Interpenetrations and shooting

[spotteddog]

Imagine, if you will, a 2 wide by 3 deep unit of shooting pistol horse 2 inches away from enemy for obvious reasons! A unit of light foot are in front edge contact with the rear edge of the horse BG. Moving 4 inches forward means there is sufficient room for the light foot front edge to reach the far side of the horse BG. Can it then shoot? The first bullet on page 67 of the rule book may allow this and the next one on page 68 may disallow this.
HH

[spotteddog]

BTW I am guesssing "Yes" as a similar situation might apply with a 1x4 column of dragoons in front edge contact with the rear edge of column 1x6 of light foot. In this case moving 5 inches forward means there is sufficient room for the dragoons front edge to reach the far side of the light foot BG and I cant see any stipulation anywhere about it not shooting. In the case the dragoons would have moved a stonking 11 inches before delivering their smokey package (of 1 shot)! Ditto light horse and cavalry BTW.
HH

[marshalney2000]

Hunter, my first reaction is that I can think of very few situations where I would want to do either of these actions.
John

[spotteddog]

I can

[kevinj]

If the conditions of the first bullet are met (i.e. you start in front edge contact with the rear edge) then there's no restriction on shooting. The second bullet covers a different situation and shooting is not allowed.

[spotteddog]

Thanks Kevin.
HH

[ravenflight]

Hunter, my first reaction is that I can think of very few situations where I would want to do either of these actions.
John

I definitely can.

Step 1: - enemy shoot at the pisoliers and disrupt them.
Step 2: - friendly light foot interpenetrate, shoot at the enemy whilst the general bolsters the pistoliers. At the same time the light foot are shot up and disrupt.
Step 3: - friendly disrupted light foot interpenetrate and get bolstered whilst the now fresh pistoliers continue shooting.

[marshalney2000]

Kevin, I did not explain my situation very well. I agree with the points you make. My reading of Hunter's post was that he was of the opinion that getting such an extended move for the Dragoons in particular was a tremendous wheeze and just the sort of things he loves doing just because he can. I was trying to make the point that moving a single column of Dragoons into such an exposed point in the direction of the enemy was somewhat fraught with danger particularly if they had to evade back again and you had moved other units up behind the interpenetrated unit of light infantry in the meantime. This would be in addition to potentially exposing a single element column to a lot of enemy fire with little coming back.
John

[spotteddog]

Ravenflight has it spot on. Expensive but potentially effective.

HH

[kevinj]

Yes, it was Ravenflight who offered a reason for Hunter's query, I merely offered my opinion of the rules. I know better than to speculate on the deviousness of Hunter's motivation for asking the question.