Command and Control

[Patrick Waterson]

Response to Kedar, "The Battle of Arsuf, 7 September 1191",Stephen Bennett, Queen Mary, Univ. of London

Benie Kedar very kindly gave me five minutes of his slot to disagree with him - a true gentleman 

Might one who has no chance of appearing at Kalamazoo tentatively enquire about the basis of this learned disagreement?

[janner]

Might one who has no chance of appearing at Kalamazoo tentatively enquire about the basis of this learned disagreement?

From his immense local and historical knowledge, Prof Kedar believes Richard had a specific location in mind for the battle with Saladin.

I will argue that, whilst his focus was maintaining the column's cohesion, Richard was also alive to seizing a fleeting opportunity to give Saladin a bloody nose. Hence we have an experienced household knight, Baldwin de Carron, collocated with the Hospitallers. Moreover, the charge was described as being initiated by the marshal, i.e. the chap who arguably should lead a military order attack, and Richard's Johnny on the spot, Baldwin. All sounds suspiciously close to a commander employing delegated command to me.

So, they are not necessarily wholly opposing positions and I am very much looking forward to hearing his paper, as well as the others.

[Patrick Waterson]

Traditionally, the attack by Richard's rearguard at Acre, followed by the whole army joining in, has been seen as fortuitous.  I would however be very open to any suggestion that it was in fact intentional, and just awaiting the right opportunity.

It would be nice to know how your suggestion is received. 

[Justin Swanton]

Reading through this thread (hello again, everyone, been a while) I pick up as a constant the fact that an army could act all together only under prearranged orders (like Hannibal's battles) but if a general wanted to change anything in mid-battle he had to go to the area where the improvisation was to be made.

In game terms this would seem to translate as follows:

The General moves and commands freely under the player's control. He has a limited direct command range of units (say 6'').

Subcommanders can move under prearranged orders (advance, hold, wheel right, wheel left, etc.). They may execute several orders one after the other. The timing of the execution of these orders is under the control of the player unless the general is too far away from the commander (say beyond 24''). The general can move into direct command range of a subcommander (6'') and issue one new order which replaces all the rest that subcommander had. If the subcommander is to do anything after the order is executed the general must come by and issue another order.

Subcommanders without orders or out of the 24'' range of the general may only attack enemy in charge range, or turn to face an enemy unit within charge range, or some similar combat move. No grand tactical manoeuvering. One can distinguish between timid subcommanders (will not charge), capable subcommanders (will charge or not charge at the player's discretion) and reckless subcommanders (will charge any enemy within range).

An exceptional commander within the general's 24'' may move freely under the player's control. This simulates the entreprising tribune at Cynoscephalae. It is very rare though.

Does that cover all the bases? 

[Justin Swanton]

On the subject of orders, it occurred to me that there are really only 2 kinds:

1. where to move to

2. who to attack

With this in mind, I'm trying out a mechanism for Optio (my own little system) in which each subcommander has a standard - basically a small piece of cardboard measuring 10x30mm, glued to a toothpick or length of wire which is inserted into a hole in the general's base. The one side of the standard is subdivided into 5 rectangles. The player writes a maximum of 5 orders onto the standard which is then inserted into its subcommander's base. The written side of the standard is turned to face the owning player at all times and the orders remain hidden from his opponent.

Movement orders
The battlefield is divided into squares, rather like Lost Battles. The squares are numbered like a chessboard: a,b,c,d,e, etc. for the rows, and 1,2,3,4,5, etc. for the columns. A move order would be written 'a5', 'c2', or whatever. It would oblige the subcommander to move his own base into that square - his command will of course follow along though it does not all have to end up in that square.

Attack orders
Every enemy unit is designated with a shorthand symbol, eg. 'HC' for Heavy Cavalry, 'Le' for legion, 'Ar' for archer, 'Au' for Auxilia, and so on. The order obliges the commander to attack the nearest enemy bases of that kind.

I've attached a pdf to illustrate what I mean.

[dwkay57]

Justin, are your "commanders" unit leaders or leaders of a group of units (i.e. sub-generals)? And have you built in any mechanisms for them deciding a target in B2 looks a better bet than B5?

At the moment, I'm pondering over how to classify senior officers along the lines of royal/appointed - hero/manager - leader/commander concepts in some consistent manner and then figure out how this might affect the actions of the men under their command both whilst alive and when lost.

Given that I already grade them for boldness, leadership strength and loyalty (upwards), I was looking for something was complementary but added another dimension and had a different effect (e.g. the loss of a "royal" senior officer would reduce the command morale by 1 but the loss of an "appointed" senior officer wouldn't have any effect. At present the only differential is that allied commands are less bothered about the loss of senior officers in the principal army.

[Justin Swanton]

They command groups of units, David.

In Optio an army is structured as follows:

1. Bases are grouped into command groups (CGs). A command group can be composed of one or more bases. Four bases is standard for infantry and two for cavalry. A command group is the smallest unit that can move tactically across the battlefield (a bit like FoG). When charging or evading, however, bases move individually (rather like DBM). This of course can fragment a command group, obliging the individual bases to come back together before the command group can move normally again.

2. Command groups are lumped into commands.  Each command is under a commander. The number of commanders varies from army to army. The CGs of a command must be within in range of the commander (about 6") in order to move tactically, though individual bases of a CG may charge enemy even though out of command range.

