KG Klink in Greece, Fight #7

[Just Jack]

All,

Morning, 12 April 1941

Here we are, continuing Kampfgruppe Klink’s campaign in Greece.  The first battle saw Captain Freitag’s 1st Schutzen Battlegroup take a key mountain crossroads manned by members of the British Royal Engineers supported by Armored Cavalry from New Zealand.  The fight saw the Germans infantry nearly eliminate the Commonwealth battlegroup, which fell back in disarray.  Captain Freitag pressed his advantage, immediately pursuing south down, where it ran into defensive positions manned by the remnants of the New Zealand 21st Infantry Battalion.  1st Schutzen then evicted the NZ 21st Inf Bn from its positions, forcing them to fall back.  The third fight saw 1st Lt Ginter’s 2nd Schutzen moving secure a crossing over the D3 bridge, forcing the 27th MG Battalion back.  The fourth fight saw Major Bohm’s 2nd Recce Battlegroup push back the Australian 2nd Battalion, 8th Infantry Regiment after some fierce fighting.  The fifth battle saw Captain Freitag’s beleaguered 1st Schutzen Battlegroup defend the B3 bridgehead against attacks by the British Rangers/9th King’s Royal Rifle Corps, and the Royal Engineers/New Zealand Cavalry, pushing the former back and destroying the latter!  The sixth battle saw Battlegroup Wehner (1st Recce) attack and destroy the Lee Force/Australian 2nd Battalion, 7th Infantry Regiment, though they suffered so many casualties they were in then combined with the 2nd Recce battlegroup.  Now we move further south to carry out a meeting engagement between Lt Loeb’s Panzers and the Allies’ 4th Hussars.

Panzers forward!

First blood goes to a Matilda of the Hussars as Sergeant Friessler’s Panzer III is hit and immobilized.

Yeah, with British armor about, it was only a matter of time before the Stukas showed up…

German pioneers put up a spirited defense of the village.

To see how it turned out, please check the blog at:
https://blackhawkhet.blogspot.com/2020/04/kg-klink-in-greece-fight-7.html

We’ve also got the map moves for Turns 7 and 8:
https://blackhawkhet.blogspot.com/2020/04/kg-klink-mini-campaign-in-greece-map_20.html

So next up we’ve got Lt Loeb’s Panzer Battlegroup attacking Australia’s 2nd Battalion, 8th Infantry Regiment.

V/R,
Jack

[kyoteblue]

As a kinda tread head the Matilda 2  is for its time a mini Tiger it would shrug off 37mm or 47mm AT rounds( that’s why you need an 88 ) but it was slow.  The A-10’s are about the same as the Pz 3 armor wise but very fast.   I don’t know if you want to change anything mid-campaign. Shrug.

[Victoria Dickson]

Fight 7 already? I need to do some catching up.

Great report (as always) and I love your figures and terrain.

One question though, would the truck mounted troops really have stayed in their trucks once the shooting started?  For some reason I imagine you’d dismount immediately and continue on foot, get the trucks to safety as quick as possible?

Loving the surrendered figures too 🙂

http://crazywargames.blogspot.co.uk/

[Gaz045]

Now it’s just a race for the Peloponnese ports and Allied evacuation to the safety of Crete………..!

 

 

 

"Even dry tree bark is not bitter to the hungry squirrel"

[Just Jack]

Kyote – I’m pretty comfortable with how I handled the Matilda II: it could only be ‘tracked’ from the front (on a 1 in 6 chance, which may be high but is all I can do with a D6-based system), and could only be penetrated from point blank range from the flank, which is exactly what happened.  What I’m worried about is that I allowed the Matilda Is to be penetrated from the front at battle range by the German 37mm guns, and that probably shouldn’t have occurred.  Can’t change it now in any case, I played these games over a month ago…

Vicki – Indeed you do!  But good to ‘see’ you, nonetheless!  Regarding the trucks and dismounting, from my standpoint, they (the engineer platoon) was trying to seize an objective and thus taking a calculated risk, remaining mounted as they were not under fire themselves.  I’m sure if they started getting hit they would have immediately dismounted; certainly more cautious commanders may have had them dismount at the line of departure (for my purposes the table edge) and walked in, but the plan was for them to make a dash for the village, and that’s what they did.  The Stuka attack really made sure they didn’t take any fire from the British, luckily for them.  Unfortunately, seeing way too much of the Commonwealth surrendering figures…

On a side note, it’s funny running into you here, I’ve recently been spending time over on your blog again, re-reading all your Ambush Z posts.  It seems my boys (10 and 5) want me to buy them some figures for some zombie games.  Looks like it’s happening…

Gaz – Yes Sir, it got ugly quick, and now it’s pretty much every man for himself.  The German armor has gotten into their rear and now it’s a mad dash to see who, if anyone, can  avoid getting bagged.

