BigBoard Gaming · Strategy Series
The Strategy
步 — Bu: March / The Infantry
Whenever infantry units engage chariot or cavalry forces in combat, they must rely upon mounds and hills, ravines and defiles, forests and trees in order to be victorious. If they encounter level, easy roads they must deploy into a square formation and erect palisades around the perimeter.
That’s the core of it a blunt, practical rule for the footslogger up against mobile forces. But the strategy goes further, detailing a rotation system between “holding forces” and “assault forces” that has modern parallels: while one element pins the enemy, the other sallies out, duh. Then they swap. It’s not static defense rather it’s a pulsing, two-fisted rhythm of hold-and-strike that keeps the enemy off balance and your own troops fresh. Those who boxed as lads would recall the one-two punch cadence. Same deal.
The historical anchor is the Tang Dynasty general Li Siyuan (867–933 CE), who used a large infantry force to break a siege and relieve Zhou Dewei demonstrating that foot soldiers, properly handled with terrain awareness and internal rotation, could defeat cavalry-heavy forces that looked overwhelmingly superior on paper.
Eastern Wisdom
Bushido art — BigBoard Gaming Strategy Series
“With passable terrain, first situate in southerly sites of the heights and secure supply routes: battles in this way are advantageous.”
— Sun Tzu, The Art of War: The Definitive Translation of the Linyi Text (trans. J.H. Huang, Harper Perennial), p. 90 — Book 10: Terrain
Book 10 of the Art of War is essentially a field commander’s checklist for terrain reading, and the essential companion to Strategy #5. Sun Tzu identifies six terrain types, passable, barbed, stalemated, gorge path, obstacled, remote with each demanding a different posture. The rule is always the same: ground shapes options. Infantry especially lives and dies by this as we have seen in all our gaming exploits over the decades. A cavalry commander can often outrun a bad terrain choice, and many games will facilitated that action. An infantryman cannot. Getting to the high ground first, securing your flanks on dead ground, putting ravines between you and the horsemen these are not luxuries. They are the manner in which you will establish the whole holding/assault rotation the strategy describes against a cavalry foe wen you are on foot.
A Western Mirror
The Operational Planning framework cuts right to the guts/heart of what Strategy #5 is doing:
“pin the enemy from the front and hit it in the flank or rear.”
That is the holding-force/assault-force rotation in Western operational language. The holding force fixes the enemy in place and occupies the enemy’s attention. The assault force exploits the gap or the flank. The key insight in both the Chinese text and the Western doctrine is that these roles must be interchangeable. Holding forces that cannot become assault forces are just sitting targets. Assault forces with no one covering their base are overextended (Solo_Operational Planning.docx, available upon requerst).
The classic historical test case is Wellington at Waterloo, June 18, 1815. The ridge of Mont-Saint-Jean was Wellington’s terrain selection the reverse slope sheltered his infantry from French artillery while the forward slope gave him fields of fire, it also gave him cover (hedges exsited then -it does not look same today).
His infantry squares held against massed French cavalry charges precisely because they had terrain anchors. Napoleon’s cavalry, unable to break the squares on that terrain, exhausted itself against formations that never stopped cycling. By the time Ney finally got the Imperial Guard forward, Wellington’s assault force in essence the whole line was fresh enough to advance. Well that’s my read of the Anglo-Saxon portion of the battle.
The dedicated campaign study bears the read out. Wellington stood his foot in “twenty squares, chequerboard pattern for mutual supporting fire,” and his reverse-slope deployment left the French Grand Battery’s fire “relatively ineffective” the gun crews even sheltered inside the squares between volleys, then ran back out to serve their pieces as the cavalry recoiled (Osprey Campaign 015: Waterloo 1815, pp. 59–60). The squares held “without the loss of one infantry regiment or a single color”;
Ensign Gronow of the 1st Foot Guards watched the horses “stop twenty feet from the squares” rather than impale themselves (The Military Career of General Kellermann, p. 106).
But the rotation had a wicked price those same packed squares took their heaviest casualties of the day from the French guns between the charges. Cavalry-proof, gun-bait: every posture trades one threat for another, which is the footslogger’s whole dilemma in miniature, and the Strike-protect, move triangle.
