Command Pips. You get X pips by due based on leader quality. You may try activating cirps w/o pips but can lose control of them.

Best bit is pips are used in move/shoot pulse but # of pulses per turn is variable.

In this discussion, I believe we should recognize "command" and "control" as distinct concepts. A unit is in "control" if the commander knows (approximately) where it is, in what status, and what enemy formations or other constraints are acting upon it (either because he can see it himself or he has received a fairly recent and fairly reliable situation report). Furthermore the unit must be capable of receiving and acting upon instructions (communication is possible and the unit has a willing and able commander). Control is the prerequisite for enacting the overall commander's will.

But "control" alone does not suffice; the commander (and his staff, if that concept applies to the period in question) must formulate and transmit orders to the in-control subordinate that are (a) timely (i.e. they arrive before enemy action makes them impossible to carry out) and (b) practicable. Generating such orders requires the commander to arrive at a decision (a process that itself takes time, energy, and moral courage), to translate that decision into positive instructions, and to transmit those instructions (using up communication assets, whether that be riding up to deliver the order personally, dispatching a competent aide-de-camp from the limited number of the same, or writing out these orders (with a copy kept for record, etc.).

A wargame C2 system needs to address both concepts to be in any way a satisfactory representation of reality. A "command radius" mechanism does, IMHO, an adequate job of representing "control". Clearly in our period if a formation is more than a few miles away, such as Grouchy at Wavre, the time it will take for reports and orders to pass back and forth will greatly limit the degree of tactical control possible (although strategic orders will still be issued). But "control" representation needs to be matched with some "command" mechanism that puts a limit on how much, how often, and how successfully a commander can issue positive orders to his forces.

Instead of "orders" why not the concept of "Posture"? Every battle begins with a plan. Each "command" (Brigade, Division, Corps) should begin the game with a "posture" that supports the overall commander's plan.

A simple way is to assign postures. Those would be one of the following:

Attack- With an assigned objective
Defend -With an assigned objective
Maneuver-With a designated location
Reserve- Standing by in a posture ready to maneuver awaiting order as to where to go.

Commands would continue to function to achieve the objectives as the subordinate command commander (Brigade, Division, etc.) by commanding their command , in the manner he sees fit, until the next higher command changes their posture. Should the subordinate command achieve their objective, their posture reverts to "Defend" until a new posture is received. In the case of "Maneuver", if attacked, the command's posture reverts to "Defend" until a new posture is received. (In this case, it is possible to receive orders changing the direction of their destination yet still be under "maneuver" posture.

What gamers really don't realize is that throughout history, officers prime responsibility (as an official of the state) is to protect the assets of their country (state). A significant portion of their country's assets are wrapped up into the units they are in command of. Consider training, food, clothing, medical, etc. is paid for by the nation. Therefore, the commander always has the authority to "defend" and protect his command. Conversely, he is only authorized to engage in offensive combat (and thusly risking loss to his country's assets) unless ordered to do so by competent, appointed officers above him.

Once this basic of all principals is understood by the gamers, the posture system described above not only works, it models the command systems that have been common throughout history.

The time and distance issue of communication: Simple system. Each Division is assigned a colored die (1D6 in this example). Brigade "a" blue, "b" green, "c" red. etc. From Brigade to Division, the die is rolled and the pips is the number of turns before it reaches the intended command level. Track by placing the die at the next level HQ. The color identifies where it came from and the die returns to the sender with a downward flow of communication in response. The communication can be acted upon on the turn the die reaches "1". Each die drops by one pip as the first thing at the beginning of the complete turn.

Time and distance, and the effects of friction are all included in colored die roll. No book work. Obvious current status seen by all. Puts gamers playing commanding and commanded leaders into playable yet uncertainty at the level they are playing which should result in more fun for the gamers.

