and the charge wheel yet again...

[deadtorius]

In today's game two French Cuirassier wanted to charge an Austrian square. on unit was off to the left of the square the other unit was directly out front with 1 1/2 of its bases in front of the square.
Beside said square is a unit of Austrian Grenadiers veterans.
French move the outer most Cuirassier into contact with the side of the square. their back 2 bases are now sticking out past the front of the square.
The French 2nd Cuirassier want to wheel right so that they can avoid the Grenadiers (from French side to the left of the square), however by doing so they start with 1 1/2 bases in front of the square, they would end with less than 1/2 of a single base in contact. I said you can't wheel like that as it brings less of the target to their front, the only wheel they can do is to the right to bring them right on even with the square and into the support area of the Grenadiers.

So who was correct? I believe Terry said the wheel restrictions were in place to try and stop things like avoiding being shot or intercepts like this.

And for the record the French said that squares had no flank so could not receive flank support so in the end the Grenadiers did not end up shooting at them anyway, but that was another thing.

[BrettPT]

This should actually be pretty simple.

The Cuirassier unit wheeling to avoid a support shot can wheel before it charges. However it can only wheel until the centre of the Cuirassier unit is pointing in a straight line directly towards the centre of whatever face of the square they are charging (unless this would cause the unit not to be able to contact, when it could wheel the minimum further required).

In your example (depending on how far away from the square the cuirassiers started) it sounds like only a tiny wheel would have been permissible.
After this little wheel, the Cuirassiers charge straight ahead. If they cross the front (and within 2MU) of the supporting Grenadiers they get a full volley from the Grenadiers.

If they managed to avoid the close range shooting arc of the Grenadiers, It's likely they would have ended up in the Support Area of the Grenadiers, so the square would get an extra shooting dice (or 2 if the Grenadiers had an artillery attachment).

I believe you got it wrong re. the support shooting rules. The rules on page 51 say that a unit provides supporting fire against a target in its Support Area (bold added). So the Support Area - and support shooting - is referenced from the supporting unit, not the primary shooter being supported. The red boxes on page 52 show the Support Area. It doesn't matter that the supported unit has no flanks.

- Your French opponent may have been confused by Combat Flank Support (pg 56), which is slightly different. The Dice Allowance Chart gives you +2 dice for "Each supporting unit to flank". As squares have no flanks they cannot receive flank support in combat.

Cheers
Brett

[Saxonian]

As far as the wheel is concerned, the final word (as far as I can remember) was that the rule was not meant to prevent units from getting into contact.
It was intended to stop the small micro-management that might be tried to avoid support shooting and combat flank support.
For this reason, a small wheel is permitted if this brings less of the attacking unit into contact, but only enough to avoid the friendly unit.

Brett's answer to the matter of flank support in combat is not correct. This was answered pretty comprehensively in a previous thread (I'll try to find it later).
The final ruling was:
Squares cannot receive rear support - they have no rear.
Squares can give rear support - as long as they are within 1MU, the move allowance for a square.
Squares can both give and receive flank support. Flank support is determined by the unit giving the support. If an enemy is in a unit's support area (1 base width to the side and 2 MU forward), it will receive both support shooting and the flank support in combat.

For a square (which faces in four directions), the face used to determine the support area is determined by the presence of the enemy unit.
And if I remember correctly, this can be on two faces at the same time - but I need to check this.

[Saxonian]

Found part of the discussion:

viewtopic.php?f=188&t=38945&p=455809&hi ... rt#p455809

hos459 made a good point in this discussion - the definition for support area at no time mentions the supporting unit's flank. It's a little earlier in this thread.

[BrettPT]

Brett's answer to the matter of flank support in combat is not correct. This was answered pretty comprehensively in a previous thread (I'll try to find it later).

Thanks for going back and hunting this down Sax - sorry to put you wrong Dead.

Hopefully the flank support rules will be tidied up a little in version 1.1 (pasting Terry's interpretation into the rules would seem the easiest way).
Meanwhile it gets everyone on the same page to use Terry's interpretation. It also makes the flank support rules for combat the same as for shooting - very sensible.

Cheers
Brett

[deadtorius]

Getting aback to the original wheel issue here, page 29 says "They may not wheel to place less of their target to their front..." which was my argument. At the start of the charge the two units are just off center of each other, from the French side their center is just right of my center.
By wheeling right they place 75% of their unit off to my side, and only contact about 20% of my unit
Wheeling left is both less wheel and brings them 100% in front of my unit.

If you do minimum to avoid friends once again the left wheel is a few mm the right wheel is about 2 MU.
In both cases I think the left wheel which takes them into the support area of the grenadiers, is the only legal option as it covers both circumstances.

In the end the support was not an issue as the Jagers managed to stop the charge, they didn't close, dropped and drove off one unit from shooting, they came back, both hit got bounced, tried again both got stopped, all without any support from the grenadiers. It was a good day to be a Jager

[Blathergut]

Apologies for posting late: was away for a couple days.

The basic question was:

If no other friendly unit had been involved, the cuirassiers could only have gone in straight or wheeled left to bring more of the cuirassier unit into contact (by wheeling and aiming at enemy centre point).

BUT, since there WAS a friendly unit involved, keeping the cuirassiers from going in straight, could the cuirassiers then argue to avoid friends they had to wheel to the right ever-so-slightly, contacting 1/4 of the enemy instead of wheeling left and bringing more into contact.

Wheeling right might have kept the cuirassiers out of the support area.

I couldn't see anything in the rules stating the only option was to bring more onto the enemy. It was a niggly point, yes. But it seemed a valid option given the situation with the friendly unit partially in the way.

[KeefM]

Assaults are simultaneous. So, presumably, either of the cavalry could have moved "first". Would that have changed your consideration ?

[Blathergut]

I would have moved the other one first so the way was blocked.

[Blathergut]

Ah, was just one of those little situations that come up. I was fine with just going in and not wheeling to try to avoid.