Napoleonic Wargame Club (NWC)

I just want us to think about night movement a bit, and not just in the way we've done it before, about tying fatigue to it.

The way the Night Rules are currently structured does create a bit of an interesting dilemma. Yes, there's night movement, but it's effectively 1/4 day movement (because turns are 1 hour, as opposed to 15 minutes). (Waterloo is a bit of an exception, simply because there are so few night turns).

Where this creates problems is in the realm of the night redployment, which was very much a part of the "generals playbook".

In other words, if a general decides he wants to hammer the enemies right flank first thing in the morning, he'd get his troops moving early, maybe as early as 2am (or in some cases earlier), so that they could be in position to strike at dawn.

This is something that's hard to do with the limited night movement we have (you essentially have to start moving at dusk, to make up for the lack of night turns). Further, many of us have played with an informal "night rule" of "only reorganize your units at night". In other words, if a Brigade got scattered by dusk, go ahead and reunite them.

Of course, most of the examples I can think of these sorts of "night moves" were to open the battle, rather than "mid battle", but maybe one of you can think of one I'm forgetting.

I'm just throwing this out for discussion, I'm not sure what is right.

Feldmarschall Freiherr Gary McClellan
Generalissimus Imperial Austrian Army
Portner Grenadier Bn
Allied Coalition C-in-C

What ever way or rules players can make. I still think a Night time movement fatigue . Would sort this out. Giving a player all night if he wants to move his men in place for the next days battle.
But it will cost him in fatigue .. and so it should.

Just my thought on it... So yes Gary something should be done.

<font color="red">Maréchal</font id="red">
<font color="red">BEECHAM</font id="red"> Commandant 1ème Division de Cuirassiers,
1 Corps Res Cav,ADN.

Prince d` Istria et Comte d` Arles La Jeune Garde

"Toujours féroce,jamais étourdi"

Too short nights in my opinion. I would prefer each night turn = 30 minutes.

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<b><font color="red">Fähnrich</font id="red"> Iván Alpuente<hr noshade size="1">
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I like Dean's Idea...

night turns are same as day turns but you suffer a fatigue penalty

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<center>Monsieur le Marechal Baron John Corbin
Commanding L'Armee du Rhin
Grande Duc de Piave et Comte de Beauvais
Commanding the Division de Cavalerie de la Moyenne Garde
NWC President</center>

Night turns in Jena and in all new titles I work on will be 30 mins.

I saw what Gary was talking about 2 years ago and thus decided to have Jena use that time scale.

It gives the player twice as many turns to work with.

Fatigue at night: I dont agree that it would neccessarily fatigue a unit to move at night. For instance: in Rich's upcoming Peninsular series units moving at night would benefit from the break in the heat of the day.

I think that if anyone wants fatigue to factor in for movement (and add in a force march option if you like) you have to include heat, etc to the equation. (added by edit - hey, moving up a steep hill should fatigue a unit too)

The key word for reduction of fatigue should be: REST.

Bill Peters
Armee du Rhin - V Corps, Cavalerie du V Corps, 20ème légère Brigade de Cavalerie, 13ème Hussar Regiment
HPS Napoleonic Scenario Designer (Eckmuhl, Wagram, Jena-Auerstaedt and ... more to come)

[url="http://www.fireandmelee.net"]Fire and Melee Wargame site[/url]

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Gary McClellan</i>
In other words, if a general decides he wants to hammer the enemies right flank first thing in the morning, he'd get his troops moving early, maybe as early as 2am (or in some cases earlier), so that they could be in position to strike at dawn.
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Moving at night to deploy for an attack? You try that with any but the most elite, battle-hardened veterans under excellent officers, you'll end up with one hell of a mess, with columns ending up everywhere except where they should. There is a reason why in this period, as a rule, military activity took place during the daylight hours. Moving at night really became interesting once aeroplanes began to be used in war.

There was one (!) (partial) night fight during the War of 1866 - Podol. It went well for the Austrians until night fell, when suddenly all order disappeared on the Austrian side, resulting in a complete rout. Why? You see, the Austrian army was so multilingual that officers often simply resorted to gestures to direct their troops. Now at night, the soldiers could no longer *see* what was expected of them ... and chaos reigned.

A drastic illustration of the problem that of course does not apply to most other armies to the same extent. But still. Look how often approach marches to battle were messed up completely in daylight. Night adds so many problems, including the most dangerous one of not knowing friend from foe until the very last moment, that most generals knew why they not even attempted moving in the vicinity of the enemy at night.

