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I sent this to an e-mail addy I had for Doug but it must be out of date as there was no answer.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.

[Hugmenot]

I seriously doubt engineers would prioritize helping a demoralized unit cross the river away from the battle.

From my perspective, the major river is impassable terrain (as it is without assistance) and thus the demoralized unit would only seek cover on their side of the river.

[vince hughes]

Trouble is, I'm thinking that fleeing demoralised troops trying to get away from the enemy would simply run back across the pontoons and to hell what the engineers think or want to do ? (lots of historical precedents for this very occurrence).

Yes the river is impassable terrain, but is it so when the pontoons (ENG unit) have been laid out ?

That's why I would like Doug's opinion as there is nothing in the rules that I can see to prevent them high-tailing it across the river (with crossing rolls) BUT I do thoroughly understand the contradicing viewpoint.

In fact, I am quite happy for either version, but I'd simply like Doug to be able to clarify if possible and therefore play the right version. Still can't believe this has not yet happened in a game I've played before !

[vince hughes]

BTW - I also think my version is more fun as the crossing gets crowded, targetted and traffic jammed with troops trying to go both ways :-)

[Hugmenot]

Add a Kommissar onto the pontoons and it will even more fun.

[Matt W]

I never thought of an engineer assisted crossing as being accomplished on a pontoon bridge. I assumed it would be assault boats or something similar. The fact that it merely takes the engineer 15 minutes to get ready would seem to preclude pontoons, but I can take it either way.

[vince hughes]

Its 45 minutes to cross.

15 to start laying the pontoons

15 to complete pontoons and allow a unit to advance upon them.

15 to make a crossing roll

+15 everytime crossing roll failed as well :-)

I never really thought boats to be an engineer thing. I know in the British army we didn'tt need engineers to supply paddle dinghy boats for other units ? Well not at the point of battle at any rate.

[vince hughes]

I've never really thought of boats and dinghies being used. I couldnt see how they would get a T34 or Panther on them.

Anyway, Doug's answer in next post.

[vince hughes]

Doug kindly replied, and here is most of it.

"Hi Vince, that's a fascinating question since I've never run into that situation either. Intuitively, the unit would try to flee back across the river rather than just stay put where it could get shot at, and the only question is whether or not there should be some penalty applied to the river-crossing dieroll to account for the fact that the unit is demoralized. There's nothing in the core rules about it, so I'd say let the unit flee into the river hex with the ENG and then make the river-crossing dieroll next turn as normal. However, if you want to take into account the fact that getting a unit across a river might be harder to accomplish if the unit is demoralized, you could apply a house rule and add a +2 penalty to the river-crossing dieroll for a demoralized unit.

Also note that if a demoralized unit enters a river hex as above and then enemy units move so that they no longer can hit the river hex with DF, then the river hex becomes a safe hex and the demoralized unit must remain in the river hex. It cannot cross back to the other side of the river unless and until it is no longer demoralized or the hex is no longer safe because enemy units have moved back into position to hit the river hex with DF."

As well as Doug's input, it is also worth noting there that if the ENG subsequently becomes DEM and had to flee, that the rules say that DEM units have to flee to the side of the river they were came from. In that case, any DEM unit that was trying to re-cross were obviously left stranded and would go back to the enemy side.

As I said in the first instance. I was not worried what the answer was. Only that we had an official one.

Might be worth, whomever is responsible adding the above to the annotated rules as a side note for future reference.

[Matt W]

Vince,

There are multiple instances of rafting across AFVs. I can certainly accept Doug's answer as if the boats and rafts cross one way they can certainly do so in the opposite direction.

As to the need for engineers to provide the boats, I just finished "A Bridge Too Far" again and the assault boats used by the 82nd AB to cross at Nijmegen were brought up by engineers.

No tempest in a teapot here. The rule answer works regardless of pontoons or boats or rafts or whatever.