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Old 11-18-2015, 04:19 AM   #61
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Default Re: [Mass Combat] Discipline, Law, Order and Preventing Atrocities

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Originally Posted by phayman53 View Post
I understand that you want to find such a study, and it is possible that one exists. That said, if such a study does exist, I would be highly suspect of any of its findings (to the point of mostly discounting them as guesswork). As someone who was an undergraduate History major who focused on the Ancient Near East and Mediterranean (and who took an elective in Medieval Warfare), I can tell you that I do not think there is any surviving evidence that would lend itself to even being able to do such a study. There is documentary evidence and archaeological evidence of mass atrocities following some sieges, but none of it is helpful for determining what percentage of the army participated (except where it is clear that a massacre was ordered, then it is fairly safe to assume that virtually all of the troops participated). Rape rates are even more impossible to determine as there is not even any surviving quantitative evidence in the archaeological record. Ancient chroniclers simply were not interested in quantitatively describing rates and percentages (and least not with any precision).
I agree with everything here. No source I've read has anything even remotely useful to me.

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Sorry, my reference to my previous post was imprecise. I did not mean typical crime rates for civilians, I was referring to typical crime rates of an army on campaign through friendly or neutral territory. I mentioned in my first post that local populations did not like having friendly or neutral armies pass through their areas because they tended to steal and commit other crimes such as rape and murder.
It's the typical crime rate of a TL2 to TL4 army on campaign that I have no idea about.

For all intents and purposes, the army led by the PC is in friendly territory, in that Shussel is an Untheri city and until it was occupied by the Mulhorandi just over a year ago, it belonged to the ad hoc rump regime of Unther, just as everyone in the PCs' force who comes from Messemprar or other Untheri areas. Five hundred of the PCs force are even Untheri soldiers and militiamen from Shussel who were loaned to this operation specifically because they would be able to help with relations with the locals after Shussel was taken.

Considering, however, that many armies in the Thirty Years' War were on theoretically friendly territory when they looted, raped and murdered, I didn't feel able to declare that everyone in the army obeyed the orders of the PCs to respect the safety and property of civilians just because those civilians were Untheri. After all, many of them are Untheri who have, willingly or unwillingly, been aiding the Mulhorandi invaders.

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The degree to which they did this was heavily depended on the composition of the army though, and there are cases where commanders reimbursed the locals (and others where they even made promises to keep their people in check). That is where I got the multipliers on normal crime rates statistic (double it for a levy/non professional army, triple or worse for pirates, fanatics, and intolerant (but for the latter two, such crimes are targeted)).
Without having specific numbers, my gut instinct is to see these modifiers as far too generous to pre-modern armies. Consider that for a typical TL 0 to TL2 force, looting was the entire logistics and pay system, and conquerors had a widely acknowledged moral and legal right to enslave, rape or murder defeated peoples*, both surrendered soldiers and any civilians of the wrong ethnicity, religion or political affiliation.

Orders from the top that these features of warfare no longer pertain might stop those who are very disciplined or very afraid of punishment. But such orders won't change the underlying culture, which means that the odds are that disobeying such orders will not be viewed as immoral and those who disobey won't be ostracised or even informed on.

Crime statistics usually measure deviation from cultural norms. In this case, I'm trying to determine what percentage of a force will continue to follow cultural norms despite formal orders backed by threat of punishment to the contrary. In most functioning societies, those who commit serious crimes are a tiny minority. On the other hand, those who may sometimes engage in behaviour that is formally unlawful but is nevertheless culturally sanctioned usually form the majority of societies, as social conditioning is generally more powerful than formal legalism.

*Usually meaning 'anyone who can't stop us from doing it to them'.

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Originally Posted by phayman53 View Post
That said, to get a more reasonable number you might consider using the crime rates of young males for large towns and cities as a base (instead of rural crime rates) because it would give you a reasonable sense of how people treat others who do not share kinship ties. Such larger municipalities tend to have more diverse, less connected populations and therefore do not benefit nearly as much from the social pressures against crime in smaller communities.
Such numbers are a useful guideline to the percentage of soldiers who will commit atrocities even when the military culture they come from condemns them.