Lots of words to describe a very simple mechanic that is not only playable but is modeled upon real-life factors of how the process works in real life. No more "Sir, if we move one more inch we will be out of command control!"

tbh, as long as the mechanism feel right and produce some believable choices and friction, I don't really care about the specific mechanics. I'm happy with PIPs, activation dice/cards, written orders (Shako style only please), order chits, command cards, even command radii or just having lots of players – the only proviso is that they need to mesh with the other rules mechanisms and be appropriate for the level of game being played. Too often, C2 is just bolted on to other stuff.

As I'm a big battle sort of guy, my preferred manouvre units are Corps, so the mechanism which work for that are likely to be different than if pushing a few battalions around.

Whether you want to call this "command and control", or something else, these kinds of rules represent all the things that make a unit misbehave, whether it is a local problem (that bog wasn't marked on the map) or a command (ADC with orders forgot his map).

So any detailed analysis of messenger speed, terrain, distance, weather, direction of communication, etc is missing the point, which is to introduce friction in a simple, playable way.

Accounts of battles are full of units misunderstanding objectives, disobeying orders, or getting stuck due to unexpected terrain or enemy action. I've just been reading an account of Albuera…

I have no idea what the best solution is, and welcome the discussion/debate

The other thing is that napoleonic battles (and French revolutionary wars) showed very different tactics from earlier 18th century battles, despite very little change in technology (artillery more mobile). I've played lots of great rules that gave great 18th century battles, but nothing that really captured the napoleonic period

John

Certainly units not going where they should or doing something they shouldn't happens in battles

To follow-on from jwebster's post, to take Albuera as an example:

Beresford was initially uncertain if there was going to be a battle at Albuera; it was only one of the routes that Soult might have taken to relieve Badajoz
When the route was better known, a previous passable ford became impassable after the water level rose, so some troops which would have arrived (Kemmis') did not.

Long retreated too fast in front of the advancing French advance guard cavalry
Blake's army moved very slowly ~9 hours for 5 miles
Madden had made an 'eccentric movement' and crossed the Guadiana with his brigade, -2 squadrons only.
Cole's troops only reached the field at 0630, having started the march at 0200

Beresford could see most of what Soult's troops were doing though this was hard to interpret in places because of the extensive woods; Soult could see little of Beresford's army past the skyline
Soult had no idea that Blake had arrived(!)

When the direction of Soult's flank attack became known, Beresford ordered Blake to counter it with ~half of his force. Blake however considered that this flank attack might be another feint before a renewed central attack, so instead only 1/6 of his force (one brigade of Zayas' Div). He sent more when he realized the truth, but these only arrived during the course of the fighting.
Girard, the senior French Divisional commander, took responsibility for the formation used in the infantry attack.

Latour-Maubourg declined to charge the Allied cavalry because of the presence of 8 Bns in support (Latour-Maubourg had discretion)

Stewart (commander of British 2 Div) changed his orders from 'support' which Beresford had given him and decided to attack the flank of the attacking French
Latour-Maubourg, seeing the French reversal and the exposed British flank, to launch two cavalry regiment – this movement was obscured by a sudden squall and also the smoke and confusion of the infantry battle.
Stewart may have refused Colborne's (the commander of the brigade involved) advice to allow the flanking British battalion to be in square during the advance
Lumley sent in two squadrons to intercept the retreating Imperial cavalry but were intercepted and defeated by fresh Imperials in their turn
Attacking lancers went so far in their attack that they ended up in the rear of Zayas' troops
French reinforcing infantry attacked not in proper order but mixed up with Girard's troops

Now that Soult became aware of Blake's presence, he changed his objectives for the battle into defensive ones

Beresford ordered up Hamilton's infantry to support; this took much longer than expected because:
Hamilton had moved from his original set position to support Alten's Brigade in Albuera, as the attack had been quite fierce; also some of the ADCs sent were wounded. The former was the most important reason.
Espana's brigade refused to follow orders (not due to losses, but from prior demoralization)

Alten was ordered to move from Albuera village and a spanish brigade support by a Portuguese brigade would occupy it. Alten withdrew, the French occupied it before the Spanish could, then Alten was ordered to re-take the village (which was done).

