Foot supporting artillery

[ravenflight]

Hello All,

I've had a quick look through the rules section of the forum but can't seem to find anything.

I had a situation which I think we got right, but seemed a little counter intuetive to me.

I had a BG of 2 bases of artillery being rear supported by a BG of 4&2 P&S.

I was being peppered by Dragoons, and wanted to charge the Dragoons away with my P&S.

It seems that you cannot do so, but it is not 100% clear (to me).

The rule on P67 on Interpenetrations says "No interpenetrations are permitted when charging", so it seems pretty obvious from that perspective.

However, on P126 it says (second bullet, and emphasis is mine):

"Artillery base depth vastly over-represents their actual historical depth. Hence a battle group in a position to give rear support to artillery is treated for all purposes as if its front edge was in the position of the front edge of the artillery, except that the files actually providing rear support cannot shoot"

According to this, except for shooting the bases of supporting infantry are in the frontal edge of the artillery... or in other words, in all circumstances other than shooting the troops giving support are in essence standing on the artillery bases.

To me, it makes sense that threatening troops would be able to be charged away by supporting troops. It is, after all, what they are there for.

There is a picture of an artillery BG being interpenetrated by a foot BG on P67, however that doesn't necessarily answer anything as it could be seen as showing direction of interpenetration, which can happen without necessarily being supporting.

Any thoughts on this appreciated.

Out of interest, I judged (against myself) that I couldn't charge (which incidentally resulted in the supporting troops going fragmented).

[daveallen]

Know what you mean about protecting the Artillery, but if the enemy get close enough to the guns to deny their infantry supports the space to pass through then the supports are stuck.

Whilst the rules say the front ranks are level with the front of the Artillery bases, subsequent ranks aren't level and thus would have to interpenetrate. So charging not permitted.

One option is to get your foot in front of the guns in good time, but this effectively negates an important part of your armoury. Another is to use two P&S units, each covering one gun, then you can charge with either or both by dropping an element back. Though this is a wasteful use of P&S.

On the rare occasions I use an army with Art, I don't waste front line troops defending them. And I'm always happy for my opponent to leave a unit behind in support of the guns as this means I get two extra flanks to concentrate my shooting on. In my experience the best defence is to have Art behind your battle line shooting through gaps. If they do get captured it's usually when the army is on the verge of collapse anyway, For excellent examples of this effect consult almost any Madaxeman battle report

Regards,

Dave

[ravenflight]

Know what you mean about protecting the Artillery, but if the enemy get close enough to the guns to deny their infantry supports the space to pass through then the supports are stuck.

Whilst the rules say the front ranks are level with the front of the Artillery bases, subsequent ranks aren't level and thus would have to interpenetrate. So charging not permitted.

One option is to get your foot in front of the guns in good time, but this effectively negates an important part of your armoury. Another is to use two P&S units, each covering one gun, then you can charge with either or both by dropping an element back. Though this is a wasteful use of P&S.

On the rare occasions I use an army with Art, I don't waste front line troops defending them. And I'm always happy for my opponent to leave a unit behind in support of the guns as this means I get two extra flanks to concentrate my shooting on. In my experience the best defence is to have Art behind your battle line shooting through gaps. If they do get captured it's usually when the army is on the verge of collapse anyway, For excellent examples of this effect consult almost any Madaxeman battle report

Regards,

Dave

Yup, all good points. The thing is that I run light artillery coz I find artillery crap. So their limited range affects things somewhat. Having said that, they DO slow troops down by just BEING there. I've considered the artillery in the Louis XIV list to be a 24ap fine for running French, and put them in a safe out of the way place (like next to my baggage) so they don't get in the way!