MARCHES AND MATRIXES: HORSE AND MUSKET CAMPAIGNING

 

James Gillray, published by Hannah Humphrey; hand-coloured etching, 25 November 1796National Portrait Gallery, London (Creative Commons)

Having a bit of a lull in wargaming activity/content hereabouts, I thought I'd post a piece I wrote for our club's newsletter. So it's a bit of a read (apologies): think of it as a magazine piece in terms of read, if you will, as opposed to a blog post. So if you have the time and the inclination, settle in with a cuppa' (or a dram) and take it for what it's worth. In it, I hope to share a bit of research and provide some practical tools/ideas for better gaming.  I hope it provides, if nothing else, a bit of a diversion worthy of the time needed to read it. Without further ado, here 'tis (as usual, you may clix pix for BIG PIX). 

BATTLE GAMES 

The bulk of our gaming tends to be in the battle-game genre, games that are bounded by the physical framework of a table, played in the temporal span of an evening, have action that is divided into a finite number of turns--usually in a single day of battle--and are adjudicated at the conclusion of one or more of the former.  Requiring little to no preparation on the part of players, and no investment on the part of the host once completed, these are the most efficient kinds of games to present--of which convention and game night games are a perfect example.  This is not to suggest that these games are simplistic, easy to design, or unsatisfying to play.  However, when we want to go beyond these boundaries, we turn to another gaming genre: the campaign.  

CAMPAIGNS

There are many variations on the campaign theme, running from simple linked-battles to complex, refereed kriegspiels.  This piece will not attempt to address the broad topic of campaigns. Instead, it will focus on the horse and musket map campaign, and one of the most central--and vexing – components to deal with: organizing and marching units across the map. In any campaign system, I think it is safe to say that not only are we looking for mechanisms that are functional, but also that are grounded in history. In short, we want the campaign experience to be consistent with our understanding of the era.

  THE HORSE AND MUSKET CAMPAIGN

In the horse and musket era, particularly pre-Napoleonic, we're talking about replicating the coordination of movement and logistics for armies consisting of tens of thousands of soldiers organized into dozens of units of horse, foot, and guns. And doing so in a time when there was only quill and paper to record and reproduce orders, no means of disseminating information other than face-to-face or courier, and no means of tracking or reporting the progress of march elements in anything near real time. And yet, horse and musket armies routinely conducted significant marches and arrived at their destinations in time, ready to concentrate for battle. How did they do it?  Let’s take a look at the below march tables from 1743 and see what we can glean to inform our approach.

List of the March of the Austrian Army in Bavaria, 1743

From The UK Royal Trust: King George III's Military Map Collection; 

Brown and red ink on paper; 22.3 x 37.0 cm (sheet);  RCIN 728107 (click link to view full sized version)

Click to Enlarge.

Source text accompanying the above. 

"A list of places along the route taken in Bavaria for the Austrian army marching in three columns in July 1743. War of the Austrian Succession (1740-48).

"The list for each marching column has five headings: the names of the generals, the infantry regiments, cavalry regiments, dates and places of stopping points on the march, the bread and foraging for each day. The first column of 20,000 men was commanded by Prince Charles of Lorraine; the second column of 20,000 men by General Thungen, the third column (no strength given) General de Hohenembs."  (See the citation above the image to go to the source).

ANALYSIS

I translated and recast each of the columns into a contemporary format. In the original and in the updated versions, you read the tables vertically and not across (as it might seem at a glance). Here is the single document broken down into three parts, side by side with the contemporary format. You may need to expand to see more clearly. A pdf with the updated tables can be found at the following link.

Column 1

Column 2

Column 3

Although the above is broken into bits for ease of comparison, keep in mind that this is a  single document, in tabular format, that conveys all the key information that would be needed for a wide range of users involved in the operation, from regimental commanders to quartermasters. And even more importantly, it shows us how, in an era before word processing, copy machines, or even typewriters, orders could be compiled in an easy to reproduce format. This single sheet of paper could be hand-copied in short order, and every stakeholder could be provided one. Let's take a further dive into what is here.

1. Task Organization. Immediately, one can see that the army is organized into three numbered columns. The internal composition of each is presented in hierarchical order. Most prominent are the lists of line regiments, divided into infantry and cavalry. Listing the number of regiments at the bottom of each column may seem redundant, but it provides a quick reference for those who may be more concerned with numbers than the actual unit identities.  Having the total at the bottom also serves as a check against error when reproducing the list by hand (in the same way that writing the amount on a check in roman numerals and again in longhand provides an internal proofing mechanism). Attachments (support, administrative, and non-regimental elements) are in the space at the bottom. This format accounts for the entire force, providing a format to include even esoteric elements like “Prussian Volunteers.” 