The Portuguese Deputy QMG then persuaded Cole to put his division into the attack.

(incidentally, worth recording the beating off of the 4-regiment French Dragoon attack by Portuguese infantry in line)

Tactically, French officers tried to deploy their columns in firefights but were unable to achieve this.

I hope that shows that none of the methods discussed so far including written orders has the slightest hope of capturing the real command and control issues – the only way a commander could ensure that a subordinate did what he wanted was to be at his shoulder, all the time. The main thread running through most of those examples above is subordinate formation commanders, for better or worse, exercising their initiative based on their perception of local circumstances and priorities and temperament; the other elements can largely be put down to generals just being able to see too much and know too much.

Really, IMHO the best way to do this, if you really want to do it, is to play Kriegspiel, perhaps replacing the combat rules (which are the least important point of it); or play megagames. Failing that, I don't think there is much to choose between your options 2-4 (6 & 7 & Grande Armee are just sub-sets of 3). If you have a decent fog-of-war system, then 5 will work fine too. Again IMHO, 1 is basically a terrible option because it is awful conceptually from a game POV (too much administrative activity to achieve routine effects; subject to all kinds of stupid meta-gaming techniques) but is also less good at actually reflecting the friction than the others.

One good idea for bigger battles I think would be to quite sharply distinguish between conditions of 'engaged', 'supporting' and 'reserve'; not only would this allow the rules to make it much slower to give fresh orders to 'engaged' units rather than 'support' units, but there would be an effect within the rules for supporting units to be dragged into engagements and for reserve units to be dragged into 'supporting' – all of these movements would have a positive and negative side.

Whirlwind@ thank you that was a well argued and thought provoking post. I guess I was overly focused on the player's role in the game when placing so much evidence on orders, although I did admit they can be too onerous for a game. Likewise a full Kriegsspiel approach is probably the best but probably too resource intensive for most.
Your Albuera examples could be said to bring out a nice distinction between, command (what the commander had told or expected them to do) and control (what their subordinates actually did). Remote multi-player games seem an obvious way to achieve this and at the same time deny the big picture to the subordinate officer, or even CinC.
I like your ideas about gradation of commitment from reserve to support and then engaged. Have you written any of these ideas into a set of rules or found a set that has?

That is certainly an interesting example, and perhaps why you need a range of techniques, depending on how much loss of control your players are willing to tolerate.

For larger nineteenth century battles I do sometimes wonder if you might as well just roll random unit actions once formations are deployed, while the the 'players' just watch the horror unfold. This is particularly true once you get to the 1850s and beyond. I am sure Benedek was a little surprised to find his entire right wing at Koeniggratz had decided to attack the Prussians entirely of their own accord.

BTW, the Shako orders system encompasses both extensive delays and foolish attacks which can't be stopped as it operates at a formation level. It doesn't do units deciding to unilaterally do stuff on their own, but few rules do. My regular players run screaming at the suggestion that they might have to draw a map with a couple of lines and arrows on it however.

The biggest problem is the player omniscience mentioned in the OP, because fog of war should be a huge factor. As Clausewitz says, usually a commander didn't have a clear picture of what his own formations were up to, never mind the enemy's, hence every decision was a gamble.

If we measure each of the suggested methods against that:

1) Written orders or order counters: depends on the mechanism for changing orders. If there is plenty of unreliability in that, it could tick the fog-of-war box. But I do mean plenty. Also, as noted by others, it is too much faff for some players. Kriegsspiel is the best way to get realism if you want to directly replicate the orders process.

2) Unit activation: I like this as a proxy for both fog of war and friction, especially if there is provision for units to do something actually contrary to what is desired (retiring instead of advancing, or vice versa).

3) Command pips: while it often limits how much a player can do, it fails the FOW test if it guarantees you can always move the unit you care most about. I think there should still be the possibility that inadequate situational awareness prevents you making that decision.

4) Card activation: doesn't really create fog of war, just fog of play (and I really dislike it as a mechanism for multi-player games).

