ORIGINAL: IronDuke
they simply will not and indeed can not be mixed until someone attempts a crossing.
ORIGINAL: Curtis LemayWhat I'm getting at is that your point in bold above is wrong. They can and will get mixed without everyone ever being lined up neatly, each on their own side of the river. And that can be extrapolated to the tactical scale within the hex.
And with respect you're very wrong. Sides only intersperse where parts of the river's length may not be held for example. That's fine because you can get across the river in those places and not get over it in another where it is held as things stand in the game right now.
Arriving at a river, a Commander will either throw his men across hastily if he thinks he stands a chance or pause whilst he waits for Corp assets to assist him in a prepared deliberate crossing. Either way, though, he concentrates to improve his chances thus precluding any peacemeal crossing in the way you are simulating.
I can "half see" that at 50 km per hex some of these attempts might be successful and others not successful within a hex that wide. However, given the units being deployed at that level are Divisional or as likely Corp strength, you can' simulate battalions or regiments getting across in such a way that entails the entire Corp to suffer defensive penalties, surely.
However we read it, units don't mix in hexes in TOAW, it's as simple as that. Therefore, the rules only work where you assume everyone is in one hex or another.
No. It really is correct. Don't think of the hex as a monolithic block. Think of it as a giant tactical map, and combat on it like in a tactical wargame. There will be just as much complexity within that tactical map as with the Seine crossings. It is just as unlikely that there will be some magic moment where everyone is neatly on their respective sides of the river. It can happen, where one side falls back willfully. But with the more common situation of general combat in progress, it won't.
But with the one hex exception around Remagen IRC, everyone was in this position around the much discussed Rhine, if you set up a map within a TOAW scenario. The same at the Meuse in 1940
until Guderian launched his assault. You can't simulate that tactical complexity within this game by postulating combats in the way you want to. Such occasions depend on tactical circumstance, but your preference seems to be for rules which automatically assume these circumstances occurred.
Once in that area, the force will be offensively debilitated by being in that area. As I've said before, TOAW doesn't model the river as a boundary, but as an area. Neither way is perfect. Each has it's own merits.
But the river is a boundary,
just like a trenchline or fixed fortifications.
That was a slip-up. How are trenchlines and fixed fortifications modeled in TOAW? That's right - as areas, not boundaries.
Areas you don't get into or past until you make an assault, which essentially means they act like boundaries does it not? You don't cross a trenchline without violence, but under you're thinking, we're simulating (whether it was possible or not - you overestimate how often it happened) the patrolling or or small and very small unit hasty crossing of individual sub-units regardless of the scale in river hexes (which can go as low as say 2.5 km per hex).
Rivers are similar. Are they a boundary or an area? Well they have properties of both. Yes, they have to be crossed. But they also snake around an area and provide transverse defensive benefits - like well designed trenches do.
But if they snake, your defending forces still only dig in on one side IRL (in a snake like line), meaning they still act as boundaries.
But the maps are not so uber accurate this is actually a consideration, see hills above.
I think we want as little distortion as possible. If one method is more distorting then that's a strike against it.
Distortion is inevitable with the mapping tools and rules being used, and the scales sometimes employed. Indeed, it's inevitable and to be welcomed if the alternative is rules which simulate the mixing of units in and around rivers even where it never and couldn't happen.
But who was deliberating about macro above? Without prompting, units are crossing defended rivers on a small scale because you think it happens on the macro scale, yet here you're worried about a specific tactical consideration. Like I said earlier, why is transverse an issue, crossing hex sides models this by your direction.
You're the one wanting tactical issues to be non-abstracted. Nether method covers everything.
No, I just want the simplest option which makes sense. You arrive at a river and stop unless you're ordered across. What is so hard about that? Put another way, we arrive at towns and don't simulate aggressive patrolling of the defences do we? We only launch our urban assault if the units are told to.
Let me ask you a question. Why do you think the Allies crossed so easily in so many places?
Because the Rhine was overrated as a defensive obstacle. I remember something about the German generals in charge there saying as much after the fact. But in the end, the fact that it was easily crossed is more important than anyone's opinion of why it was so easy.
I disagree wholeheartedly on both points. What sources lead you to believe the Rhine was relatively well defended? Secondly, how can the fact it was easily crossed be more important to us? If we're writing rules, we surely need to know what factors made something happen. Under this logic, we would have amphibious assaults always costing nothing at all because it was a doddle getting ashore at Anzio. We don't, of course, because there were specific factors (that are more important than the "fact that it was easily crossed") at play at Anzio.
Almost a third of your combat power. "Only" is in the eye of the beholder. It's also the same penalty applied to Marines wading ashore at Tarawa and GIs coming ashore at Omaha. Were these difficult operations? Norm seems to think the river crossing was just as perilous.
Tarawa and Omaha were heavily entrenched.
Aha, so the fact that we got across the Rhine is not more important than the factors at play is it, because the Anzio experience wasn't repeated at Tarawa or Omaha. Shall we reconsider the Rhine question now. Why did we get across the Rhine so easily, but get slaughtered on the Rapido?
Omaha had an escarpment. Had the defenders been in mobile deployment on the beach, they would have been slaughtered. The 30% penalty is not comparable to other terrain penalties.
the 30% penality reflects the difficulties of deploying weaponry and firepower whilst in a boat, the vulnerability of that water borne assault and the narrowing of tactical options for the attacker. It is well justified and applies whether the bank is well defended or not. It only really matters when the bank is well defended, though, because the 30% reduction affects the relative combat strengths much more than when the bank is relatively poorly defended. Herein lies the golden rule re river assaults. They are easy if the enemy are nowhere in sight, really difficult and bloody if he is well dug in on the other side in anything like comparable numbers to the attacker.
No matter how you try to wiggle out of it, the costs are going to be huge for this.
So?
So this must be a low priority item.
Not what I've been arguing, and not what the counter argument has been. Also, since huge cost/huge gain stuff has thus far been thin on the ground, then what else is there to argue about.
What high cost/high benefit items have been worked on to date?
Equipment editor.
I would not rate this so highly but that's a completely separate argument.
Respect and regards,
IronDuke
..and thanks in advance..a quarter goes to the TOAD team for development of TOAW IV.
