Command and Control

[dwkay57]

Going back to Anthony's question about how we "model" the loss in our games, my mechanism works on the basis that if the commander's unit is 5% or less of its initial strength or the Division it is part of is broken then the rest of the army treats that as the commander being lost. This seems to match the "is he dead or not?" confusion but perhaps I ought to up the limit to 10% as a more accurate reflection?

The discussion would seem to suggest that the impact of a lost commander depends on the type of army, culture and existing organised hierarchy. I haven't played with any other rules since WRG 6th, do any of the newer ones reflect such differences?

[Patrick Waterson]

I suspect not, but am prepared to be corrected on this point.

Philip Sabin's Lost Battles does proportion the effect of leader loss to the leader's effectiveness, so losing an Uninspired Commander has zero effect on army morale, whereas losing a Brilliant Leader permanently drops army morale besides removing the Brilliant General benefit for troops he is with and adjacent to.  Thus an army with a useless C-in-C can lose him and not notice it, but a top-rated general biting the dust will have a significant negative impact whether or not his is the C-in-C.

This I think is along the right track though not quite all the way.   The relative immunity of hoplite armies to leader loss does not seem to have been looked into previously in Lost Battles or anywhere else, at least in anything I have seen.  Maybe it will in future.

For Greek hoplite and Thessalian armies, I suggest making the Thessalians vulnerable to leader loss - if the Tagus falls, their command structure goes flat and nobody really has much of a reason to be on the field any longer.  The Greek armies, on the other hand, should not even test for or be otherwise influenced by loss of a leader, even the C-in-C, except that if he goes down then nobody will be giving out fresh orders so the troops would just carry on with their last orders or do what comes naturally.  Default hoplite behaviour in the absence of a living commander seemed to be:

• keep fighting, or


• pursue routers for a short while (Spartans not at all if the routers are broken beyond rallying) then drift back to camp in something resembling formation but needing to pull itself together if attacked (Spartans march back in proper battle formation), or


• strip the bodies and raise a trophy (assuming nothing else is happening on the battlefield).

Troops who have not yet made contact when the C-in-C dies may just halt if belonging to an allied contingent (Sparta's Peloponnesian troops at Leuctra hung back from the fight when Cleombrotus went under - the Spartans counterattacked to recover his body and then fell back off the field under increasing Theban pressure, whereupon the allies left too).

I have not done a formal count, but my impression is that more Greek hoplite commanders died during pursuits than on the field.  Not having a horse would tend to accentuate this.  I would thus suggest that killing an opposing hoplite general (especially the C-in-C) is a victory point bonus or tie-breaker in the final analysis of who won rather than an event that affects unit or army morale on the field.

[Erpingham]

Interesting stuff on hoplites, Patrick.  I wonder how it compares to other times/places?  Are Successors prone to similar patterns or has the nature of war/leadership changed?

Picking out one point about when leaders become casualties, an impression I have of medieval battles is few leaders were lost in their moment of triumph.  Most seem to have been killed, captured, disabled as things went pear-shaped and either things disintegrated round them or they did something desperate to restore a losing situation (Richard IIIat Bosworth is the obvious but no means only one).  So whatever their loss of leader impact, it added to an already bad situation.

The only one that springs to mind of a leader killed early and its effect is the death of Ridolfo Gonzaga at Fornovo. The battle was still very much in the balance at the point he went down.  The morale effect was negligible (it was an allied army and none of its commanders were figures of devotion) but it did stop the reserve division being summoned (they had orders only to engage if ordered by Ridolfo Gonzaga, to avoid them being committed piecemeal), which effectively prevented the Italian plan from succeeding.

[Patrick Waterson]

Successors are almost the complete opposite to hoplite armies in this respect: if the general goes down, the battle is lost.  There are good reasons for this: the general is usually the king, and the army is loyal to (and paid by) the king, not the state.  Hoplite armies are state armies; Successor armies tend to be personal armies, or at least armies who look to the king, not the state, for inspiration because to a great extent l'etat c'est moi.

