Comprehensive Wishlist

[Panama]

I kind of thought whenever an air unit went on a sortie it was assumed it would encounter some kind of ground fire. Type dependant on altitude. So a tac unit would encounter small arms fire at the least. I know if I had a chance I would have shot a low flying aircraft. Not that there were any. [:D]

Well, I did in Battlefield Europe. Shot down an ME 109 with my submachine gun. Dumb luck. [8|]

[ColinWright]

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

... and that in any case, infantry requires far less in the way of sheer tonnage. Food and ammo for a day of heavy fighting for an infantry battalion might come to ten tons -- and they could have considerable combat value even if that number was divided by four. The requirements for food, ammo, and fuel for a day of heavy fighting for a tank battalion would be more on the order of a hundred tons...

But that would only matter if the infantry battalion and the tank battalion were being sent the same tonnage of supply. They won't be. That would be idiotic. The quartermasters know the tonnage requirements for each type of unit and fill them accordingly.

Indeed. However, the point is that sometimes an unlimited amount of munitions is not available. Under such circumstances, a couple of tons will suffice to restore some combat value to an infantry battalion -- and they can just go hungry for a day.

Try that with an artillery battalion, and you get ammo for six salvos. Physically, the guns can't be moved a few kilometers even though there's no gas -- they can't be moved at all.

This exerts an effect in real life. Sixth Army's artillery and armor quickly lost most of its combat value -- and certainly wasn't going to be able to come along if there was a breakout. The infantry retained some viability. When the Germans advanced over the Caucasus, the trickle of supply they were receiving sufficed to maintain the infantry -- but any effective artillery was out of the question.

[ColinWright]

ORIGINAL: Panama

I kind of thought whenever an air unit went on a sortie it was assumed it would encounter some kind of ground fire. Type dependant on altitude. So a tac unit would encounter small arms fire at the least. I know if I had a chance I would have shot a low flying aircraft. Not that there were any. [:D]

Sure -- but the point is that in TOAW this fire, and the volume of this fire, will affect the aircraft only if it shoots it down. Actually -- as can readily be realized if one considers the effect of someone shooting at you -- they needn't hit you to significantly affect your job performance.

Curtis notwithstanding, there isn't some 'built in' AA factor. Every weapon has an AA rating. For some, it's zero. For rifle squads, it's one. For 40 mm Bofors, it's something else. The game directly models flak. What it does not do is model it correctly.

You go and bomb an undefended bridge, you won't get shot down. You go and bomb a bridge with four Oerlikons guarding it, you probably won't get shot down either. You're just much less likely to hit it.

[Panama]

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

Indeed. However, the point is that sometimes an unlimited amount of munitions is not available. Under such circumstances, a couple of tons will suffice to restore some combat value to an infantry battalion -- and they can just go hungry for a day.

Try that with an artillery battalion, and you get ammo for six salvos. Physically, the guns can't be moved a few kilometers even though there's no gas -- they can't be moved at all.

This exerts an effect in real life. Sixth Army's artillery and armor quickly lost most of its combat value -- and certainly wasn't going to be able to come along if there was a breakout. The infantry retained some viability. When the Germans advanced over the Caucasus, the trickle of supply they were receiving sufficed to maintain the infantry -- but any effective artillery was out of the question.

You are correct in this. Out of the 6 1/2 German divisions at Korsun, 56,000 men, a total of 38,000 escaped. But they had only small arms and some not even that. Effectively speaking the divisions were eliminated. Without anything to move the heavy equipment it becomes only a lump of metal and if a breakout is to be made it is necessarily left behind even if there is ammunition for it.

[ColinWright]

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

In an ideal world...(and yes, this is an item for the wish list)

If a unit whose supply has fallen to or below 0% attempts to move, all fixed equipment and all equipment which requires fuel to move should be treated as 'static' equipment -- i.e., it would have to be abandoned.  It's been suggested, for example, that this is one reason Manstein was equivocal about Sixth Army actually breaking out of Stalingrad.  As long as it stayed where it was, it had considerable combat value, and was tying down quite a large number of Russian troops, and giving him some hope of building up a front to the West.  If it did break out, it would do so as a horde of mostly weaponless fugitives, and would effectively release many Russians while not doing a whole lot to bolster his ability to contain them.

Anyway, some related considerations.

Obviously, in the case of pure tank and pure artillery units, there's the problem of the unit simply vanishing.  Some designers already include light rifles in their artillery battalions, which would be one route -- designers just need to make sure there's going to be something left in the units.  Alternatively, they could simply be left to their fate.

