Disabled casualties-do they return to the pool

[rtb1017]

My casualties as Axis skyrocketed during the blizzard 41 and most were disabled instead of dead or captured. Is this a modelling of the unprepared state of the AXIS for the cold. Also will a portion of these casualties return to the manpower pool or are they lost forever?

[Baron von Beer]

Currently 1% of disabled return to the pool each turn.

[rtb1017]

ORIGINAL: Baron von Beer

Currently 1% of disabled return to the pool each turn.

That's unrealistic!

[bwheatley]

Yea i think in other threads someone quoted a source that showed return rate of NON-combat related injuries came out to about 7%. While return of combat related injuries was 3%.

But there is also the damage mechanic which is something that is not very easy to get visibility into.

[Zebedee]

One can't go "but loss figures in history were..." and then compare to the game. Not least when people are trying to use management tools to try and perform arbitrary calculations for which they weren't designed - eg Halder's diary's figures are primarily based on reports coming through the IIa channel, as it was compiled more quickly than the more accurate (but not perfect) IVb reports. And both sets of figures were subject to almost constant revision from the moment they were first collated.

In terms of WitE: Many of the battlefield casualties and non-combat casualties don't actually hit your disabled list at the end of the turn. Think of your disabled list as just the most severely injured soldiers.

Joel said this on another thread:

I just want to point out again that disabled are only a small portion of the wounded. Elements get damaged all the time and then recover or are sent back to the pool to flow back to another unit as a replacement (a small percentage would be disabled). You could take 700 "casualties" in a battle. What this might represent is 140 damaged 10 men squads. If most of these were repaired, you might actually have very few KIA's or disabled come out of those 700 casualties. Better to look at permanent losses if you want to compare versus history. It's because of the damaged elements representing the majority of the wounded that the disabled return rate is so low.

The casualty screen left most column should match the combat report. In these cases damaged elements are counted as 1/2 of a kill. So 3 damaged 10 men squads will show as 15 casualties. The next column, the permanent turn losses are counting only those elements that are destroyed. The first attack I made in a turn showed casualties of 650 men, while permanent losses were 376 men. Of this 364 were KIA and 12 were disabled. So what really happened was:

364 KIA
12 Disabled
548 in damaged elements (reports this as 274 casualties - 364+12+274=650)

When the the damaged elements are returned to the pool, 20% of the men are considered disabled instead. Also, 2 damged elements may combine into 1 ready element, in which case the lost element is considered KIA. Also, the damaged element may be repaired in the unit in which case there are no permanent losses.

So in this battle with 650 causualties, you could end up with as few as:

364 KIA
12 Disabled

But more likely for the Germans, perhaps half of the elements will be sent back to the pool and half will be repaired, and in this case you'd end up with:

364 KIA
66 Disabled (12+(274*.2))
220 Wounded but returned almost immediately to duty
274 Effectively out of action for a short period due to the elements damage (these could also be considered lightly wounded as well)

Notice that the number of disabled is very low relative to the total number of men wounded or put temporarily out of action.

This is just one comat result, and what exactly happens with the damaged squads is impossible to say, but it needs to be considered when discussing "disabled" totals and return rates.

Is 1% return to combat duties of such critically injured men unreasonable? I'm not sure it is.

To my mind, some of the examples I've seen in AARs and in posts of excessive casualties seem to come from players greatly exceeding the operational tempos of history - this holds true for casualty results in many games.

[jomni]

Yes. Human players tend to play more aggressively than history due to hindsight.  Therefore more casualties are expected.
But that 1% issue should be looked at.

[Zebedee]

ORIGINAL: jomni

Yes. Human players tend to play more aggressively than history due to hindsight.  Therefore more casualties are expected.
But that 1% issue should be looked at.

Casualties are on a per case basis not a per soldier basis. So keeping that in mind, the rough Heer rule of thumb when looking at the figures being through the system was that of any given number of cases of wounded/sick who were sufficiently injured to be noted by IVb figures, 10% of them would die of their wounds/sickness and so be reclassified at a later date (eg from WIA to KIA) and 20% of them would see no further active service. Given those kind of figures, outside of the blizzard period, the game is very kind to the German player.

Not really seen enough data on blizzard specific losses to make any kind of analysis on that in particular, as that seems to be the major bugbear of those voicing concerns atm.

[karonagames]

Yes. Human players tend to play more aggressively than history due to hindsight.  Therefore more casualties are expected.
But that 1% issue should be looked at.

It is. Very "strong" debates taking place in the developers forums - Joel wants to see more data coming out of AARS - they are being closely monitored.