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I see, I was picturing a city with a port district that was separated from the city proper by a wall (as was often the case in port cities). I did not realize that the city itself was penetrated because there was no wall between the city and the port district.

Still, even though there was fighting in the city, if an organized surrender was possible, it seems that the armies were still sufficiently separated and organize to allow for the occupation of the city to proceed in good order (as opposed to the rush of a sack).
Good order, yes. On the other hand, there was an insane rush which necessiated that any formation of men even remotely trusted by the PC commanders* was sent somewhere in the city to perform some task.

The invasion was made during the night. There was effectively a truce from dawn on and a surrender for all forces outside the inner keep** was formalised in mid-morning. At that time, most of the Untheri army hadn't even landed yet. Ships and boats were offloading in the harbour all day long. Every soldier had to be billeted and the military supplies in Shussel had to be catalogued, at least well enough to be able to make use of the most vital ones and prevent soldiers from spoiling anything important.

Given that there were reliable reports of a field army on the plains outside and that the dust of the vanguard was visible from the walls from late morning on, there was not much time to enjoy the fruits of conquest. The day has been a hectic one and the soldiers have been in almost constant contact with civilians, mostly civilian workers for the former occupying force of Mulhorand. There have been plenty of opportunities for atrocities, both during enforced relocations of civilians from areas identified as sensitive or vital to the defence of the city, and during the eight hours of rest that most of the soldiers were allowed in their billets.

*Which means pretty much everyone except the pirates and the street thugs.
**Where the governor and some 500 of his troops managed to hole up and didn't surrender until late afternoon. The PCs' troops didn't do any fighting there, however, there were only some screening troops stationed there while negotiations took place and then the PCs themselves made a commando raid where the gates were blown open. This effectively made further resistance futile and led to the final surrender of Mulhorandi troops in the city, as well as the formal relinquishing of civil authority over Shussel by the Mulhorandi into the hands of 'whatever Untheri government can be found'.
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Old 11-18-2015, 04:23 AM   #62
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Default Re: [Mass Combat] Discipline, Law, Order and Preventing Atrocities

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Hmm, I see your issue, this army is composed of more disparately motivated elements than usual. While I still hold that it will be fruitless to look for quantitative studies of atrocities committed by TL2-4 armies after a siege, I may have a solution to your problem using game-mechanical methods that will at least be logically consistent within the framework of GURPS:

Assign self-control numbers to each type of troop within the army (pirate, thug, levy, freed slave, professional, etc.) for Bad Temper, Blood Lust, Greed, Lecherousness, and Sadism. Have the PC commander make an influence roll based on leadership (with appropriate complimentary skill rolls supporting it, especially administration and strategy--for properly allocating resources and MP duties to better control the troublmakers). Then have each troop type make a self-control roll against those disadvantages, modified by the margin of success or failure of the Leadership based influence roll. Use the margin of success or failure on the self-control roll to determine the extent that each troop type engaged different types of bad behavior. An MOS of 0 could mean that a few individuals acted out, but few enough that it did not get back to the PCs. MOS by 1 or more means that basically no outlawed behavior took place in that group. Margin of Failure could mean that 5% engaged in the behavior per 1 MOF.

-Failure on Bad Temper = Serious physical beatings of civilians, some deaths as a result (extent of deaths tied to MOF)
-Failure on Blood Lust = Murder of civilians
-Failure on Greed = Serious looting beyond what the PCs are willing to overlook
-Failure on Lecherousness = Frequent and/or public enough rapes to come to public attention
-Failure on Sadism = particularly brutal assaults and killings involving torture and other terrible acts

You might assign the particularly undisciplined group of pirates a self-control number of 6 on all of them (though a 9 on Sadism may be more appropriate, even pirates are not necessarily sadistic). The other groups can be assigned numbers that fit your understanding of their motivations and psychological make-up.