2. Command.  Each column commander is named, with the remaining commanders accounted for in the lists of generals. The fact that Gen. Thungen and Gen. Hohenembs are double listed as commanding the Second and Third Columns (respectively) and are also listed as the first generals in the Third and Second Columns suggests that the generals lists may reflect other relationships as well (which may be known in the army).  In this case it likely seems that these two generals were detailed from their “usual” places to command these columns, perhaps due to seniority. 

3. March Routes and Times. Each table serves as a stand-alone reference for its column. You can see that each column is moving on a different route, which is easily indexed by date and place. These routes are in “connect the dots” format (what we would refer to as point-to-point, with towns being the points). Complete maps were in short supply, but routes between towns were well known, and roads were defined by the towns they connected. Thus, these directions could have been followed as is. However, during this era, strip maps were routinely produced, which would provide a perfect graphic tool to use in conjunction with these march tables. (More on this point in the later part of this piece). 

 4. Logistics. The requirements necessary to sustain each force, per day, have been worked out and listed. Although units of measure are not specified for bread, oats, and hay, it is very likely that these would have been commonly understood and therefore not bothered with given the shorthand nature of the table (most likely  loaves, bushels, and bales, respectively). Combine this with the march column and t provides key planning information for quartermasters. They would be able to know not only what was needed for the march, but where and when. 

5. Force Optimization. Taking a step back, we can see that the army was divided into two equal columns (The First and Second), each of 20,000 men and approximately the same mix and number of regiments. We may infer that these are not accidental and would represent an optimum force size and mix given the routes involved, as well as leveraging standardization to the extent that two of the columns would be equivalent, simplifying support planning.  The Third Column is smaller, and probably represents the remainder. Thus, we can glean how an army was task organized for a march, the suggestion being that columns would be balanced. 

How Might We Use This Information to Shape Our Horse and Musket Campaigns?

James Gillray, 1799. From the Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University

1. Maps. We see that horse and musket armies were what we would today call “road bound.” This is often characterized as some sort of failure of vision on the part of commanders of the era. Instead, it was the reality of both travel and navigation in that time. As has been shown in the source, military operations were defined by the road network, and navigation was defined by a path through key points (i.e., towns).  Granted, some roads might be little more than tracks, and some towns might not amount to much more than a few hovels, but that does not change the paradigm. This is actually good news. It means that we do not have to go through the elaborate procedure of creating campaign maps (particularly hex maps) covered with terrain and the (often) equally elaborate schemes for moving units into and across terrain as opposed to on roads (or routes).  

Instead, a more easily produced point-to-point map would both be more historically accurate and a better tool for managing movement. Major and minor routes could still be differentiated, as well as key terrain. Happily, for those who don't want to come up with their own, there are ready-made point-to-point maps that could be used. And I'll show you a few...

Wargame Maps

            Napoleon (4th Ed) (Columbia Games)      Detail of Napoleon Map
One of the best, and most recognizable, is the Columbia Games Napoleon block game map. This map is designed with equal distances between points, so they also work to regulate movement like squares on a board (in the game,  infantry moves one town per turn, cavalry, two--but your use may vary). In addition, it shows the cockpit of Europe, which could be used for any number of campaigns. It can be downloaded from the Columbia Games site. 

For a more grand campaign, something like Histo Games Friedrich map could serve.

For something a bit more abstract, but entirely functional, the venerable GDW Soldier King map would suit as a hybrid route/area campaign map. 

Period or Other Maps

Even better, a period or similar map could be used with little or no modification provided that it showed a road network linking locations. One would only need to come up with march rates (4km per hour would work), and a number of hours of march per day (6 to 8 would be reasonable). If two or more elements were on the same route, they would not move together in a “stack” but be separated. Rather than trying to track these by physical length, manage them using a time table, with subsequent elements hitting points on the shared route a number of hours or days (depending on the campaign clock) after others. Which leads me to my next point.

2. Organization and Orders.  The best way to replicate the process in our campaign would be to use the same tools as they did in the period. To enable this, I’ve taken the format and modified it for a miniatures campaign. One of these would be filled out per element for a specified time (perhaps by week). 

