Reasons NOT to refight historical battles

[Westmarcher]

A good topic that has had us all thinking.

Chris and the respondents have more or less covered the reasons for NOT fighting historical battles and whilst not a derailment (as is our want), the topic has sometimes digressed to a discussion on how we define Historical, Fantasy and Sci-Fi gaming (in my view, simply put, one solely involves contemporary combatants and weapons that actually existed and the other two do not).

Of course, all of our games are fantasy but the hobby is such a broad church with enthusiasts attracted to it for different reasons that it helps most of us to focus on our own areas of interest by splitting the hobby into these sub-categories.

When re-fighting a historical battle, I start with the historic deployments and, if appropriate, factor in the later arrival of reinforcements (although not averse to exploring some random variance in that respect either).

And although what happens in the game is fiction thereafter, for me it is enough to classify the game as 'Historical' because it only features contemporary combatants and weapons technology that actually existed.

I would also like to add that a 'game' that follows the actual events of a historical battle is a re-enactment - a different hobby from wargaming as I know it.

[paulr]

...how we define Historical, Fantasy and Sci-Fi gaming (in my view, simply put, one solely involves contemporary combatants and weapons that actually existed and the other two do not)...

When re-fighting a historical battle, I start with the historic deployments and, if appropriate, factor in the later arrival of reinforcements (although not averse to exploring some random variance in that respect either).

And although what happens in the game is fiction thereafter, for me it is enough to classify the game as 'Historical' because it only features contemporary combatants and weapons technology that actually existed.

I would also like to add that a 'game' that follows the actual events of a historical battle is a re-enactment - a different hobby from wargaming as I know it.

Three points, that I agree with, very well made

[T13A]

Hi

I am honestly not trying to be awkward but I am really struggling with understanding the point of re-playing a historical battle where the players have to use the historic deployments? Grateful for some enlightenment.  :-

Cheers Paul

[Gwydion]

Hi, I wrote half a page about why it's a great idea and then I thought: why do you struggle with the idea? - again not wanting to be awkward but I can't think of a down side to it (I play lots of other games but those starting from the set up positions of Austerlitz, Aspern, Wagram, Dresden, Quatre Bras etc have been the best).
Why do you find it odd? When you're fighting a historical battle? Where else would you start?

[Ithoriel]

At the risk of starting this all up again. If you don't have to make all the same moves as your historical predecessors why should you have to form up as they did? Surely, here's the terrain, here are the troops, get to it makes more sense not less?

[T13A]

Hi Gwydion

Well I guess as I'm playing the 'General' (C-in-C or whatever), I want to do things my way (but with the same historical conditions applying, forces available, perhaps with some variables as to weather and time of arrival of off table reinforcements etc.) and not be constrained by having to deploy 'historically' with likely historical results (particularly if I'm playing the loser)! It is a game after all and my intention is not to just replicate on the table what actually happened in real life (sometimes it will of course). If I'm re-fighting Waterloo for instance I do want to fight the battle of Waterloo (with the historical forces available) but not the battle of Waterloo as it was fought historically. If I'm 'Napoleon' I want to win after all and as they say 'I wouldn't have started from there'. 

Hope that makes some kind of sense.

cheers Paul

[T13A]

Hi

Just seen Ithoriel's post above (while I was writing mine) and he puts my point over a lot better than I did!

Cheers Paul

[Gwydion]

Cheers Paul, I think so. I guess for me the fun is having to work with what happened up to the deployment on the battlefield.
As Alexander/Kutusov/Weyrother/whoever was in charge, I'd really like Liechstenstein not to have bivouacked in the wrong place overnight, but he did - why should my orders have been better interpreted the night before?

I don't necessarily think the initial deployment always dooms an army to defeat or guarantees success either.

But by all means experiment with what if deployments, and hypothetical situations.

Ithoriel: As for why start where they did? Well because the circumstances of the campaign up to that point  led us there. If you want to fight the campaign, then fine, you may end up at Austerlitz or Aspern or Borodino but its very unlikely, and even more unlikely the available orbat will be the same - and you won't be fighting those battles, and perverse as it may seem to some, I want to, now and again at least!

[paulr]

One of the things I really enjoy about refighting historic battles, including initial deployments, is the better understanding I gain of the challenges faced by the commanders at the time.

As has been noted before this is a broad hobby and there are many different ways to enjoy it.

Personally I really enjoy:

• refighting historic battles
• fighting fictitious battles with historic forces
• refighting historic campaigns
• fighting fictitious campaigns with historic forces

If I had more time and storage space I would probably enjoy fighting science fiction and fantasy battles and campaigns. As it stands currently I don't have enough time to regularly get all my historic forces on the table

[John Cook]

Hi

I am honestly not trying to be awkward but I am really struggling with understanding the point of re-playing a historical battle where the players have to use the historic deployments? Grateful for some enlightenment.  :-

Cheers Paul

The point is manifold.

1.  It is a useful tool to test a set of rules.  If they are any good then the outcome should be something like the historical precedent.  
2.  If you want to refight, say, Waterloo, if you don't use the initial deployments it is another battle, not Waterloo.
3.  It gives the individuals satisfaction and enjoyment to do so, which is the point of all wargames.

[Ithoriel]

1.  It is a useful tool to test a set of rules.  If they are any good then the outcome should be something like the historical precedent. 
2.  If you want to refight, say, Waterloo, if you don't use the initial deployments it is another battle, not Waterloo.
3.  It gives the individuals satisfaction and enjoyment to do so, which is the point of all wargames.

Not convinced by number one, I've made my views known on number two but absolutely and utterly agree with point three!