However (again in an ideal world) we would have a 'heavy weapons crew' that would replace the abandoned gun or tank.  This is, after all, what generally happened.  One commonly had 'artillery fighting as infantry' in forces such as those on Crete.  Then whenever the unit started to get its tanks back, these 'crews' would vanish back into the restored equipment.  However, this sounds a bit ambitious for now.

Finally, I would be inclined to favor horse-drawn guns being abandoned as well.  One can make a theoretical argument that they should have elasticity like leg infantry, but they effectively didn't, as a rule.  Units in straightened supply circumstances usually either didn't have the fodder to keep their draft animals strong, or they were eating them. Guns -- whether truck- or horse-drawn -- notoriously get abandoned by retreating armies.

This is all based upon the common misconception about unit supply values. They do not equate to the unit's actual supply stockpile. A unit at 1% supply is not out of supply.

I don't see how this addresses the issue at all. The point is that artillery, armor, etc both require a large amount of supply to function and decline in effectiveness in direct proportion to the lack of that supply. An artillery piece without shells is useless. It doesn't have 30% of the potency it would have if it was at full supply -- it's useless. A tank without fuel can't drive 80 km a day instead of 200 km a day -- it can't move at all.

Infantry, on the other hand, retains a considerably greater proportion of its ability to function under straitened circumstances -- and will be able to retain it with a volume of supply that wouldn't do much to restore your panzer regiment to life.

Now, I can see how this would create problems with immortal infantry plunging on in the advance when the tanks have come to a halt, and I'm interested in considering how to deal with that -- but we never get to that point. We bog down -- as always -- with your attempts to deny there's any problem at all.

[Curtis Lemay]

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

What you are saying implies some 'normal' level of AA protection.

No I am not. I'm not saying anything about the level of AAA in the hex. I'm only addressing the bomber's tactics. Bombers are already assumed to be taking precautions against AAA. The reduction in their bombing accuracy due to AAA is already built in.

If it weren't, then we would need to slash their bombing accuracy whenever they target a hex with AAA in it. And no test shows such a need. Bombing effects are not excessive.

That only leaves the rare case of a target that has no AAA whatsoever being poorly modeled. I don't think that's such a big deal.

[Curtis Lemay]

ORIGINAL: Panama

I kind of thought whenever an air unit went on a sortie it was assumed it would encounter some kind of ground fire.

Exactly. For most of TOAW's topic range, that's a safe assumption.

[Curtis Lemay]

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

Indeed. However, the point is that sometimes an unlimited amount of munitions is not available. Under such circumstances, a couple of tons will suffice to restore some combat value to an infantry battalion -- and they can just go hungry for a day.

Try that with an artillery battalion, and you get ammo for six salvos. Physically, the guns can't be moved a few kilometers even though there's no gas -- they can't be moved at all.

Again, this assumes that the infantry battalion and the artillery battalion are being sent the same tonnage of supply. That won't be the case.

This exerts an effect in real life. Sixth Army's artillery and armor quickly lost most of its combat value -- and certainly wasn't going to be able to come along if there was a breakout. The infantry retained some viability. When the Germans advanced over the Caucasus, the trickle of supply they were receiving sufficed to maintain the infantry -- but any effective artillery was out of the question.

Sixth Army didn't have a line of communications. It is not a typical example.

[Curtis Lemay]

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

I don't see how this addresses the issue at all. The point is that artillery, armor, etc both require a large amount of supply to function and decline in effectiveness in direct proportion to the lack of that supply. An artillery piece without shells is useless. It doesn't have 30% of the potency it would have if it was at full supply -- it's useless. A tank without fuel can't drive 80 km a day instead of 200 km a day -- it can't move at all.

The issue is when does that tank or gun actually run out of ammo/fuel. You are making the false assumption that it happens when the unit supply reaches 1%. It's a common misconception. But it's wrong.

It would be absurd if it were true: Waffen SS Division fights for one player turn, then is out of ammo/fuel and is reduced to zero combat strength and can't move. In the subsequent enemy player turn it is wiped out by a squad of grandmothers and their brooms. Real units were much more resilient than that.