This method at least has the advantage of using GURPS native psychological modelling and influence mechanics, so the players cannot really complain about the results. I also think it is pretty fair given that it gives the PCs a good chance of controlling their troops, but will also likely result in some failures that they need to act upon.
How many troops can one PC control with his Leadership?

There essentially won't be any atrocities if two to five PCs get to use their unmodified Leadership rolls to control several thousand men. The reason I think there will be atrocities, despite the expressed desire of the PCs to avoid them and the extremely good skill levels of said PCs, is that most of the Administration and Leadership rolls made to keep discipline among the men are realistically probably going to be made by NCOs and junior officers.
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Old 11-18-2015, 12:30 PM   #63
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Default Re: [Mass Combat] Discipline, Law, Order and Preventing Atrocities

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How many troops can one PC control with his Leadership?

There essentially won't be any atrocities if two to five PCs get to use their unmodified Leadership rolls to control several thousand men. The reason I think there will be atrocities, despite the expressed desire of the PCs to avoid them and the extremely good skill levels of said PCs, is that most of the Administration and Leadership rolls made to keep discipline among the men are realistically probably going to be made by NCOs and junior officers.
Well, my understanding of Leadership in the context of Mass Combat situations is that rolls are independent of size of troops commanded or layers of chain of command. Rolls to control fanatical troops, rally retreating troops, etc. are all unpenalized no matter the size of the force. This could represent the fact that Leadership is more than just how to directly inspire followers, but also how to inspire obedience through a chain of command (including how to overcome weaknesses in leaders below you in the chain of command). Bear in mind that you have cinematically skilled leader for your PC general, far superior than any historical generals. Do not be surprised if he can control his army to an unrealistic degree.

That said, if you find using unmodified Leadership, Administration, etc. unrealistic, you have two options if you still want to give the method I suggested a try. The first would be to penalize the leadership and administration rolls by the number of layers of chain of command between your PCs and the common soldier. You would need to figure out the effective rank of your general based on the size of the army and the number of layers of officers beneath him. Then you can penalize the roll by -1 or -2 per level of rank the general is not in direct contact with. So if his effective rank is 5 and you deside to use -2/level, that would be Leadership at -8 (since he directly influences all rank 4 officers, there is no penalty for that first step). This would bring the Leadership and Administration skills down to more reasonable levels and therefore reduce the size of the MoS on the Leadership influence rolls, which means the self control rolls of the different troop types would not go up as much.

The other option would be to assign an average Leadership skill for the NCOs of each troop type. Then make a Leadership Influence roll for the average NCO of each troop type, with the PCs using their skills as complimentary skill rolls for the NCOs Leadership. The MoS or MoF of this roll will then be used to raise or lower the self control rolls for each troop type.

Just a reminder that the influence rolls are quick contests against Will, so you could also give the different troop types higher effective average Will scores depending onhow resistant you think they are to the idea of showing mercy to a conquered city. This would also lower the MoS for the PC Leadership influence roll, reducing its impact on the self control rolls for each troop type.
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Old 11-18-2015, 01:55 PM   #64
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Default Re: [Mass Combat] Discipline, Law, Order and Preventing Atrocities

A 2008 study using the PCL:SV found that 1.2% of a US sample scored 13 or more out of 24, indicating "potential psychopathy".–https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociopath#Epidemiology

This might give you a good lower limit.
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Old 11-19-2015, 01:09 AM   #65
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Default Re: [Mass Combat] Discipline, Law, Order and Preventing Atrocities

Ha. I just looked at the linked check list for Psychopathy. My "sister-in-law" literally fits every single one, bar none.
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Old 11-19-2015, 08:01 AM   #66
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Default Re: [Mass Combat] Discipline, Law, Order and Preventing Atrocities

Forgive me if this has been mentioned (it's a long thread), but the old Stanford Prison Experiment might give some indications. In that, individuals were chosen based on perceived psychological stability, but later studies indicated the way the study was advertised resulted in an overabundance of those with stronger-than-average social dominance, aggression, etc - which is probably a decent match to the sorts you're going to see in a military.