[John Cook]

1.  It is a useful tool to test a set of rules.  If they are any good then the outcome should be something like the historical precedent.  
2.  If you want to refight, say, Waterloo, if you don't use the initial deployments it is another battle, not Waterloo.
3.  It gives the individuals satisfaction and enjoyment to do so, which is the point of all wargames.

Not convinced by number one, I've made my views known on number two but absolutely and utterly agree with point three!

I always do it for a new project where the rules are new to me.  I've done it several times, the last being Culloden.    

[Heedless Horseman]

Chipping in again. Historic and A-historic. I don't think anyone wants a strict re-enactment...  that is a mobile Diorama! But for a Historical battle... orders WERE given for deployment and objective.... so to me... start from those... if you want to re-fight 'A BATTLE'...  rather than just use a 'battlefield' and appropriate forces.

We KNOW the historcal outcome of various actions. A-histoiric... taken to the extreme... player who is historical loser, doesn't fight the battle in the first place! Celts no NOT offer open battle. Custer does NOT ride down the slope. Jacobites have more sense than to Charge formed musketry. Napoleon... now knowing that Prussians will turn up... swings left. Might as well forget about WW1 trench war attacks. Bulge... US 'knows' an attack is coming...
So... 'The Battle'... as a re-fight of History... would not have existed.... or be un-recognisable as 'Historic'.
YES fun to say "I would have done this, instead!" And, yes, of course you can!
But...Nobody would replicate Neys' repeated charges...(instead, send cav to slow Prussians). The Light Brigade would attack the forts. Rebs would move on un-occupied Round Top, and NO 'Picketts Charge'! Attempt to take Arnhem Bridge by 'Coup de Main'...
But now becoming A-Historical... if you get my meaning.

Plenty of room for both Historic dispositions and orders... initially, but with some  scope for tactical variation... (and dice rolls!)... to gradualy change outcomes.
AND A-Historic... same forces , same place... but not the same Battle.
Have fun, EITHER way!

[Chris Pringle]

I am honestly not trying to be awkward but I am really struggling with understanding the point of re-playing a historical battle where the players have to use the historic deployments? Grateful for some enlightenment.  :-

I'll offer you two main reasons (largely already pointed at by others' replies above.

1. The game as a tactical challenge, an intellectual puzzle: being lumbered with the historical deployment (including any problems that creates) may be an intrinsic part of the challenge.

2. The game as a historical exploration: if you're looking for understanding of why a battle took the course it did, or of what might have happened if other plans were followed, again the historical deployment may be a necessary part of that.

That said, the 100s of historical scenarios I and others have created for BBB over the past decade-plus use a range of approaches to deployment. Sometimes a scenario will indeed require strictly historical starting set-ups. Others may allow entirely free deployment within a designated zone. Many are somewhere in between, with an army's component corps perhaps being required to be in their historical relation to each other (eg 1st Cps on the left, 2nd in the centre, 3rd on the right, 4th arriving later) but allowed a degree of latitude within that ("1st Cps anywhere within 12" of village X"). There are cases like the Crimean War battle of Kurudere, where the BBB scenario offers the Turkish players the choice of sticking with the original plan that proved the Turks' undoing historically (a night march pincer movement) or going for a more conservative ahistorical daytime frontal approach. There are cases like Gettysburg or Koniggratz where subordinate corps commanders' decisions actually dislocated the C-in-C's defensive plan - I think the BBB scenarios for those do a rather good job of incorporating that factor in the game without 'scripting'. It's a matter of scenario design and deciding what will make for both a good representation of the battle and an interesting game.

Has that enlightened at all? 

Oh, and Heedless:

We KNOW the historcal outcome of various actions. A-histoiric... taken to the extreme... player who is historical loser, doesn't fight the battle in the first place! Celts no NOT offer open battle. Custer does NOT ride down the slope. Jacobites have more sense than to Charge formed musketry. Napoleon... now knowing that Prussians will turn up... swings left. Might as well forget about WW1 trench war attacks. Bulge... US 'knows' an attack is coming...
So... 'The Battle'... as a re-fight of History... would not have existed.... or be un-recognisable as 'Historic'.
YES fun to say "I would have done this, instead!" And, yes, of course you can!
But...Nobody would replicate Neys' repeated charges...(instead, send cav to slow Prussians). The Light Brigade would attack the forts. Rebs would move on un-occupied Round Top, and NO 'Picketts Charge'! Attempt to take Arnhem Bridge by 'Coup de Main'...

Well, it depends on victory conditions. Napoleon is trying to drive the Allies and the Prussians apart, so swinging left may not achieve his aim. Britain and France not attacking on the western front in 1916 lets the Central Powers knock Russia out of the war a year earlier. Ney's charge: sometimes you just have to use what you've got. BBB refights of Balaclava generally see the Light Brigade wiped out one way or another regardless, since there isn't much else around to slow down the Russians. Refighting Gettysburg has showed me that Pickett's Charge was in some respects the 'least worst' option; though yes, I have also seen a right hook against the Round Tops (which doesn't necessarily work either). Again - scenario design choices to create the right tabletop tactical challenges.

Chris

[steve_holmes_11]

I really enjoy the approach of Little wars TV (I'm a big fan) to the issue of hindsight.

Greg (Evil Overlord at LWTV - and general pot stirrer) generally presents a scenario with a secret twist.

For example a Punic Wars battle, disrupted by a Lake Trasimene style ambush fomr nowhere.
It's difficult to do that without an Umpire who also assumes some Game Master responsibility.

In other games, they have used multiple tables, with reserves marching between them, or clever fog of war mechanisms.
Zulus arriving form off-table for Isandwlana, and real (well cotton wool - yard of it) fog for Austerlitz.