Q for Doug - Fleeing Units & River Crossings

[vince hughes]

I sent this to an e-mail addy I had for Doug but it must be out of date as there was no answer. He usually comes in quick with replies.

I sent him the following question. I have my own idea of what the answer is but wanted to keep it 'neutral' in intonation. If you are reading this Doug, I would appreciate any official answer you can give so that it is on record before it occurs in a game :-)

COPY

Hi Doug,

As you 'attend' PG-HQ, I thought it would be ok to run this question by you BEFORE it happens in a game we (a friend of mine) are playing next saturday.

In all the games I have played with river crossings, I can not remember a unit becoming demoralised straight AFTER it has reached the other bank.

So my Q is this:

A unit successfully crosses a major river via an ENG assistance, and then the crossing unit next turn advances forward another hex away from the river. Later in the turn through enemy fire or OBA, the unit then becomes demoralised.

When it comes to that unit recovering, it fails recovery and needs to flee. The nearest cover on the side of the river that unit is now on is 7 MP away(enemy side) and it would also take him closer to the enemy anyway thus making it illegal to flee that way. However, there is cover 4MP on the other side of the river from where he just crossed.

Does he

a) Stay put, unable to flee toward the enemy and unable to cross whilst DEM using engineers for some reason ?

or

b) Attempt to flee across the river by moving onto the good order ENG and then rolling a crossing number next turn ?

Never came up in a game of mine so far, but I suspect there is a good chance of it in this particular scenario.

Cheers Doug

Most know my PG mantra here on the HQ. Simply do what it says in the rules and don't try to fill in blanks with your own rules. Though demoralised units fleeing next to ENG on major rivers are not directly covered in print in the 3rd ed., there are rules for river crossings and there are rules for fleeing demoralised units. As usual in PG 3rd ed, the player needs to read those two rule subjects in conjunction to get the answer (IMO). As I say, I already have the answer that I think it should be, but would like at least Doug's input.