Friction in command and control

In the last post I was interesting in friction in movement created by terrain effects.  In this post I'm interested in the effect of general's personalities on the way they handle the changing environment of a battlefield.

In some cases generals simply cannot get on with each other and are more keen to throw a spanner in the works than to support their colleagues.  This seems to be more of an issue in the alliances of disparate factions that come together to fight in a civil war than in wars between nation states or City States.  You only have to look at the personality clashes on both sides in the BCW to see this in action.  Goring and Prince Maurice comes to mind or  Independent and Presbyterian officers views on strategy on Parliament's side.

Another source of friction is the ability of a commander to take in the changing situation on a battlefield and react to these.  Some officers are simply 'hard of thinking' especially in periods where gaining higher command was a privilege of birth and not dependent on ability.  The level of confidence of a commander also plays a part.  Remember Hooker's famous statement in the ACW as to why he suddenly failed to push through with his strategy at Chancellorsville "To tell the truth, I just lost confidence in Joe Hooker"!

Orders are subject to interpretation too.  Prince Rupert famously interpreted King Charles orders for the relief of York as meaning that he was to bring the enemy to battle come what may.  In the same position I doubt the Earl of Essex would have viewed them in the same light.

If a set of rules can be created to handle the impact that these factors have on command decisions we have a start on friction resulting from General's personality traits.

I have used a rule in campaign games to restrict the number of subsidiary commanders or units one commander can control.  It was originally intended to prevent the situation were both sides assemble all of the available forces and fight one climactic battle which would kill the campaign off at one fell swoop.  It worked by giving each commander a 'command span' which was a number representing the number of sub commanders and/or units they could have under their control.  For my 2mm BCW rules I amended the rule it now is a measure of Command ability.  The rating is between 2 and 6 and represents how many new orders can be processed by that individual in each turn (representing 6 minutes of game time) and react to battlefield changes.  To some extent it is a measure of how fast they can handle change.  In each turn the commander has those points to spend (if required) unused points are not carried forward and the points are reset at the start of each turn.  Think of it as an allocation of thinking and reacting time. He can carry out command actions in any order the player wishes subject only to the timing of events arising.

There are three events which may need to be considered:

1.  Changes to the battlefield situation,  The commander is watching his command and sees a situation he needs to react to,
2. New orders are received from a superior commander
3. New orders are issued to a subordinate commander

Each consumes one of the commanders ability points.  So our little lead general has 4 command ability points and is commanding the Infantry centre with two subordinate commanders under his control.  The following events happen.

1. Orders are received from the CinC to commit his reserve Brigade.
2. He sees a risk to his command as enemy cavalry crest a rise on his flank.

His response is to first read the order he has received (cost 1 pt - 3 left).  He reacts to the sighting of the cavalry threat (cost 1 pt - 2 left).  Now he has to consider what commands to give with his remaining points.  He elects to order the commander of the reserve to change from hold to attack orders (1 pt- 1 left) and to order the commander of the second line to deal with the cavalry threat (1pt - 0 left).  If any other threats arise later in the turn he will not be able to respond at once as he is busy dealing with the other matters.

Another source of friction is to give an aggression or personality rating.  More aggressive commanders will react in a more aggressive way when a reaction test calls for their reaction adjustment to be used so an aggressive commander will add his factor a timid one will deduct it.  Lastly on determining when to change their command's orders from aggressive to defensive to withdrawal aggressive commands will consider the number of units still able to take aggressive action while timid ones will consider the number no longer able to take aggressive action.  This last is still more of a concept than a developed rule at the moment.  I need to play test it before finalising exactly how it will work.  Its part of the solution I'm edging towards for solving the ending the battle issue I posted about a while ago.