one question about flanking attack penalty

[eyemooneye]

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In this attack toward a stack of HQ divisions, I select two armys in red circle and leave aside two armys in yellow circle, because if I select all, the time stamp will get longer.
but when I check the result of the combat, I discover these two armys in yellow circle are also involved in the combat, as "half-support" as below.

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my question is, when the unselected armys are automatically egaged in the combat as either "half-support" or "block retreat path" in case of fully-surrounding, is the flanking attack penalty valid for them during S/2 or BLK?

regards,

[vicousvic]

Good question - no answer.. can anyone jump in?
I also would like to know about timestamps and s/2.. Is it neglected in that case? If not, how can you prevent those supporting units to take part?

[Spale69]

As I understand the TOAW ruleset, I would comment as follows:

- assuming that you have not moved any of the yellow-circled units, the prolonged combat (more combat rounds and timestamp adjustment afterwards) should come strictly from the higher battle complexity (more units, also flanking effect). If you had moved any unit, than you would have additional time delay in combat onset because of this movement

- two yellow circled units can take part in combat as partial support (what you observed) because you left them in default mobile deployment. If you would to dig in those two, they would not be able to take part in combat as supporters.

- I do not remember that it was explicitely stated in the rules, but I think flanking effect does have effect also with limited support. For the purpose of flanking, only the armor brigade 23-14 southwards would count.