Retreating through a Bofors is akin to sending out lone capping squads on the far side of the map when you know there is a T70 on the field...
Since you brought the T70 I have to remind you that Relic a long time ago realized that T70 (and some other units) where too good at hunting down retreating infantries and deliberately reduced that ability by introducing moving accuracy modifiers. The same way they did with flamers and vehicles with flamers...
It's extremely bad play and should be punished hard. I don't see why you think it would be a good idea to have a Brit emplacement (that is both expensive and immobile) that the axis player can just ignore and not take into consideration while doing flanking maneuvers.
In your opinion it is "extremely bad play and should be punished hard" in mine it is not. In my opinion it is a moderate mistake and should be punished accordingly.
Why I consider a moderate mistake? Because retreat path is not something player has full control of, it is map related and it is something that can change.
For instance a single wire built can in some map totally change the path or player might not be aware that bofors was built near his retreat path. It seem that point we actually disagree is severity of the mistake and punishment (see number below).
In my opinion a full health squad should have a pretty good change of retreating if it come to contact with a single units and that does not seem to be the case with bofors.
What exactly is the point of this thread
The point of this thread is to highlight the disproportional to (other units) ability of bofors to kill retreating infantries. In the test I did (the photos of you can see) 40% of 5 men full HP sqaud got wiped out and if I was using 4 men squad (more typical for axis faction) that number would had been up 90%, if those where damaged squads as the one usually retreating the number would be closer to 99%.
Those number are simply too high and when i compared it to shock troops waiting in the same root I have to use multiple squads to achieve that level of lethality.