You can download a version of this for your use. 

Explanation: I’ve renamed the “Generals” column to be more open ended in order to list subordinate commanders as well as provide space for command notes (command points, for instance, might find their way here). In the regiments lists, I’ve added a space to enumerate battalions and squadrons. In the command section, instead of the number of troops, you would provide the size of the force expressed in game terms (strength points or some other metric). For the march route, I’ve added a “turn” column; however, this could be replaced by days, dates, or some other unit of time, depending on the campaign clock. On the right, I generalized the forage column to leave space for notes concerning the march (again, depending on the campaign system).  Finally, at the bottom I’ve added a space for contingencies, notes, and other information. 

CONCLUSION

Although the cartoon image of military operations in the pre-Napoleonic era is of plodding forces led by idiot aristocrats (true in some cases), the actual fact is that there was a standing officer class in every society for whom warfare was a way of life, and their understanding was grounded in both study and long experience. In short, they did things for good reason and knew how to get things done. Now you do, too!

Excelsior!

MAYHEM CONVENTION PART THE SECOND: BATTLE REPORTS

 

Your humble correspondent, wearing his black and white club colors, doing his best impression of thoughtful facilitator whilst running one of three games at the recent Mayhem convention.  

In this post, dear reader, we follow up from our promise (threat?) of the last and report on the games we ran at the recent Mayhem convention. Given that there were three, these reports will be a bit on the brief side, but hopefully will still inform (possibly entertain?).  I'll take them in order (as usual, you may clix pix for BIG PIX).

On Friday night, I ran the Battle of Lutzen using my Baroque Battles system. 

This was a five player game, and I was happy to see that it was registered and full ahead of time--and all players were present.  Left, in the role of Wallenstein and the Imperials, Dr Dick (foreground) and Mark M. Right, in the role of Gustavus and the Protestants were, from left to right, Gerry, Steve, and Bill (who would win the rotten dice award of the evening, I should add). 

Left: the end of the Protestant array, ready to go.  Right: the sides conferring and strategizing before the game.

A few "action" shots of the game in progress.  The players picked up the system quite quickly and the game was actually played to a conclusion within the time period. "But how did it go?" you may be wondering, and I'm glad you asked...

If you look closely at the above picture, you will see that the Protestants (left) have a pretty solid wall of units stretching across the table. While the Imperials are outnumbered and more dispersed (then again, their job is to hang on).  Unfortunately, the Protestants let the ditch terrain stretching across the middle of the table get into their heads as much more of a barrier than it was. Despite my clarifications, they formed a plan...

...to basically ignore the center and push everything around the flanks, despite the fact that they had the numbers to push in the center as well. Meanwhile, the Imperials had come up with a novel plan themselves: rather than holding, they went on the offensive--on the flanks. Now, this game (if you ever play it) emphasizes battle management. You will see in the above that the Imperial center is literally empty, while there were massive, grinding fights on the wings. The Protestants, by not engaging the center, allowed the Imperials the freedom to maneuver to the flanks and meet them on equal terms there. 

Left: A closeup of the Imperial left and Imperial right Right.  The boxed units show the thinly held areas, and the arrows show the cycling of units from support into combat. There were still some precarious moments, particularly on the Imperial right/Protestant left, where dangerous gaps in the line were showing and units were desperately trying to reorganize in time to plug them. 

Late in the game, the Protestants did recognize that they could push into the center, which they did, but the Imperials scratched together a response to hold them off. Had the game gone longer, this push by the Protestants might very well have broken through the overstretched Imperials. But time ran out; night fell, and the Imperials came out on top. But it was a slugfest, and the players certainly got plenty of die rolling and pushing of toy soldiers in. 

\

I stayed up late Friday night after the Lutzen game and stayed in the room setting up my Bloody Big Battles game, which would kick off at 8 a.m. on Saturday: Clash of Eagles, Russia vs Austria in 1879: BBB Meets Kriegspiel.  I've posted on this game before, so won't do a deep dive into it here (it will be a medium dive...).  

The summary version of the game is that I had redone the scenario for six players, with three corps on each side converging on a main highway. I should add that for this scenario, the base unit is the brigade. Each division consists of two brigades, each corps of two divisions. The victory conditions were based on "advantages": the side that had more would be the winner:

This is essentially a military problem, with mirrored forces maneuvering across terrain to achieve objectives.  

