Matrix Games Forums

One of the elements of the scenmaker is the ability to give victory points for losses inflicted on the enemy. My question is, what would be considered acceptable losses for an attacking force? If you secured your objectives, but lost 50% of the force.. is that acceptable?

I understand it would vary depending on the situation but, historically, roughly what sort of percentage losses would a commander expect to take during an operation?

Banquet,
 
That's a hard one to answer in a generic fashion. If you are asking this to try and work out what % value you use for the VPs awarded to Enemy Losses, then I would look at it from a different perspective.
 
First I ask myself "in this scenario are enemy kills important?". If not, then don't assign any VPs to it. In many situations the strategic focus is on terrain objectives, not on destroying the "local" enemy. Eg. you want the friendlies to secure town X as this would in effect cut off the retreat by other enemy forces off map or you must exit forces so as to envelop an off-map enemy force. In such cases it's not worth trying to destroy the local ( or onMap ) enemy as there are bigger ( more strategic ) fish to fry.
 
However, if the scope of the scenario is such that destroying the onMap enemy is important - is the strategic focus - then you must decide how important vis a vis any territorial objectives. Let's say we have a classic advance v delay scenario. You might have say four map objectives. The delaying side wins if he delays the enemy for the duration of the scenario. But if he were to lose significant losses then this would be a phyric victory as he would not have sufficient forces remaining to delay further off map.
 
So work out what percentage of that force you think they would need to still provide a credible delaying force vis a vis the likely strength of the advancing enemy at the end of the scenario. Eg let's assume the enemy is expected to be attrited by 30%, then you could probably allow for a similar casualty rate amongst the delaying force without altering the victory level. In such a case you might want to give the attacking force some VPs for destroying the enemy as it would be in their interest to seriously wound them and reduce their fighting capability for the subsequent battle off map. I'd be tempted to set the percentage to 100% and award say 25% of the VP value to destroying the enemy. You still want to ensure that they advance the distance to the exit though.
 
In other cases destroying the onMap enemy may strategically give you a decisive victory, leaving the field to you. This works if their were no time pressures on the friendly side to achieve some territorial gain because of its impact on another off map battle. In such a case award enough points to the destruction of the enemy so the side gets a decisive win and set the % to 100%.
 
If the friendlies are supposed to be conducting a spoiling attack then set the % to something like 30%.

Thanks Arjuna, great info and gives me much to think about.

The situation I'm thinking about is one where the attacker has certain objectives and the defender does not have the assets on hand to stop them attaining them. What the defenders can do is inflict sufficient casualties to make the attackers think twice about whether the offensive can be successful.

The idea is, the more terrain gained by the attackers the higher their vp's. The defenders must offset this with casualties to the attackers. The balancing act is at what point in the terrain for losses tradeoff should a victory be determined for either side.

Well then think about what casualty percentage would then make that attacking force ineffective for subsequent operations. If it's up against just the same delaying force then it might need to be quite high ( like 50% ) but if new delaying forces were likely to be thrown in off map in the "big picture" then maybe 30%.

Oh and that also depends on the percentage of VPs you are awarding to enemy kills vis a vis terrain objectives. What you want to avoid is a case where the attacker feels too cautious to push ahead boldly.