5) No C3I rules: obviously fails.

6) Bluecher-style secret pips: same reservation as for #3.

7) Initiative/pips combo: same reservation as for #3.

All of these can be mitigated to some degree if FOW is introduced in other ways: blinds or dummies so that players are not certain where the enemy is; variable strengths for units*, unknown until engaged; variable terrain effects* (how defensible is that village really? how impassable is that wood or river?).

In response to Martin's good point about random unit actions, let me cite Sam Mustafa's "Grande Armee" rules where IIRC a unit in contact (ie within 6" of the enemy) had to roll D6 if the owning player tried to move it. On a 1 it would retire, on a 6 it would assault. Seemed a good rule to me – simple but effective.

I'd also like to note how important it is to have some way of bringing out the different characters of different armies. If one side is agile and aggressive while the other is ponderous and cautious, even if they follow the same nominal orders process, your C3I rules need to reflect that somehow.

The command and control approach we used for "Bloody Big Battles!" (BBB) was a simple and basic one. We went for a combination of activation rolls and command radius, with a couple of other tweaks: not all generals get represented at all; difficult terrain penalises activation; passive or fragile armies or units suffer activation penalties. This means that, although players can do things to improve their chances (staying out of the woods; keeping a general nearby; staying in column of march), they can never be sure that a given unit will move. There is a small but suitably significant chance that units will retire involuntarily or even disintegrate if enough circumstances are against them. This introduces a fair amount of friction and FOW. Command radius is a reasonable way to reflect the limitations of (a) a general's situational awareness and (b) his ability to make his units react to the situation.

What BBB still doesn't do (and is hard for any tabletop rules) is make it truly possible to create tabletop deception with a feint attack or by hiding troops behind terrain features, moving them from one flank to another in concealment, etc. For that, devices such as dummies/blinds can help a bit, but you really need Kriegsspiel or scenario special rules.

Chris

*I used these variable strengths and variable terrain methods in "Warring Empires" that was then developed into "Principles of War". WE's command system was effectively equivalent to the objective counter approach (with a die roll to change it), plus a bit of brigade/division formation constraint, plus a menu of automatic reactions that individual units were allowed.

Without some sort of orders and delays, on a reasonably big battlefield, a formation on the left will immediatly react with just activation, on recon news for the player of something at the other side. In reality it might take an hour between dissemination of info, routing orders etc. Delays still exist and at that time they were very real without delays flank attacks would be relatively hamless.
Play balance and simple systems are possible to avoid fantasy games in napoleonic costumes.
Eumalus nailed it.

My opinion to the list. Missing is command radius as an distinct game element of C&C. Napoleons Battles oder Volley & Bayonet are rulesets that only use command radius to limit the ability to move.

As others have mentioned. Blucher and Lasalle 2 are only variants to the PIP system (Lasalle 2 with a more complex initiative system). Grand Armee also fits into the PIP system.

Back to the question asked: What suits napoleonic wargame rules?

The specific IMO is mostly: Napoleonic battles happened in sight of the general, who could usually see his troops and the enemy (nobody tried to hide). Orders could be send in a short time, surprises usually happened by troops in reserve or marching to the battlefield.

So i think most C&C rules work with napoleonic wargaming (WW2 is much more complicated). I personally prefer the PIP systems, because they are fast and give no rule overload. But i think more interesting rules for the troops outside the table (who is were? When will they arrive?) will benefit a napoleonic game. (Yes, my ideas dont work, if you play Ligny and Quatre Bras on the same table.)

@BillyNM,

Thanks. Writing orders could definitely play a part in a game focused on a Napoleonic commander's experience – but such a game would be quite different to what a typical Napoleonic wargame looks like. IIRC there were some occasional experiments along these lines in the 1980s.

I haven't written a set of such rules but I think I have seen something of the concept somewhere. They aren't a million miles away from the IRL RAF Fighter Command system of committing squadrons in 1940. Maybe I will get around to it one day, although I think I am much more likely to convert an existing set than write my own from scratch. There isn't exactly a shortage of Napoleonic rulesets!