The victory conditions were designed along the principles of warfare and closely mimic the principles of territorial control reflected in GO  (the Chinese version of Chess) in particular the concepts of “connection,” “invasion,” “sente,” and “cut.”  In western parlance, the salient principles of war at work (and in tension ) are security, objective, unity of effort, and economy of force. In short, this is a meeting engagement and movement to contact, with each side trying to gain advantage by penetrating as far as possible into the enemy territory along the key axis, controlling as much of the field as possible, while safeguarding their own base. In so doing, of course, they will run into the opposing force, who is trying to do the same thing. Engaging, pushing back, and destroying the enemy is part of the operation, but so, too is preserving the strength of the friendly force and managing risk: how hard to you push vs where and when do you maneuver?

Unfortunately, there were only four players (as opposed to six).  Three of them making a return engagement from the Lutzen game of the previous evening. Bill (standing left) and Steve (barely visible over his right shoulder), the former Protestants team, joined forces once again, this time as the Austrians. Mark (green shirt), the victorious Imperial from the night before, was joined by a new player, Will. They took up the Russian cause and can be seen conferring before the game in the right hand picture. Knowing that I would be short players, I had planned to pull one corps from each side and reprise the four player version of the scenario. However, the players were adamant that they wanted all the troops, so I stuck with the six corps version. Thus, Will and Mark wound up running two corps each, which I'm sure slowed things down some.

I was gratified, however, to see that this particular game unfolded much more deliberately and "maneuver-like" than the platyests, where the players basically charged into each other. The Russians moved first, and they pushed I corps looping around the bad terrain to the north, the III corps directly up the highway, and the II Corps swung south. This was a good read of the terrain on the part of Mark (who was running the I and II Corps). In all the other games, the Russians tried to bull through the heavy terrain just north of the road, with the two commands abreast as opposed to marching one around the bad terrain to come out on the other side. This still presented some risk, as it would create a gap until the forces could link up. Seeing this actually develop brings out the hybrid nature of this style of game, mixing campaign with operational battle. As it turned out, the gap between the Russian center and left wing did present difficulties as the Austrians came online against it.  

The battle develops. The Austrians counter the Russian moves, shifting I Corps to meet the Russian II Corps to the south. The Austrian III Corps comes down the road to meet the Russian III Corps: a collision is brewing here. The Austrian II Corps shifts to counter the left wing of the Russian III Corps as well as meet the Russian I Corps, which is about to make its turn to the South. 

Another view of the early phase of operations, with both sides marching and countering the other. As opposed to the conventional thinking of most convention games, where any turn not spent rolling dice and shooting up stands is considered a waste, this element of maneuver and counter maneuver is very much a part of the fabric of this style of game. The players were very much engaged at this point, I must add, and did not seem at all bored by this phase of the game. 

This is what passes for an action shot.  I must say that this kind of game, more so than any other I've run at conventions, does take a great deal of facilitating.  Players are thrust into a novel situation, and it takes some time to get used to maneuvering across a topographic map. Along with guiding players through the mechanics of the rules, the main task of the game master is to make calls on lines of sight, fire, and movement paths on the map. Fortunately, the players were all very good about accepting any judgements I was called on to make (or interventions I did). Hats off to them!

Given my involvement, I did not get a complete slate of shots to record the stages of the game as it developed. Here, however, is a graphic that tells the story. The Russian II Corps and Austrian I Corps wound up doing something akin to the WWI "race to the sea" as they leapfrogged nearly to the edge of the battle space trying to outflank one another while stretching their line to cover the zone. The Russian III and Austrian III Corps collided head on in the middle. The left flank division of the Russian III Corps got roughly handled as it was hanging on the end and forced to come up piecemeal in front of a deployed Austrian division before the Russian I Corps could make its turn and force the Austrians to face that direction. Meanwhile, the Russian III Corps made a remarkable thrust right up the road, pushing the Austrian III Corps back (Bill was running the Austrian III Corps, and his awful dice from the previous night were still with him). I also made a mistake and failed to note that a unit was disorganized after an assault, even after winning, so the Russians were more able to sustain their assault than they should have been. 

