Weather Conditions in a replay?

[Buffaloes]

ComradeP Wrote:

The assault costs a unit the maximum of the following two values:
• 2/3 of its movement allowance.
• The movement cost to move into the defending hex.

If you assault a forest hex with a foot movement unit in 200% modifier frozen conditions in Moscow '42, you pay 24 MP's.

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Comrade P,

I used to interpret the section of the user's manual you quoted above the same way you did in your post.  I've since discovered that that interpretation is not entirely correct.

A couple of weeks ago, I was on the receiving end of an assault that should not have been able to happen according to the assault MP costs listed above.  In our Salerno '43 campaign, my opponent's British foot infantry was able to first enter a clear hex (6MP) and then assault a hex that would have cost him 31 MP to enter.  My assaulted unit occupied a vineyard hex 150 meters above the British assaulters.  I watched the replay of his move three times to make sure that my observations were correct.

Because my understanding of the rule was obviously in error, I set about running some tests to figure out exactly how that rule did, in fact, work.  Coincidentally, the archived turn that I dug out of my files to experiment with was from a Moscow '42 scenario - Volokalamsk.  My test reflects exactly the conditions you speak of in your Moscow '42 observations.

Test situation:  Two D-quality Russian infantry battalions (21 MP) start their turn in a hex adjacent to a pair of small German units - neither disrupted - in a TRENCH.  Both forces occupy forest hexes.  Current weather is frozen.

I select one Russian battalion and order him to assault.  Result: 1 man/1 gun, assault fails without anyone disrupted.  The Russian battalion has zero MP left, so all 21 MP were expended in the assault.

I now select the other Russian battalion and order a direct fire attack.  Result: 1 man, no disruption, and the Russians still have 14 MP left.  I now order the just-fired Russian battalion to assault the hex, and despite the target terrain requiring 24 MP to enter, they dutifully make the assault.  Result: two men/2 guns, assault fails, again with no disruptions on either side.  Obviously, the Russian battalion is now out of MP.

I repeated the experiment a handful of times and the second Russian battalion always assaulted the 24 MP forest hex despite having just 14 MP remaining - except the two times they were disrupted by German opportunity fire.

My conclusions:  Having 2/3 or more of your MP remaining will always allow an assault, even if the target-hex terrain has a higher MP cost to enter.  But the target-hex terrain cost will apply to any and all of your unit's MP allowance.

So to my thinking, the rule is at least partly wrong or written so poorly I can't get my mind around it.

Regards,
Billie