This holds up to and including the battle of Raphia (217 BC) where Antiochus III's battle plan is to kill Ptolemy IV.  It is also a principal feature of the long-running Seleucid wars of succession (c.160-85 BC), beside which the Wars of the Roses look like a Sunday picnic: the aim of the battle is to kill either the incumbent or the pretender.

One gains the impression that even when a general rather than the monarch was leading a Successor army, his demise considerably affected his side's performance.  It is not too easy to quantify this: the Maccabean Revolt provides quite a few instances of generals biting the dust along with their defeated forces, but it is not always clear whether this is coincidence or cause and effect.

Hence my own reading is that a hoplite army is in the field for its polis, and if one more citizen goes down that is regrettable but not catastrophic.  He can be replaced, albeit not during the battle.  If a Hellenistic monarch goes down, the national troops have lost their symbol and the mercenaries their paymaster, all of which is bad news.  This is a simplistic 'analysis', but one which I believe contains a root of truth.

[Mark G]

not just successors either, since it was both the Persian plan when fighting Alexander - and how many generals died trying at Grannicus - and also Alexander's plan at Gaugamela.

but the grannicus shows the key point - the Persians threw loads of satraps and generals into combat with Alexander, but he did not return the compliment until the 'final battle' at Grannicus.

So we should be differentiating between sovereign generals and war leaders.

the interesting point would be someone like Caesar in Gaul - had he been killed at pretty much any point in the Gallic wars, would the Senate have allowed someone else to carry on ?  or would they have said, 'well, that was his plan, its not ours, they have no gold mines, who cares'?

One of the things I liked about FoG was having two different types of leader - but perhaps we could also add a sovereign/ non sovereign status over that too. 
Personally, I would only allow body guard type units to be fielded with a sovereign general - such as Agema, Praetorians, Immortals, etc.

possibly even field them at the same cost as normal troops - but the cost is, you automatically lose the battle if the sovereign is killed - and some of those sovereigns must lead from the front of that unit too.

[aligern]

 I think that there are hero generals. Richard the Lionheart was clearly one who would inspire a unit, so was Alexander and so Caesar.
One art of generalship is to make your men more than men. You try and set up all the advantages, your men are well fed, not tired, well equipped with lots of ammunition . You place them uphill, (none of that Chinese nonsense about men uphill seeing too much) You support them with reserves and arrange an ambush of the enemy, you give a great speech, but sometimes the general just has to lead. At that point you are either Russell Crowe in Gladiator or you are not and the generals that are heroic and charismatic make their men more than men. Would I rather be fighting for Darius in his chariot or following Alexander on his charger?
Roy

One other point. Sometimes generals dismount to be with their men. This has a tremendously heartening effect because  the soldiery fear that they will be abandoned by the toffs on horseback who can outdistance pursuit. Dismounting and being with the lads claerly stiffens morale for more than the unit involved.

[Erpingham]

One other point. Sometimes generals dismount to be with their men. This has a tremendously heartening effect because  the soldiery fear that they will be abandoned by the toffs on horseback who can outdistance pursuit. Dismounting and being with the lads claerly stiffens morale for more than the unit involved.

Though how heroic this was depends on the result.  According to history, Edward IV is lauded as a hero general, on foot with his men, poleaxe in hand.  On the other hand, James IV is an inept general , on foot with his men, pike in hand.  The difference? James IV lost.

[Mark G]

good point anthony.

Hero leaders and manager-generals works well for me as the definition, but I do suggest there is still something special when the general is also sovereign.

were I to write a set of rules, I would have both types of general, with pros and cons.

But I would also have an option to upgrade to sovereign, which comes with an elite unit not otherwise available that makes a real difference to your army - but with the proviso that if the king dies, you lose the game no matter what.

[Duncan Head]

But I would also have an option to upgrade to sovereign, which comes with an elite unit not otherwise available that makes a real difference to your army - but with the proviso that if the king dies, you lose the game no matter what.