For larger nineteenth century battles I do sometimes wonder if you might as well just roll random unit actions once formations are deployed, while the the 'players' just watch the horror unfold. This is particularly true once you get to the 1850s and beyond. I am sure Benedek was a little surprised to find his entire right wing at Koeniggratz had decided to attack the Prussians entirely of their own accord.

That is both true and made me really chuckle.

BTW, the Shako orders system encompasses both extensive delays and foolish attacks which can't be stopped as it operates at a formation level. It doesn't do units deciding to unilaterally do stuff on their own, but few rules do. My regular players run screaming at the suggestion that they might have to draw a map with a couple of lines and arrows on it however.

As far as orders systems go, Shako's system (which also incorporates command radii) is pretty good. But BBB-Chris' and Jcfrog's last posts put a finger on it: the use of written orders wasn't really ever designed to reflect command and control I think, it was designed to combat player omnisicence.

@Jcfrog,

True to an extent, but I hope my Albuera examples show that the distance per se wasn't generally that much of a factor, the attitudes of the commanders and the disposition and current activity of the troops seem to have been more important. Eumalus' description seems IMHO to be much more what a modern officer would think – it assumes that the problems are much more concentrated at the 'higher' formation level whereas the examples I showed in my post much more relate to friction at the 'lower level' – subordinates acting on initiative to earlier events and thus not being in the posture expected by the superior, subordinates judging the situation on the spot to be different to those implied in the order, subordinates just doing something else.

Napoleonic battles happened in sight of the general, who could usually see his troops and the enemy (nobody tried to hide). Orders could be send in a short time, surprises usually happened by troops in reserve or marching to the battlefield.

There were loads of Napoleonic battles where one or both of the generals couldn't see all of the enemy's troops, or their own troops, or both. And there were loads of tactical surprises too (deliberately or inadvertently exploiting opportunities from terrain or weather): I mean, even if you just stuck to Austerlitz and the Waterloo campaign, then they are both full of them.

Good discussion. I especially agree with Dye4Minis: "Command and control is a process…NOT a radius!" – absolutely.

I've not fought a Napoleonic game in years; I got back into painting and amassing when family life stopped me going out on the lash. One day I shall probably play again, but between the ages of about 14 and 19, I did play oodles of games, mainly Quarrie, WRG, and the odd house set (all of the written orders persuasion IIRC), plus quite a few solo games to test out tactical ideas.

This approach required instructions to each wing / bloc or the army, and the personality figure in charge then rode along with his command and implemented the orders. If the overall or a sub-commander wanted to change a unit's actions, a physical ADC figure had to be placed on the table – around which he moved at light cavalry charge speed.

This morphed, I think, into the 'command radius' wheeze because the ADC got the whole mission done and was back within a predictable amount of time. For nearby units this was the same turn. So if he can move at 45cm per turn, you can just say OK there's a 'command radius' of 15cm: 1/3 move to ride to the unit, 1/3 move to find the colonel and relay the message, and 1/3 move to return. This made sub-commands bunch up around their commander so that the controlling player could always do whatever he wanted, regardless of any 'orders', because everyone was inside his radius.

We tried various solutions – one was to limit the number of ADCs, so each had to get back to the commander before any other unit's orders could be altered by sending an ADC. A more successful approach was to give each unit an initiative factor; if the player wanted the unit to do something else, he rolled a dice. If he rolled higher than the initiative factor, the unit could depart from its orders. This actually worked quite well although there was considerable debate about how to set initiative factors in the first place.

All those old rulesets had features whereby you could lose control of your troops – their reacting to a morale test in a way you don't like is a control issue, as is pursuing an enemy too far. I've never seen a C&C setup though where your entire heavy cavalry could charge without your having ordered it. The British heavies at Waterloo are routinely castigated for this, but rarely is the much worse instance that happened among the French heavies remarked on.

