March Attrition and Stragglers in CNS

[Cundiff]

Pursuant to recent reading on Napoleonic infantry march discipline I was reminded of the March Attrition inflicted upon units moving in the CNS games. What most struck me in the reading of the book, A Soldier For Napoleon, was the discussion of the poor march discipline of the Bavarian troops and the complaining on this subject of the many French officers associated with the Bavarians. True enough, there is ample reason for the use of March Attrition in the CNS series. Troops did fall out on the march, some worse than others.

However, there is something else vitally of interest in the book that applies to this subject. What was noted in the book was the interesting fact that most of the Bavarian troops that fell out on the march were noted as possessing commendable determination in tracking down their units and rejoining them in the field as fast as possible. Most of these men did not simply go home. Now, true enough there is a secondary issue with March Attrition, in that it also serves to represent the loss of men due to disease. Still, the idea here is that men who dropped out during a march did their best to rejoin their units. Also, it was interesting to note that the diaries of Lt. Hausmann indicates his unit did take a couple of days rest while on the march, during which their stragglers had the opportunity to catch up, as well as their baggage train having the time to also close with the faster marching infantry columns.

What I’m getting at in describing the above is that the CNS system simply docks the players for losses incurred during the march. This is applied through the March Attrition mechanism. However, that mechanism permanently removes troops as lost, which would be true enough for those men lost to disease (though not all were permanently so lost), but is not true of those men who were stragglers. Given a day or two of rest these men returned to their units and did so with commendable fidelity.

So, the question becomes one of how to reflect the fact that stragglers returned to their units. And, how do we impose some period of rest upon units that have marched hard for several days? We might be moved to consider units that do not move voluntarily to be resting, and we might consider units that fail initiative movement to also benefit from their lack of activity. In the inactivity of a unit for a day or two, the book never noted any significant stops of longer than a day or two for rest, might we not consider that some percentage of the combat strength lost due to March Attrition is regained? How do we choose that percentage, as part of the losses due to Attrition was indeed due to illness? Still, it seems fair to assume in a game series that is so dedicated to accuracy to reflect the fact that losses due to March Attrition were not permanent, but were instead transitional. This might mean additional paperwork, but in a game series with as much detail as the CNS series, do we as wargamers really care? I’ve always been more interested in accuracy and history, than playability.

So, Kevin, what do you and others think?

[Nico[PL]]

Don`t forget that Kevin often count those who has recovered in hospital from diseases/march attrition into reinforcements. The only game that handle this matter indyvidualy is TETE 1807. There You have hospitals and You can recover those from march attrition. Since 1SP=1000 it is hard to make it so detailed to seperate those who rejoined earlier or later, so it is all somewhat mixed with reinforcments or with hospitals like in TETE 1807, and we still get the most realistic game about Napoleonic period I think :).

[Cundiff]

I haven't yet played 1807, nor read it's rules. It's a new game for me. I've been concentrating upon Bonaparte in Italy and Son of Austerlitz, neither of which has hospitals. I also wasn't aware that stragglers were included as reinforcements. Yet, I'm not really fond of that idea as it means those units must themselves be marched into battle from long distances if a unit is not close enough to the LOC. It would seem a better method would be for stragglers to be returned to their unit by some bookkeeping method that keeps track of March Attrition and returns a specific amount back to the specific unit from which the stragglers were lost. For instance a Corp marches for a 3 or 4 days and stops for a couple. At that time, in LOC or not, say some 50-60% of the SP's lost to March Attrition over the previous 4 days march are returned to the unit in place. This would be a long and tedious thing to keep track of, but being one of those who doesn't much care about such things it's of no consequence to me, of course I wouldn't recommend this to those who care about playbility - on the other hand, they're not likely to play games such as these anyway.

[kzucker]

Tom,
Regarding the question about units resting, awaiting stragglers, that is built in because a unit is considered to march only one day on a 2-day turn. The normal 5 MPs could all be done in one day. The second day is either for combat, Forced marching, or resting.

Attrition losses do not include temporary stragglers that fall out along the way and quickly rejoin. Only those who are unable to rejoin are counted.

[Cundiff]

Thanks, Kevin, that answers it.

[daniel]

In 1807, straggler recovery system is useful, as the campaign is long. But Sun of austerlitz game is short, like empereur returns, and adding the system has no interest.
I just get the new game of Didier Rouy "le vol de l'aigle". He introduces a system of attrition where losses depend of length of march, like in CNS but lost soldiers can join their corps after a period of rest. As exemple, he writes that Friant division looses half of his effectives during his march towards Austerlitz. March speed was high. These soldiers were not present at the battle but joined later.

