Infantry Guns and Combat movement observation

[cjsiam]

It came upon me during a game recently....

Being a poor Russian...with lots of troops and way too few officers....approaching the well defended trenches full of Germans...

And there was this German 75mm IG in a trench....pathetic thing on it's own...but...it has a range of 11....

Which, it turns out, has a some very useful facilities which are obvious in hind-sight, but I had not considered fully:

1) It keeps ANY Russians (infantry, trucks, etc.), who DO NOT have an officer adjacent to activate a Combat move, from moving toward the germans/trenches/gun...
  in fact if they have no officer they can only move parallel to the gun...at 11 hexes..that's a lot of the board russians MUST maintain unit cohesion(around officers)
  or you will lose guys and you will never get to move them to combat!

2) Putting Trucks out of harms way---actually doesn't work unless you have spare officers (clearly not something Russians have a lot of...) if you move your trucks back from
the front...they won't be able to "combat move" to the fight unless they have an officer to activate them to do so....they are effectively stuck/out of the fight
until you send back an officer to activate a combat move....

3) Fleeing units (Russians remember) HAVE TO KEEP FLEEING! ... it's a Direct fire 11...they are going to be running for quite a while...
and then...because you need your officers to attack germans in trenches...there are few officers way back there to help rally them....combined with FOW and not
getting a chance to activate....dispersed russians...

I had always discounted the utility of those IG...but...ANY DF at range will have that effect....

clearly...those are useful for defensive positions in disrupting the enemies movement to attack, and forcing grouping, even if their firepower is minimal.

Probably obvious to anyone---but those new to the system (like me) find joy (well...maybe that's a stretch as russian...) in discovery...

cj

[Hugmenot]

It is always fun to discover an apparently weak unit can be put to good use.

[dxdavieau]

The 75 IG does have the powerful ability to prevent combat movement by badly led units. Strange, the german 88 does not, being a BF unit....
I'd suggest including BF units ad "harmful" vs combat-movement if they can spot the unit and have it in range. I don't play it that way, though, because its a huge rules change.
Figuring out how to push russian units with limited leadership is a challenging puzzle in PzG. I like playing the russians because of this. The Leadership system in PzG is superb! It is the heart of the system and feels very real (Caveat, I've never been in combat, so i dont' KNOW that its realistic, it just seems to mimic a lot of the small unit action accounts in literature about the war).
I especially like the disconnect between rank and talent. Sometimes your Colonels suck sand your LTs are heroes, but for purposes on chain-activation, the colonel is often in the thick of the fighting.

[cjsiam]

wow.....
that is an interesting observation.....
looking at just the germans they have 88/43 which has a DF and the 88mm which has only BF....
then the 75mm IG which has DF and the 75mm Mtn gun which has only BF......

I think there is an optional use here that needs some possible attention......that or BF to visible targets constitutes a sufficient threat....

Anyone with insight into why the two above artillery/Direct fire weapons differ so much.....haven't we all fired 88mm AT at inf at range at some point in a mini game?

[dxdavieau]

The 88s are scary at first but once they're spotted they'll attract as much OBA/BF as can be until they're gone...
The +1 col vs these makes them very vulnerable.

That said, I did have an 88 battery survive many hours and 2 assaults (1 with AVREs!) during a Beyond Normandy game at ConSimWorld. Those bastards just wouldn't break!