V/R,
Jack

 

[Darkest Star Games]

I don’t know, if the allies play their cards right they could stymie the 2nd Shutz and cut off the panzers from their rear if Wellington Coy can hold out.

…who am I kidding!!!!

"I saw this in a cartoon once, but I'm pretty sure I can do it..."

[kyoteblue]

The poor Brits will soon be kicked out of Greece and headed to Crete. I’ve seen this movie before…

[Just Jack]

Darby – Sure, anything could happen 😉  But if I were you, I’d be more with Kyote:
“The poor Brits will soon be kicked out of Greece and headed to Crete.”

It was inevitable; that’s not to say that KG Klink couldn’t have lost their campaign, or even battles in their campaign, they could have, they just didn’t.  Probably because of my excellent leadership and tactical decision making, but that’s neither here nor there 😉

In the overall scheme of things, the Commonwealth troops were always going to lose Greece, as I’m not looking to change the course of WWII, I’m just looking to play out plausible fights within it.  So KG Klink can lose fights or even the campaign, and the war will still go the way it did historically, but because the Germans won historically the tabletop fights and campaign are weighted towards that happening, too.  The same will be true once the war turns against the Germans.

V/R,
Jack

 

[Whirlwind]

Thanks Jack, all good stuff. The Luftwaffe changing the course of events in this one again (although not that much seemed to go right for the Commowealth troops throughout).  Not convinced about the Brit Carrier platoon – staying in their vehicles after the Stuka strike waiting for the Panzers to blow them to bits seems a bit of a rules quirk.

[Just Jack]

Thanks, John.  Yes, the Luftwaffe has made quite an impression during this campaign, which is some down to the Germans being qualitatively better (which has them rolling one more Command Dice than the Commonwealth troops, and thus gaining more opportunities) and some down to just plain luck in the Command Dice rolls, which have resulted in the Germans getting a “CoC Dice” not just every fight, but pretty early in every fight as well.  Oh, and some of it is down to the fact I’m playing solo and thus the ‘CoC Dice’ is only being used for supporting fires, vice other things that are possible in the rules as written, but don’t really work for me playing solo.

Regarding the Carrier Platoon getting caught still mounted, well, I dunno man.  I mean, it’s rather unfortunate here as it’s the good guys getting caught out by the bad guys, but in the overall scheme of things, it’s not a bug in the system of the rules, it’s a feature, and I’m a fan of it (much as I am with the 5Core activation system, for the same reason).  You can read throughout history, all the way up to the very present, about a force being surprised and handled roughly, but you very rarely see it in tabletop games because the player can see everything that’s happening and most rules allow the player to move all of his troops every turn.  I understand the idea that some rules allow you to move all your troops each turn, and then you roll dice for combat, and then if one side does exceedingly poorly you can comment to yourself that ‘well, they must have been surprised,’ or ‘I guess they weren’t able to form square before the cavalry charged,’ but I prefer rules Chain of Command, IABSM, and 5Core, which limit what the player is able to do with his forces and thus result in situations where you could see the disaster coming but simply couldn’t do anything about it.  Well, that’s not true either, you always get to do something, just maybe not what you wanted to do, or maybe not enough to stave off the disaster.

What happened here the British were already down a Command Dice, then started losing more of them as their Force Morale dropped from losing other units so rapidly.  I don’t recall exactly where they were at that particular point in the game, but they were probably down to only three Command Dice per phase, maybe only two!  So you roll your two or three dice and maybe you roll poorly (say a 1, a 5, and a 6, which allows you to activate one team/vehicle with the ‘1,’ gets you another tick for your CoC Dice with the ‘5,’ and rolling a single ‘6’ is simply a waste of a dice, so in that phase all you got to do was activate a single team or vehicle) and can’t do much.  Stuff happens, as they say, and for me that is a much truer representation of combat at this level, or at least my expectation of it.

In any case, I appreciate the comments, and I’ll post the next one tonight or tomorrow night.  Then it’s one more week to go, the last two fights coming up next week, almost done with Greece.