On the table: look for games with terrain-modifier rules and unit-type interaction. In most operational wargames, infantry gets combat bonuses in rough/woods/urban hexes that cavalry or armor do not. Games like Panzer or the old SPI infantry series make the holding/assault rotation explicit in their fire-and-movement rules. If your game lets you designate “in place” vs. “assault” posture in the same hex stack, you are playing Strategy #5 every time you do it. For instance if you can select to attack with a portion of a hexes forces as in the new Silent Deadly Series, or Simonitch’s ZOC Bond games where break through combat can occur as a result of your combined arms/elite/and other bonus’s. And the square itself is a classic design problem: contemporary rules hand “morale bonuses to troops formed into squares and deductions from the morale throw for cavalry charging” them, and bar cavalry from meleeing a square “unless they have broken it” first (Strategy & Tactics 16, “Special Formations,” p. 22) the rules-level echo of why Wellington’s line held.
Sun Tzu vs Clausewitz
Strategy #5 is, at bottom, an argument about terrain and the defensive situation and here the two great theorists of war high five, I know it was not a ting then….so they shake hands. Clausewitz held the defense to be the inherently stronger form of war, and the comparative study of the two texts notes that a commander “must be aware of the advantages conferred by terrain and weapons technology as well as those which cannot be gained solely through numerical superiority” (artofWar_OnWar-compare.pdf, p. 39). That is exactly what the footsoldier in the ravines and defiles is doing: borrowing strength from the ground to cancel the cavalry’s edge, manufacturing a local superiority that the raw count of men and horses would otherwise deny him.
But the hold-and-strike rotation is also where the two part company. For Clausewitz the defensive is never an end in itself it is just the stronger form precisely because it stores energy for the counterstroke; the holding force exists to set up the assault force, not to outlast the enemy for its own sake. The Chinese tradition leans the other way. The study flags “a tradition of land warfare that prefers defense to offense and stresses the exhausting of an attacker… as less costly than their extermination” (artofWar_OnWar-compare.pdf, p. 84). Strategy #5 sits squarely on that side of the line: terrain and rotation to wear down, dislocate, and exhaust a mobile enemy rather than seek his annihilation in a single decisive blow. On the table, that is the gap between a defender who trades ground to bleed an armored thrust white and one who is only ever hunting for the moment to counterattack.
Series Note
Post #5 of 100. Next: Strategy #6 — publishes Septemberr 2026.
Reference Doc in full:
I use this as a light reference to assessing a game when I solo if they need it. Using it for both sides to try and make for a ‘balanced’ approach to each sides potential. It’s a doc I found somewhere years ago.
Operational Planning
Operations is concerned with moving a battle force either to battle or in battle. Battle is sought at the BEST opportunity. The intent is to create the best possible situation before committing a force to a tactical attack. This leads to the use of movement to place various components of the battle force in the most advantageous positions from which to conduct a tactical attack, and this usually means pin the enemy from the front and hit it in the flank or rear.
1. Estimate of the Situation
1.1. Determine size and location of enemy’s battle forces.
1.2. Determine enemy’s center of gravity.
1.3. Determine Critical Points for both sides.
2. Determine which Critical Points will Dislocate the enemy the most if seized.
3. Objective.
3.1. Determine a concise final objective from a study of the Critical Points which constitute a route of advance.
3.2. Determine if there will be any intermediate objectives. Must be within the route to the final objective.
4. Routes
4.1. Determine routes to the critical point objectives selected.
4.2. Choose a route least expected by the enemy ⎯ the element of surprise.
5. Tactical air interdiction planning on Critical Points of enemy’s line of communications.
6. Line of Operations
6.1. Choose a point for the Main Attack.
6.2. Determine availability of multiple routes along the Line of Operations which can mutually support each other.
6.3. Assemble forces.
6.3.1 Determine when this force is to cross the line of departure (LOD) in regards to the Distracting Attack(s).
6.3.2. Place forces accordingly to plan arrival at the LOD.
6.3.2.1. Placement should appear as a dispersed force.
6.3.2.2. Place main force flank security and reserves even further away from the point of attack.
6.4. Plan the Distracting Attack(s) (minimum force necessary)
6.4.1. Distracts the enemy as to where the main attack will take place.
6.4.2. Causes the enemy to disperse his forces and/or commit his reserves.
6.5. Determine Alternate Routes if initial route(s) become blocked.
6.6. Supply plan to support the Main Attack.
6.7. Plan an In Depth Offense of the Main Attack columns.
6.8. Exploit tactical battles.
6.9. Avoid Overstretch.
Definition of Terms
Alternate Routes
To avoid the blocking of the main attack develop the Line of Operation with several branches, or Alternate Routes. A Main Attack moving in several columns provides the flexibility to divert forces should the initial route becomes blocked.
