Field Of Glory Renaissance - Artillery

In January I wrote an article wondering why wargames rules are so complex. In it I used a table from the Field of Glory Renaissance (FOG R) rules as an example. Well this month I've stumbled across another inconsistency in FOG R that has me stumped.

It all started with a thread on the Slitherine forum (no longer online) about the impassibility of captured artillery to mounted troops. Feel free to read the thread but here's the situation in a nutshell. In FOG R:

• Unlimbered, and unsupported, battle groups of artillery are immediately lost on contact with the enemy.
• The lost battle group is not removed because it can be re-crewed and turned against its previous owner.
• Lost artillery can only be captured by pike and shot units either immediately, if they have assaulted the guns, or later in the game.
• Mounted troops assaulting artillery face an insurmountable [sic] obstacle because they cannot interpenetrate artillery, captured or otherwise.

So far so good. The outcome being modelled is:

• On close combat the artillery crews are immediately killed, or run away, leaving the guns behind.
• The guns of active, captured or broken artillery always represent a significant barrier to mounted troops.
• Captured artillery can only re-crewed by specific troop types.

This is all fine and dandy until you consider the situation when artillery is the target of counter battery or missile fire:

• Losses caused by shooting eventually result in the artillery battle group being removed from the table.
• The removed artillery battle group is no longer an obstacle and can never be re-crewed by anyone.

Not so good. In contrast to close combat the shooting outcome being modelled appears to be:

• On shooting the artillery crews are killed or run away apparently taking their (unlimbered) guns with them.
• If the guns haven't been taken away, somehow they no longer represent an obstacle to mounted troops.
• The lost artillery cannot be re-crewed by anyone, friend or foe as they've either vanished or have been put beyond use.

On this basis pistol armed mounted should shoot artillery, preferably from the side, and then, if successful, they can ride on. Frontal combat would leave them stranded for a few turns no matter how successful.

The inconsistency is glaring. In my view the solution is straight forward: do the same whatever the cause of the demise of the artillery. I don't care which people prefer:

• Always remove broken battle groups of unlimbered artillery
• Always replace broken battle groups of unlimbered artillery with markers.

The key word is "always". Let's see what happens.

Updates:

• Related discussion on TMP (Oct 2013).
• Partial resolution (Dec 2013). 
• Final resolution & see comments (Jan 2018).