What's killing my soldiers?

[FJeff]

Grand Campaign, normal.

Axis losses before ending turn:

[FJeff]

Losses after Soviet turn:

[FJeff]

Event Log:

[FJeff]

There was only one ground battle with no Axis losses and a Soviet surrender of a surounded unit. What happened?

[Joel Billings]

Weekly attrition from units in contact with enemy units along with some number of damaged elements become destroyed during the logistics phase.

[FJeff]

The event log only shows 4863 from attrition, but 13,030 from combat. Shouldn't there be some battles to get those combat losses?

[paullus99]

You're seeing the effects of units being in close contact with the enemy & guys getting killed on patrol, by snipers & the odd shell or two lobbed across the front line. Even if you're not attacking (or getting attacked), units are still conducting low-level operations - just because there aren't full scale battles, doesn't mean your trouble are sitting quietly in their foxholes doing nothing.

[pyguinard]

ORIGINAL: FJeff

There was only one ground battle with no Axis losses and a Soviet surrender of a surounded unit. What happened?

13K killed on patrol and by snipers is pretty enormous!!
Close to 5K by attrition looks like some kind of spanish flue to me [:'(]

[cpt flam]

if you compare with OOB force total
not a great per cent considering wounds,sick and so much

[pyguinard]

ORIGINAL: cpt flam

if you compare with OOB force total
not a great per cent considering wounds,sick and so much

I can't agree with you, since only a fraction of the OOB total is in contact with the ennemy.

[Theng]

I think you are comparing today's losses with the losses during World War 2, which was a lot more bloody. Every time I hear on TV that there was "major combat" and 5 soldiers died I am surprised on how the definition of "major combat" has changed. On average, 1400 German soldiers died per day in World War 2 (2.8 million / 2000 days) and 6,700 Soviet soldiers died per day (10 million / 1500 days) so in a week that's 14,000 Germans and 45,000 Soviets.

[paullus99]

When you consider the enormity of the Russian front & how many men were facing each other (plus on garrison duty, fighting partisans, etc), having 10,000 or so men killed in a week isn't really all that surprising. Between routine artillery bombardments, all of the patrolling & recon that went on (each side was constantly trying to figure out exactly where the other guy was), bombings, etc - there were a lot of ways to get killed outside of high-intensity combat.

[pyguinard]

ORIGINAL: Xian

(...) On average, 1400 German soldiers died per day in World War 2 (2.8 million / 2000 days)
(...)

By stating this, you confirm that Wermacht could not lose 4863 soldiers in 7 days (695/day) from attrition! [:)]

[G Felzien]

Let us not forget non combat events... heavy equipment maintenance, traffic accidents, friendly fire, illness (heart attacks, strokes, poisoning (food/drink)), horse play etc. Millions of men gathered for a related task will result in some mundane and crazy things that can/will/did result is deaths and incapacitation.

[JAMiAM]

ORIGINAL: Joel Billings

Weekly attrition from units in contact with enemy units along with some number of damaged elements become destroyed during the logistics phase.

This part of Joel's explanation often goes unnoticed, so I bolded it, for emphasis. Unfortunately, the game does not keep a separate tally of these "losses" and thus the displayed totals never match the actual results.

[Theng]

quote:

ORIGINAL: Xian

(...) On average, 1400 German soldiers died per day in World War 2 (2.8 million / 2000 days)
(...)


By stating this, you confirm that Wermacht could not lose 4863 soldiers in 7 days (695/day) from attrition!

I was stating an average over 4 to 6 years and you are looking at one week. Using the same logic as you are using above, you are female since 52% of the US population is female. The average temperature in a desert is around 70F, very nice temperature, you just almost never have it because at night it is close to freezing and during the day it is 100F plus. Averages are a nasty concoction and are often giving the wrong impression.

By the way, Wikipedia claims 5.5 million German solidiers died in WW2. So that would be around 3,000 dead in the average week, which included the periods between the Poland Campaign and the French Campaign, where very few Germans died. Never the less, even during the Phoney War, soliders died in combat.

[Jakerson]

ORIGINAL: Xian
I was stating an average over 4 to 6 years and you are looking at one week. Using the same logic as you are using above, you are female since 52% of the US population is female. The average temperature in a desert is around 70F, very nice temperature, you just almost never have it because at night it is close to freezing and during the day it is 100F plus. Averages are a nasty concoction and are often giving the wrong impression.

By the way, Wikipedia claims 5.5 million German solidiers died in WW2. So that would be around 3,000 dead in the average week, which included the periods between the Poland Campaign and the French Campaign, where very few Germans died. Never the less, even during the Phoney War, soliders died in combat.

There were cases on the eastern front were whole German Regiments dissappeared from map in minutes rather than hours of day just from the Soviet artillery bombardments hitting on their sector. This is something like 5000 men dissappearing becouse 50 tons of TNT hits over them in minutes of time.

I am not fully sure that people really understand how MASSIVE and scale of combat eastern front warfare. I really suggest reading some books written by some of the people who really fought there.

[Arkady]

July 1941 - 51000 KIA and 3200 MIA casualties for German Armed Forces
it 12238 lost soldiers every week not counting wounded
source: http://www.feldgrau.com/stats.html

[Lokux]

Hmmm. I have noticed that during the winter the german losses are aprox. 100000 men each week. This is nowhere near the figures presented in the statistics. Is anyone down to those kind of lsses that the statistic presents (ie. about 25000 a week during winter of 41-42) or is this just a game mechanics that I do not understand.

[Baron von Beer]

100,000 disabled each week. That feldgrau.com statistics list is KIA/MIA, in game disabled are essentially WIA, Sick, etc.