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Decapitation Rule (6.72)
The rule states that when a leader of MAJ or above is eliminated, the decapitation rule is triggered. I'm curious due to the circumstances I ran into. I'll give the scenario situation and how I played it, then ask you all to give me your interpretation.
Playing Afrika Korps scenario 2. It is night time and I have successfully crept forward with the Australians and played a couple stacks adjacent to the Italian entrenchments. The Australians have survived the opportunity fire and ensuing point blank fires, and have recovered morale. The Italians have not, and still have at least one demoralized unit in the stack (satisfying the surrender rule conditions). The Australians demand surrender and the Italians in the fort fail their morale roll, thus surrendering the stack. The Italian Colonel was part of the stack. I think this satisfies the conditions for triggering decapitation and I continue to play the scenario under that supposition (the nearest Major takes over as the CO). Thinking about after the fact though, I have to wonder due to the visibility rules. It's night so visibility is one hex, and one of the two adjacent fort hexes is already occupied by Australians. The third fort hex has the Major and some other Italian units. They are the only ones who could see the surrender. It would not be as instantaneous as raising the white flag during daylight for all to see. Sure, when the sun does come up, everyone within 12 hexes will know that the fort has fallen (mostly), but for the night turns... I could see the argument against decapitation, at least initially. Call it fog of war.
What do you guys think? In this case surrender = elimination => decapitation should prevail, given the written rules, but again, I can argue against immediate triggering of decapitation due to dark of night and a general lack of visibility. Additionally, I had pounded the position with the 25pdrs for a few turns to make sure everything was demoralized prior to the night time calls for surrender and prep for assaults. It can be reasonably assumed that any phone lines were cut by then. What do you think? Too far fetched? Am I stretching the written rules too far?
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