Camel sandwich anyone?

If an element fighting face to face with an opponent recoils or is destroyed, any elements fighting that same opponent recoil from the flank or rear.

Not sure I’m reading this correctly, but if LH south bounces off, so do his mates. (When you say ‘providing rear support’ do you mean attacking the enemy in their rear?).

Some loose use of words here. May I reconstruct. Two elements of Light Horse move into contact with the front edge of a camel element which has a second, like element behind (this would be the north camel). Now does the North light horse "out flank" the camels by hitting them in the flank or do they hit the north camels in the rear. The latter seems to be a sandwich.

2 LH on the bottom(South, facing a Cm with a Cm behind with 2 LH in contact with its rear (North). Two decker camel sandwich.
North
LH
LH
Cm
Cm
LH
LH
South


If the North light horse hits the back of the north camel, then that element will turn to face and fight a separate combat. If the south light horse (+3) are beaten by the south Camels (+3) then they recoil. Likewise the north LH vs north camels. If either Cm are recoiled, then it is destroyed.

Let's say both LH are recoiled. Then the south camel is in TZ of south LH but I think not in TZ of north LH which is now 30mm recoil and camel depth further north. Likewise the north camel, 60mm away from south LH.

North
LH
LH


Cm
Cm


LH
LH
South


Maybe I did not understand the original scenario.

Bob - you are right. I was thinking only one Camel element.

Well, Richard4th did say in his original post:-


From the this I get the impression that the following is the situation.
            Either this...                       Or this...

                  LH                                  LH
               ↓ LH                                ↓ LH
                 Cm Cm                            Cm
               ↑ LH                                   Cm
                  LH                                ↑ LH
                                                         LH

Martin, Bob, Paddy and Goragrad are of course all correct, as Combat Outcomes (on page 11, paragraph 4) says:-
“A supporting element in close combat against an enemy element’s flank or rear recoils if the friendly element
 in combat with that enemy’s front recoils, flees or is destroyed (see figure 19c).”

Note that in the second situation both Camel elements will turn-to-face the LH front-edges after the Move Phase,
but before combat is resolved.

Almost Richard, almost...

* The Cm have a combat factor of 3 with a -1 for being attacked in the rear.
* The LH have a combat factor of 2 with a +1 for their rear support, but also
   a -1 for being overlapped by the second non-engaged Cm element.

But you’re quite right...the rear attacking LH gains no advantage from being
in a column and having its own rear support (although it might come into play
if the LH column recoils and the Cm it was facing turns around and attacks it).

Personally, I’d have the spare rear-supporting LH element attacking the Cm’s rear 
to one side (but not engaged) so that its Threat Zone pins the second Cm element,
thus preventing the Camels from ‘hard flanking’ the LH columns if they do recoil.

Ah....my fault for not being precise.
(I should have said “have the spare LH in the Cm’s rear unengaged and to one side”)
But you’ve sussed-out what I meant Bob.

A further refinement would be to have the unengaged LH in such a position so that if
its mate does recoil, the pair of them end up in a straight line single group, like this:-

                                                       LH
　                                        　 ↓ LH
                                                 Cm Cm ↓
　　                                         ↑ LH
                                                 LH