Strange combat results

[Lictuel]

Attached is an image of two unrelated fights that happened that seem somewhat strange to me.
The first one shows a fight where the attacker won with combat odds of 1.8 to 1, afaik 2:1 is the minimum needed to win an attack so why is that attack successful?

In the second image a combat is shown where the defender surrenders and the losses in men are more than twice the amount of men that took part in the fight. The fight was in a hex with a depot that was lost as a result of the fight, does that explain the 10k losses?

Can someone shed some light on what is going on here?

[Joel Billings]

On the first, I can't say for sure without a save, but I'm guessing that so many of the combat elements were damaged that the unit went depleted and routed. Although the combat odds were not enough to take the hex, the fact that the unit routed out of the combat (either due to being depleted or due to other factors). If a lot of the damaged elements that the unit started with were combat elements, and given that most of the losses are in combat elements, it's possible that there just wasn't a lot left over at the end. The number of men listed in the unit can often include a high proportion of support as well as already damaged elements, given an artificial strength to the unit. I don't know the exact sequence of when the odds are determined, when routs are resolved, and when the hex is determined to have been taken or not. So this could be ok given the rout result, or there could be a bug. I haven't seen other reports like this, so without a save before the attack was made it's hard to say which.

As for the second item, I see the defense was in Brest, which can easily contain over 5000 men in flak units attached to the city (at start in 43 campaign there are 5500 men in flak units there). Flak units in a city are not listed in the combat forces involved as they don't participate in the land battle, but they can be destroyed if the hex is captured. I would be willing to bet that this is the explanation.

[Kronolog]

ORIGINAL: Joel Billings

On the first, I can't say for sure without a save, but I'm guessing that so many of the combat elements were damaged that the unit went depleted and routed. Although the combat odds were not enough to take the hex, the fact that the unit routed out of the combat (either due to being depleted or due to other factors). If a lot of the damaged elements that the unit started with were combat elements, and given that most of the losses are in combat elements, it's possible that there just wasn't a lot left over at the end. The number of men listed in the unit can often include a high proportion of support as well as already damaged elements, given an artificial strength to the unit. I don't know the exact sequence of when the odds are determined, when routs are resolved, and when the hex is determined to have been taken or not. So this could be ok given the rout result, or there could be a bug. I haven't seen other reports like this, so without a save before the attack was made it's hard to say which.

I've had the same thing happen to me. The situation was much the same as above: I attacked a weak German panzer brigade, the numerical odds were something like 1.X:1 and the defence held, but then the German brigade routed, probably because it became depleted as you said, and I gained control over the hex.