[Consim-l] Craonne Replay & Review

[John Best]

Playing catch-up on my wargame emails:
Markus discussed a game which is little known, about a Napoleonic battle 
which also is little known:

>I just finished a solo game of the Sandhurst Book of Wargames "Craonne", 
>the only game I know that deals with this small battle in early 1814 that 
>was the culmination of one of Bluecher's failed attempts to outflank and 
>destroy Napoleon.

Interesting.  I've heard of the book (I think), but I had the idea that it 
was basically a set of miniatures rules.  Does the book come with counters 
and maps?  If so, there is an interesting tie-in here to another recent post 
by Dave Bieksza who commented on the book "Pentagon games" by John Prados, 
which is an oversized folio style book that does contain a few actual games, 
(as I recall, with somewhat smaller maps and cardboard counters).  During 
this past year, my mind has turned to what I'm calling right now "hybrid 
products": they would contain "an interactive history element" (this would 
be like the "game") combined with another kind of product such as a book, or 
some kind of narrative, or even a movie.  The idea would be to create some 
synergy between two different media (the "game", although the way I'm 
visualizing it, it's not exactly a game the way we usually think of it) and 
the "book".  Well, let's just talk about the game "Craonne" for right now: 
(I've left a lot of Markus' text in here for ease of reference)
>
> This is a simple game with a number of unusual concepts.  Sequence of play 
> is move-combat, but units have two combat ratings, "unpinned" (which 
> ranges from 4-6 for most infantry units to 9 for the French cuirassiers 
> and 12 for the Guard) and "pinned" (which ranges from 1 to 4). There is no 
> stacking although units can pass through each other.  There are normal 
> locking ZOCs. The CRT is odds-based but has only three results: Melee, 
> Defender retreat, and (rarely at high odds) Defender Eliminated. While 
> initially this looks like a Perry-Moore-style "hiya, let's attack, nothing 
> can happen to us" CRT, the effects are actually different.

Markus goes on to clarify how this is different from a "I'm just shooting at 
you; you can't hurt me" type of CRT, but I would intereject here that 
figuring out what scale that kind of CRT works for in Napoleonic combat has 
been a tricky puzzle for designers for decades.  I think, theoretically, 
there might a kind of level (determined by length of the turn, unit size, 
and hex-scale) where this kind of "I shoot at you in my phase-then you shoot 
at me in your phase" kind of CRT might work to describe relatively quiet 
sections of the battlefield.  But in general, it's been problematic to 
figure out where it might work.


> The "Melee" result is the most frequent outcome at low odds, it has
> both sides marked with a combat marker. From then on, the units just
> sit, possibly over multiple turns, until one side or the other brings
> in reinforcements to end that stalemate. If reinforcements are brought
> in (this can be through free adjacent hexes or by passing through
> friendly units already engaged), all units that were originally in the
> melee only use their pinned value.

It's a little hard to visualize what the "Melee" result means in actual 
Napoleonic terms.  I get the idea that, once engaged in firing, a unit of 
sufficient size seems to have been  kind of "stuck" in its place in the 
battleline until something dramatic happens.  But generally once units were 
engaged in sustained firing, the casualty rates went up, and when that 
happened, something dramatic (like morale failure) would ensue pretty 
quickly.  The implication in Craonne is that the lethality of the units 
actually decreases when they are pinned, as would occur in the Melee 
results, if I'm understanding Markus' depiction correctly (which I may not 
be).  Short fom: I like the idea of units "locked in combat" after an 
assault, but I couldn't quite see what was being simulated in the Melee 
result.


> A defender in good terrain simply adds the pinned combat value to the
> value he's fighting with, clean and simple.
>
> Defending cavalry checks if it has defeated the stalemate by a
> countercharge that would force the attacker to retreat. Artillery can
> bombard for up 7 hexes away, using its pinned value for fire beyond 1
> hex range.

I like both ideas:  If you are infantry and you approach enemy infantry in 
good terrain, you should get shot up.  And I also think that cavalry "held 
ground" against infantry on the Napoleonic battlefield by constantly 
threatening, or implying, that it could charge.  At least, this is my 
reading of how Napoleon held his right flank at Ligny for example with 
Pajol's corps against Prussian infantry.

And then a really nice depiction of the game itself:

> Now for the battle...
>
> Turns 1 and 2: The Russians decide to make hay while the sun shines
> and engage in a massive assault against Ney's forces which are
> forcefully pushed eastwards and down the slope.  It becomes
> increasingly difficult to prevent encirclement.
>
> Turn 3: Ney is all but crushed, two of his units are surrounded and
> pushed to surrender. Ney is wounded and has to leave the
> battlefield. The Guard has been brought up to block the Chemin de
> Dames around Hurtebise.
>
[snipping a bunch]

> Total French losses: 6 units, 54 SP (36Inf, 18Cav)
> Total Russian losses: 13 units, 66SP (42Inf, 12Cav, 12Art)
>
>
I wondered about the unit scale, and hex scale (it looks like the turn 
length is a somewhat unusual 40 minutes; I wondered if that turn length was 
done theoretically, or from an effect standpoint (ie, "We wanted the game to 
be ten turns long, and the battle was 7 hours long, so do the math").  I 
wondered if the scale was maybe regimental (Russian regiments were 
numerically smaller than French, and it looks like that is reflected in the 
average unpinned combat strength of the units).  Based on the artillery 
bombardment distance (7 hexes--that's big); that might suggest that the hex 
scale is a pretty small 100 meters or so.  That's an interesting mix.  Well, 
Markus, it sounds like you had fun with the game--that's always the main 
thing; thanks so much for sharing your impressions with us, and thanks for 
reading.
John Best
jlbest at advancenet.net
Currently playing: playtesting a new "not-quite-tactical" WWII system, 
playing "Bulge 44" (HPS Simulations, John Tiller design) on my computer (and 
doing terrible; I can hardly understand anything about how to operate the 
game, continuing to work on my East Front project, which is something along 
the lines of the "hybrid product" I talked about.
Currently reading: "Beowulf" (Seamus Heaney translation--it's great), "The 
German Defeat in the East", Samuel W. Mitcham, Stackpole Military History 
Series (I don't really like the book), The Trojan War, Barry Strauss (way 
too much "pop history" for me; it doesn't need that to "bring the story to 
life"--the story is pretty darn compelling as it is.  Stick with "The 
Iliad", Robert Fagales translation)