The spark that ignited the flames was when I posted to a thread on "Wargaming pet hates". My own list of pet hates included:
"Anything pre-Napoleon - essentially it's linear warfare, relatively limited tactical options, relatively few interesting decisions to make."
Bored, bored, bored ...
(I was also careful to include this caveat: "I don't mean to belittle anyone else's fun - it's all about personal preference, and if others love the games I hate, that's fine, I don't have to play them.")
But having made such a contentious statement, I had better try to justify it. Let me give a grossly generalized characterization of pre-Napoleonic warfare (PNW). With few exceptions, realistically the interesting decisions a PNW general has to make are limited to pre-battle ones:
- How do I deploy my line? (For it is almost invariably a line.)
- Should I have a second line and/or a reserve?
- Do I attack the enemy or wait for them?
- If I attack, do I go left-flanking, right-flanking, or general advance?
The decisions a PNW general can make during the battle are more limited:
- When/where to commit the second line / reserve?
- Er, that's it?
This is because the capabilities of the troops and the armies are so limited, in particular their mobility and firepower.
The mobility of most infantry formations is incredibly limited, even into the mid-18th century, because weapon technologies mostly oblige infantry to fight in unwieldy masses, which can't cope with difficult terrain, and because drill movements for quick formation changes haven't been invented. Artillery is virtually immobile.
Firepower is either very feeble or very short-ranged. The longer-ranged weapons are too few and not destructive enough to matter much.
Because both mobility and firepower are so limited, the distance to which units and armies can project their force is much less than the width of the armies. Thus, although linear deployments are not exactly one-dimensional - there are second and third lines and reserves - they are not truly two-dimensional either.
Whereas around Napoleon's time, several different developments come into play. Artillery becomes lighter and more mobile, while at the same time becoming more accurate and effective, and also more numerous. Sophisticated drill means formation changes become rapid enough to be performed closer to the enemy than before, and enable obstacles to be bypassed more easily. Transitions between line-column-square are all easily performed, giving commanders more options. Command and control becomes more sophisticated and professional, and the corps system is developed, in which fractions of the army become combined-arms mini-armies, each capable of performing independent yet coordinated missions.
All these factors contribute to give the battlefield much more depth and make it truly two-dimensional. The fact that armies can now project force across greater distances - either longer-ranged artillery, or more rapidly-moving forces of all arms - and that they can cope better with moving across or around difficult terrain makes for much more complex interactions across much larger areas than in linear PNW.
The consequence as far as I'm concerned is that the more complex interactions of the C19 and C20 mean there are far more decisions to be made in the course of a C19 or C20 wargame than in PNW, and that C19 onwards is therefore for me personally, relatively - and note I did say relatively - much more interesting and fun to wargame, and much more likely to provide the full High Quality Gaming Experience.
That's the gist of my argument in a fairly large nutshell. I mean no offence to anyone who disagrees, and I will be happy to be disabused of my ignorant and prejudiced notions. Actually, I hope that some PNW experts will open my eyes by pointing out numerous historical instances that undermine my argument. Please educate me!*
*If you visit the Pendraken thread you will see that plenty of people responded - but they didn't really dent my prejudices. But I think we all ended up friends anyway (make sure to read my last message on the thread as well).
