We’ve had several games recently with attacks across rivers, and I have an idea that I’d like to toss out for discussion.
In a recent game we had a German attack across a river against the Soviets. The Germans only had a few infantry, and the defending Soviets killed every single one of them. So far so good. The problem is that the Germans had a large number of tanks and panzer grenadiers to hit with on the next round, so the Soviets had to retreat or be annihilated. This situation has happened several times in the past and had bothered me, but this time it generated an idea.
My suggestion is that if an attack is made across a river, the attacker must have at least one infantry with a combat factor survive the first round in order to secure crossings for the rest of the army to follow. If none survive the first round, the army doesn’t get to cross, and the second round has to again consist of only half the infantry and supporting artillery and aircraft (if any).
Example – an attack is made across a river, and part of the attacking force consists of 8 infantry. In the rules, 4 infantry would attack at 1 and the other 4 would be at zero. In this attack, if the defender manages to kill al four attacking infantry that have a combat factor, the attacker did not secure crossings for his other units, and on the next round would again be limited to using only half of his attacking infantry and any supporting artillery/aircraft; other units would not be able to participate until the attacker ends a round with at least one surviving infantry with a combat factor.
In the situation above, the attacker had more infantry he could have committed to the battle, but chose to leave them behind as a garrison to protect against a Soviet force on the flank. He could do this because he knew that even if the few infantry in the attack bounced he would still have an overpowering attack with his mech units, and would still easily win. That just seems a little too convenient for my tastes. Nothing in war is certain, and an attack over a river is never an easy task. Adopting this sort of rule could represent an attack bogging down for any number of reasons.
I may try to convince my regular players to adopt this as a house rule, but I wanted to post it here as well for comments in case this impacts play in some way that I haven’t considered.