V/R,
Jack

[Whirlwind]

Hi Jack, very much appreciate your comments. The carrier platoon thing was quite specific really rather than a comment on the uncertainty level in the rules: as far as I have read (and stand to be corrected) troops were very prone to abandoning light vehicles under attack, so I was thinking more that pinned or suppressed reactions should lead to dismounting.

[Whirlwind]

And very much looking forward to the rest of the AARs

[Thuseld]

That was just embarrassing for the allies. Great fight and write up.

Experiments here: http://inexperiencedmodelmaker.blogspot.co.uk/

Tranquil Stars updates: https://tranquilstars.wordpress.com

[Just Jack]

Ah, my apologies John, I see what you’re getting at.  I agree with what you’re saying, I imagine immediate action for coming under air attack is going to be to dismount and seek overhead cover, or at least get prone, away from the vehicles.

I don’t know that I’ve seen any rules that allow involuntary movements like that (outside of failing morale that compels a withdrawal), have you?  It’s certainly an interesting concept; my old Marine buddy Wolf and I discussed this previously, where immediate action drills were automatically carried out when triggered by a certain tactical situation (such as a near or far ambush), but I don’t think it went anywhere.

Thuseld – Damn man, don’t say it like that, now I feel horrible!  All I can say is, don’t worry, I know how this whole things ends, and the Germans are going to get theirs! 😉

V/R,

Jack

[kyoteblue]

Wait, what the Germans get their butts kicked!!!!??????

[Whirlwind]

Just Jack wrote:

I don’t know that I’ve seen any rules that allow involuntary movements like that (outside of failing morale that compels a withdrawal), have you?

I can’t think that I have in modern games.  I have seen more in Napoleonic games, with rules for automatic forming square, charges, pursuits, evades and so on.

I am going to think about it some more, and precise mechanisms will depend upon the base ruleset of course, but I think that an automatic dismount/seek cover reaction may work; for all fire for soft skinned vehicles, from air attack for armoured vehicles.

[Just Jack]

John,

Indeed, ‘impetuous’ cavalry forced  to keep charging until their horses are blown and they get massacred! 😉

The ‘auto’ response thing really gets tricky to me; let’s say you’ve  got a convoy of four trucks rolling down the road. I point to my artillery and say I’m going to fire on your convoy.  So does the auto-response kick in now and all of the guys in the trucks dismount?

But what if the arty is off target?  I suppose you could have a separate “arty on target or not” roll; hell, I do that sometimes anyway with my spotting rounds, but mostly I just roll kill and shock dice.

So if arty is not on target the trucks keep rolling, but if it is I suppose you roll your normal combat resolution and then after that all the surviving inhabitants of the trucks are assumed to be dismounted and taking cover?  I think that sounds reasonable, but it probably still doesn’t solve the situation totally.

I think it’s possible to be engaged by arty that misses so badly you don’t realize or understand that you are being engaged.  But let’s change out the arty for a machine gun (and leave out the issue of whether you should be mounted in range of a machine gun or not); from my perspective an MG could fire on a convoy of trucks and hit them, maybe even cause some casualties, but the trucks keep rolling, and you’re actually doing them a disservice by forcing them to dismount.  Think of an ambush where Immediate Action is to get off the ‘x,’ but they can’t, they’re actually forced to dismount in the kill zone because of the automatic response mechanism.

This is where my talks with Wolf bogged down; his argument was that tabletop units should be able to carry out Immediate Action drills, but my opinion was that it soon became too complex.  So I have a platoon in column walking down the road and you have a squad lying in cover and concealment that initiates an ambush of my troops from less than 50 meters away.

That is what we call a ‘near ambush’ and the Immediate Action response is to fire your weapon as fast as you’re able and to close assault through the ambush.  So the cleanest it can get is this: your squad opens fire, I take my casualties and suffer negative morale impacts, but then everyone not dead or cowering immediately gets to charge the ambushing force.

But it can get much dirtier than that: part of the concept of Immediate Action drills is to overcome the shock of contact that forces units/men to become pinned or suppressed, so should you now allow every man/unit that was pinned/suppressed to have an ‘Immediate Action’ roll to see if their training overcame their base impulse?  What about the effect of small unit leaders on that pseudo-rally?  What about deciding if everyone is reacting to the tactical situation in the same manner?  In this scenario it would be easy for the lead elements of the ambushed platoon to understand it is a ‘near ambush’ and react accordingly, but it would certainly be possible for trail elements of the platoon to believe its a ‘far ambush’ and react differently, or to not understand the situation and simply halt and take a knee while things get figured out, which is the opposite of Immediate Action.  Do you allow leaders to roll to see if they can influence the reaction to ensure everyone is acting uniformly?  If so, do you roll to see if the leaders have an accurate understanding of the tactical situation and are responding accordingly, and how does this interact with the rally mechanism discussed above? Or themselves carrying out the Immediate Action drill, or their own thoughts of self preservation?  They may be leaders but they still can’t rally 1st Squad, shout orders to 2nd Squad,  manipulate their personal weapon, and charge the enemy at the same time.

