For a couple of reasons, lately I have been giving some thought to exactly how units should rout and whether rule designers use the term appropriately or whether a different term is needed to describe what a routing unit is actually doing in that system.

Plus what way is fair to your opponent when moving 'routing' units.

Anyway, I have put some thoughts down on the blog, where of course there is an opportunity for the reader to add their view.

LINK

https://battlefieldswarriors.blogspot.com/2023/04/when-is-rout-really-rout.html

I posted a reply.
I'm less interested in what a rules author calls it, and more focused on whether it feels right.

If "inconvenienced" units are able to sort themselves out and rejoin the fray, I feel that significant reductions in aggressiveness and fighting power are appropriate.

Also worth noting (I didn't mention this on your blog).
In modern battle, troops pinned down by enemy fire don't follow the old pinned / pushed back / routed paradigm.
They are far more likely to go through successive levels of pinning.
You have a chance to outrun an armoured man with a spear, it's far harder to outrun a machinegun.

Interesting read, Norm. Thanks.

For me the main distinction is between those retiring, stepping back facing the enemy, and those routing, legging it for the hills.

The former, if not followed up by the enemy, will dress ranks/ take a breather/ bind their wounds and return to the fray, albeit with a little less panache than before.

The latter will, unless intercepted and rallied by a sufficiently charismatic or fear inducing commander, cast away anything that impedes rapid movement and can be easily disposed of. A heavy shield can be dropped, hence "return with your shield or upon it), but you aren't going to shuck off a coat of mail. Even if rallied I suspect they are going to be notably less effective than before.

Those retiring will go straight back in most cases, those routing will seek safety and head for a camp/ a place to hide/ home (aka the nearest non-enemy table edge). Herd instinct kicks in - look at the incidence of people killed in venue fires because they followed others into a dead end or a log jam of others.

Steve's point about the modern battlefield is also appropriate. Unless there is somewhere obviously safer and also possible to get to (for whatever value of possible the router holds to) troops seem to become more and more suppressed until reduced to a catatonic state or killed.

We use the Fire & Fury rules adapted to battalion level for Napoleonics & colonials, and it incorporates the morale cascade very well, within the manouevre D10 roll each activated unit takes. The fresh-worn-spent concept is great. There is no separate morale test phase.

In my own WW2-modern rules, where you activate by alternating platoons/companies, we have retire, fall back, retreat and rout. Routed units are simply removed from table (or vehicles abandoned), they're gone from the game. In a campaign setting you would get these back if they are nearer their own friends than to the enemy, otherwise they surrender. Morale tests are done as they are needed as combat is resolved, so again, there is no separate 'morale phase with 30 factors'.

We have a general rule that retreating units must move directly away from the enemy that is charging them, then move towards their baseline (or denoted supply point).

As usual with these kinds of questions, I turn first to the Oxford English Dictionary for a definition.  Looking at my 11th Edition of the Concise OED, I find this:

Rout. noun. a disorderly retreat of defeated troops. A decisive retreat.  verb. defeat utterly and force to retreat. 
Phrases.  Put to rout.  Put to flight.  Defeat utterly.

So, from this I infer key elements of a rout are these.

1.  The unit is disordered.
2.  The unit retreats.
3.  The unit is defeated, utterly.
4.  The retreat is decisive.

To this I would add the following.

1.  The unit has panicked.
2.  The unit's leadership elements are included in the panic.
3.  The unit's leadership elements no longer exercise command or control.

Rallying a routed unit must be very difficult and the implication of all this, it seems to me, is fourfold. 

1.   To rally a routed unit the real or perceived threat has to be removed. 
2.   The unit will continue to rout in a panic until that happens. 
3.   The unit's own leadership elements cannot play a part in rallying the unit.
4.   Only external influences can play a part in rallying the unit.

The final question seems to be whether, if rallied, the routed unit is capable of playing any useful further part in the proceedings.  I would think not very much - if we accept that a rout is a 'decisive retreat'.

As a parting thought, there is another alternative to flight, and that is surrender.  This doesn't seem to feature too much in most games.
 

John

Clear and concise. Couldn't have put it better

Hi

Very interesting discussion, thanks for starting it Norm.

