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Allied Training College (ATC) Coalition Library |
Ranks and Relief |
Gentlemen: One more article on infantry tactics, covering general points assumed in the previous articles but that may not be so familiar to BG players. Especially when players are used to high morale from either .oobs that consider everyone an ubermensch, +4 Russian fanaticism, or from morale-boosting optional rules (flank morale, rout limiting e.g.), then trying to fight with the more realistic lower morales I recommend (optionals off, .oob revisions, only +1 Russian fanaticism at Borodino only e.g.). The ordinary operation of a higher-level infantry formation requires some work, and requires knowledge of the system of 'ranks and reliefs'. Individual units are not expected to shrug off everything thrown at them until shot down to a man by case or engulfed in huge surround melees. Both single battalions, and in areas of hot action or dense 'presses' of many men on a narrow front (stacks in every hex in BG terms, allowing full morale contagion when someone routs), whole ranks/brigades at a time, are fully expected to 'give way' in rout or cease to be effective, to be regularly disordered by enemy fire, or melee charges by either side. The solution to brittleness of one unit or modest formation is the use of multiple ranks, and regular reliefs - allowing the overall formation to continue fighting as its sub-units hit the enemy in well-formed 'waves'. This is an application of the same sort of reasoning, on a higher level, as that which led to the use of ranked formations at the tactical or unit level. The only difference is at the lowest level, it is a spent musket that requires 'relief' while reloading - at the higher level it is a disordered sub-unit that requires relief while re-ordering. Most of the formations already covered use the following system of ranks, or minor variants of it tailored to the tactical situation, available supporting formations, and the structure of the units available (2 brigades or 3, etc). Outpost line - usually a temporary thing that does not hold once contact is made with the enemy, sometimes a bit 'stiffer'. This is a shield of skirmishers, sometimes supported by light battalions working with them, from 100 to 300 yards ahead of the 'main position'. It can provide 'warning time' or allow you to advance to contact, and keep enemies out of musket range before you really wish to engage. But once in serious action, it is rarely there anymore and not seriously part of the heavy infantry formations and their continual use. The point is not to confuse this with the heavy infantry 'lines' or ranks mentioned next. First rank or 'the firing line'. This is your main line of both defense and attack, meant to by in musket-shot of the enemy and usually at point-blank, with tussles in melee moving the frontage a hex or two back and forth, here or there. The rest of the formation is about maintaining the men occupying this role or position in good order turn after turn, even in heavy action. Why is this important? Disordered troops lose 50% of their firepower, drop 1 morale for rout-check purposes, and lose half their movement points. That is enough to render lines (with their payment for formation changes and rearward movement penalty) practically stationary. They move one hex, they turn one hex-spine. In addition, when finding it hard to get away or left in line for longer period, fatigue rapidly builds up lowering morale still further, especially compared to fresh enemies. Disordered troops facing ordered, therefore, will rout more easily when they take hits, get far fewer hits themselves, be unable to exploit minor enemy gaps or flank-fire opportunities while leaving some of those open themselves. If you leave disordered men in the 'line'/front rank, while the enemy manages to 'feed in' fresh ordered men every turn, you will lose as your men break and run long before the enemy does. In addition, when men do rout, or die in large infantry melees or big cavalry charges, you do not want to find that nothing is there to plug the predictable resulting gap. Disordered men on either side of a 'hole' are a poor substitute from fresh men waiting to plug the gap. They can't counterattack well, for one thing. You wind up searching for ZOCs that can just reach that hole and barely block it for another turn, while the enemy smashes what he wills of your awkwardly positioned, hasty reinforcements. Therefore, behind the front rank of men you want your 'second line'. With fully as many as the first, deployed in much the same way - although you should always leave intervals / put the men in alternate hexes, for the second rank. That often makes sense in the front rank as well (if 'flank morale' is off anyway), but the open passages for other arms or formation types is essential in the second rank. The second rank should be 2-3 hexes behind the first. 2 hexes has the advantage of a continuous 'block' of ZOCs, preventing any sort of 'break-through' like move behind the first rank. Its drawback is that front-rank formations pushed back in melee can wind up adjacent to your second rank men, then rout - spreading disorder or worse. 