fixing the blitzkrieg problem w/ HPS Nap & ACW

[bwv]

The real issue with the blitzkrieg melee tactics are the chains of melees where one defender is pushed aside, then another attacking unit moves into the gap and melees the next defender and so on. Given a 15 minute turn its very unrealistic that 2-4 consecutive melees where each is dependent upon the results of the previous one could be accomplished, particularly given the command and control issues of the period. Man defensive fire solves this, but bogs the games down. My proposal would be to add an optional rule that retains the auto def fire, but creates a separate melee phase after the attacker has moved and fired (again with auto def fire) this way, the attacker would have to move all his units into position first and then commence the melee attaccks. Units could not move after the first melee was initiated.

Thoughts?

[Sgt Jasper]

The Alternate Melee Resolution optional rule does this for Civil War Campaigns games. Don't think the Napoleonic campaign games have it. Personally I haven't seen enough of this to consider it much of a problem.

[wildb]

Several of the ACW have the option of the melee phase occurring after movement. It has not been retrofited to all of them. I believe the ones that have are: Antietam, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, and Vicksburg. You download the latest patches at the HPS site.

Bill

[JasonC]

This is part of it, but no it is not remotely the whole problem.

In the real war, a sufficiently lined frontage using the right arm in a combined arms sense (which includes the tactical formation for the formed infantry portions) could and did resist anything the enemy could throw at them along the same frontage. It was not possible to simply "overstack" and win on a narrow front.

The reason is the combination of the importance of the right arm or formation, and morale failure. The games get some of the first correct - close enough - but often break horribly on the second. Not because the game system itself, which goes back to Terrible Swift Sword and Wellington's Victory as board wargames, can't get it right. But because the system coders evidently did not understand any of this and broke those excellent systems with inflated morale, and then heaped on morale enhancing optionals in addition.

The average French cavalry regiment at Waterloo is rated elite. This is nuts - the Polish lancers and old guard heavies were the only formations that warrant it. More than half the allied cavalry likewise. The entire structure is about 2 morale points too high.

This has the effect of immunizing players against the real effects of overconcentration.

If you edit the forces to reduce the morale ratings to realistic levels, turn off all the morale enhancing optionals, and don't use the forgiving options like partial retreats and such, the perils of over concentration returns to something like what they should be.

You can readily get epic routs if you pack too many morale 4 units into a tiny space, then melee them into yellow fatigue, and get them shot at every fire phase. You can also readily lose 1500 prisoners to one flank melee after pushing too hard, dangerously far into an intact enemy large scale formation (division or corps area I mean). Both actually happened in the real deal.

There really isn't any substitute for overhauling the games with an eye to realistic tactics, with actual knowledge of what those were.

When you read the designers notes for where the inflated morales came from (they go back to the Battleground series in Talonsoft days), you get explanations like the Russians at the fleches standing to get shot up by cannon fire, in favor of morale 8 for line Russian infantry (lol). With morale *10* for their guards or grenadiers (lol). This is flat crazy. The grenadiers held at the fleches by employing the reserve slope aspects of the position, or the dead ground areas ahead of it, for formed battalions or regiments. The positions were not held continually but changed hands repeatedly on every push, precisely because any formation on either side, once disordered by combat, was subject to local morale failure and ran when the pressure got too high. This required a conveyor belt of fresh good order reserves to feed into the position as men gave way.

When morale is infinite, nobody sees any point in having good order reserves sheltered from the disordering and morale failure effects of the front line. Instead of the depth of ranks and routine reliefs the historical forces actually used, everything "pancakes" to the front line in massive overstacks at the hottest contested points. Lower morale to realistic levels and that pancaking just gets the side trying it, routed. With nothing left to hold the line afterward.

[-72-]

Several of the ACW have the option of the melee phase occurring after movement. It has not been retrofited to all of them. I believe the ones that have are: Antietam, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, and Vicksburg. You download the latest patches at the HPS site.

I think that's mostly incorrect. All of the titles should have been patched to the Chancellorsville engine changes ( one of which was the separate melee phase).

Not all of the patches got the cd check removed (as the decision to remove that seemed to have come partway through HPS' releasing these -so they never went back to add that to the 3 or 4 titles that hadn't gotten it yet -instead opting to wait until their next round of engine change patches to add that to those other titles). I think that started in about June or so of last year -with the dropping of the CD check coding.

At any rate- in order to get that feature, it is correct that you'd have to grab the latest patch off of the HPS site.

[Bushido]

JasonC,

what a Superb post. I think You nailed it perfect!

[Al Amos]

To add to Jason C comments. The morale system basically works with a D6 base, but the levels of quality that can be given to units is D10. (D6 = a six sided die; D10 = 10 sided die.) If JT were to correct this, and switch both to a D10 system, much of the craziness could be corrected with minor OOB file changes. It's an old game engine though, so I don't see this ever happening.

al

[-72-]

Actually, I'm not so sure that he did, Ola- as the OOB files in the Napoleonic series are all editable - and morale is assigned in the OOB files in that series... granted it is not as easy to edit those as it is in some of the other series (being largely a notepad function- and a big battle like Waterloo or Borodino could be a big effort.) But it seems more like making a case for learning the scenario editor; such as Volcano Man has done with his HtH edits.

[bwv]

This looks to be a good answer to the problems

http://www.nwc.albom55.ru/hrp/

[Havoc]

[quote='JasonC' pid='332739' dateline='1289432901']
"When you read the designers notes for where the inflated morales came from (they go back to the Battleground series in Talonsoft days), you get explanations like the Russians at the fleches standing to get shot up by cannon fire, in favor of morale 8 for line Russian infantry (lol). With morale *10* for their guards or grenadiers (lol). This is flat crazy. The grenadiers held at the fleches by employing the reserve slope aspects of the position, or the dead ground areas ahead of it, for formed battalions or regiments. The positions were not held continually but changed hands repeatedly on every push, precisely because any formation on either side, once disordered by combat, was subject to local morale failure and ran when the pressure got too high. This required a conveyor belt of fresh good order reserves to feed into the position as men gave way."

While I agree that using the limited routing optional rule (and others) creates an unrealistic 'fight to the death' situation, that's what supposedly happened at Borodino (according to Chandler's Campaigns of Napoleon). When they took the fleches and the Great Redoubt, very few Russian prisoners were captured. This was attributed to the near hysteric morale of the Russians due to the presence of religious relics and 'defending the motherland' fervor. But this was the exception, not the rule. Many players use house rules such as 'disrupted units cannot melee', or 'units with fatigue of 7 or more cannot melee', to try to put a more realistic feel to the games.

Having melee as a seperate phase put an end to 'blitz' tactics in HPS Gettysburg, and I think restored some of the historical advantage of the defender in the game. They would probably do well to add it to the Napoleonic games as well. For the moment, players wanting less 'blitz' can agree to complete all their melees together, allowing no fire/movement till it's done, and no further melees allowed after fire/movement recommences. Takes a little getting used to, but it's effective.

---

"Many players use house rules such as 'disrupted units cannot melee', or 'units with fatigue of 7 or more cannot melee', to try to put a more realistic feel to the games."

To correct myself, in HPS, it would be a fatigue of 700, not 7 (which is Talonsoft Battleground fatigue).

Or simply, if the unit fatigue is 'red'.