I do note that when using many 'newer' rulesets, units are more or less removed from the table as soon as they 'rout' (although the routing unit may still have an impact or other nearby units at the point that they are removed). Whereas in many 'older' rulesets, routing units stayed on the table, possibly affecting other friendly units within 'x' inches, usually heading towards their own sides table edge, until they actually reach the table edge at which point they are removed from play. Indeed I remember some rulesets where the frontage/width of the routing unit had to increase by 'x' amount (representing the routing men dispersing into smaller and smaller groups) each turn (with the possibility they may have an impact on even more friendly units) as long as they remained on the table.

I do wonder if in the more modern rules we tend to underestimate the possible effect of routing units on friendly forces, maybe in the guise of speeding up play.

Cheers Paul

My Modern Rules (meaning written recently, as opposed to helicopters and night vision) go-to is Irregular Wars.

Units waver, conducting a short involuntary withdrawl.
They have an adverse effect on friends they meed during this withdrawl.
After this, the will not voluntarily contact enemy unless rallied.

Further losses see a wavering unit destroyed.
This has an adverse effect of nearby friends, who may themselves waver or be destroyed.

There's frequently a chain reaction that sees the bulk of a force disintegrate.


This kills both birds: destroyed units affect friends, and there's none of the dubious movement of fugitives that plagued rules of a certain age.

It might be worth going back to Keegan's 'Face of Battle'. An old favorite of mine.
In this he refers to the shock effect of massed shooting on a large body of men - an effect that can often appear to 'paralyze' these troops - leaving them almost incapable of doing anything other than standing and taking the enemy fire.

Lots of rules are quick to have a unit either retire/run or to disintegrate (be destroyed or KO'd) - the effect of being unable to advance or retire or even return fire can equally be an important state/status.
Personally I think this is critical in Horse & Musket type of rules sets, where a unit can stall & waiver in front of an enemy, but could be rallied to charge or reform through the right command intervention.

A lot of more recent (modern) rules sets have discarded moral in favor of faster game-play (or actually getting to a result). But in doing so the impact of a rout or even a withdrawal or a 'stall/halt' on friendly troops around it is ignored or discarded. Even the effect of a single unit in a line, becoming disordered by terrain or enemy action and not shooting or generally performing as it should, can adversely effect its friendly neighbors.

An interesting subject to discuss.   

Norm, I've had another read of your blog article and it seems to me that it discusses more than just routs, delving into the nature of retreats or retirements too.  The point at which a unit breaks in panic and routs is a matter of physical and mental exhaustion, about which Lord Moran, Churchill's doctor, had a lot to say in The Anatomy of Courage.  It is decades since I read it but as I remember he likened morale to a bank account, which you can draw on as long as there are funds in it.  As long as you remain in the blue everything will be fine, however close you get overdrawing, but once you are in the red you are bankrupt.  So, the effect of combat on morale is incremental.  The point at which physical and mental exhaustion is reached may be different from one unit to another; like a rubber band, it stretches and stretches until it breaks, suddenly.  That is a point of no return. 

So, when a unit reaches the limits of its physical and mental capabilities, it becomes 'bankrupt', its structure will be lost, it will panic and flee (or surrender – parts of the unit might behave differently).  Rout is uncontrolled flight and is different from a conscious decision to retire or retreat, call it what you will, forced or otherwise, which may involve a degree of disorder, but the unit will still be controlled by its leadership element and morale remains in 'the blue', however close to 'the red' it might become.   

I'm not a boardgamer so I can't comment in that context but my opinion is that a rout is the absolute panic you allude to.  The individuals in the unit, flee directly away from the threat as fast as they can, not necessarily all in the same direction.  All unit structure and cohesion is lost and the leadership element is equally affected by the physical and mental exhaustion.  Command and control collapses, and the units leaders have no further influence on its behaviour.  I get the impression that routs are more common the further you go back in time, usually resulting from the effect of melee, though I'm happy to be corrected on this.  Melees seem less common as firearms appear but routs still happened.  The Duke of Cumberland's Hussar at Waterloo is an example. 

I have never heard the term 'rubber router' before but I agree with you that the possibility of rallying routing units should be very slight indeed, even impossible.  Certainly not such that their morale is sufficiently restored to enable them to take further part in the battle. 

