Game mechanics question: firing in stacks?

[Philippe]

Well or another good use might be so you can bring an ENG up to clear a minefield. I have done that also to draw fire so I can sneak an engineer into a diff adjacent hex to clear minefields.

I can see how these tactics would be effective, but isn't this referred to as "soaking off" and considered gamey? If our soldiers weren't digital, would we deliberately sacrifice real lives to accomplish these goals? I'm not sure how I would feel about ordering an infantry lieutenant to assault a dug in enemy positon so I could more safely deploy a couple of AT guns.

Am I being too critical? Are these simply tactics that the game engine makes possible and should therefore be used when needed due to the nature of the game? I've used these tactics myself, but now that I think about it...

I'm not completely convinced that it's gamey. It bears a little resemblance to creating a diversion with your regular troops or laying down covering fire so that you engineers can get the job done. But the resemblance isn't perfect.

You don't have to worry about this kind of issue in a WEGO environment, but, sadly, we're stuck with IGOUGO. Too many things happen in the order that a player tells them to, which is slightly more realistic than in WEGO in a few cases, but is just a game play convention the other ninety-eight percent of the time. Not being able to fire with the next unit, and the next unit, and then the next unit until your target is disrupted/broken will help a lot, so I'm looking forward to the next round of patches. My own personal bugbear is the lack of traffic jams at choke points, which are ridiculously easy to avoid in IGOUGO but are the bane of your existance in WEGO.

If I have to suspend my realism disbelief enough to accept the gaming convention that my opponent sits perfectly still while my units move (apart from the occasional opportunity fire), accepting that there's an acceptable shadow of in-turn sequencing and covering fire that would allow engineers to perform their task without bearing the main brunt of opposing fire doesn't seem that much of a stretch.

I don't like gamey tactics, but if there's a shred of realism to them (even if accidental), I'm willing to be tolerant. Especially since Rommel used gamey tactics (not sure about Manstein).