Operation Neptune, River Crossings

Phil_Draper

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Hi, I have finally cracked open ON and it looks great.

I was setting up scenario ON-2 Wet Feet and it triggered a number of questions regarding boats and river crossings.

The Wiltshires setup beached and loaded on the south bank of the Seine, which is only two hexes wide in places.

Q1. Can unbeaching boats be defensive first fired at solely due to the act of unbeaching?

Boats may be freely unbeached during the MPh or APh. I assume, as this does not require a MP it is not a trigger for Defensive Fire?


Q2. Can a boat that declares beaching as it enters a hex be the target of Defensive First Fire in its unbeached state as it enters that hex? If so can the defender opt to wait until beaching is complete before conducting Defensive First Fire?

E5.23 States, Beaching can occur freely during the boat’s MPh/APh if it is declared as it enters any land/water hex containing any non-cliff shore hexside/pontoon (B6.41-.45) bridge, and is symbolized by placing the boat counter so that it straddles the water-land hexside on which it is Beached.

If not I can see situations where the defender has no defensive fire opportunities against the attacker when he is not beached, which seems bizarre at best.

The sequence would run as; boat unbeaches and is placed in the first river hex (e.g. Beached across O28/P27 Hexside, unbeaches and is placed in P27), as no MP are spent no Defensive First Fire is possible, Boat uses 1 MP to enter next river hex and declares beaching as it does so (e.g. Boat enters Q27 and declares beaching across Q27/R26 Hexside), Defensive First Fire is possible versus this MP but perhaps not in an unbeached state depending on the answer to Question 2 above. At no point are the boat passengers at risk of having their boats shot out from under them and being lost in the river.

I would be really interested in your take on this situation and how it was play-tested. I know that the Dinant CG from CdG added in a requirement that boats spend 1 MP on unbeaching to address some of these issues but that this is not what Chapter E says, and indeed some of the justification for the modification was historical in nature. I know that much of Chapter E is a bit unpolished and am not sure how different players approach these challenges.

Anyway, many thanks for releasing a really nice looking product on a battle that I had, embarrassingly as a Brit, no prior awareness off.

Cheers

Phil
 
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