In games which pretend to be a simulation of sorts, because we see and do everything, we have the awkward balance between what in real life would be orders from the top and if only that, a full regidity, with the period/ army appropriate delays, and effectively local initiative. Total rigidity is, at times, as ridiculous as immediate action to distant events. Local initiative could be more or less present depending on armies and period. Cavalry for ex. Was supposed to have more as they have speed and need to adapt faster.
Why should things be so easy?

I've never seen a C&C setup though where your entire heavy cavalry could charge without your having ordered it. The British heavies at Waterloo are routinely castigated for this, but rarely is the much worse instance that happened among the French heavies remarked on.

you can manage it in Quarrie if you put your mind to it:

1 – Have a British cavalry brigade of 3 Dragoon regiments
2 – Have their commander move to Wellington to receive some orders. Whoops, moved more than 300m away from their units, need to do a control check!
3 – Have four battalions of Spanish militia march from 350yds to 290yds behind them.
4 – Have three battalions of French infantry standing 305yds in front of them.
5 – Dragoons each have a control number of 4, to which we add 8 for each unit of friends' advancing within 300yds, to which we add the score of an average dice. Even if every unit rolls a '2', the minimum score is 14: all the Dragoon regiments will therefore charge the nearest enemy for 2 moves.

Obviously it isn't very likely (why should the commander leave to meet Wellington rather than stay?) although it could happen if the commander was killed by an artillery ball I guess.

I've never seen a C&C setup though where your entire heavy cavalry could charge without your having ordered it. The British heavies at Waterloo are routinely castigated for this, but rarely is the much worse instance that happened among the French heavies remarked on.

It is a bit easier to achieve in WRG 1685-1845. Put four Raw French Cuirassier regiments under a Rash general. A veteran Prussian infantry regiment advances to ~375 paces having just broken an equal number of raw Frech infantry opposing them. A 12pdr battery opens up with cannister on the cavalry at 400 paces with cannister. This would be 2 points for the cannister, 3 points for the routing French infantry, roll a d6, anything but a 6 means all the cuirassiers must charge,

So if you wanted to allow more of this kind of thing, you could use either as a basis. Barker is easier, you would probably just change the calibration of the factors a bit (perhaps using some of the factors in Quarrie, where there are rather more); with Quarrie, you would need to describe more conditions which would force the initiation of a control test in the first place. And you would need to change some of the unit type control factors (not sure that French Cuirassiers should be less aggressive than the average British line infantry unit, for example!). But neither are a million miles away, is what I am getting at.

@Whirlwind, I'm basing mine on the 'Napoleonic Rules for a large-scale wargame with small-scale figures' by Peter Dennis, Cliff Knight and George Jeffrey. I tried them back in the 80s when tempted by his variable length bound (VLB) system but found in practise something was happening every 5-10 minutes so there were no 'long' bounds. Treating entire brigades as a single unit seemed to work (combats often last several turns and the outcome is only diced for at the end) and gets away from the nitty-gritty of what indvidual units get up to.
So I'm going with simultaneous turns (quantised time) for simplicity; stylised orders entered on a peg-board time track; and, fighting on on hexes for ease of movement and lack of ambiguity.
It may all flop like so many previous attempts to at rule writing but trying is half the fun.

In response to Whirlwind and others, please note that in my distinction between "control" and "command" I never assumed that local commanders might not be acting on their own initiative. I was only commenting on the ability of the overall commander to act on events.

Of course the problem with "local initiative" rules is that if they allow the player to "act as the commander on the spot would do" then there is no fog of war or friction at all. Alternatively, if each local commander is dicing randomly to see what they'll do, the wargame is less something that we're playing and more something that we're watching. This is arguably historic, but hardly fun (at least for me, some gamers are perfectly fine with simply watching events unfold, like a war movie on one's basement table).

In response to Whirlwind and others, please note that in my distinction between "control" and "command" I never assumed that local commanders might not be acting on their own initiative. I was only commenting on the ability of the overall commander to act on events.