My tuppence. [:)]

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4th Brigade, Anglo-Allied Cavalry Corps
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<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Bill Peters</i>
<b> For instance: in <font color="red">Rich's upcoming Peninsular series </font id="red">units moving at night would benefit from the break in the heat of the day.

Bill Peters
Armee du Rhin - V Corps, Cavalerie du V Corps, 20ème légère Brigade de Cavalerie, 13ème Hussar Regiment
HPS Napoleonic Scenario Designer (Eckmuhl, Wagram, Jena-Auerstaedt and ... more to come)

[url="http://www.fireandmelee.net"]Fire and Melee Wargame site[/url]




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<b>Pardon?...What was that?...Was that a clue?</b>...[:p][:p][:p]...[:D][;)]

<font color="orange">Lieutenant John Sheffield
1st Btn/91 Regiment of Foot <font color="white">
[Argyllshire Highlanders]</font id="white">
6th British Brigade/4th Infantry Division/<b>
II CORPS / </b></font id="orange">[b]<font color="red">ANGLO-ALLIED ARMY.</font id="red"></b>


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"On the 16th and 18th of June 1815, their valour was displayed in a manner most heroic." </font id="yellow">
<font color="red">Viscount Vanderfosse.</font id="red">

Nope. No date on that one. Rich will be working on it for some time I think. As you know we never set release dates. And Rich let the cat out of the bag on that one some time ago. Like alot of our projects they are in the works ... [;)] but no dates ... [:D]

Bill Peters
Armee du Rhin - V Corps, Cavalerie du V Corps, 20ème légère Brigade de Cavalerie, 13ème Hussar Regiment
HPS Napoleonic Scenario Designer (Eckmuhl, Wagram, Jena-Auerstaedt and ... more to come)

[url="http://www.fireandmelee.net"]Fire and Melee Wargame site[/url]

Perhaps I missed the explanation..

Why are night turns different in length than day turns ?

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<center>Monsieur le Marechal Baron John Corbin
Commanding L'Armee du Rhin
Grande Duc de Piave et Comte de Beauvais
Commanding the Division de Cavalerie de la Moyenne Garde
NWC President</center>

John,

I believe it was an easy way to introduce movement penalties for night moves. Instead of having a modifier in the pdt file, you just adjust the time frame.

Colonel Al Amos
1erè Brigade Commandant
2ème Division de Dragons

Is fatigue easy to recover at night since the turns are 1 hour?

<b><font color="gold">Col. </b></font id="gold">Paul Wakeman [url="http://www.acwgc.org/acwgc_members/paw/wakeman-AdR.htm"](OBD)[/url]
<font color="beige">2nd Light Rgt</font id="beige">
<font color="orange">2nd Brigade
22nd Saxon Division
<b>VII Saxon Corps</font id="orange">
<font color="red">Armée du Rhin (ADC)</b></font id="red">

Paul_Wakeman@yahoo.com

Paul.

If you have all High command close or on the same hex as the units and dont move them. they will recover fast.By the next day all uinits will be ready to fight and in good order.

Just before night i pull back all high fatigue units. with there Brigade , Div , and Corps Commanders. and dont move any until the next day.

<font color="red">Maréchal</font id="red">
<font color="red">BEECHAM</font id="red"> Commandant 1ème Division de Cuirassiers,
1 Corps Res Cav,ADN.

Prince d` Istria et Comte d` Arles La Jeune Garde

"Toujours féroce,jamais étourdi"

This works both ways. With winter scenarios, the cold at night should be more punishing.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Bill Peters</i>
<br />Night turns in Jena and in all new titles I work on will be 30 mins.

I saw what Gary was talking about 2 years ago and thus decided to have Jena use that time scale.

It gives the player twice as many turns to work with.

Fatigue at night: I dont agree that it would neccessarily fatigue a unit to move at night. For instance: in Rich's upcoming Peninsular series units moving at night would benefit from the break in the heat of the day.

I think that if anyone wants fatigue to factor in for movement (and add in a force march option if you like) you have to include heat, etc to the equation. (added by edit - hey, moving up a steep hill should fatigue a unit too)

The key word for reduction of fatigue should be: REST.