Sorry for the incoherent rambling, it’s just that I like the idea of Immediate Action, I just can’t figure out how to make it work on the tabletop.  To take into account all the things I just mentioned would take you dice-rolling and checking tables for 20 minutes, to resolve something that happened in real life in 20 seconds.

For that reason I prefer, so far at least, to have combat mechanics that show definitive troop states (pinned, suppressed, out of the fight) and let the player make tactical decisions to the best of his ability, knowing he can’t do everything he wants to do.

In this case, there is no doubt the Commonwealth commander did not want his infantry to be caught in their carriers, but because of the German Stukas and rapid assault by the tanks, he couldn’t avoid it.  That is to say he definitely could have spent his limited command capacity to have them dismount, but then his remaining tanks wouldn’t have been engaging the Germans, which he thought was more important at the time.

V/R,

Jack

[Whirlwind]

Jack,

I hear you about the problems with it and mainly agree.  I think it is only going to help in situations where things are only going to go one way and there is no real commanders’ choice involved.  I think this is why I noticed it in this game, because as you say, the British commander was forced to decide whether to extend command effort to dismount his carriers or engage the Germans with his tanks.  This looks like a false choice to me, because it implies that the Carrier platoon would give him that choice.

So I think an automatic dismount would work when:

1 – Troops in soft skin vehicles get “suppressed” (i.e. no move) results from any type of fire and there is a survival benefit to doing so.  If the troops can still move then the effect doesn’t kick in.

2 – Troops in AFVs get “suppressed” (i.e. no move) results from air attack.

Lots of things like this are in niche but important situations.  So normally rules have decent approaches to suppression, but to my mind troops with a covered retreat should always be able to do – you can’t meaningfully ‘pin’ an enemy who can withdraw down a trench / sewer / beyond a ridgeline.

I am not too worried about IA drill on being ambushed because I don’t think one side should be able to invoke a rule to invalidate the results of the other sides actions, they need to play the game/fight the battle.  So in that instance, if the troops’ initiating the contact suppress the targets, then the targets need to rally or whatever to charge the initiating troops.

 

[Just Jack]

John,

Thanks for the lengthy replies, I enjoy discussing rules mechanisms and always love to hear other folks’ opinions and work towards better ways of doing things; as we were discussing on the other thread, I’ve still not found the gold standard, so this discussion is very useful to me as I’m agreeing with a lot of what you’re saying.

“…the British commander was forced to decide whether to extend command effort to dismount his carriers or engage the Germans with his tanks.”
I would like to put a finer point on this, just to ensure we’re on the same page: when I said ‘British commander,’ what I mean in this context is the player, who has rolled Command Dice and has limited tactical options, not the idea that the little lead dude in charge was literally running around and having to decide whether to go and tell the Carrier Platoon to dismount or go and tell the tanks to fire.  I think this is a key distinction in terms of what we’re trying to represent on the tabletop; we all know that the Carrier Platoon and the Tank Platoon have platoon commanders directing their charges, and the section leaders and tank commanders would be giving orders and carrying out battlefield activities even without their platoon commander directing them to do so, much less the company or battalion commander.

So there’s not denying that the Chain of Command “Command Dice” and the 5Core activation roll are artificial mechanisms to throw some battlefield friction into a game where the players have an all-seeing eye.  They definitely bring out some… ‘interesting’ circumstances such as the one you’re describing with the Carrier Platoon being caught still mounted.  My issue is that crazy stuff like that actually happens, and I want the possibility of troops on the tabletop being ‘surprised.’  I’m not opposed to a system where every unit gets to do something each turn, I just don’t want an IGOUGO system, even with reactions (which I figure only serve to slow down the game with a whole host of rules exceptions).

