The Battle of Bautzen PART 2 

I think you’ll find that only applies to an attacker IF it’s opposed by an enemy unit NOT involved in the charge and that’s over 3inches away from the lead defender. See diagram on page 40

@@CheckYourLeaderTV I should have let the video play a bit further before jumping in :)

The fact that ‘trained troops’ don’t obey orders like robots is what makes GDA far more realistic than rules that don’t have such a mechanism. Friction is a constant on a battlefield. I have seen this happen routinely in my 33 yrs of service. Why would they be hesitant? For a multitude of reasons. Maybe a Bde commander has seen or heard something happening to a flank or rear he finds unsettling? Maybe the Bde commander thinks he knows better than the Div Commander? A good example is Sickles Corps at Gettysburg. Why the hell did he decide to just wander his Corps forward when he was given specific orders to remain where he was? That said, in the first turn of a GdA 2 game an attacking side can always overturn a single hesitant Bde of his choosing and you can always surrender the initiative to make a hesitant Bde obey orders

@@CheckYourLeaderTVyes, I know about “frictions”. But were they as often as we see them in the GdA reports? In turn 3 (I guess) your 3 French brigades became hesitant. None of them had previously engaged the enemy. None of them had suffered any bad losses. What happened to them? These are not “frictions” this is a catastrophe for any C-in-C if 80% of his army refuse to obey orders. How often such situations happened in real history? But in the games they occur very often. And this is not realistic. IMO.

@@levsharus5899 it’s completely realistic in my opinion. Hesitant isn’t a brigade not obeying orders necessarily. It’s friction. Battles don’t go in ‘turns’, but we break them down into turns so we can game it. It could be they are simply not moving as quickly as the brigades either side. Maybe the ground is heavy and thus slowing them. Maybe there’s a ditch that’s not obvious to them? Maybe the regulating battalion has encountered one of a multitude of problems. As the senior drill instructor at ADFA I have had to manoeuvre 900 officer cadets around a parade ground and it’s not easy. Imagine doing that with twice as many soldiers, with an artillery battery to manage and the enemy interfering with my plans simply by being present,.. after all I need to keep a watchful eye on them. ‘Hesitancy’ is simply a mechanism to frustrate and mess with your plans. And the reality is friction is constantly present. I say this from a position of a veteran of 33 years service both on operations and in a training environment. Now, if someone doesn’t like that because they think the reality is too harsh they can simply ignore the rule or alter it so only on a 1 dies a Bde become hesitant (or modify it some other way). But I think it’s a pretty accurate reflection of the reality of trying to manoeuvre soldiers on a Napoleonic battlefield . From the rules: “Hesitant does not mean the Brigade has suddenly stopped without a reason, the reasons were numerous and ever present. Hesitant represents a Brigade making slow progress due to unforeseen difficulties which may or may not involve the enemy. For instance, at the Battle of Toulouse the Black Watch regiment was halted within musket range of French infantry as the grenadier company was deployed incorrectly, the Brigade advance was halted in order to reorganise the regiment. While at the Battle of Hohenlinden, an Austrian Brigade halted as firing could be heard over on its right flank. Officers were sent to discover if the enemy were attacking but this turned out to be friendly fire. These are just two examples of “hesitant” Brigades caused by command errors and the fog of war. Both perfectly illustrate Clausewitz’s friction at work”. Personally I’d like to see more friction in the form of maybe bridges advancing WITHOUT orders 😃

@@CheckYourLeaderTV Well said Scott. Its interesting that wargamers think that everything goes like clockwork on Turn 1 because there is no enemy action yet. Like you, having done a few operations in green and many, many in blue, "friction" is just as likely to happen at the start as it is anywhere through the operation. Often it has nothing to do with the enemy!

@@ruckandmaul5018 yes, all may happen in the world, but I mean that the fresher a military unit is the less chances it will be hesitant to follow orders. And you should know it as a military man (I guess you are). Besides you are looking at the issue from your own experience and I guess you did not command brigades in a battle. The frictions you mean are on a lower level of command and often can be ignored on a brigade/divisional level as least important. Tell me historical cases from Napoleonic era when every 20 minutes brigades refused to obey orders (that is what happened in the game - at least 1 brigade became hesitant each turn). Not once or twice in a battle but many times different brigades every 20-30 minutes. I am looking forward to your historical examples. P.S. Please, do not tell me about frictions in a platoon or a section of your battalion during your service. This is not the level of command we are discussing now.

lol. I thought Unformed units couldnt declare charges and suffered a negative modifier when firing but you are correct, as per 9.2 on page 53. Good pick up. 👍

No worries mate. Keep up the great work, really is inspirational. 👍🏻👍🏻🇬🇧🇬🇧

@@nickjennings8757 thanks

If table size is an issue you can play GDA2 quite comfortably on a 6x4 table using 28mm if you keep your games small or reduce the size of your units. Or play in 15mm or smaller, such as 6mm.

O'r play i'n 15mm and use centimetres. These distances are around 2/3rds of the inches distance which increases your table size!