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Yes I think the trick here is to link the number of guards used for determining whether a HQ halts or not to the Aggro levels of the Task and the Determination level of the Cmdr.
 
Re Spagetti. Well this is simply a byproduct of the formation offset route. Think about it, the HQ or formation hub determines its route but lets say it has a few turns in it. If advancing in formation other than column, then the flanmk guards are going to have to kink around a bit to maintain that formation and if they encounter sloped terrain or other impasable terrain then they need to kink around that as well. What would be good is some form of straightening code - ie that would try and smooth out the routes for the flank guards. But again it comes down to cpu processing and that would add to the load. So for now it must wait.

One other thing I would like to remind you all about here is that a Bn HQ is a tactical HQ. It represents the Cmdr and his immediate staff. It is does not represent any logistics personnel. In a Bn attack, Bn Cmdrs were often up front, immediately behind their lead companies. Developments in an attack can happen quickly. Yet humans under stress take time to react. It was not all that uncommon for Bn Cmdrs to end up leading an attack, even though they didn't start out that way. That is what they got paid for and that is one of the reasons why Bn commanders suffered such high attrition during WW2.

OK did some in depth testing here using Chris's latest saved game ( thanks Chris ). Turns out that this situation of the HQ advancing past its guard wasn't due, as I originally suspected, to the reassessment code done every few minutes during the assault. Rather it was due to the interaction of two things. First off, when the advance or centre guards develop their route for the assault, they were not copying the boss's Route and then topping and tailing it to suit. Instead they were calculating a full offset route. this is exactly what you want for one of the flank guards, but not for the guards that should be directly in front of the boss ( ie the HQ ).

So I made sure that they do use the boss route. However, this was being obviated in some special cases, where a guard routs off after the boss calcs the formation but before it receives orders and where the guard in turn has its own suordinate. When it came to develop its plan and in particular its formation, the code was incorrectly generating a non-formation route.

The net result in both cases was that the routes being generated by the advance or centre guards were not in sync with the boss and hence the boss could overrun them ( but again only in a few cases where guards original start position and end location and the nature of the terrain forced the guards route to deviate ). That's why it didn't manifest every time.

I've fixed this now and as you can below the 1.55 Krad Coy's route is now synced with the Bn HQs route.

I'm just going to test this now to ensure that the boss doesn't overrun the centre guard. We're getting there. [:)]

OK 45 minutes later the 1st Krad Coy ( who is the centre guard of the line assault formation ) has recovered from rout. Everyone else in the Bn dutifully waited for him, including the HQ. Here you can see him just coming into position.

I am coming to this thread a little late.

While I have experienced the HQ leading the attack many times I have always just chalked it up to the cost of doing business with a tactical HQ.

I do agree that it happens a bit too often that the lead Coy gets routed and the HQ ends up in the lead.

I agree that it could use some improvement.

I don't agree that the entire batallion should stop and wait on the routed center Coy to get back in the lead.

Only the HQ and reserve batallion assets should stop and wait on the HQ guard Coy. The flanker companies should continue thier advances. They most likely wouldn't even become aware of the central companies travails until after the fact and most certainly wouldn't stop and wait on them unless ordered to do so by the batallion HQ, which would precpitate a replanning delay.

Re flankers continuing assault after centre Gd rout. Maybe if a) it's covered terrain and b) their radios weren't working, but on the whole for WW2 most flankers would be aware of other progress ( maybe not instantaneously but pretty quickly ) and most would be reluctant to be the lone Johnny on the objective without any support. Again, this could be an order option as sometimes the decision would be taken to press on regardless, especially if it looked like the enemy was shaky too.

Very interesting problem and solution. And I think that is great how quickly you were on this (one thing I have NEVER doubted is your committment to this software).

But now that the topic has come up, I do think it would be cool to have varying levels of aggressiveness for battalions based on commander rating and mission aggressiveness levels (i.e. call off assault on one or two guard groups having failed, halting in virtually ALL cases where the HQ would have to lead the asssault (i.e. center guard failed)). This would allow for "aggressiveness" to mean something and each battalion would have its own "style". It would also allow for some situations where flanks would keep advancing while center stopped. Etc. Etc.

I DO AGREE THAT IF THE ENTIRE BATTALION COULD BE BROUGHT TO A HALT BY HAMMERING ITS CENTRAL GUARD, THEN IT WOULD BE SIMPLE TO HALT ANY ASSAULT BY SIMPLY TARGETING THE CENTRAL GUARD WITH A MASSIVE BARRAGE. THIS WOULD SUCK. AND AS SUCH, IT MUST BE A BIT MORE COMPLICATED THAN THIS. IT SHOULD BE A COMBINATION OF SEVERAL FACTORS TO MAKE IT FEEL MORE HUMAN LIKE, AND LESS CHESS LIKE. I.E. AGGRO, LEADERSHIP, LOSS CALC, ETC. BUT I ALSO WOULD LIKE TO SEE SOME VARIATION IN WHERE THE HQ IS BEING PLACED.

Mot/mech units automatically "dismount" when they detect enemy firepower influence. the force moves as a whole but losses are not taken in truck loads but per person and they are less vulnerable both for their personnel and very much so for their vehicles. We do not have special code for creating two seperate units - ie dismounted element and transport element. It's on the wish list.
 
Cmdr aggro/determination already factored in to reassessment code for calling off attacks.