Din of Battle

[Unlucky General]

I was listening to a podcast the other day and a comment has resonated with me and I was wondering what other peoples' experience was on taking into account the din of battle.

I play Black Powder for games set in the eras of black powder musketry (funnily enough). I've played other rule sets over the past three decades so this is certainly not confined to just one rule set.

Black Powder has a command and control feature for maneuvering units up to Brigade level measured in 12 inch bands which affect the roll of the dice against rating to affect a command. BUT this is in no way affected by the 'din of battle'.

Once infantry units within a given brigade are engaged with the enemy in musketry and any melee contact it seems the effect of gunsmoke and the deafening noise of cannon and volley firing would have significantly impacted on a Brigadier or higher commander's ability to understand what was going on across his command and his ability to convey orders to units engaged.

I've never come across a rules system which takes contact and engagement into account. Within Black Powder, the immediate proximity of an enemy can engage unit initiative and they suffer a -1 on the Command roll when within 12" of the enemy but for purely psychological reasons.

I'm toying with some experiments in reducing the Command radius after first firing and whilst in 'contact'; or denying Brigade orders when in 'contact'; or -1 on the Command roll for units in 'contact' (in addition to the -1 for 12" proximity).

Do your preferred rules take this sort of thing into account? Do we just assume that the unseen but assumed ADCs are darting about and are not affected by the smoke and noise of battle? I presumed they could get lost, locate the correct unit with difficulty, get injured or worse when too close to the action and other factors could affect the smooth flow of information and orders.

[SteveBurt]

Lasalle v2 makes manoeuvre very easy when not near the enemy, and much harder and slower when near. Works very well, makes reserves valuable.

[Unlucky General]

Makes a lot of sense to my thinking.

[shandy]

In Sharp Practice, there is "uncontrolled fire": units not firing controlled volleys (which take a bit longer) have to test if they stop when getting other orders. If they fail, they just keep on shooting, even if the enemy is no longer in range or in their arc of fire.

I really like this mechanic, because it fits in with what you can read about the difficulties of getting troops back into control once they start shooting, and the noise and smoke contributes to the chaos. It also can lead to very frustrating situations.... 

[Hu Rhu]

I suppose it comes down to how you want to model command and control on the table top.  Many wargamers want their units to behave as if they were on a parade square and carry out all their orders faultlessly and others want to attempt to create the fog and din of war.

I have found Black Powder to be a very adaptable set of rules but you have to be careful not to swing it too far so that the game becomes all about the dice.

Given that the rules already take into account different command abilities for the generals and there are rules that make certain units even less responsive (Militia etc), -1 for charge orders etc, you would have to be careful not to create the conditions whereby no troops obey their orders.

If you wanted to go down that line I would suggest that applying the -1 command modifier to any troops who have taken fire, are within 12" initiative range or have been ordered to charge would have the same effect which you are trying to achieve but without too skewing that game.

You can of course continue to apply additional modifiers such as an additional -1 to raw troops or give Elite or Veteran troops a +1 when dealing with these conditions.  Thus a combination of well trained troops with a good general will have them obeying their orders even under the most trying conditions.  Conversely poorly trained troops with a poor general will have difficult time doing anything other than stand still and fire.

Hope that helps.

[CapnJim]

Black Powder has a command and control feature for maneuvering units up to Brigade level measured in 12 inch bands which affect the roll of the dice against rating to affect a command. BUT this is in no way affected by the 'din of battle'.

We look at Black Powder's command rolls just a bit differently.  We assume that the roll does indeed take into account all the reasons a unit might not do what they are asked.  That includes the "din of battle" to which you refer.  Maybe the Brigade/Division commander couldn't see or hear what was going on.  Maybe the dispatch rider couldn't find the unit(s) in question in all that din.  Maybe the battalion commanders got confused trying to reconcile the orders to the situation his battalion finds itself in.  Those 12 in. bands reflect the ever-increasing difficulty of Brigade and Division commanders directly affecting the battle the further they are away from the tip of the spear in question.  The further away they are, the less likely due to many reasons, and the closer they are the more likely.  Heck, even the "initiative" moves make sense to us, as we think it reflects battalion commanders reacting to their immediate situation, as opposed to the orders he may or may not have received from higher-ups. 