This has already been discussed to death in an old supply thread here:

tm.asp?m=1515321

[Meyer1]

I'm not sure about the "bomber's tactics" to avoid excessive losses to AA fire, and in that way losing precision. Let's use an example, a heavy bomber raid against Germany: they would fly the mission in the same way regardless how heavy the AA fire they expect. Now, of course, if they knew that there was not to be any AA fire whatsoever, they could bomb at low altittude, but that is not realistic. So, they would bomb as always at 6000-7000m, and still, their precision would be affected by how accurate the AA fire is. So, it is possible that two different bomber raids, using the same tactics, would lose the same number of aircraft due to the AA fire, but the accuracy could vary a lot. .[/align][/align]

[ColinWright]

ORIGINAL: Meyer1

I'm not sure about the "bomber's tactics" to avoid excessive losses to AA fire, and in that way losing precision. Let's use an example, a heavy bomber raid against Germany: they would fly the mission in the same way regardless how heavy the AA fire they expect. Now, of course, if they knew that there was not to be any AA fire whatsoever, they could bomb at low altittude, but that is not realistic. So, they would bomb as always at 6000-7000m, and still, their precision would be affected by how accurate the AA fire is. So, it is possible that two different bomber raids, using the same tactics, would lose the same number of aircraft due to the AA fire, but the accuracy could vary a lot. .[/align][/align]

Note that Curtis LeMay (the real one) took a calculated risk and figured the Japanese didn't have much light flak protecting their cities. So he did bomb at a lower altitude -- and with spectacular effect. Had the Japanese in fact had impressive light flak, LeMay would have got a bloody nose, and had to return to the previous (and relatively ineffectual) tactics of bombing from high altitude. He certainly would have still had B-29's -- he just couldn't have continued to use them in the way that proved so effective.

In general, though, tactical aircraft is what we are concerned with, and they generally do bomb from low altitude, and their impact is indeed affected by the flak the defenders can throw up. That's why armies have flak. As I say, it's not to shoot down planes -- any more than cops carry guns to cut down on the numbers of young males. The flak serves to force the planes to modify their behavior -- and the more flak, the more the behavior is modified.

[ColinWright]

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

I don't see how this addresses the issue at all. The point is that artillery, armor, etc both require a large amount of supply to function and decline in effectiveness in direct proportion to the lack of that supply. An artillery piece without shells is useless. It doesn't have 30% of the potency it would have if it was at full supply -- it's useless. A tank without fuel can't drive 80 km a day instead of 200 km a day -- it can't move at all.

The issue is when does that tank or gun actually run out of ammo/fuel. You are making the false assumption that it happens when the unit supply reaches 1%. It's a common misconception. But it's wrong.

It would be absurd if it were true: Waffen SS Division fights for one player turn, then is out of ammo/fuel and is reduced to zero combat strength and can't move. In the subsequent enemy player turn it is wiped out by a squad of grandmothers and their brooms. Real units were much more resilient than that.

This has already been discussed to death in an old supply thread here:

tm.asp?m=1515321

However, the current situation is at least as bad. Units can simply continue offensive action indefinitely. The system says they get enough supplies to retain 30% or so effectiveness no matter how long they continue attacking. The result is that -- contrary to all history -- it is often best just to keep pressing ahead regardless of the state of your forces so long as the defender is in just as bad shape.

That's not what happens. Real units break off offensive action before they reach that point -- because they're not in OPART land, and that gas tank won't magically refill, and new shells won't grow in the racks. It doesn't matter that all that's in front of them are Moscow militia or Hitler Youth or nothing at all -- they still stop.

That is what we need to consider how to simulate. Now how, and whether it's possible, we still haven't got to. That's because we have to keep going around in circles with your various obfuscations and denials concerning the a priori existence of the problem.

Artillery, armor, etc require a great deal of supply tonnage to attack. They often -- even usually -- run through their supplies. When they do, they come to a virtual halt -- the British after each successive victory in North Africa over the Italians in 1940-41, the Russians in Poland after they'd run out Bagration as far as it was going to go. In TOAW-land, after reaching the Channel in 1940, the Germans should have just swung south and kept going without a pause. In reality, that's neither what happened nor is it what anyone suggested should have happened. They stopped for about two weeks, caught their breath, ran up sufficient supplies to properly restock, and then set off again.

Mechanized forces don't -- can't -- keep going with part of their original strength. They stop. No functionar.

That needs to be simulated. As noted, infantry isn't as sharply affected. It really can keep pushing on with some portion of its original combat power. Get up just a few tons of small arms ammo, and those guys can keep going to some extent. But tanks that have burnt up the fuel in their tanks, and burnt up the fuel in the divisional supply column, and outrun the supply services that are now two hundred miles in the rear, they stop. If you doubt it, take your car on a cross-country drive and just don't worry about what that gas needle says. You will stop. Not slow down. Stop.

