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fixing the blitzkrieg problem w/ HPS Nap & ACW
11-11-2010, 09:48 AM,
#4
RE: fixing the blitzkrieg problem w/ HPS Nap & ACW
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.
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RE: fixing the blitzkrieg problem w/ HPS Nap & ACW - by JasonC - 11-11-2010, 09:48 AM

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