[kzucker]

Hi Daniel,

Good point. That long fast march by one of Davout's disivions is indeed a special case. Probably only his corps was capable of such an effort. Still, it is the unit's manpower in battle which counts. After Austerlitz the campaign was over, so who rejoined afterwards isn't important.

[jmviceazpe]

Dear Kevin and other friends:

Firts, I am not sure if this is the way to post new threads, but I have been not able to find the system to do it, so I have decide to use the system to reply. Second, this is the firts time that I post a thread in this forum and I don't know if the questions that I want to expose you are resolved or not in older threads. Sorry in advanced. Basically I have to questions:

1) I have practically all games of CNS. I have observed that in the firts games (Bonaparte in Italy 1979 or Struggle of Nations) when a force is defeated and obligate to flee it becames "desorganized" or similar and it must be reoganized before recovery all combat caracteristics. This concept has been supressed since Napoleon at Bay (AH). Why? I think that it is interesting. After an important battle, a decisively defeated force needed time to be reorganized and recovered before to be able to front the enemy again. Supressing this concept it is extremly difficult to achieve a decisive victory in tactical terms, not in terms of victory points, of course.

2) Emperor returns. I have observed that the time scale is reduced to 1 day = 1 turn, but moviment, atrittion etc remains at the same level of other standars games of the serie with the scale 2 days = 1 turn. I have played ER, and I think (and my friends have the same opinion) that the game becomes hyperactive but to judge correctly the game we (my friends and me) would like why was the scale changed. And if do you believe that is possible to change the scale to the standars leves?

Thanks for your patientie, and congratulations for the serie.


Josep

[kzucker]

Hi

Thanks for your interesting questions. It is nice to have these kinds of questions that are more about design than just interpretation. No one has asked either question on this discusssion board.

1) In a major battle there will usually be a moral shift. We decided that the effects of morale plus the effects of demoralization were too much in most instances. In 1796 the armies were more fragile and it took fewer losses for a major catastrophe. There could be some other exceptional situations where it would be appropriate to apply the disorganization rules. From a gaming standpoint, these rules sometimes make the game shorter, and the outcome clearer, even if the effect is correct. In general the rule could apply for both sides in 1796 and 1800, for the Coalition up through 1806, and for Spanish regular troops through 1809 or 1810.

2) Emperor Returns does not have Extended March, and the Forced March modifier is a bit more harsh (it is always +4 instead of UP TO +4), so the march distances should be about the same.

[jmviceazpe]

Hi Kevin and other friends

Thanks for your answer to my two questions. I understand your reasons to supresse the <<desorganized>> concept. Perhaps to accumulate the disorganization with the morale shifts is too much. But I not sure about what could be better: supresse the disorganization or to augmentate the number of possible moral shifts in the table.

I say this because in some games this supression avoids to reach the historical results. For exemple. I have play a lot of times Emperor Returns, and it is impossible to inflict a decisive defeat to french in terms of Waterloo battle. The french never runs to his country in a full disorder. Perhaps he is defeated and he must retire some hexes but he can allways return and he is allways ready to fight again with more or less troops. This is not "Waterloo". In the same way, it is impossible (at least I am not able to do) to expulse the prussians of the game before to fight with the allied. The prussians allways return. If for this reasons that I think that it could be interesting to recover the desorganization, at least, as optional rule in this concrete game. What do you think?

About this, I remember that in the Hundred Days Battles (AH version) the french could win the game eliminating a certain numbers of strengh points of the prussians or of the allied. I think that this reflected very well the <<spirit>> of this campaign that, in my opinion, is a little bit lost with the victory system points of EMPEROR RETURNS. What do you think about introduce in ER an optional rule that obligate prussians or allied to retire of the game in the moment that someone reach a certain level of loses?

Thanks in advance for your answer.

Josep

[kzucker]

I am really not sure about that. But possible.

The Victory Conditions of Hundred Days were play balanced. That was necessary for a small game like that. The Victory conditions of The Emperor Returns are maybe a bit harsh for the French, and something like what you are suggesting could be introduced.

There is the difference between an Operational Victory (Hundred Days) and a Strategic Victory (The Emperor Returns).

Napoleon needs to totally knock out the Prussians and British to really WIN, because he will have to turn immediately and fight two even larger armies of Russians and Austrians and other Germans.

I always think of the classic AH Game, The Battle of the Bulge. In that game, the Germans had very little chance of reaching their victory objectives, but it didn't matter. The game was fun to lose as the Germans.

[DANIEL GALAN]

After play "All lost save honour", the battle system with moral and quality is very good, is not possible to make something like this for the napoleonic campaings??
Daniel Galan

[kzucker]

Of Course! But if you track individual unit morale then you can get rid of the National Morale Level.

Unit quality is one component that goes into figuring the Initiative rating of the individual units.