Infantry Stacking Limits and Armored Assault A5 & D9.31

[EJ1]

Am I right that there are no separate rules regarding infantry stacking limits and armored assault? Just to go to the extreme, could I really have eleven squads (roughly 110 men) stacked beneath an AFV and still benefit from armored assault? Something suggests to me that just like riders, I should not be able to have too many squads beneath an AFV for armored assault. So, how many is too many?

With a normal stacking limit of three squads, and only needing to move one hex, I could stack my 11 squads with a leader, double time everyone along a road, and move one hex using armored assault. My math: 11 sq - 3 sq = 8 sq over stacked; squads with leader, all double time along the road = 8 MF + 1 MF road bonus = 9 MF; 9 MF - 8 MF over-stack penalty = 1 MF; my stack moves one hex).

Is this technically correct? Cheers

 

[Eagle4ty]

Go for it! (especially against me):clap:

 

[jrv]

I am going to assume your math is correct. On a defensive first fire shot you would get as DRM +1 armored assault, -1 NAM, -8 overstacking [A5.131] for a net -8. At one FP, a boxcars is a NMC (assume no cowering), 11-10 is 1MC, 9 is K/1 and anything else is a 1KIA. Of course the entire stack had to start the MPh in one location, so that means that all of last player turn you were subject to attacks at -8 for overstacking too.

I don't think there is any reason you need to limit your stack to 11 squads nor move down the road or anything like that. An unlimited number of infantry units could perform a minimum move [A4.134] as armored assault. To what end I don't know.

JR

 

[jrv]

As a follow-on, if the effect is a 1KIA, with 11 squads and a leader you are very likely to roll a tie on the random selection. I don't know what the expected number of KIAs really is but I would think at least two due to ties. And if the leader has a ML > the squads and it dies, that's LLMCs against the broken squads too.

JR

 

[EJ1]

Thus, I'm right, technically, there's no limit. From a tactics perspective, true, the defense penalties become overwhelming. Looking at historical film, I rarely see (never see?) more than a squad equivalent huddled behind a moving tank. Not that I'm calling for more rules, and while I used an extreme example above, I think that had I read that there's a limit of one-squad+SMCs per AFV for armored assault, I would not have been surprised.

In sum, I think the rules on this topic do a good job reflecting an average reality. Fun. Thanks.

 

[Philippe D.]

I am going to assume your math is correct. On a defensive first fire shot you would get as DRM +1 armored assault, -1 NAM, -8 overstacking [A5.131] for a net -8. At one FP, a boxcars is a NMC (assume no cowering), 11-10 is 1MC, 9 is K/1 and anything else is a 1KIA. Of course the entire stack had to start the MPh in one location, so that means that all of last player turn you were subject to attacks at -8 for overstacking too.

I think you'd need to use Minimum Move or Advance into Difficult Terrain to prepare this 11-squad stack, so some unit would be CX and unable to Double Time. So you'd have to keep the monster stack there for three player turns (opponent's, yours, opponent's) before you could try this.

 

[von Marwitz]

I am going to assume your math is correct. On a defensive first fire shot you would get as DRM +1 armored assault, -1 NAM, -8 overstacking [A5.131] for a net -8. At one FP, a boxcars is a NMC (assume no cowering), 11-10 is 1MC, 9 is K/1 and anything else is a 1KIA. Of course the entire stack had to start the MPh in one location, so that means that all of last player turn you were subject to attacks at -8 for overstacking too.

In this, the designers of the rule likely cunningly represent the tank being unable to run over his own guys after they get roused by some fire...

von Marwitz

 

[WuWei]

As a follow-on, if the effect is a 1KIA, with 11 squads and a leader you are very likely to roll a tie on the random selection. I don't know what the expected number of KIAs really is but I would think at least two due to ties. And if the leader has a ML > the squads and it dies, that's LLMCs against the broken squads too.

The expected number of KIAs is 2.29, with a 19% chance that the leader is one of them.