Reply To: Different Mechanics for Dealing with Longer-Term Attrition

[McLaddie]

I was thinking more of “commander morale” – the tendency of a commander to either remain in contact with the enemy or fall back due enemy pressure.

 

That is really a psychological or perhaps political issue.  They may feel they can’t afford to lose too many troops, or that the cost would be too high to continue… or it may be that the commander is simply cautious.

I’ve been working on a leader character set of mechanics.  One such is that each commander, when given an order, may ‘interpret it’ based on his character.  This would include moving the order up or down, say from a ‘sustained attack’ to a ‘demonstration’ or up to ‘all-out attack’.  They can also generate a limit to how many casualties they are willing to incur. One commander may be willing to suffer 30% of his command out of action, while another will only be willing to take 10% casualties.

I am trying to think of an instance where an attacking force was ‘attrited’ under artillery fire, but pressed the attack in that weakened state.  Pickett’s Charge is the only one I can think of off hand.  Nothing Napoleonic comes to mind.  I can only think of one example of troops retreating after being under artillery fire and that is the Stanitz Regiment at Jena under the fire of 30+guns… and they reformed and came back, standing for another two hours or more.