In that, almost all of the guards were at least somewhat cruel to the prisoners, with roughly a third having a sadistic streak to them. While harsh, you could adapt this to your own setup, where almost all of the soldiers will loot, with roughly a third of them going further into torture, rape, and murder. I'd probably go with a hierarchy of thirds - 1/3 looters will attack/torture, 1/3 attackers will rape/murder. This is in the absence of consequences for such actions. MP's, successful Leadership/Administration rolls, harsh consequences, etc will greatly reduce this, although I can't really say by how much.
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Old 11-19-2015, 11:10 AM   #67
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Default Re: [Mass Combat] Discipline, Law, Order and Preventing Atrocities

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Ha. I just looked at the linked check list for Psychopathy. My "sister-in-law" literally fits every single one, bar none.
I could probably fit the profile of a spree shooter too, come to think of it. I have never been a spree shooter in my entire life nor do I intend to be. Checklists like that only tell probabilities. They are like a sonobuoy that starts beeping toward one direction but is useless without triangulation from other sonobuoys.
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Old 11-19-2015, 02:29 PM   #68
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Default Re: [Mass Combat] Discipline, Law, Order and Preventing Atrocities

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Forgive me if this has been mentioned (it's a long thread), but the old Stanford Prison Experiment might give some indications. In that, individuals were chosen based on perceived psychological stability, but later studies indicated the way the study was advertised resulted in an overabundance of those with stronger-than-average social dominance, aggression, etc - which is probably a decent match to the sorts you're going to see in a military.

In that, almost all of the guards were at least somewhat cruel to the prisoners, with roughly a third having a sadistic streak to them. While harsh, you could adapt this to your own setup, where almost all of the soldiers will loot, with roughly a third of them going further into torture, rape, and murder. I'd probably go with a hierarchy of thirds - 1/3 looters will attack/torture, 1/3 attackers will rape/murder. This is in the absence of consequences for such actions. MP's, successful Leadership/Administration rolls, harsh consequences, etc will greatly reduce this, although I can't really say by how much.
Good point. Certainly street thugs and pirates from a violent low-tech society are likely to be higher in aggression and sadistic tendencies than nearly any collection of modern first-world college students.
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Old 11-19-2015, 03:14 PM   #69
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Default Re: [Mass Combat] Discipline, Law, Order and Preventing Atrocities

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Good point. Certainly street thugs and pirates from a violent low-tech society are likely to be higher in aggression and sadistic tendencies than nearly any collection of modern first-world college students.
Presuming they got the lifestyle they were most adapted to.
How many of those street thugs were only one SL from being upstanding citizens? How many of your nobles were a couple SL into the range of "affluenza", as opposed to being mere sociopaths.
You know the one about Eccentricity being Insane, but with Money.

Of course, in a society with strong economic mobility, it's nice to imagine the serious jerks and psychopaths move down the economic ladder while the good, stable, and wholesome move up...instead of vice versa much of the time.
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Old 11-19-2015, 06:36 PM   #70
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Default Re: [Mass Combat] Discipline, Law, Order and Preventing Atrocities

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Presuming they got the lifestyle they were most adapted to.
How many of those street thugs were only one SL from being upstanding citizens? How many of your nobles were a couple SL into the range of "affluenza", as opposed to being mere sociopaths.
You know the one about Eccentricity being Insane, but with Money.

Of course, in a society with strong economic mobility, it's nice to imagine the serious jerks and psychopaths move down the economic ladder while the good, stable, and wholesome move up...instead of vice versa much of the time.
Actually eccentricity is an affectionate term. It is seldom pined on anyone rich or poor if they are blatantly dangerous except as gallows humor. Mad King Ludvig was eccentric. Napoleon was not.
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