Re: Subject: Fighting qualities of Italians

John Atkinson 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.

Machine guns, yes. The German rifle seem to have considered upright
targets 
moving at a slow walk to be considerably easier to hit than crouching 
targets moving at the run, though.

> >(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.

So have I. What intrigues me is that the Italians *didn't* refuse after
the 
4th or so attempt...

>Game: DBR

...*early modern*...? Ah, well, if you say so <shrug>

Players who routinely deploy in a strong defensive position when the
enemy 
has no superiority in strength should expect to achieve a stand-off. In 
tournaments (where forces are, at least theoretically, at the same 
strength) such players are not very well tolerated; in friendly games I 
don't see any reason to not give the attacker a force advantage to make
an 
interesting game out of it.

Later,

Oerjan
oerjan.ohlson@telia.com

"Life is like a sewer.
  What you get out of it, depends on what you put into it."