Is there a distance from which you are pinned? An Austrian unit had a town as its objective. Inside the town was a French unit that was resting and taking off fatigue. Between the town and the Austrian unit was a French unit of a different formation. The Austrian unit that was trying to get to the town and skirted the French unit (very closely) and the player's reasoning was he did not want to engage because his orders were to get to the town. Whereby the French player felt that by skirting his unit the Austrian now was less than 900 yards from the town and he was not able to recover fatigue. I ruled that the Austrian could not do that as it was not the most direct route and after all, we do play friendly games. I further said that minimum distance was shooting distance so if artillery was deployed they would have to take that into account and not just skirt it. Still, the question of minimum pinned distance unless you assault or something to that effect was raised.
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In the context you describe I suspect the Austrian Formation would have been required to close with the closer French Formation, not the farther French Formation in the town. My conclusion is based on the fact that you’re saying the Austrians “skirted” the French.
This question turns on three points – (1) the vector of movement of the Austrian Formation, (2) the Austrian Formation’s order directive, and (3) the “most direct route”.
If I’m following your description, the Austrian Formation was on an attack [A] order directive with an objective of the town. The attack [A] directive requires the Austrian Formation to close to contact with *any* enemy Formation which intervenes in the most direct path (across the Austrian’s whole frontage) to the town. I suspect this would require them to close
with the more forward French.
-David
