good points. sad something as ubiquitous as foxhole on the battlefield are such in our game that they are Rarely employed by players
Thanks Keith.
It's bizarre, not least because, as you hinted, entrenchments were the most common fortifications employed by infantry. In a game designed to model infantry combat, the widespread avoidance of foxholes points to a flaw in the system.
During the Flintstone era of SL and early ASL, skulking wasn't a common practice, in part because many of us simply banged away at each other during the PFPh and DFPh until someone broke. The tactic was invented because ASL lacks a means of mitigating incoming fire while remaining in situ. It seems obvious to me that if an infantryman wanted to avoid incoming fire, he would take cover by keeping his brain bucket out of the line of fire as much as possible, akin to going BU for an AFV. The purpose of an entrenchment is not only to provide protection while firing, but to provide increased protection when
not firing. But there's no mechanism in ASL that allows Infantry to drop out of sight during the MPh without leaving a hex
[EXC: when entrenched behind a wall or hedge, bocage, and perhaps one or two other rare cases that are de-facto skulking mechanisms], reduce incoming fire by half (or a quarter if concealed), and then pop back up in the APh. Given the option of ducking or skulking, however, I think most players would still opt to leave enemy LOS provided there was a way to do this without eating fire upon exiting the foxhole.
While I'm on the subject, the effort to leave a
trench could be modelled differently. Rather than have Infantry expend a MF in the hex when exiting the trench, this MF could instead be added cumulatively to the cost to enter the next hex. (Alternatively, only allow a "Snap Shot" on the exit MF.) I think of an ASL trench as a series of fire trenches connected by shallower communication trenches.
A wounded leader leaving the "long drop" in 4X8 cannot be fired upon as he exits the outbuilding on his way to W9, despite having a lot of Open Ground to cross (including the hex centre dot on the original board below) before he reaches W9. Why then should a unit exiting a trench in W9 be required to pause for a photo op before heading to the same latrine?
Earlier I forgot to mention another thing that bugs me about foxholes: capacity. While it makes sense for trenches, I have a hard time visualizing an enemy squad sharing a 1S foxhole with another enemy squad. Maybe B27.44 was written this way for simplicity sake. I'm not buying it. Should an enemy unit eliminate one or more occupants of a foxhole during CC, the enemy unit ought to be free to avail itself of any unused foxhole capacity. Otherwise it's SOL, as it would be in real bust up. And so I'd argue for dropping the per-side capacity of a foxhole and adopting something akin to that for a sangar below.
A sangar has the same capacity as a 1S foxhole. [EXC: One non-vehicular Gun of any size/type may be placed in, and may fire out of, a sangar. A sangar that contains a Gun may never also contain a squad, nor more MMC than one HS or crew. A sangar's capacity is the total number of units/Guns allowed beneath it, rather than a "per side" capacity as given in B27.44.]
Aren't they mostly meant to protect from artillety indirect fire?
They are not that useful vs. direct fire situations.
But I am just guessing.
Yes and no. The concussive effect of artillery fire can kill without leaving a scratch on its victim. But the deeper the hole, especially one with overhead protection, the more likely one is to weather the firestorm. Foxholes in ASL provide a good deal of protection from OBA. I'm not sure that it's warranted, however, given that foxholes are meant to represent hastily dug entrenchments. A foxhole dug during play provides the same level of protection that an OB-given one does.
(Fire) trenches are a different beast, and I think that ASL trenches do a good job of simulating the added benefits of overhead protection and communication trenches for moving between fire trenches/positions.
As for direct fire, it depends on whether the occupants are in a firing position, or keeping their heads down. ASL doesn't distinguish. But in the real world, I'd take a shell scrape over nothing. It would allow me to keep most of my body below ground, making me harder to target directly, while also providing some protection from grenade and other (non-airburst) fragments.
Foxholes (individual fire trenches) and trenches would provide even more protection from direct fire than a shell scrape because most of your body is well below ground level. Keep in mind that an MG can shred a wooden or cinderblock building. So I don't see the protection of a foxhole or trench vs direct fire as overrated. Moreover, I think a sangar's +1 TEM is much more in keeping with what an ASL "foxhole" really is. So in that respect, I agree that an ASL "foxhole," which is really a shell scrape, ought to be less useful in protecting from direct fire, not unlike a sangar is.