Foot and artillery question

[mrbootsthecat]

Hi. Me again. This happened in yesterday's game ( a glorious Swedish victory!) My opponent had a battery of three pieces of artillery, supported by a unit of 5 musket and one pike. As I trudged across the table, his artillery was popping away, causing damage to a unit of commanded shot and a unit of cavalry. Desperate to stop this carnage, I charged with a Swedish brigade, hitting both the artillery and support, and the unit next to this. This meant the artillery/support were only contacted on their right hand element. In the following rounds, the artillery and supports couldn't slide over, because of the next unit.

My opponent wanted to fire from his left hand file. This is ok, as the right hand one is in contact, the middle one is an overlap and the left hand one is free to fire with a -1 for being in combat.

But who shoots? Before combat, I have no problem with the artillery firing. Once combat is joined, I think the foot would be at the front defending the guns, and so they should be the only ones that could shoot. But we couldn't find a definitive answer, so I thought I would ask here.

Incidentally, in the game, I let him shoot at the cavalry with his gun, and the dice gods looked after me and he missed.
Thanks for any answers

[mrbootsthecat]

Sorry for the double posting

[kevinj]

I think this is covered on P126.

"The Foot are treated for all purposes as if it's front edge was in the position of the front edge of the artillery, except that the files actually providing rear support cannot shoot" - in this case all 3 files of the foot BG are providing rear support and so none can shoot.

"When an artillery base with rear support is in contact with enemy ... close combat takes place between the supporting troops and the enemy...(The artillery crews are assumed to have withdrawn behind their friends...)." - this determination is therefore base by base, and so in your example the crew would not have withdrawn and so the artillery can shoot.

[deadtorius]

I think I disagree on that one, with the supports being in combat they are considered to be up front so it would be the left hand shot unit that would fire. The supporting troops are assumed to be up front of the artillery when in combat so the crews are still out of it as they would have retired back and they are not fighting so are not where their gun bases are.

[kevinj]

I looked at this at some length before responding to the original query and I still think I'm right. Whether or not there is any close combat, the artillery and foot are essentially occupying the same space, but obviously with models on bases we can't easily simulate this.

It is clear from P126 that the foot are not allowed to shoot whilst providing rear support.

The description of what happens when troops are in combat refers to bases, not battle groups, so there is no reason to assume that the artillery crew in this situation would have retired behind their supports.

[quackstheking]

I'm with Kevin on this as the 2 pertinant facts are:-

1. Bases providing rear support behind artillery pieces cannot shoot in any circumstances and
2. Combat is by base not BG - therefore the gunners in the 2 bases involved in combat are assumed to have retired but not those serving the unengaged gun.

It's the gun that fires on a -POA

Don