3 hexes back is therefore better when immediate melee is likely. Either leaves you out of musket-shot. When men in the first rank disorder, they should withdraw to the second rank while their second-rank 'counterpart' takes their place on the 'firing line' or first rank. Occasionally you will not be able to manage this - terrain, lines with little movement, enemy ZOCs from melee-penetrations etc. Then you have to decide whether to commit men from the second rank even before the first gets clear. Usually it is a mistake to do so, but sometimes e.g. the second rank can counterattack while the first does its best to withdrawl, and effect the 'relief' by the end of the melee phase rather than the movement phase. But normally, it is better to have the first rank get back as best it can, while leaving the second in fine order in support - until the relief can be made relatively cleanly. The thing to avoid is both ranks disordered at the same time, and in 'contagion' proximity to each other. That invites rout of the whole formation, and generally is not worth the risk. Sometimes this means the first rank routs before being relieved - can't be helped. In addition to reliefs, when they are fresh or reordered, the second rank provides your counterattacking force. In BG games, hits and losses (melee or fire) on 'your move' (offensive fire phase, etc) are the ones that inflict the most disorder and rout on the enemy. This means the best defense is a local offense, in offensive fire or melee - to disorder or rout attacking formations. The second rank is the main means of delivering these - it is close enough, and the enemy cannot reach it to disorder it in his previous offensive fire phase/melee phase, precisely because the front rank has protected it. Formed men ready to hit an enemy formation from close by, with full MPs to find flanks and full firepower from being well-ordered, are the primary means of defending any formation, as well as of attacking with it. When being pressed, however, the men in the second rank will often be in disorder - a portion that is - because they have just withdrawn and are still trying to re-order. That's ok, if there are ordered men you want them upfront obviously, as the first priority. But do watch out if your second rank is mostly disordered - the whole formation may soon need help, because it is losing its counterattack and mobility / hole-plugging abilities. When leadership is good and you are careful about command and control distances, operating on proper frontages (meaning not too long), you can generally expect the second rank to reorder about as fast as the first needs relief. But strong enemy pushes / charges, or simply particular 'incidents' of 'bad luck' on fire combat results and rally rolls, may occasionally bring about a faster decline into disorder. You can track such things by using the BG 'Strength' dialog box. That lists a percentage next to each formation in your army, showing the portion of the men in its sub-units currently in 'good order'. If that is reading 67% or so, or better, the unit is fine. As it drops to 50, it means some pressure and hot action, but nothing to be too worried about. Below 50 for more than a single turn, and the unit is likely to need support within the hour, if not right away. Last, behind even your second line, you should have a 'third line' of 'supports' or 'reserves'. This is more notionally tied to a particular unit along the front - sometimes it will be a dedicated support brigade (e.g. the 3rd brigade of some Anglo-Allied divisions), sometimes more a support for a wider area of the front (e.g., a French light cavalry division behind the infantry of its Corps, able to support any one of several divisions). You generally want to place the reserve line about 5-8 hexes behind the firing line, thus 2-6 hexes behind the second rank. Routed units should try to form up along the 'reserve line' while rallying. Badly fatigued units should be sent there and left motionless to try to rest (red fatigue and not elite e.g., or fatigue 9 units especially). Aside - many players do not bother to remove tired men from their line, in the mistaken belief they will do more good trying to keep firing for their last little bit of oomph before running away. Players often tell me they do this because recovering fatigue takes so long or is so unlikely, it isn't worth it. This is poor reasoning if you are playing with 'rout limiting' turned off. A red fatigued line unit in the middle of your formation is not just a marginally effective shooter. It is a morale hazard for everyone around it, a place from which mass rout can easily start. Would you form a big crowd of QL 2 infantry? Would you expect them to stand when shot at that way? Get the red-fatigued guys (unless elite - and even then the fatigue 9 guys) the heck out of there before they rout and spread disorder. It may be hours before that unit is any use again as yellow-fatigued infantry, to relieve someone. But up-front, they are a liability not an asset. If a unit has a strong support ready to relieve it should the entire formation need it - e.g. a second Prussian brigade waiting for space along the front at Waterloo, or a second French infantry division behind and attacking one - it also belongs along the reserve line. The men of the reserve line should be in dead ground if at all possible - you want them not only out of musket-shot but out of cannon-shot at well. So