Engineer retreat and minefield disaster!

[Mr Grumpy]

Moral of the story? Rather than blaming the game, don't let your units get into such awful tactical positions.

I agree with this, i put the unit in this awful position!

However as the rules do not cover every possbility and i did so in ignorance of the possible bad result of any retreat, the moral is if in doubt, don't do it! :chin:

[Volcano Man]

But the player can chose to move (ie, 'order') his own units onto the minefield on his next turn, no?

Yes, you could move the unit out of the minefield on your turn if, by some chance, you have anything left. But given the mechanic of being able to break down units to conduct repeated assaults to maximize casualties, it makes this highly unlikely.

Moral of the story? Rather than blaming the game, don't let your units get into such awful tactical positions.

The moral of the story, as you put it, is more like "the game is overly harsh on disrupted units with the whole corral-them-up-against-something-and-wipe-them-out-in-one-turn mechanic so you better be walking on egg shells at all times." But yes, the root of it all is to be very careful. I don't think anyone is "blaming the game" though. :rolleyes:

The reality probably is that instead of the game being more forgiving in these situations, it should instead have a trapped defender defend a little more tenacious against an assault - since they are backed into a corner (real or imagined). This would prevent the ability of that AA gun or recon unit from moving in to bag a huge stack of trapped material, instead requiring a true assault of at least a 1:1 ratio before you get the mass exodus surrenders to occur.

Oh well, it has been this way since S41 v1.0 so I certainly don't think that it is absolutely necessary, I am just hypothesizing that it would be nice if the cold, harsh retreat mechanic was lessened one day. :)

*edit* added the quote

[Krak]

Volcano man I hear you. I have played PZC in both the default method and the manual defensive fire phased method extensively. All these problems of time and space, defensive weakness, ease of wiping out disrupted units etc are not existant in the phased style game. IMHO the phased game is by far a better simulation. Unfortunately it takes way longer than in the default method to play a PBEM game. So we are stuck with these nuiances. But for those with the time, if you want to play a more 'balanced game' where the defender can deliver some retribution try the phased game. Breakthru's must be worked for and are not simply the result of several unrealistic killer stacks roaming the battlefield. One must resort to actual combined arms tactics to succeed.

[Dirk Gross]

I thought units would retreat into penetrated minefields, but I just tested it and that's not the case.

[Ricky B]

Yep, when Foul and I discussed this before he posted, I set up a full set of tests including travel mode with an engineer in the minefield removing mines, etc. I did it mainly because I thought in the past that the retreat could happen, but I never tested it like this before. But no retreat by any unit was made in any situation I could think of.

Rick

[Sgt Fury]

Sure makes artillery delivered mines look pretty powerful now in light of this information :-)

Fury

[Mr Grumpy]

I thought units would retreat into penetrated minefields, but I just tested it and that's not the case.

You and me both..........

[Dirk Gross]

This has to be one of the most effective uses of a minefield then, along with cutting communication for isolation of enemy units. I've used artillery fired mines to do just that before. Mines are pretty trivial in strength 1 or even 2. I can't say about strength 3 because I don't see them much. I agree minefields shouldn't kill many men. Should they disrupt units more often though to make them more of a deterrent and to represent stringing out of a formation through alleys created in the field?

[Volcano Man]

Sure makes artillery delivered mines look pretty powerful now in light of this information :-)

Fury

Uh oh yeah, I did not think of this before. The genie is out of the bottle now...