The Commander Series Forum

Do linear obstacles still provide cover against indirect fire and air attacks?

The reason I ask is we play they don't but I can't find that in the rules. I suppose the rationale would be that with those kinds of attack the danger is equally likely to come from the "wrong" side of the cover - if you see what I mean.

Thanks

Pb

Thats certainly the way we play it, ie a unit behind a hedge being shot at through the hedge with small arms gets the hit on 5,6. Artillery dropping on the same unit treats it as in the open.

The rules as written don't differentiate between direct and indirect fire, so in theory units would get the same cover regardless.

For me, I'd treat off-board indirect fire as in the open, and on-board as in cover. The reason for the difference is that the cover modifier (for me) represents the ability of the firing unit to see/acquire the target as well as actually hit it. As off-board fire affects an area, rather than individaul units, thsi is less important.

For simplicity's sake, you can use 'in the open' for all indirect fire (as you already are!)

So their is nothing wrong when they have a cover hitting them on a 5 or 6?

No there isn't and yes there is Countwolfheim. It depends on what you agree upon within your local gaming group. A few months ago we had a lively discussion about this in our gaming club. As far as I know we failed to reach a general consensus on the subject.
An obvious thing about linear obstacles is that they only provide cover to a unit if said unit is behind the obstacle, not in front of the obstacle.
For direct ground level fire this is very clear. If a Sherman is near a hedge, and a Tiger is shooting at the Sherman, that Sherman only gains protection from cover if it is behind the hedge. If it stands in front of the hedge, the Sherman wouldn't benefit from cover.
Indirect fire and/or airstrikes however are a different case. Unlike regualar attacks, arty attacks and airstrikes are area attacks rather than point attacks. Polar Bear's argument that shells could fall on both sides of the obstacle certainly makes a lot of sense.
And from a real world perspective planes attack from above, and indirect arty shells and rockets also tend to come from that direction. So technically one could argue that, looking from the direction the fire is coming (above), the Sherman in the example above would be standing beside the hedge, not behind. Unfortunatly the examples in the rulebook aren't that great as they fail to show what happens in different situations and I hope this gets cleared up with BKC 2.

Anyway, I'm with Polar Bear, GavinP and Kiwidave's suggestion on this one. Treat it as in the open. But feel free to disagree with me.

If there is no other cover, I'd lie as close to a linear obstacle as possible. It may only stop half of the incoming shrapnel, but that's better than none!

Lets hope this will get cleared up in the KKC II rules

Sorry BKC II rules

We tend to play it that if a unit's behind a wall and an air or arty template lands in front of the wall, then they have some cover from the blast. If, however, it lands behind them, they get no cover.

The actual arty zone could represent the fire of several batteries let alone several guns! If a unit behind a wall is hit by arty then I wouldn't count the cover. By the same token I'm not sure I'd count cover against plunging mortar fire since the rounds would be targeted to land behind the wall and ON the unit (if a turn is 20 mins!)

Of course, in the abstraction of the game one wall or some other cover might represent an area covered in walls and cover....

Also, 20 minutes might be the turn representation, but that is likely not the period of continuous bombardment. I don't think a mortar unit had 20 minutes worth of ammo, did they?

I count cover.

Chris

Cleach, so you count cover when the point of impact is on the unit and there's no intervening linear obstacle? The unit simply has to be touching a linear obstacle regardless of which edge is touching to count cover? Am I understanding you correctly?

Following the KISS principle, if a unit is behind a linear obstacle, I count it as being in cover.

I don't have a problem with rationalizing the linear cover providing some benefit against mortars and artillery. The cover might conceal exactly where the enemy unit is so you are actually shelling a small part of it, it might prevent you from seeing exactly how far your shells are falling behind the obstacle (such as the Normandy hedgerows), and it might actually provide some amount of protection from behind (eg a wall with a small ditch behind it). These are just some examples that came to mind.

Yes, Dr. Dave. I have considered the idea of using the final fall of the shells (the adjusted target point) as the source of the LOF and determining the value of cover from that, but given the generous spotting rules in BKC I apply the cover modifier as an unrepresented additional effect on spotting cover. I suppose you could add drift dice if target is in cover and not count the cover for effects.

Chris

Points taken - I hadn't considered the ditch idea. Perhaps bizarrely we tend not to have many (if any) linear obstacles (steppe or Golan CWC) - it's simply hills and woods with the odd village / river.