Re: Subject: Fighting qualities of Italians

--- Oerjan Ohlson <oerjan.ohlson@telia.com> wrote:

> As opposed to, eg., the British who ordered their
> soldiers to cross 
> no-man's-land at a slow walk, fully upright?

Yeah, that's pretty stupid.  But there wasn't much of
a functional difference from the French who ordered
them to run ahead with fixed bayonets.	It still
worked out to lots of targets for German machine guns.
 
> (Attempting to charge 
> across a river when the enemy controls the mountains
> on the far bank is 
> never a good idea, but to do it when you lack even
> half-decent artillery 
> support...!)

You know, I really upset some early modern players
once when I refused to do this. 

Game: DBR

Defenders: 500 points of Ottoman Turks, which mean
about 4-5 stands of artillery and a bunch of archers.

Attackers:  Mix of 200 points of Knights of St. John
(mine), and a total of 300 points split between
Italian Condotta (Papal) and French.  1 stand of light
artillery in the mix.

There's a river running down the middle of the board,
and a hill in the middle of the Ottoman line with all
their cannons on it, with the archers deployed in a
line in front of them and cavalry on the flanks.  I
send my one stand of light cavalry tearing up to the
river to check it out.	I discover it's difficult to
ford, and tell my opponents "I'm going home."  They
get all mad.  I tell them that only an idiot makes an
opposed river crossing with artillery inferiority. 
They argue until I've got my entire army packed away
in the case and my allies are looking at me like I'm
crazy.

John

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