Napoleonic Wargame Club (NWC)

I have noticed that arrival times are either on time or late ( or not at all in rare cases).

Why can't they arrive early ?

Surely at some point in the history of Napoleonic warefare this happend !!

General John Corbin
Commandant of Cadets
L'Ecole de Mars
L'Armee du Rhin

I guess they could...if the scenario designer scheduled them early with a variable arrival time. [:D] As far as getting the engine changed to do that, I don't think it will happen...

Gen.de Div. Hamilton, 21st Division, VII Corps, ADR

Yes, I think that showing bit "later" time info as "expected time of release" will make miracles [;)]

GM. Pavel Stafa
Kommanduyuschiy Korpusom Rezerva
2-oy Zapadnoy armii EIV

Actually a +/- feature wouldnt be hard to put into the engine. Basically +/- the turn referenced with the +/- value filled in by the designer.

However, I find that the feature of having the engine serve me breakfast in bed is tops on my list of changes! [:D]

Ok - had to have some fun with this one. Since you asked (oh no, here he goes again) here are my ideas on a really great reinforcement dialogue/arrival scheme:

1. Reinforcements could be slated to go to SEVERAL locations in one dialog. Each location would have its own percentage of being used. The others would be discarded.

2. The Strategies feature for the Panzer Campaigns Game could be incorporated into the series. Basically if some of you dont know what that does you can make up many groups of reinforcements based on the same units/formations and then the players pick which option he wants to go with. Thus you could have Blucher arrive at his historical location at Waterloo or perhaps more BEHIND the Anglo-Allied lines. What is nice about this is that the designer can have you choose WELL IN ADVANCE of the actual time that they arrive thus once you make up your mind when and where they arrive you are stuck with it! Of course you could just keep old Blucher off of the board ... (sounds of Boo and Take him out in an alley are heard in the distance)

3. Fog of War with reinforcements: basically this would be where the reinforcement would NOT be listed under the dialogue. Its a SURPRISE! You didnt know they were coming and voila they arrive. Very much fun for games where historically even the owning country had no idea if anyone was coming to his aid. The designer could say "Reinforcements are certain but you are not sure when or where." or "There is no guarentee that help is on the way" and so on. This would be a feature you would turn ON in the Add Reinforcement dialogue for the unit.

4. Unidentified reinforcements. Ok - this one is two staged:

- along with #3 if you have reinforcements that come on they COULD use a neutral color base for the 2d/3d view thus you wouldnt know if they are yours or the enemy's as he also will see the same view. Once you have come to within 9 hexes of the unit they will be revealed as yours or the enemies. A/I would move them to a predisgnated hex on the map.

- all reinforcements for side that are listed would be unidentified. For instance you know that Blucher is arriving but you dont know if he has cavalry or infantry with him or just how many units. Instead of the units being listed you would have "Unidentified group" with a feature that would turn off the time but reveal the location where they show up.

Ok - enough for now.

Rich - I would say that we can expect these above changes to show up in a patch..... sometime in 2022!!! Keep waiting though guys cause as old Jimmy Durante used to say "I've got a millyen of them!"[:D]

Oberst-Lt Wilhelm Peters
2nd Kuirassiers, Austrian Army

All that rambling by Bill Peters sounds really exciting!![:)]
However, to try answering John Corbin's question, couldn't we say that arrival time (as stated in the reinforcement dialog) is the soonest possible?

To take Blucher's example at Waterloo, knowing that he was historically coming from a specific area, soldiers walking at full speed couldn't arrive earlier... but they could be slowed down!

That was my two cents![8D]

[url="mailto:pyguinard@hotmail.com"]Lt Pierre-Yves Guinard[/url],
6e Division, II Corp

AdN

In a similar vain to John's question, would it be possible if at all welcome to introduce a new rate of march for campaign games? I was thinking along the lines of a 'forced march' rate. There are plenty of examples of troops throughout this period marching at an increased speed in order to arrive at a designated location or battlefield. Indeed on reaching the battlefield then to be thrown into the fray.

Of course there would have to be an increasingly hefty penalty attached to such movement. Say in the form of fatigue. With perhaps a random roll on D20's for each movement phase spent travelling at the forced march rate. 1 X D20 (or a selection of Die rolls depending on unit quality etc) first phase, 2 x D20 second phase, 3 x D20 third consecutive phase etc, with the effect being cumulative. Fatigue would be recovered in accordance with the current criteria for doing so. Random rolls could be executed for each unit using this movement rate to represent the various differences in troop quality.

Is this a viable idea, does it have any credence or has it been suggested and blown out of the water before?

Regards




<font color="gold">General de Brigade Comte Greg Morgan
2eme Brigade
3eme Division de Cavalerie Legere
III Corps
L'Armee du Nord</font id="gold">

At this point, my suspicion is that while the idea is viable, it's also unlikely.

I would think that it could be done based on two separate functions... "speed" and "length" of march, both of which would add a chance of fatigue.

Speed: That's obvious, if your lads are marching doubletime, that's going to wear them down faster.

Length, if they aren't given a turn off every 6 (i.e. a break every 2 hours), they would run a higher chance of fatigue.

all of this would of course be dependent on an engine change, which is unlikely.


Side note: If you were designing Austerlitz for HPS, how much fatigue would you put onto Davout after his forced march?

Feldzeugmeister Gary McClellan
1st Jäger Bn
Brigade Wintzergerode
Chief of Staff Imperial Austrian Army

<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>
<br />(...) they would run a higher chance of fatigue.
(...)
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Why would the engine have to roll dies to tell if fatigue got higher after a forced march? I say that it is ineluctable!
In my opinion, quality of the troops (training) is the factor to look at.

Assuming the above, would it require any major change to the game engine?

Also, 'physical fatigue' (as opposed to 'combat fatigue') should also drop automatically when troops are resting... if of course, they are within reasonable range of a supply wagon!

How's that?

[url="mailto:pyguinard@hotmail.com"]Lt Pierre-Yves Guinard[/url],
6e Division, II Corp

AdN

The forced march idea is EASY to factor in for a CAMPAIGN game. Not a big scenario.

All you have to do as a Designer is give the OPTION for the player to choose to force march. If they decided on that option then you have the units arrive with say 300 fatigue. After that its up to the players to rest them.

And it would depend on the soldiers too. Force marching the French or British is no problem. Force marching the Austrians or Prussians is not a great idea. Force marching the 1809 Saxons will lead to many of them falling out.

I am studying the 1799 camapign of Suvarov presently. The Russians had an interesting march pattern that they liked to follow. Basically: Start very early - march for thre hours - rest - march for three more hours and then rest for the afternoon. Smart! Then after a nap they would eat dinner/supper and then march for three more hours - rest - and march for three more hours and camp. Not a bad arrangement.

Total marching time: 12 hours but NOT in the middle of the day when the sun was at its worst.

Instead in 1799 the Austrians called the tune and the march pattern was altered to something that they were not used to.

The book is slow in developing (Eagles over the Alps) but its got alot of information that I never had learned.

Oberst-Lt Wilhelm Peters
2nd Kuirassiers, Austrian Army

Yeah, EoA is a GREAT study (and great book at the same time).
And it gives us a look why Suvorov should had at least a chance when (eventually) facing army commanded by Napoleon himself ...

GM. Pavel Stafa
Kommanduyuschiy Korpusom Rezerva
2-oy Zapadnoy armii EIV