Quote:ComradeP, I understand you to say that you think that night assaults would be more disruptive in WWI than WWII? What's the reasoning for that, I'm not sure that I agree...
While I agree that the night assault rules will necessarily be an abstraction perhaps not suitable for all situations, in my view the number of situations where a night assault would be very disruptive would vastly outnumber those where it would not be.
I agree with you that the current rules seem too forgiving for high-quality units and too onerous for lower-quality units.
In early-mid WWI, units were trained to attack as large groups in loose formation, which made attempting to maintain any kind of control over the formation as a whole difficult. Infiltration tactics were still being developed. Individual platoons have no support weapons and rely on higher level formations for fire support.
In WWII, the emphasis was placed on smaller units and managing those, at least in the more "modern" forces. Greater availability of flares and star shells would make navigation at night easier.
Depending on the conditions, night assaults would still be chaotic, but a WWII platoon/company commander would have an easier job of managing it than a WWI battalion commander whose tactical options are limited to sending his men from point A to point B. I expect identifying the enemy at night would also be more difficult in early WWI, due to the large number of men running around and the similar uniforms and weaponry.
What situations where night assault rules are a problem do you run into where the problem comes from mechanics related to nighttime warfare and are not caused primarily by, say, a difference in quality?
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