I was a AWI reenactor for 7 years, and one of my regular wargame buddies was an ACW reenactor for longer than that.  We both have been in reenactments with thousands of muskets, many cannons, and a whole host of verbal commands, drums, bugles, and bagpipes adding to that din.  While acknowledging that reneeacting ain't real combat, we both think Black Powder does a fair job handling all the fog of war, including that din of battle.  But that's just us.  It's all in how we look at it...

[Unlucky General]

Thanks Hu Rhu,
That option may also makes it easier to take into account the effect than remembering a shrinking command distance. I agree with your observations about unbalancing a game. I've developed several house rule theories only to re-read, re-think and dismiss them for just those reasons of balance. I believe that Black Powder is really very well balanced overall.

I don't mean to exclusively focus on Black Powder - it's just the rule set I use these days. I do like them a lot.

CapnJim,
I agree there are several underlying factors behind several of the mechanisms in Black Powder and careful reading usually sorts out the confusion. The only problem with the command distance explanations you highlight is that they are the same whether a unit is engaged or not. You could be maneuvering in a reserve area far off from the table-top front line and the factors would not alter. If that same brigade makes contact (noise and smoke) nothing changes. I do bow to your experiences of re-enactment but I'm also mindful of the scale of the real thing with tens of thousands of men crammed into confined areas blasting away - it must have been deafening and depending on the breeze, gun-smoke like as was recorded at the battle of Alma could have obscured any appreciation over the shortest of distances.

The -1 to Command rolls within 12" is explained as a psychological effect in the rules similar to Shandy's reference about the Sharp Practice 'uncontrolled fire' rule but as I observed, nothing seems to account for the din of battle.

Of course, I could be overthinking it. I tend to do that a lot. I had also posted a thought on my generic blog about the relative unimportance of roads on the table-top.

[CapnJim]

Of course, I could be overthinking it. I tend to do that a lot.

Welcome to the club! 

And we just figure that the din of battle isn't an "extra" contributor to the fog of war.  Just a different one.  It was notoriously difficult for higher-level commanders to move their chess pieces around the proverbial board as they wished in pre-battle, as well as the preliminary maneuvers of a fight.  And the din of battle hadn't really reared its ugly head yet.

I guess we just overthink it differently...    

[TomMcC]

I agree with your original thoughts and replies on Black Powder and Lasalle.

I think Black Powder does represent the noise and smoke thing in a simple manner to keep the game flowing. 
I've always been tempted to add smoke markers and maybe a wind direction rule that might result in a negative modifier to firing or reactions, but I accept that this would add complexity and time to play. 

A similar niggle for me, is as far as I'm aware, no set of Napoleonic rules asks for troops to be deployed
in order of seniority, either at battalion or brigade or higher level. You know the sort of thing - grenadiers on the right and light company on the left. So if a battalion column is led by grenadier company, then troops should deploy into line on its left and in the proper order. Units should not arranged any old how as commanders need to know where their units are located.

Similarly at a higher level, a brigade would deploy in order of seniority, with the senior unit on the right. If you look at some battle deployments, you will usually see these things. A common British practice in the
Peninsula was senior battalion on the right, next senior on the left and the junior in the centre. The French
seem to have led attacks with the junior battalions and regiments, and the deployment of columns at Waterloo illustrates this (though I'm going from memory).

However, I realise that this would add time and complexity to game play. Players just want units to move ad shoot.

And I don't want to get started on gamers who use the phalanx approach to column attacks ...   

Just my tuppence worth.
regards
Tom

[Hu Rhu]

I don't mean to exclusively focus on Black Powder - it's just the rule set I use these days. I do like them a lot.

Likewise.  I think that they are a great set of rules which are eminently adaptable to produce the game you want, rather than the game that the rule makers want you to have.

[Rogerc]

Interesting discussion here, I agree with some of the comments above, the command rating associated with a commander wont just be their peronal ability but a staff rating for how efficient their staff officers are and their ability to cope with the fog of war. So when gaming in Colonial games a poor British commander might actually be rated better than an inspiring native commander due to the proffesional nature of their staff (or not)

GAPA is the only rule set that I have played which downgraded the command range once firing started, becomign progressivley smaller as more smoke is put out. Makea alot of sense but perhaps less fun on the gamign table.