This is not to take away from Mark's handling of the Russian main effort (the III and I Corps). Regardless of my flub on the rules, he made remarkable progress and handled the maneuver very deftly. I started the game clock on this game at 1400 on day one. The idea was to get to an overnight turn, where forces would separate, refit, and a full day two would ensue. This game actually reached the night turn as the time slot came to an end. At that point, the situation was: Advantage  north to the Russians. Advantage South to the Austrians. Advantage Center (despite the Russian successes), null (they hadn't pushed far enough to gain advantage): credit here to Bill for his positioning of the Austrian III Corps in depth to withstand the assault, despite me handicapping him by not getting the rules right on several assaults.  So one advantage to each side: a draw result. Night would have fallen and the Austrian III Corps would have recovered some of its vigor and been ready to stand in the line in the morning. 

My next (and last) game was later Saturday: Joust for the Fun of It. The BBB game wrapped up at noon (after picking it up), and so I had a (much needed) break until about 6:00 pm when I would start setting up again--it sucks gettin' old!  There was a bit of drama to kick this game off. I had six players registered, but two were no shows. Fortunately, a fellow game master who did not have any players registered for his game had passed by earlier had expressed an interest in playing should there be no walk ups--and that was the case, so he joined in. And my friend Mark D had more players than he could seat at his game across the room, so AJ (another club mate who was wandering about), played the role of facilitator and directed a fellow who wasn't able to play there to my game--and he wound up being the winner! There isn't much to report on the jousting game as far as developments or story line, but here are some nice pictures...

It was a very pleasant group who played, including a father and son and a young man of 11 playing solo (who came in second!). 

All in all, I would say it was a good outing. They have already scheduled Mayhem 2025, and I'm looking forward to it, although I don't think I'll be running three games in two days again.  This time around, though, I was happy to be able to showcase three very different games. At least I had a grand time!

Excelsior!

FEBRUARY GAME NIGHT: SHIPS, SPEARS, AND PIKERS

 

Mike, this year's club president, desperately flapping his arms to either achieve lift off or make the usual announcements kicking off a Club Game Night (I forget which), and being received with the customary attention due club officers.

Greetings, dear reader(s).  This is just a quick (and belated) post on our club's February Game Night.  These shots all come courtesy of  fellow club member AJ (of AJ's Wargaming Blog).--who, despite having run his own game managed to take some photos (unlike me...).  But I figure a quick post is better than no post, so I'll proceed. As usual, in this post you may clix pix for BIG PIX.  Per our club norm, there were three games (the third of which was mine). 

GENERAL QUARTERS III 

Charlie (in blue vest) ran a General Quarters III early World War Two naval game after the Fall of France pitting the British, who are trying to keep the French fleet from falling into Axis hands, against the French fleet anchored in Algeria: the battle of Mers El Kabir. The outcome of this game will influence our upcoming April Game Day--also run by Charlie--which will be a big game on the invasion of Malta incorporating air, ground, and naval forces. 

CLASH OF SPEARS

AJ ran a Clash of  Spears game, pitting Carthaginians vs Romans. This set of rules is becoming popular in our group, thanks to AJ who has now run several of them. It expands ancients gaming to the skirmish level, and fits in with the current interest in skirmish-adjacent systems like the "Rampant" series, which cover other eras. Judging by the noise and and rowdiness coming from this part of the room, this was a rousing game. 

BAROQUE BATTLES

The third game of the night was mine, The Battle of Lutzen (1632), using my Baroque Battles system (a Pike and Shot game). I was very involved with running this game, and wound up not getting any shots.   Although we did not complete the game by the end of game night, it was clear that Gustavus and the Protestants were not going to be able to break Wallenstein and the Imperials: decision to the Imperials (Byron and Robert); well played to the Protestants (Warren, Mike, and Dave).  I'll be be running this game at the upcoming Mayhem convention on Friday night (full description here). Although I've run this game at conventions before, it's been awhile, so I used this game to refresh my mojo at setting up and facilitating it. 

I'll add a few more pictures and words on the game, as long as I'm on the subject. 

Some of the "off table" bits that are involved. Leaders (left) and tactics cards (right). 

A closer look at the units deployed at the start of another game (left) and some of the different unit types (right) involved. My figures are mostly Irregular, with a smattering of Heroics and Ros. All 6mm, in case you hadn't noticed...

...and although game systems employing small scale figures on gridded game tables are very much in the mainstream right now, I have to say that I have been running this system since before phones were "smart." I'm not sure if this means that I'm ahead of my time or just out of touch. I guess if you do something long enough, it will eventually come into fashion, even if it ain't "fashionable." 

Excelsior!