protection and disorder

[taxis]

am i correct in my reading of the rules in that disorder or severe disorder etc do not effect the protection set up for shot and pike units? it seems a bit odd that the pike will still give the protection to the shot in situations where they dont count as steady and if alone would be at a big disadvantage.

[rbodleyscott]

am i correct in my reading of the rules in that disorder or severe disorder etc do not effect the protection set up for shot and pike units?

No.

Protection only cancels the Impact POAs of mounted troops while the pike and shot are Steady. (i.e. Not disordered, severely disordered, disrupted or fragmented)

Protection only gives the pike and shot a POA vs mounted if the pike and shot are not fragmented or severely disordered.

So they lose some of the benefits of Protection when Disordered, and most of them when Severely Disordered.

[taxis]

so does that mean that a P&S unit in uneven or rough terrain suffers no ill effect against sword or heavy weapon? heavy weapon does not count against protected shot or pike in the charts that i can see

[nikgaukroger]

IIRC the foot Swordsmen PoA counts against pike and protected shot if these are not Steady. HW doesn't though.

[rbodleyscott]

so does that mean that a P&S unit in uneven or rough terrain suffers no ill effect against sword or heavy weapon? heavy weapon does not count against protected shot or pike in the charts that i can see

As Nik says, swords count against disordered pike and disordered protected shot, but not against steady. If a pike and shot unit is in uneven or rough going, the pike bases are disordered (unsteady) but the shot aren't - so swords would count against the pikes but not the shot.

Heavy Weapon don't count even if the Protected troops are not steady.