Bill Peters
Armee du Rhin - V Corps, Cavalerie du V Corps, 20ème légère Brigade de Cavalerie, 13ème Hussar Regiment
HPS Napoleonic Scenario Designer (Eckmuhl, Wagram, Jena-Auerstaedt and ... more to come)

[url="http://www.fireandmelee.net"]Fire and Melee Wargame site[/url]


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Ensign William Davis
23rd (Royal Welsh) Fusiliers

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="3" face="book antiqua" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by PAW1800</i>
<br />Is fatigue easy to recover at night since the turns are 1 hour?
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The probability of recovery is higher to compensate for the longer turns. This value is set in the PDT file.

Maréchal Hamilton,
Duc de Barbancon
21st Division
VII Corps, ADR

1er Regiment Garde
Fusiler-Grenadiers

Hi All - Long Time No Post [:)]

But yes, I am still alive, and occasionally drop by the tavern to check on events. If you look carefully you'll see me, the shadowy figure in the corner supping ale from Barrett's Friday night drinking bucket while he's not around [:D]

It's good to see familiar names still here and new ones besides.

Right, formalities and niceties over, prepare yourselves for Fatigue - the thoughts of a former Frenchie...! [}:)]

First: The concept of fatigue was originally (BG series) a representation of the physical aspect of psychological fatigue. In other words, having been exposed to fire (for example), the troops gain fatigue, the longer they are exposed to fire, the more fatigued (stressed) they become, until they or their opponents break (rout). Fatigue in these games does not directly model tiredness acruing from physical activity. Perhaps it would have been better to call it stress.

Second: The affects of increased fatigue are morale check penalties, fatigued units more likely to disorder/rout due to their stressed levels; and melee penalties, stressed formations closing on the enemy with greater reluctance, or less cohesion.

Third: Recovery of fatigue is not just by stopping movement, (this would be the case if it was a representation of tiredness). Unmoved units that are fired on, even if they do not themselves fire back, do not recover fatigue - they are still in that stressful situation. [By the way, presence of leaders does not to my knowledge have any effect on fatigue recovery - maintenance of units within command radius of Leaders is all about re-ordering disordered units. Fundamentally important, but nothing to do with fatigue recovery].

Fourth: Fatigue recovery at night is indeed quicker due to the longer turn duration.

And so onto night moves (though not as Bob Seger once sang about). Just as I get by on about 4 hours sleep a night, some people can not do without their full 8 hours, the generals would each have their preference about when to get the men moving into position for the battle. The game does not accurately model the ability for a player to get the men moving at 2am because of the increased turn length, but equally it does not model the movement for a player wanting to move between say 10pm and 2am then rest - for the same reason. Instead, it allows players to move all through the night, which due to the increased turn length, represents 15 minutes movement and 45 minutes rest (for a 1 hour turn duration - I would no favour the 30 minute night turn without signifcant other changes) and the penalty for this move is that no fatigue can be recovered by these units that turn - an appropriate penalty to pay. So if units move every turn, during an 8 x 1 hour/turn night, they will have moved the equivalent of 2 hours and had 6 hours of rest (so not particularly physically tired) but will have paid the heavy (yet appropriate) price of no stress recovery.

Sounds good to me.

A classic case of night manoeuvres occurred before the battles of Bautzen/Wurschen. The opposing armies, had been arrayed before each other for a few days with little more than the occasional skirmish at the outposts. On learning of the approach of a French flanking force, the Russo-Prussian army in the dead of night, detached about a third of its strength, elements of it marching across the face of the outposts of the French left wing, to march about 20 miles through the night to meet the approaching troops. The following day they overwhelmed the Italian division but were surprised to find when the approaching troops engaged them that they faced more than the single corps they expected. Fighting until nightfall, they successfully disengaged, and marched back through the night to return the next day to their original positions, where they fought that day the battle of Bautzen. I vaguely recall reading in someone's memoirs that the Allies had hoped to disengage and retreat that night having learned of the strength of the French flanking force but the tiredness of these formations that had spent some 48 hours marching and fighting precluded that.

So the battle continued into a second day (battle of Wurschen) with these units after a nights undisturbed sleep, playing a major role, enabling the allies to fight all day and withdraw in good order during the night.

I mention this as an example of a sequence of significant engagements/battles where night moves were performed by units between the days of fighting. As mentioned elsewheer in this thread, most battles in the period were single day events with manoeuvering the night before and possibly during the night after if anyone had the strength to mount a pursuit.

My thoughts for what they are worth [:)]

Keep your wagons stocked and your powder dry

Mark