Now, you mentioned the problem of infantry leading the advance, and that is a problem. However, the truth of that doesn't somehow validate the concept of the perpetually refueled tank.

In my opinion, the problem is really that supplied mechanized forces are too slow in the first place. They really do rip off some astonishing forward leaps. Currently, mechanized forces have about 2.5 times the MP's of leg infantry. Something like that. If the ratio was set at more like 4 to 1 -- but the tanks stop rolling and the guns stop shooting when the supplies run out, my betting's that we'd be on our way to a more accurate simulation. The infantry might eventually catch up, but absent any effective artillery and absent any mobile forces, it's not going to be able to mount much of an attack. That will be a function of the other arms being properly resupplied -- and that will lead to some very authentic pauses in advances.

[ColinWright]

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

Indeed. However, the point is that sometimes an unlimited amount of munitions is not available. Under such circumstances, a couple of tons will suffice to restore some combat value to an infantry battalion -- and they can just go hungry for a day.

Try that with an artillery battalion, and you get ammo for six salvos. Physically, the guns can't be moved a few kilometers even though there's no gas -- they can't be moved at all.

Again, this assumes that the infantry battalion and the artillery battalion are being sent the same tonnage of supply. That won't be the case.

It will be the case if supplies are severely straightened. In fact, if there's only one ton of munitions that can be brought in, and it can go to either the infantry battalion or the artillery battalion, the entirety would probably go to the infantry battalion, and none at all to the artillery.

This exerts an effect in real life. Sixth Army's artillery and armor quickly lost most of its combat value -- and certainly wasn't going to be able to come along if there was a breakout. The infantry retained some viability. When the Germans advanced over the Caucasus, the trickle of supply they were receiving sufficed to maintain the infantry -- but any effective artillery was out of the question.

Sixth Army didn't have a line of communications. It is not a typical example.

That the example isn't typical doesn't render it meaningless. It's an extreme, and as such, serves nicely to show that given a paucity of supplies, infantry will retain far more of its combat capability than other arms.

In point of fact, Sixth Army DID have a line of communications. They received an average of fifty or a hundred tons a day or something by airlift.

Now, where is the example that supports your argument? Do you even have an argument? I think all you're doing is refusing to acknowledge anything at all so that you needn't accept the need for any change at all. That seems to be all that ever occurs.

[ColinWright]

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

What you are saying implies some 'normal' level of AA protection.

No I am not. I'm not saying anything about the level of AAA in the hex. I'm only addressing the bomber's tactics. Bombers are already assumed to be taking precautions against AAA. The reduction in their bombing accuracy due to AAA is already built in.

Then we get back to how -- in reality -- could the 1939-1941 Luftwaffe be so effective but the 1944-1945 Allied tactical airforces fail to sweep all before them?

Flak impacts aircraft effectiveness -- and it does not do it primarily by shooting down planes. This impact is not somehow 'built in' -- else why the flak guns? Once this is acknowledged, it follows that it would be desirable to simulate this effect.

Why do you insist on denying this?

[ColinWright]

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay



That only leaves the rare case of a target that has no AAA whatsoever being poorly modeled. I don't think that's such a big deal.

Now this is sophistry. You are implicitly creating two cases: one where the defender has no flak at all, and the other where he has some imaginary level of 'normal' flak protection.

You're still arguing as it its a matter of the family sedans that all can do between 100 and 150 mph -- except that now you're adding the one case of the guy who doesn't have a car at all.

That's not the situation. There're all kinds of levels of flak protection -- from virtually nonexistent ala the Luftwaffe having at Yugoslavia through inadequate but present defenses such as those offered by the early-war British and French armies through the later-war German level of protection right on up to the SAM systems the Egyptian army was temporarily able to keep the IDF at bay with.

And these systems all work primarily by forcing the attacking airforce to modify its behavior -- not by shooting down planes per se.

If it were family cars we were talking about, it wouldn't be one guy with no car at all and a bunch with normal cars -- it would be one guy with a car that could go 5 mph, another with a car that could go 25 mph, and so on right up to some guy with a car that could go 600 mph.

We do need to simulate this variability. It's not a matter of a defender having 'enough'
flak and then the attacker being confined to certain behaviors. It's a matter of more flak forcing the attacker to be increasingly circumspect. There's no fixed plateau here.

