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Retire vs. Retreat vs. Rout???

I actually enjoy these idealized old paintings of Famous Napoleonic battles more than cinematic attempts to render the same events.  Although I have not watched it in 20 years or more, I always find myself picking about Sergei Bondarchuk's version of Waterloo (1970), which seems to completely ignore most of the allied troops who were part of Wellington's army in Belgium that spring.


Revisiting three early issues of Miniature Wargames this morning, specifically a few related articles by Mark Clayton on Napoleonic troop morale, and I remain confused after all of these years.  1) What is the difference, within a horse and musket era context, between troops that retire, those that retreat, and those that rout, please?  2) How might you make these distinctions readily apparent in rules and on the tabletop?  Any clarification would be greatly appreciated.

-- Stokes

Comments

Ed M said…
Well, if it isn't a trap question, I'll bite: Here's a stab.

I would generally say that the distinctions between retire, retreat, and rout generally would be in relation to compulsion vs decision, level of control, and ability to recover. Depending on the levels of abstraction, a retirement would represent a unit retrograding from its position due to a deliberate decision. These could be results stemming from morale checks or combat processes, melee or fire. The retirement would be orderly and the unit would suffer little or no degradation--in game terms, move the unit back x number of inches facing the enemy with no other effect. A retreat would be similar except that the unit was compelled to retrograde rather than doing so as a matter of choice, and therefore was less controlled and suffered some sort of degradation as a result: in game terms, this would be your usual, "retreat x inches and disorder, or take x number of hits..." A rout would be a more drastic case of a retreat, with the unit breaking cohesion with a loss of control, with severe degradation(possibly unrecoverable). In game terms, usually the result of a melee or post melee morale check as opposed to fire, this is your classic, "move back a charge move, facing away," and suffer x number of hits/losses and mark with some form of long term disorder or degradation, often requiring a rally check or some kind of command intervention to recover, possibly removing from the table in the following turn if not recovered.

4:55 PM
Steve-the-Wargamer said…
Ed has it I think... it is the difference between a voluntary and involuntary action... voluntary actions are controlled and disciplined ("retire"), involuntary actions are not ("retire"/"rout"), and the level of discipline and morale (to simplify it considerably) is the difference between "retire" and "rout"..
2:24 AM
Independentwargamesgroup said…
This is an interesting one Stokes, fro me and its only a personal opinion, when a unit retires it is a fairly orderly move away from the enemy that is causing them grief. An actual retreat for me seems to imply the unit is part of a bigger retirement, the army recognises its had enough. To rout is when a unit is panicked into literally throwing away ones weapons and legging it. This is usually when the most causalities occur in a unit, their backs are to the enemy and its everyone for himself.
8:10 AM
WSTKS-FM Worldwide said…
Thank you everyone! That helps clarify things on my end. Much appreciated.

Best Regards,

Stokes
11:09 AM
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