3. In some cases CGs are grouped into subcommands. A subcommand is composed of several CGs but moves as a single unit. An example is a Republican legion. It is composed of 1 CG of 3 Velites bases, 1 CG of 3 Hastati, 1 CG of 3 Principes and 1 CG of 2 Triarii. After skirmishing the Velites will fall back and fuse with the other 3 CGs, making 4 Hastati, 4 Principes and 3 Triarii bases. The legion's command groups deploy in lines, one adjacent to and directly behind the other, and the entire legion moves around the battlefield as a block.

I haven't worked the commander's personalities too much, other than classifying them as timid, capable and reckless when out of the general's command range, and allowing some exceptional commanders initiative to do tactical manoeuvres of their own.

Dividing the battlefield into squares and making move orders simply an injunction for the commander to move his base into that square allows for a certain leeway in interpreting the orders. The commander must carry out his orders, but as the situation develops so the manner in which he carries it out can change - moving most of his command to the right or left of his position, for example. The commander can choose not to follow his orders only if they are impossible or he has moved out of the general's extreme command range (provisionally 24").

[dwkay57]

It sounds like your command and structure concepts are similar to mine Justin, although we may have started from different perspectives and priorities.

[Justin Swanton]

I'd be interested to know how you structure your army's command. Care to elaborate?

[dwkay57]

Justin, I did bore for England in Slingshot 282 (May 2012 - Very Very Little Wars article), but briefly: battles are fought between Sides; Sides are made up of 1 or more Armies; an Army consists of 1 or more Corps; a Corps is commanded by a "personality" and consists of 1 more Divisions; and a Division is much like your command group and consists of one or more units moving in company (i.e. staying in the same hex) and fighting in support of each other. There are some battle write ups in the battle report forum (under the heading Little Battles).

[Justin Swanton]

Beautiful terrain, David! Tell me, is there a command range for your generals/commanders? (sorry, haven't got the relevant Slingshot issue) If so, what happens to units outside the command range?

[dwkay57]

The terrain is the Hexon range from Kallistra. Each tile is about 100mm across. Visual range is 4 hexes with movement at 1 hex for foot divisions, 2 for mounted divisions.

Corps commanders are issued orders at the start of a battle (which are recorded) and according to their character and taking into account what they can see they may or may not (see earlier discussions in this thread) continue with their orders or do something else. Their orders can be changed by their CinC but there is a delay (dependent on distance) before they can be acted upon.

Divisions don't normally get separate orders but move in company and support other divisions in their corps with the assumption that tactical orders are shouted across or delivered by local messengers. If they do go off on a special mission then they must have orders to do so and will suffer a morale reduction for being more than 2 hexes from any other division in their corps. This encourages the keeping of commands together and using small good quality corps for flank marches etc. where reliability may be key.

In terms of influence, commanders can boost "come on lads charge!" or degrade "Don't charge but stand on the hill!" the morale of their own division and any division in their command in adjacent hex. The amount of influence depends upon one of their characteristics. The only other morale influence at present is their demise which is consistently negative. Based on recent items in this thread, I'm thinking about introducing a fourth characteristic along the lines of: "Royal/Appointed/Elected/Warlord" but can't decide how that would influence either fighting tenacity or general morale, except in altering the impact of their demise.

So in summary to answer Justin's question: troops are assumed to follow orders unless their local divisional morale gets too good or too poor; commanders also follow orders unless their reaction, affected by their character, to their surroundings give them cause to change their interpretation.

[Dave Beatty]

A fascinating study comes from Joshua's conquest of Ai and Bethel found in Joshua 8.  A Hebrew ambush was sprung on a visual command from Joshua (raising his javelin - 8:18) and a burning village was the signal for a feigned retreat to turn to the attack (8:21). 

[Patrick Waterson]

And its Hellenic equivalent:

"When Chabrias was advancing against a hostile city, he landed a body of peltasts by night; and at the break of day he entered the harbour, and pretended to disembark his troops at some distance from the city. The citizens sallied out, to contest his landing; but then the peltasts emerged from their ambush and fell upon the enemy's rear. After killing some of them, they re-embarked with a considerable number of prisoners." - Polyaenus, Stratagems III.8.9

Pre-programmed ambushes were employed by quite a few noted Greek generals.

"When Demosthenes was commanding the Acarnanians and Amphilochians against the Peloponnesians, he encamped in front of the enemy, with a large torrent parting the camps. He observed that the enemy greatly outnumbered him, and expected that they would try to surround him. He concealed a body of hoplites, along with three hundred of the allies, in a hollow place, which was suitable for ambushes. He ordered them, if the enemy tried to surround him, to sally forth and attack them in the rear. The Peloponnesians, as he expected, extended their line in an attempt to surround him; but the men sallied forth from their ambush, fell upon their rear, and easily obtained the victory." - idem 1.2

"After acquiring a large quantity of spoils at Epidaurus, Iphicrates retreated to his ships, but he was pursued by the Laconian governor of the region, who took up a position on a hill, in order to intercept him. Iphicrates drew up his hoplites before his baggage, and attached to them in various places the light-armed troops and other weaker forces, to increase their numbers; then he concealed himself with the rest of his army, a small distance away. When the hoplites advanced against the Laconian governor, he left the hill to attack them. Iphicrates, with the other part of his army, wheeled about and took possession of the hill; then he fell on the rear of the enemy and completely defeated them. " - idem 9.48

Justin's system of orders might be a way to operate such cunning plans without recourse to an umpire.