Assembly
Those forces designated for the Main Attack on the Line of Operations. These units are kept close enough to mutually support each other. This closeness is determined by the time factor which is needed for units to support each other, and how long a given unit can fight outnumbered before support must arrive. This allows separate, flexible movement from which a battle of movement and maneuver can be developed.
Critical Points
Those points a force must hold in order to maintain its position or attack. Seizing these points will Disrupt the enemy’s defensive positions, or Disrupt and Dislocate his battle force.
A study of the area of operations with emphasis on such things as major land formations, river lines, and line of communications reveals the Critical Points ⎯ yours and your opponents’s Critical Points may be important high ground, natural corridors of attack, key river crossings, important road junctions and rail centers, and what roads lead where in an area the enemy is defending.
The enemy’s Line of Communications may be such that seizing certain Critical Points will cut those communications and isolate him from supplies and reinforcements. Rivers and certain terrain in the enemy’s rear could be used as defensive obstacles, cutting off his retreat and Line of Communication. Seizing key river crossings may accomplish the same thing.
Dislocation
Dislocation creates paralysis, and an inability to react to your moves. This lubricates your own “Operations” and causes events to unfold even more rapidly. The faster the offensive develops, the more paralysis sets in among the enemy. It assures an avoidance of a battle of attrition.
Distracting Attack(s)
Prior to the Main Attack set-up one or more secondary attacks. They distract the enemy as to where the Main Attack is coming from, and causes a dispersion of his forces to meet these attacks. This dispersion can create a greater opportunity for the Main Attack to be successful.
Use the minimum force necessary. In practice this force may form a larger force than the maximum possible for the Line of Operations.
Estimate of the Situation
Determine the size of the enemy’s battle force and where it is located. Determine the enemy’s center of gravity, where you are going to place your center of gravity, and the Critical Points for both sides.
Exploitation
Placing units and reserves so that enough force and power is available to take advantage of any tactical breakthrough. Every tactical battle won should be immediately exploited in the direction of the planned Objectives. The battle force must be able to move faster, to take advantage of such a situation, than the enemy moves to remedy the situation ⎯ this is operating within the enemy’s command loop. A flexible deployment, broken down into separate columns, will allow offensively quick reaction.
In Depth
The multiple columns of a Line of Operations must also be composed in-depth with combat teams deployed at Critical Points along the flanks of the penetration.
Line of Communications
The ability of unhindered movement of units and supply.
Line of Operations
An axis of forward movement of the Main Attack following a path of Intermediate Objectives leading to the Final Objective.
Determine a Line of Operations that will be least expected by the enemy. Use multiple battle group columns along Multiple Routes. Use the maximum force necessary for the Distracting Attack(s).
Main Attack
Allocate the maximum force possible to strike the enemy in an area least expected. Penetration of the enemies line is the goal from whence the Line of Operations will start.
Objective
A Final Objective must be concise, and can be with the study of the Critical Points in the enemy’s area. Additionally, several Intermediate Objectives may be chosen depending on how available each is to the forward movement toward the Final Objective.
Overstretch
A battle consists of an approach to the enemy, the tactical battle, and the Exploitation of success in the tactical battle. These segments should flow together into one grand maneuver in such a manner that the tactical battle is two thirds won before it takes place, and winning the tactical battle automatically carries through to complete destruction of the enemy’s force.
Routes, Multiple
Routes are selected by the criteria of the approach to the enemy’s Critical Points and the route which the enemy would least expect. The aim is to maneuver the battle force in such a way to as to dislocate the enemy’s battle force with the least amount of resistance presented to your attack.
Ideally, the routes of the Line of Operation would be a network of roads, running in the direction of the the objectives, which support multiple columns. The next best is reasonable cross-country possibilities for the battle groups.
Several widespread columns can mutually support each other, keeping the battle open, fluid, and mobile, thus allowing maximum penetration of the enemy’s defenses in the shortest possible time.
Moving with several columns allows flexibility to meet the conditions of battle as they develop. Such movement allows recovery from a setback of any of the columns in battle, by maneuvering against the enemy with another column to redeem the setback.
Strategy
A determination on how you are going to bring about the defeat of the enemy. What combination of air, sea, and ground forces to be committed, and where, and how to commit them. It not only involves what and where of this commitment, but also how this force will get into position and the support required.
The purpose is to diminish the possibility of resistance by exploiting the elements of Movement and Surprise.
Surprise
Surprise is created by striking the enemy from a direction least expected. This leads to a dislocation in the mind of the enemy commander and greatly contributes to winning the Tactical Battle.