Drawing opportunity fire actions - disreputable or part of the game?

[Kool Kat]

Please excuse me if this topic has been discussed before. 

What's the community's overall opinion on drawing the opponent's opportunity fire actions with "cheap" units (recon, choppers) before closing in to deal a decisive blow with the main combat units? Is this disreputable or part of the game and common practice? 

I spare you the details and you probably know already, but to me it seems as if this can make or break a Warsaw Pact assault tactic (Modern Campaigns). It totally changes your options. For a surprise assault, you need to move over open terrain. Open terrain is not crossable (without unacceptably high risk of disruption) unless the enemy has no more opportunity fires left (and even then there is still artillery...).

I've not dared to use it yet (and have not really been in a good situation for it), but my personal opinion is that it should be seen as part of the game. It makes recon units very usefull and even though the way it is done in the game looks strange/gamey, the effect is not that implausible. The recon units are reconoitering the enemy's defences, searching for gaps and weakpoints and good avenues of approach, disrupting the enemy's patrols, thereby reducing the power of the defenders to see the advance coming and to cause casualties on the approaching attackers. If you don't want that to happen, use your own recon troops to screen your defence or place more troops in a single hex. Also, the tactic doesn't work that well in difficult terrain, as a recon unit (except for helicopters) will quickly run out of movement points and thus can't move back and forth to draw fires. So, in it's abstract way, the game engine produces interesting results. :) Reconaissance in woods is less effective.

Gent: 

IF you had used a recon unit in the manner you described (e.g. "move back and forth to draw fire") in our recent MC game - I would have called that tactic out as gamey. It's one thing to move a recon unit until contact with enemy forces. It's quite another to once you make contact with the enemy, to deliberately move the recon unit back and forth to draw enemy fire. Defiantly frowned upon.

Also, I question your tactic of placing more troops in a single hex to counter recon probes. You saw what happened when you stacked inviting targets of 3 or more units in a single hex! WMD came a calling!   

Also, you must understand in our recent MC game, it was NOT the use of WP recon units as you described that would have been decisive. It was the short 8-turn scenario that was decisive. There were not enough turns for me to assault the town hex VPs with sufficient remaining turns to recover the combat losses NATO would have inflicted on my attacking WP troops.