So, from that standpoint, I think the “Bolt Action” method of activation may be the way to go: you get a deck of cards, you use two suits/colors (one for good guys, one for bad guys), and the deck consists of a number of cards equal to the number of units still on the table.  Shuffle them up and draw a card; if it’s your color you pick any one of your unactivated units (each unit can only act once per turn) and you activate them, if it’s my color I pick one of my unactivated units and activate them, continuing until the deck is run out, which ends the turn.  Count up units, ensure the number of cards in the deck correlates to each side, and do it again, go until the objective is taken.  I think, for me, that is probably the most straight forward, simple, equitable system to do this, and it still throws some stuff in the game as you never know how many cards you or your opponent will get in a row, so you really have to prioritize your activations.  With that said, I still don’t like the idea of having non-morale induced automatic actions, as we are discussing.  To me, you shuffle your cards and take your chances.  Your Carrier Platoon just got strafed by Stukas and you think the panzers may jump on them, you’d better hope an activation card comes out for you quick, and when it does, you’d better use it on the Carrier Platoon to make them dismount.  Or you could have the Tank Platoon engage the panzers, and hope the next card out of the deck is yours to use on the Carrier Platoon 😉  But that’s me, I love the tactical decision making aspects of wargaming, the dilemmas, and I want to be responsible for what happened on the table, not a victim of mechanisms in the game.  Of saved by them 😉

“Troops in soft skin vehicles get “suppressed” (i.e. no move) results from any type of fire and there is a survival benefit to doing so.  If the troops can still move then the effect doesn’t kick in.”
I’m not sure I follow: so I’m the German and I fire at your mounted Carrier Platoon.  If the results of my fire are nothing, it missed, then the Carrier Platoon stays mounted and is completely unaffected, but if the results of my fire are that the Carrier Platoon takes casualties and/or a morale result (such as pinned or suppressed), then the Carrier Platoon ends up dismounted.  BUT, there is also the “…there is a survival benefit to doing so…” in there; what do you mean by that?  Are you talking immediate or long-term?  It seems like you’re saying there’s an immediate effect, i.e., I roll up my shooting dice and it comes out that I knocked two Carriers and their mounted rifle teams, but then you can come back and say ‘well, the carriers are knocked out but the rifle teams are dismounted, so they’re not knocked out.’  Talk about eating your cake and having it, too!  Just kidding man, I just want to make sure I’m understanding correctly.

“Troops in AFVs get “suppressed” (i.e. no move) results from air attack.”
Do you mean troops, as in infantry mounted in a Bradley/Warrior/BMP, or do you mean tank crews (or both)?  If what you’re saying is I have a platoon of tanks on the board and on your activation you say “we’ve got air support coming in, my Typhoons are rocketing your platoon of Panthers,” I can certainly understand the idea of the targeted platoon being suppressed as a matter of course, even if all the Typhoons’ shooting dice missed, due to the fact the Panthers ‘saw’ the Typhoons coming, pulled off the road, and the crews dove into ditches.  Then I guess they just require a successful rally to re-mount their vehicles?

“So normally rules have decent approaches to suppression, but to my mind troops with a covered retreat should always be able to do – you can’t meaningfully ‘pin’ an enemy who can withdraw down a trench / sewer / beyond a ridgeline.”
I certainly agree with this concept (along with the idea that hitting pinned/suppressed troops should be much more difficult than what I see in all the rules I play), but I still believe the withdrawal should be a conscious action taken by the player when activating that unit, and not something that automatically occurs to save them.  I also believe negative morale results of fire can compel a unit to withdraw, whether they have a covered withdrawal route or not.

And I’m with you on the Immediate Action drill for the ambushes; it’s kind of a cool concept because it definitely exists in warfare, but I just can’t figure out a way to make it work, and I’m not sure I’d really want to anyway because I like the players to make decisions, not have the troops on auto-pilot.

On a side note (and still just playing around), none of you Brits, Aussies, or Kiwis minded it when the Germans were stampeding through Poland and France, but now that we’re in Greece and it’s your folks getting beat up on I’m getting all kinds of grief! 😉

V/R,
Jack

[kyoteblue]

Hey, I was rooting for the Poles and the French!!!

