LOS From Woods Down the Road

[johnl]

Gentlefolks

My opponent and I are having a disagreement about LOS out of a Woods-Road hex and down the road. In the attached illustration does the Finnish unit in Q5 have a LOS down the road to L2? We do agree that there is LOS to P4. Any rules cite would be appreciated.

johnl

 

[jrv]

The woods in P4 blocks LOS. Any obstacle not in the unit's or target's hex blocks LOS: A6.2.

JR

 

[ctewks]

No he doesn't - the woods in P4 would block since the entire LOS isn't along the road.

 

[johnl]

JR, thank you for your quick reply.

 

[clubby]

Sorry, to rehash an older thread, but I was just reading the Fortification article in LFT 13 and there's an example in there where an Allied Minor squad is in the equivalent of Q5. The article states that the German AFV starts, moves into O4 (the equivalent of this hex on their map example) and declares a BFF shot with the MGs at 5 +1, pinning the Allied Minor squad. I went over this several times thinking they didn't have LOS. Then I googled it and this thread came up, indicating that they don't have LOS. Am I missing something or is there a situation where they would have LOS to each other?

 

[jrv]

You refer to Example 3 on page 11 of LFT 13. The squad in J4 does not have LOS to H3. One should read the EX as if the road went through I4 instead of I3.

There a couple of other errors in the EX. The German tank moves up and uses BFF over the roadblock with, presumably, its CMG (its BMG being blocked by the roadblock). Range is two so the FP should be halved for BFF with no doubling for range. The PzIII D shown does not have a CMG with five FP, but rather eight FP so if the road went through I4 and there was LOS from I4 to H3, the attack would be four FP not five FP. After having fired, the tank fires its sD ("SD" in the article) which is not allowed after using BFF [D13.2]. Assuming there was a LOS from I4 to H3, the squad should have fired its LMG as TH/TK at the tank when it stopped, putting down the firelane. The tank has zero frontal turret armor and could easily be dropped by a LMG shot. The engineering party trying to clear the roadblock would then be attacked at one FP flat (+2 roadblock, -2 hazardous movement) even if the tank fired its sD instead of (or at least before) BFF . The squad could also attack (at four FP add two if the tank fired its sD or at two FP flat if the tank fired its CMG and got a Pin result).

JR

 

[clubby]

My question was really about the LOS listed in the magazine, which you're saying does not exist. I appreciate all the other information. Did the article say somewhere to read the EX as if the road went through J4 instead of J3? I'm assuming you meant J not I because the road in the EX does go through I4.

 

[jrv]

My question was really about the LOS listed in the magazine, which you're saying does not exist. I appreciate all the other information. Did the article say somewhere to read the EX as if the road went through J4 instead of J3? I'm assuming you meant J not I because the road in the EX does go through I4.

I did mean j4. I also meant p. 71, not p. 11 (that is a terrible font imho).

The example just got the LOS wrong. They wanted the LOS to work like the road went through J4. For whatever reason, I also feel like when the LOS reaches the center of I4 without hitting an obstacle it should be able to go one more hex, but per the rules that is wrong.

If you go on to Example 4 you will see that the article has a pillbox in a marsh hex--not a legal hex for a pillbox [B16.5], and since the adjacent stream is flooded in the example the marsh CC4 should be treated as a stream/river too [B16.6], making it even worse terrain for a pillbox (although this did not seem to bother the Japanese at Buna). All these errata are tangential to the points the article is trying to make, so you need to make allowances and understand what the writer was interested in. Those aspects of the article seem correct.

JR