I get you, but I think that Napoleonic 'command' (in your definition) wasn't generally *too* bad; what the examples above speak to are the great difficulties in Napoleonic 'control'.

if each local commander is dicing randomly to see what they'll do, the wargame is less something that we're playing and more something that we're watching. This is arguably historic, but hardly fun

I'd go so far as to say that is is 'unarguably' more historic…;-)
To the extent that we want our games to be more reflective of Napoleonic 'command', then we will have to model (and suck up?!?) the problems of Napoleonic 'control'. Or, as Martin R rightly points out, going forward well into the later C19; and I might add, well into the C20. I am currently re-reading some stuff on the Dunkirk campaign – lack of 'control' on all sides was more or less the norm.

One of the ideas i had was rather than command radius, each commander actually got a loop of string a specific size. They could command all his units that fit entirely within that piece of string, and the strings could not cross.
You'd set the loops up before the beginning of the turn to determine which units could move, mark those that were out of command then play the turn with the rest.

Murvihill: That idea is essentially still command radius. Units were/are assigned tasks to accomplish; usually within a certain time frame. Unlike most wargames, orders were/are not issued every 15 minutes (or fill in your own numerical value). Orders remain in effect until:

1. Their objective has been achieved.
2. Due to unknown terrain or enemy action prevents mission accomplishment.
3. New orders are received that supersede the last one.

Gamers have a tendency to feel they need to write orders every turn! Some even use Brigade commanders to order skirmishers out or formation changes of their subordinate units! That is total disregard for unit commanders to act on their own to react to local changes of situation in order to achieve their assigned tasking. A wargamers image of Command and Control. (Brigade Commands units but unit's control the men.)

Yes, Jeffries, Knight and Dennis had is right but using time as the controlling factor (standard) was unplayable. I agree that everything is non-linear/variable except for time and distance. Those two will always remain linear (a mile will always be a mile; an hour 60 minutes, etc.) What you can do in the confines of the time a turn represents usually does not account for the time it takes to accomplish a task. In certain ways, the pip systems excel as the more pips you roll equates to the faster tasks get done because they were easier this time; less pips the tasks were harder to accomplish. No need to account for why last time getting units to move at once was easy, this time, it was harder. End result is that a seemingly infinate amount of variable could have screwed with your plans. Example: How long would it take you to drive to the store and return with a gallon of milk? Should never be EXACTLY the same. Why- Here are just some variables:

1. Forget to get gas last night.
2. Hit all lights red.
3. Had to detour because of an accident.
4. Had to go to multiple store because they were all out.
5. Hit all red lights on the way home.
6. Etc (Only about 9,999,999 more possible factors)

The opposite is true like hitting all lights green, got into a checkout line with nobody in front of you, etc. = Took less time than last time.

So my conclusion is that a pip system delivers a quantifiable action allowance with enough variation to account for life's inconsistencies- you have to deal with results- NOT the process that you arrive at. It also keeps the game moving while allowing for the impact of non-linear events in your game.

Oh, BTW, this above should work in ALL historical periods. Why? Man is the common denominator in all wars. Units should not be carbon copies Because no two men are identical and unit leadership are different people, too, therefore units should never be a carbon copy of another! Most rules apply linear values (unit ratings, performance, etc.) for non-linear situations.

Had a thought, what would a game be like if you didn't get a above board view? All players only got to see the board at the level of it?

14Bore wrote:
"Had a thought, what would a game be like if you didn't get an above board view? All players only got to see the board at the level of it?"

A game where the generals are in other rooms, getting updates of varying reliability, while other players carry out their orders for their brigade, division, regiment or whatever could be a fun experiment. Many years ago I was in a WWII game a bit like this. We could ring the CinC sometimes or get a call. I had the carrier platoon in a British infantry company. There were other platoon commanders, a bit of artillery and about a platoon of Shermans. We were facing Panzer Grenadiers with StuGs IIRC. I thought it was fun but it wasn't repeated. Not sure why.

Cheers,
John