Regarding the point made by 2Bit and others about it being too easy to dig foxholes:
This is a wonderful opportunity to discuss the designers' actual thinking regarding foxholes -- namely, abstraction and design for effect.
Of course no one could dig a meaningful foxhole during the 2 minute time span of a turn, and of course the designers knew that. But always remember that the time span of an SL/ASL turn is not to be taken literally: It's "a module of time, such that the following events can occur and interact with one another." In the case of the foxhole-digging, that might mean the turn represents an hour -- even while, halfway across the board, the same turn only represents ten seconds in the life of two AFVs as they duke it out with each other.
What was the effect John Hill was designing for in this case? He wanted to represent the fact that, as people have commented here, the first thing you do when you occupy a new position and plan to stay there (and aren't being shot at) is start digging foxholes -- but that it's a very time-consuming activity which is not to be undertaken lightly. So, he assigned a chance to dig foxholes (5 or less in the original SL rules) which is high enough to make it worth doing in the middle of a game, but not high enough to make it easy.
It was totally about the game mechanics -- though he was trying to simulate
a reality, reality had nothing to do with the
mechanics. Design for effect.
As a demonstration of how twisted fxh use as become, one can normally find dozens and dozens of fxh's being used in CG's. Not because of their (supposedly) advantageous protective capability...but rather because they represent a strategic position (perimeter determination)...strategic even though most will never be occupied by infantry.
Right. A great example of unintended consequences by the designers. "Foxholes are strategically important, therefore they should be Strategic Locations" became "Foxholes are Strategic Locations, therefore they should be dug every five hexes apart."
BTW, since I'm looking at the original SL rules anyway, it may be worthwhile (to some of you -- YMMV) to review how things worked back then:
- In the original SL rule chapter (54.), an example clearly showed that the cost to enter the hex and the cost to enter the entrenchment were combined into one. If fired on by DF in that hex, the unit that moved into the entrenchment used the +2 modifer.
[At that stage of the system's development, DF was retroactive, meaning that you didn't fire "on an MF" - what we know as Defensive First Fire today was an optional rule. That rule stated that you fire "as soon as the moving player enters a hex" where you want to shoot at him.]
- But 54. said nothing about what to do for DF when a unit moved
out of the entrenchment. Clearly, the subject must not have come up during playtesting. So, it was left to a Q&A in CoI to answer that question: It said that, since the unit is spending an MF in an open ground hex as it leaves the entrenchment, it may be fired upon with the open ground modifier
(which was then -2).
So, you could shoot at it with the -2 as it
left the entrenchment, but not as it
entered the entrenchment -- not due to any concept of "this is how reality works", but because they were patching the holes in the rules one Q&A at a time.
- However, not only did the players notice the logical contradiction, but the optional DF method was becoming the
de facto standard method. Thus, more and more players were shooting at the moving unit as it entered the hex, at which time it was not (logically) in the entrenchment yet. This must have led to a lot of questions, because in CoD, the designers clarified the CoI Q&A: They specifically stated that a unit may not be fired on with the -2 as it
enters the entrenchment, the -2 only applies when it
leaves.
- However, during the redesign of the system into ASL, the logical contradiction was finally resolved.
- Note that skulking out of your foxhole was just as bad an idea in SL as it is in ASL; even then, you could be fired on as you left it.
- In SL, routing units did not have to actually enter the entrenchment to rout safely through the hex. Just the fact that it was an entrenchment hex made it not open ground, so they were free to rout through for 1 MF. So, there was no contradiction between it being one MF expenditure for routing units and separate MF expenditures for good order ones, but there was a deeper contradiction between how routers and good order units moved.
John