Does having the crown prince immediately available act as an insurance policy - thinking of Theodoric and Thorismund at Mauriacus? Though there is always the "not the c-in-c" clause when you have multiple kings present! And (stepping out of period here) did Gustav Adolf lose the game at Lutzen?

[Mark G]

It rather depends on the legitimacy of the crown prince at the time in the eyes of the army.

Lutzen is actually a good example of the 'no matter what' clause, since the protestants overall suffered badly despite winning the field that day, because GA died.

[gavindbm]

Just for info.. as mentioned by Patrick, Philip Sabin's Lost Battles has two types of general. 

Leaders who lead a unit of the army (often a guard unit) and Commanders who have a more roving mode of operation.  Roman and Carthaginian generals tend to be commanders; while Hellenistic generals tend to be leaders. Leaders can provide more of a boost to combat, but only by putting themselves in harms way.

There are also 4 levels of quality (uninspired, average, inspired, brilliant) with quality rating depending on performance on the day/experience (Alexander the Great and Caesar change between battles).

Plus a category of Timid to capture Leaders who tended not to lead by example (Darius, Tigranes)

Like troop quality, the improvement offered by a higher quality general tends to better fit an exponential curve rather than a linear curve.

[Erpingham]

Does having the crown prince immediately available act as an insurance policy

It's a bit variable.  Edward III sent his son off to "win his spurs".  On the other side of the field when John the Blind is killed, his son rounds up the remaining Bohemian contingent and departs post haste to claim his crown.  10 years later, King John II causes chaos by trying to get his own son out of harms way - a large part of the army "escorts him from the field", the French are stuffed, John is captured.  So a bit of a mixed bag.

[janner]

I think that there are hero generals. Richard the Lionheart was clearly one who would inspire a unit, so was Alexander and so Caesar.

Yet, I would submit that Richard was also a thinking general, who arguably exercised both directive and mission command as the situation required. The march to and subsequent battle at Arsuf is a useful discussion point - and indeed shall be at one of the sessions in honour of Bernard Bachrach this Thursday at K'zoo.

I will be arguing that analysis of the personalities who led the charge of the hospitallers indicates Richard operated a degree of decentralized command through, at least one, veteran subordinate stationed at a critical point. In this case Baldwin de Carron. Thursday will be a brief intro due to time constraints, but if anyone is around for the VI Military Orders conference this September, you can suffer the full four part harmony 

On the leaders v commanders, we quite often find High Medieval generals where they need to be. Out front for the pre battle mass etc., and then with a (mounted) reserve until they feel the requirement to 'intervene'. Of course there are variations and exceptions, but despite being represented as the first man ashore at Jaffa, Richard quickly returned to his more usual spot, with the reserve in over watch, thereafter.

Regards,

[Mark G]

"sessions in honour of Bernard Bachrach this Thursday at K'zoo"

Could you expand a little more on this?

[janner]

Sure Mark,

As you probably know, the International Congress on Medieval Studies is held each May at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo.

This year there will be two sessions in honour Bernard Bachrach (Thursday 9th May).

Studies in Medieval Military History in Honor of Bernard S. Bachrach I:
Contrary Winds: Theories of History and the Limits of Sachkritik, Stephen Morillo, Wabash College
The Military Obligations of the Danish Church in the High Middle Ages, Niels Lund, Københavns Univ.
The Battle of Arsuf, 7 September 1191, Benjamin Z. Kedar, Hebrew Univ. of Jerusalem
Response to Kedar, "The Battle of Arsuf, 7 September 1191",Stephen Bennett, Queen Mary, Univ. of London

Studies in Medieval Military History in Honor of Bernard S. Bachrach II
The Roman Frontier along the Upper Danube in Late Antiquity, Andreas Schwarcz, Institut für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung, Univ. Wien
Anthropogenic Land Cover Change: Its Relevance for Medieval Military History, Charles Bowlus, Univ. of Arkansas–Fayetteville
The Hundred Years War as a Siege War, Kelly DeVries, Loyola Univ. Maryland

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

I believe that these papers will eventually be printed as a festschrift, so will be available in due course.