Infantry Combat and Morale Values - The Problem

 

Typical Bavarian Corps 

All of the corps in my campaign, except for a few Spanish, have the same order of battle.

4 infantry brigades
1 cavalry brigade
1 corps artillery

I have always retained an element of national characterists in the infantry brigades, despite wanting both commanders to have an equal chance of winning on the table top. The order of battle for a typical Bavarian corps is as follows:

1 infantry brigade 4000 CA FB SB
2 infantry brigade 4000 CB FC SB
3 infantry brigade 4000 CC FC SC
4 infantry brigade 4000 CC FC SC
9 cavalry brigade 1000 CB light
9 corps artillery 1000 CB 12 pounders

The combat ability and morale of each infantry brigade is shown in the three columns on the right. C is class, F is firepower and S is skirmish ability

A is elite, B is average, C is poor.

All of these are affected by casualties, with one casualty (10%) reducing all three by one
For example a class A skirmisher becomes the same as class B with one casualty.

These abilities are different for each nation, but also for each corps within all armies. There are 1440 infantry brigades in the current campaign order of battle, and every one is slightly different.

Deploying an army on the wargames table requires some study of the ability of each infantry brigade, taking into account which have casualties. When I adopted this system, many years ago, I liked complicated rules and really enjoyed pondering the strengths and weakeness of each brigade in my army. But at that time we used to wargame once a week, at best. I did not run a campaign, so each wargame was stand alone. I was quite happy to spend considerable time planning each wargame and trying to be very clever pitting different abilities on the table. At that time I ran a wargames club from my garage, and we used my figures and scenery. There were up to 10 players, of very different abilities, knowledge of the rules and even interest in Wargaming. The games were mostly every march to the centre of the table, rolls lots of dice have plenty of casualties and fight until the last man standing – or we got to 11pm and the game just ended. Next week a different game with no reference to the outcome of the last one.

My wargaming is now confined to battles derived from my campaign, and my only opponent is my wife Jan. Over the years, and particularly since we retired, our preferred type of wargame has changed drastically. We started our 1813 campaign in April 2009 to provide us with interesting and enjoyable wargames. Since then we have played 511 wargames generated by the campaign. That works out at about 32 games a year. Our preferred type would now be called “fun”, as opposed to “aggressive”.

That is a lot of wargames to transfer from the campaign map to the wargames table, which is my job. I also deploy both armies on the table, though Jan can (and often does) amend the location within the game guidelines. To do so she has to study the combat ability of each corps in her army. It is to make this process easier that I am rewriting the orders of battle.

I will explain the new order of battle in the next post.