far back they should be able to change formation without any risk from threat zones, and either fresh or having been inactive there for a spell they should mostly be in good order (recently routed 'supports' excepted). Because of that, they should be able to reach position on the second line in one move, and often on the first as well (in clear terrain). In operation, think of the rank and relief system as a 'conveyor belt', carrying fresh men to the enemy and worn men away. You want to 'cycle' the brigades or other sub-units, forward when well-ordered and fresh, back slightly to reorder, back farther when tired or routed - with other formations 'fed forward' to take their place, either from overall reserves kept out of any action, or from their staged lines, or as the previously engaged men re-form. The goal is to face the enemy with high-morale, well ordered troops at the places he is trying to attack, turn after turn no matter what he dishes out. Let the rout, disorder, loss, and fatigue his attacks cause, spread back into the rear of your army, 'dissipating' the effects of his blows throughout a wider area of supporting and higher-echelon units. Spread the fatigue around. And in the meantime, keep the front that he is facing a regularly relieved, well-formed, manuevering, counterattacking, full firepower spitting, nasty place to go to work. Once you understand and have a little practice using this sort of system, you will quickly discover scores of ways in which the rival armies are all layed-out and organized with it in mind. You will be glad Prussian brigades have three regiments and not mind one being Landwehr. You will see how a French infantry division can defend in 2-ranks of lines, with or without a brigade or regiment left out in 'reserve' / 3rd rank support for counterattack purposes depending on the frontage it must cover - or can attack in 2 'brigade waves' of side-by-side regimental columns. You should begin thinking about your higher-level formations along similar lines of order, cycling, and relief - after seeing what it can accomplish for you at the division level. Thus, whether a 4-division French Corps should attack 'in line' meaning with all four divisions having assigned frontages, or 'in column' meaning 2 divisions attacking and 2 on their '3rd rank' / support line ready to relieve them, to outlast an enemy on a narrower frontage - a world of realistic historical decisions will open up. And that goes beyond just the infantry too, as larger cavalry formations can also play a role in such schemes. (e.g. D'Erlon at Waterloo might attack in a grand 'column of divisions' at the Corps level, with the Cuirassiers in the role of the 'support' or third rank). You will see the potential purpose and use of such formations, and learn how to exploit their 'lasting' characteristics to break more brittle enemies. Without, incidentally, needing to 'run them off their feet' in one go, in a single mass melee charge. Which won't work against a deep / relief formation anyway. You will also notice one characteristic of all BG games and players constant tendencies in them - the drive toward escalation on any particular frontage. When you deploy with supports properly, you are able to relieve and maintain your front 'in being' and capable of dishing out loss and disorder, come what may. But your enemies may be enticed to 'overstack' against your (relatively speaking) thinner fronts, in formations closer to 'all in line'/up front. Even if both use deep / relief formations, there is always the question of when to throw in which second rank or reserve formation. And the deceptive aspect of Napoleonic combat is that the fellow who throws in the largest unit of fresh men first is the guy who is losing the fight, but the same will often mean winning the local melee Sometimes the results of the commitment of a large reserve formation before the enemy escalates can justify itself from large, immediate results. Very often, it wins locally but spends fatigue and order of reserve formations - without the results being commensurate with that 'expense'. The 'immediate gratification' aspect of this tends to reinforce these habits in BG players - and when morale is artificially high, sometimes that will even work, as occasional huge surround-kills outweigh lowered morale (from fatigue) on the survivors of constant brawling. When morale is historically low, however, the result is a rapidly tired army with used-up reserves, facing an enemy that has indeed taken high losses but to only a portion of his force. The rest remaining far more fresh than the brawler's. Rank and relief tactics, when the morale is historically low, win the war in the afternoon As red-morale, 'blown' brawlers rout from the remaining fresh reserves of the more frugal-minded 'reliever'. When both sides use the relief system, the full range of Napoleonic tactical skills become important to victory. That is about all that can be said about it - the end result is very much up to the skill of the rival commanders and the effectiveness of their decisions. In which lies the chess-like 'strategy' appeal of Napoleonic warfare and its game simulations, in my opinion. Sincerely, Jason Cawley [Written by Jason Cawley and Published as part of the Cawley Papers]
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