Routed and HQ units: Worth going after?

[Q-Ball]

Seems like going out of your way for routed/HQ/Airfields doesn't net much in terms of casualties. In fact, it helps the Soviets, in that it pushes those units further back, and makes it more likely they are saved.

Am I off-base here, or is that what others are finding?

[dazoline II]

Routed units, encircle them, displacement is 10% casualties, bagging them when their isolated approaches 100%.
HQ get beside them with a combat unit if you can as they always displace if alone or with airfields. May as well move them and hpe their C&C suffers.
Airfireds, bomb them then move beside them with a combat unit as they always displace but lose any damaged aircraft when displacing.

[Jim D Burns]

ORIGINAL: dazoline II
as they always displace but lose any damaged aircraft when displacing.

Are you sure this is WAD? In my new German game, I destroyed about 4,950 airframes in my initial bombing missions, probably a little more than that. By turns end the number of destroyed Soviet airframes was up to 5,149, which means about 200 more airframes got destroyed.

But a lot of air battles were fought over combats so not all the 200 or so additional losses would be from displaced airbases. Of which I displaced a lot of airbases, so would have expected a lot more airframes reported destroyed if the above rule was/is WAD.

Jim

[dazoline II]

I'm quoting the manual on that. It appears to be WAD to me.

Gratz on the 5k+ on the bombing missions. I'm more down in the weeds around 3.5k atm. I wonder if you had such success with your bombing raids that there was little to no airframes left in the airfields when you displaced them. My first GC game (i'm just starting my second, buggered the first in late August) I bagged about 4.6k after the first full turn and I displaced every airfield I could reach on that turn.

[ComradeP]

Jim, when you hit the 5000 mark, there will probably be nearly nothing left at the frontline airfields. I also initially thought it was odd that losses didn't go up much after displacing airfields, but it was logical considering the losses the air groups on the bases had taken.

[Schorsch]

ORIGINAL: ComradeP

Jim, when you hit the 5000 mark, there will probably be nearly nothing left at the frontline airfields. I also initially thought it was odd that losses didn't go up much after displacing airfields, but it was logical considering the losses the air groups on the bases had taken.

+1
5000+ means nearly every single A/C in range is destroyed. Most of the Enemy HQ´s should be empty, for now...

[BletchleyGeek]

ORIGINAL: Q-Ball
Seems like going out of your way for routed/HQ/Airfields doesn't net much in terms of casualties. In fact, it helps the Soviets, in that it pushes those units further back, and makes it more likely they are saved.

Am I off-base here, or is that what others are finding?

Relocation is hardly helpful: while they get pushed out of harms way their destination is quite random. During the few first turns of my current GC against the Axis AI I didn't really "manage defeat" and allowed units to be displaced on their own. I think that was a big mistake for the following reasons:

* Lots of supplies and materiel were squandered because me being lazy.
* Red Army C&C situation became ludicrous in the center. The Northwestern front was splitted into three big chunks, one around Tallinn, another between Pskov and Vitebsk and a third, substantial group, had managed to straggle all the way to the Pripyat Marshes. The Western front forces were also pretty wildly scattered - I found that two tank divisions and one rifle division had retreated as far as the outskirts of Kiev.
* Very much the same for the VVS - although AI has bombed the hell out of frontline airbases but still I think it would have helped if I had tried to do something to keep a coherent deployment.

Now I try to minimize this, since it is not only costly in terms of manpower, equipment and supplies lost, but also APs (I prefer to re-assign rather than move and give up fort levels or strategically important locations).

One measure I am currently (turn 8) implementing - the Axis AI seems to have sorted out its supply situation and is clearly defeating the SW and NW (again) fronts - is to retreat these routed units to "safe" rearguard hexes with rail trying to keep cohesion of my formations.

Let's see how well that works.

[jomni]

I think displacing an HQ has it's merits despite letting it retreat to safer areas.
Since they get displaced, they will not be able to give support to the units under their command in the front lines.
 

[BletchleyGeek]

ORIGINAL: jomni
I think displacing an HQ has it's merits despite letting it retreat to safer areas.
Since they get displaced, they will not be able to give support to the units under their command in the front lines.

I actually like the rule a lot It reminds me a lot of A Victory Lost and A Victory Denied game systems. What I mean is that letting defeated units being controlled - or rather, tossed around - by the rule doesn't look like a good idea to me.

[randallw]

A displaced HQ also may run the risk of the commander being captured or killed.