To take a typical TOAW case, let us assume we have two motorized infantry regiments attempting to move. One has four trucks mounting single AA machine guns. The other has twelve self-propelled quad 20 mm AA cannon attached. We'll assume that in each case, the unit's share of the enemy interdiction effort is going to attempted strikes by fifty aircraft of identical type.

Now, the actual number of aircraft shot down or damaged needn't vary significantly: we'll figure one aircraft damaged for the MG's versus one shot down and three damaged for the flak cannon.

However, that column with the flak cannon is going to do a whole lot better, on the average. That is what needs to be simulated -- and it is precisely this distinction that you refuse to acknowledge.

[ColinWright]

As a bit of history here, in the beginning there was TOAW flak as it was represented in OPART I, WGOTY, ACOW, etc.

It didn't shoot down many planes. Of course, real flak doesn't shoot down all that many planes either. Some planes go down of course -- flying TacAir isn't safe -- but on any given sortie, the attacker has a pretty good chance of coming home safe and sound.

Curtis, however, in his wisdom detected what he assumed was an error in the program that was producing these low kills. Curtis fixed this 'error.' My own suspicion is that Norm realized the slaughter that the unmodified values would cause, and deliberately cut the effect, but that's not really either here or there.

The point is that Curtis 'fixed' the value. Rather typically, he doesn't seem to have bothered to run a few test cases and seen if the resulting slaughter bore any relation to the general run of historical outcomes. It would have been easy enough: I can think of two tests right off. No -- every day just became Sedan bridgehead day for attacking air forces.

Also rather typically, Curtis tried to defend this mayhem. His arguments, of course, were fallacious, but he kept tirelessly presenting them.

Now -- to go by the prospective changes in the next patch -- he seems to have realized the carnage really is a bit excessive.

But we're just going in circles here. Curtis keeps trying to model the effect of flak by how many planes it shoots down -- and now he's slowly working his way back to the values he discarded in the first place.

What is needed is a mechanism for flak to exert an effect other than by shooting down planes. The latest CurtisArgument -- that there's a 'normal' level of deterrence that is the same or similar for all forces almost regardless of their actual flak equipment and that this effect is somehow built in is of course nonsense. There's no such level, it's not somehow 'built-in,' and it needs to be modeled.

The effectiveness of attacking aircraft needs to decline in proportion to the flak contained in the target hex. Now, this idea needs some refinement, and there are technical difficulties, but that's the goal, and I'd like to see discussion revolve around that -- not around continuing efforts to prove the earth is flat.

[Meyer1]

I have not read the wishlist (but I'm gonna), so I don't know if this is covered.
One of the features of TOAW, the combat rounds, works well as long as the units that are attacking are concerned. I mean, an example: unit A has not moved, unit B has moved and have left 50% of movement points, and both are attacking unit C. The combat will start in a "middle" round, refelcting the fact that unit A have to wait to unit B to get there.
All very nice here.
The problem starts when we are talking about non-attacking units. Other example: unit A has not moved, and is attacking enemy unit G, which is sourronded by friendly units B, C, D, E anf F, so there's no escape. All of these friendly units ( B, C, D, E and F) have moved before. So, the combat starts in round one, and if succesfull, the result would be the destruction of unit G, who can not escape, because his retreat route is blocked by units that should be not there at that moment
Very unrealistic result.

Fix to this problem is very simple (that doesn't mean that would be easy to implement in TOAW code [:)]): the round in which the combat starts, should not be based in the percentage of movement points of the units that are attacking, but instead, in the friendly unit that have less percentage of movement points available, and is adjacent to the unit that is attacked.
I'm thinking that an exception could be made to the units that are in the same hex of the ones attacking, as long as these units don't affect the retreat behaviour of the attacked unit (I don't know if that is the case now)
I don't know how popular this may be (considering how it would change the way of play the game, probably not much), but it would result in a more realistic simulation

[Meyer1]

ORIGINAL: ColinWright


In general, though, tactical aircraft is what we are concerned with, and they generally do bomb from low altitude, and their impact is indeed affected by the flak the defenders can throw up. That's why armies have flak. As I say, it's not to shoot down planes -- any more than cops carry guns to cut down on the numbers of young males. The flak serves to force the planes to modify their behavior -- and the more flak, the more the behavior is modified.