[Whirlwind]

Just Jack wrote:

I’m not sure I follow: so I’m the German and I fire at your mounted Carrier Platoon. If the results of my fire are nothing, it missed, then the Carrier Platoon stays mounted and is completely unaffected,

yes

but if the results of my fire are that the Carrier Platoon takes casualties and/or a morale result (such as pinned or suppressed), then the Carrier Platoon ends up dismounted. BUT, there is also the “…there is a survival benefit to doing so…” in there; what do you mean by that? Are you talking immediate or long-term?

when I was thinking about this, it was deciding if this rule needs an IF clause: are there weapon systems which, if you were in an SSV receiving fire from them analagous to a suppressed/pin result, you would (in reality) prefer to stay in the vehicle.  I couldn’t think of any off-hand, but there may be some. We aren’t talking about if moving in the vehicles has a better survival benefit – I am assuming the result of the fire stops that from happening.

It seems like you’re saying there’s an immediate effect, i.e., I roll up my shooting dice and it comes out that I knocked two Carriers and their mounted rifle teams, but then you can come back and say ‘well, the carriers are knocked out but the rifle teams are dismounted, so they’re not knocked out.’ Talk about eating your cake and having it, too! Just kidding man, I just want to make sure I’m understanding correctly.

No, I want the rifle teams to take the full effect of the aircraft (or artillery, cannon fire, or MG), and if they survive, then be forced to dismount.

Just Jack wrote:

“Troops in AFVs get “suppressed” (i.e. no move) results from air attack.” Do you mean troops, as in infantry mounted in a Bradley/Warrior/BMP, or do you mean tank crews (or both)? If what you’re saying is I have a platoon of tanks on the board and on your activation you say “we’ve got air support coming in, my Typhoons are rocketing your platoon of Panthers,” I can certainly understand the idea of the targeted platoon being suppressed as a matter of course, even if all the Typhoons’ shooting dice missed, due to the fact the Panthers ‘saw’ the Typhoons coming, pulled off the road, and the crews dove into ditches. Then I guess they just require a successful rally to re-mount their vehicles?

I mean both.  If the attack is close enough to suppress, then everyone dismounts; if not, not.  In all cases, but in particular this case, you would berallying to get them back in to the vehicles.

Just Jack wrote:

On a side note (and still just playing around), none of you Brits, Aussies, or Kiwis minded it when the Germans were stampeding through Poland and France, but now that we’re in Greece and it’s your folks getting beat up on I’m getting all kinds of grief!

Haha!  Harsh man.  I was feeling the pain every time the IJN was handing the USMC its ass above the Pacific…anyway, I am thinking that the main beneficiaries of this will be KG Klink when the tide turns and it is the other side which is throwing lots of Sturmoviks, Thunderbolts and Typhoons against it!

Just Jack wrote:

With that said, I still don’t like the idea of having non-morale induced automatic actions, as we are discussing. To me, you shuffle your cards and take your chances.

I guess this is the fundamental point of disagreement here.  I think dismounting suppressed/pinned crew and passengers is effectively a morale-induced action (from not wanting to stay inside the bullet/bomb/rocket magnet).  That’s why I noticed this one because it jars with my sense of the story.  Why were the Carrier platoon guys still in the carriers after the air strike?  Now, if they had dismounted, then been rallied, re-mounted and then the Panzers turn up….c’est la guerre: everyone has a bad day at work from time to time…

 

[Just Jack]

Kyote – I don’t remember you cheering for the French, and you only rooted for the Poles because you thought they were Russkies! 😉

Whirlwind – I gotcha, that all makes sense to me.

“Haha!  Harsh man.  I was feeling the pain every time the IJN was handing the USMC its ass above the Pacific…”
True, and the Dirt Divers appreciate your support! 😉

“…I am thinking that the main beneficiaries of this will be KG Klink when the tide turns and it is the other side which is throwing lots of Sturmoviks, Thunderbolts and Typhoons against it!”
Certainly, though it’s sure to come again before then!  I actually have a Sturmovik and Thunderbolt, need to get a Typhoon, as we shall definitely be visiting Caen, probably Holland, too.

“I think dismounting suppressed/pinned crew and passengers is effectively a morale-induced action (from not wanting to stay inside the bullet/bomb/rocket magnet).”
Ahh, I see what you’re getting at here, and I think I’m coming around to your way of thinking.  Putting it all together, the Carrier Platoon takes fire from the Stukas, resulting in teams being pinned/suppressed, with a function of being pinned/suppressed meaning they dismount.  The only issue there is you have six Bren carriers, all full of troops, but only two of them were pinned/suppressed and thus dismount, leaving the other four in their vehicles.  I suppose it’s reasonable at that point to say that if any units in the platoon are pinned/suppressed all the infantry dismounts.

Anyway, I’m late, getting ready to post the next batrep!

V/R,
Jack

[Author]

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