Is that making any sense (I'm dead tired right now, so it may be gibberish)?
Makes perfect sense to me. The concept of pinning is the same in paintball, albeit with less mortal imperative. You can afford to take more chances and possibly ignore incoming 'fire' more readily than if your life was at stake.
I remember one (low budget) exercise we did demonstrating 'pinning' with tennis balls. It was to illustrate the effect for new troops learning
section battle drills and the effect of fire control. Had 1 guy behind a low wall. with a box of a half dozen tennis balls. His job was to throw a tennis ball and hit one guy, without getting hit himself.
On the other side were 8 guys, each with their own box of tennis balls. Their job was to use theirs to keep the other guy from his task for at least 1 minute. (or something similar). Fun way to learn.
You also see it in first person shooter videogames. There is the conscious choice to take cover, but there is no..'pinning' effect per se, because you will never have your self preservation instinct override your tactical sense. This is why a lot of newer games give you the reward of healing up if you take cover...most players need this effect or they would not play conservatively and thus trying to pin someone down would never work.
Anyways, back on topic; what you say makes sense. And none of what you just posted is at odds with the suggested pinning system I posted earlier. Is there something specific you don't like about it's streamlined nature, or is it that you would rather not change the pinning system on general principle?
As a follow-on question: if the effect of incoming enemy fire is purely psychological, why doesn't one move across a combat zone fully upright at a brisk trot from point A to B (as you would if noone was shooting at you)?
I never meant to imply that the every effect of incoming fire was
purely psychological. As I said earlier, you always have the choice to move tactically and take advantage of the terrain. It's smart to do so. What I did mean is that when rounds are landing
very close, the decision to take cover may be taken away from you by your own mind and body.
Consider a make believe scenario that you are alone in a dug-in position. You see 8 assaulters heading your way. You mission is to kill at least one of them, hopefully at least 2, thereby slowing down their advance and then to get the heck out of there.
You take your shot, but they quickly locate your position. The incoming rounds are now whizzing past your head and landing so close that the dirt-spray is hitting you. You know, by studying their doctrine, that they will continue to fire at you in this manner. Half will be shooting, the other half moving closer to you, and then they will switch roles.
They only have a 1 in 6 chance of actually hitting you, but as they get closer, the chances will increase. When they get close enough, a grenade will drop into your trench, bounce around once or twice and then you WILL be dead.
Knowing all of this, it is logical to keep your head up and shoot at them, because you have the cover of the trench and they are in the open. You've got a 1 in 3 chance of killing them...or better. It would also be logical to get out of the trench and take off before they get too close.
Why would you ever choose to duck down into your trench and wait for the inevitable? Logically it would be suicide. At the very least, if you knew you were going to die anyway, you might want to take a few of them with you.
This is why I say that there has to be a psychological motivation, at least in part. If not, pinning...forcing the target to give up their fire action...wouldn't work.
The reason I used that scenario is because that is the standard situation we set up when training infantry candidates the basics of section battle drills. The trainees are the assaulters. We train them to win the firefight, and tell them that the overwhelming firepower WILL keep the enemy's head down allowing you to move up in leap-frog style in relative safety and post a grenade into his position.
Ironically however, when we are training them how to defend a position, we train them to never cower down into the trench even when under fire. They have to trust their cover and concealment of their position. They have to watch and shoot: To keep their heads and weapons up and engaging, or the bad guys will come right up on them and destroy them.
So..its a paradox. I mentioned in a previous post that it was in contention in another game I co-designed. The thing at stake was whether pinning should be a mandatory effect, or should the player be the one to decide when and if the figures stop shooting and duck down for cover when fired upon.
Sorry for the text-wall replies. I'm just trying not to be misunderstood. I don't want to be in the position of a back and forth arguer. If my position is understood, it will speak for itself.