Retreating Armour in matrix edition

[Maus Man]

Ok I don’t want to beat this up again but didn't get in on discussions of the past. Can someone tell me where my thinking is off on this? I never once believed that AF reflected the thickness of armor from a platoon where all vehicles faced a direction in unison. But thought AF rules as a way to model a statistical chance that fire coming in from an unexpected direction will have an effect on the crews and may actually hit more exposed vehicles. In that case, maybe rather than tossing AF rules, all units should be vulnerable to real/side shots.

When you voluntarily pull back a unit, you spin it around to face the front. In reality I think the platoon is falling back by half covering the retreat of the second, then leapfrogging back. I can’t imagine all vehicles driving together backward over a distance of at least 250 m through a built-up area. When displaced by an assault, the unit looses this cohesion and can’t maintain cover. Some crews panic, take the fasted route out, or bail. I personally think it makes more sense to take more casualties in the route phase than in the actual assault. -read a book on it, so it must be true;)