Well, that was just an example (but heavy bombers were also used -many times- in tactical missions. But, hey, I'm with you here, I'm just saying that even when the bombers are using the same tactics, AA fire should have an influence in the accuracy of the bombing, even if the number of bombers shotdown does not change much.

[ColinWright]

ORIGINAL: Meyer1

I have not read the wishlist (but I'm gonna), so I don't know if this is covered.
One of the features of TOAW, the combat rounds, works well as long as the units that are attacking are concerned. I mean, an example: unit A has not moved, unit B has moved and have left 50% of movement points, and both are attacking unit C. The combat will start in a "middle" round, refelcting the fact that unit A have to wait to unit B to get there.
All very nice here.
The problem starts when we are talking about non-attacking units. Other example: unit A has not moved, and is attacking enemy unit G, which is sourronded by friendly units B, C, D, E anf F, so there's no escape. All of these friendly units ( B, C, D, E and F) have moved before. So, the combat starts in round one, and if succesfull, the result would be the destruction of unit G, who can not escape, because his retreat route is blocked by units that should be not there at that moment
Very unrealistic result.

Fix to this problem is very simple (that doesn't mean that would be easy to implement in TOAW code [:)]): the round in which the combat starts, should not be based in the percentage of movement points of the units that are attacking, but instead, in the friendly unit that have less percentage of movement points available, and is adjacent to the unit that is attacked.
I'm thinking that an exception could be made to the units that are in the same hex of the ones attacking, as long as these units don't affect the retreat behaviour of the attacked unit (I don't know if that is the case now)
I don't know how popular this may be (considering how it would change the way of play the game, probably not much), but it would result in a more realistic simulation

Curtis will explain to you why the current system is just fine, but at first glance (and there's the rub, only at first glance) I think your idea could well improve matters.

One desirable feature I see from the standpoint of playability is that when one goes to the attack dialogue, one would want to have the option of removing any units that were making the thing take all turn by having them back up to the last hex they were in before moving adjacent to the target unit...else planning and executing attacks would become enormously more difficult.

In turn, players could at least in theory screw themselves by having that stack already full -- and so not being able to undo their move. However, reasonably alert players could see this problem developing as they shoved more units into the stack in question, and in any reasonably well-designed scenario, such stacks would be more the exception than the rule.

On the whole (and assuming the programming obstacles aren't overwhelming), the idea sounds like it would result in a net improvement over the current situation.

[Panama]

ORIGINAL: Meyer1

I have not read the wishlist (but I'm gonna), so I don't know if this is covered.
One of the features of TOAW, the combat rounds, works well as long as the units that are attacking are concerned. I mean, an example: unit A has not moved, unit B has moved and have left 50% of movement points, and both are attacking unit C. The combat will start in a "middle" round, refelcting the fact that unit A have to wait to unit B to get there.
All very nice here.
The problem starts when we are talking about non-attacking units. Other example: unit A has not moved, and is attacking enemy unit G, which is sourronded by friendly units B, C, D, E anf F, so there's no escape. All of these friendly units ( B, C, D, E and F) have moved before. So, the combat starts in round one, and if succesfull, the result would be the destruction of unit G, who can not escape, because his retreat route is blocked by units that should be not there at that moment
Very unrealistic result.

Fix to this problem is very simple (that doesn't mean that would be easy to implement in TOAW code [:)]): the round in which the combat starts, should not be based in the percentage of movement points of the units that are attacking, but instead, in the friendly unit that have less percentage of movement points available, and is adjacent to the unit that is attacked.
I'm thinking that an exception could be made to the units that are in the same hex of the ones attacking, as long as these units don't affect the retreat behaviour of the attacked unit (I don't know if that is the case now)
I don't know how popular this may be (considering how it would change the way of play the game, probably not much), but it would result in a more realistic simulation

Easiest solution in a case such as this IMO. Have the combat consume as much time as it took the 'last' unit to arrive. The unit that consumed the most time to close the pocket is the one time consumed is based on. Even more, if that unit consumed it's entire turn to get there then the combat can't take place until next turn.

Any turn based game will have problems. Such as high movement point units moving through the opponents lines thus cutting them off without the opposing units reacting to the movement. In real life the opposing side could react and prevent such manuevers at least in part. Since no reaction is possible during the other side's turn lots of pockets are formed that wouldn't be possible in a real time environment. But then again, you enable the non moving side to react to movement the same way they react to attacks with some kind of reactionary setting.

I'm beginning to believe Ralph's wego option might be a good idea if it doesn't add appreciably to how long email games take.