I think there is a danger of getting too concerned with words.  Reference to my Roget's Thesaurus tells me that retire and retreat are synonymous, so no difference there.  Similarly, disorder and disruption are also synonyms.  Both retire and retreat are a choice, rout is not. I think that allowing a player to choose to halt a routing unit, or let it continue to rout, is a nonsense.  Rout is not optional but I do agree that a rout can be infectious. 

In summary a retreat, or retirement, is a conscious decision.  It comprises a controlled rearward movement and although a degree of disorder may ensue, the leadership element continues to exercise command and unit structure is retained.  It should be possible to rally such a unit.  A rout is not a conscious decision, but a panicked reaction, a bit like a herd of impala running from lions.  Each individual looks after themselves.  The unit structure collapses, rearward movement is uncontrolled, individuals run in any and all directions away from the threat, and the leadership element ceases to command.  A rout, in my view, should be terminal.

Having spent several years studying the French Revolutionary Wars routs were indeed infectious. There are many instances of the collapse of several friendly units caused by the rout of one other. This was particularly true of inexperienced and poorly trained units. In one case such a rout was caused by a friendly cavalry unit retiring and supporting inexperienced infantry routed believing it was an attack by enemy cavalry. It was impossible to stop the following collapse.

One author pointed out that some of such collapses were caused by excessive fatigue as much as by direct enemy action. Many of the early French Volunteer units suffered from poor or complete lack of food and equipment and as such their morale was at its lowest level even before combat.

Thanks all for spilling so much e-ink on this. Yes John, my thinking or should I say my questioning, did originate from something wider than rout alone.

Basically, in an ACW boardgame, in which the counters represent brigades, there was disagreement between my opponent and myself on the path of rout. I wanted to apply strict directional retreats, that would cause units to crash into friends etc, he was happier to do some fancy footwork while routing to avoid that.

With two interpretations on how to rout (frankly, gamey meets simulation), it struck me that what was needed was to know what the designer was actually attempting to represent and whether the label of rout was correct for what he intended.

QuoteI wanted to apply strict directional retreats, that would cause units to crash into friends etc, he was happier to do some fancy footwork while routing to avoid that.

IIRC in HoW units retreat/rout into their rear area, directly away from the enemy, which often means they do crash into units behind them, thus causing issues. One gamer I play with doesn't like this so allows quite a bit of flexibility on retreats, allowing them to snake around other units to avoid contact between the two. This I think is unrealistic, but it's his house, figures etc so we go with it.

QuoteNorm, I've had another read of your blog article and it seems to me that it discusses more than just routs, delving into the nature of retreats or retirements too.  The point at which a unit breaks in panic and routs is a matter of physical and mental exhaustion, about which Lord Moran, Churchill's doctor, had a lot to say in The Anatomy of Courage.  It is decades since I read it but as I remember he likened morale to a bank account, which you can draw on as long as there are funds in it.  As long as you remain in the blue everything will be fine, however close you get overdrawing, but once you are in the red you are bankrupt.  So, the effect of combat on morale is incremental.  The point at which physical and mental exhaustion is reached may be different from one unit to another; like a rubber band, it stretches and stretches until it breaks, suddenly.  That is a point of no return. 

<Clipped for brevity>

Just the first paragraph because morale as a bank balance seems well suited to game mechanics.

Some (the combined combat/morale school) would argue that the dwindling figure count represents that balance.
Those who prefers a distinct morale track can model this as a second characteristic.

I'm reminded of the Too Fat Lardies force morale: A total that's worn down by all manner of setbacks.

Quote from: Steve J on 17 April 2023, 06:16:44 AMIIRC in HoW units retreat/rout into their rear area, directly away from the enemy, which often means they do crash into units behind them, thus causing issues. One gamer I play with doesn't like this so allows quite a bit of flexibility on retreats, allowing them to snake around other units to avoid contact between the two. This I think is unrealistic, but it's his house, figures etc so we go with it.

I think they should rout directly away from the threat.  That is what my rules prescribe and I think its reasonable.  Routing units are like a crowd leaving a stadium and I think they will find their way around obstacles.  I have even read of units opening their ranks to let fugitives through.  This does not mean necessarily that they don't have an effect on them though.  The other thing about routs is victorious units following them even if you really would prefer that they don't.