Ground combat, questions that need answers :)

[Streptokok]

Me again, with moar whining and question [:)]
Btw I know im new to the forums but have been around reading a loooooooooon time, have "old" Witp too [;)]

Anyway ground combat in AE. Some stuff is rather unclear to me :

Code: Select all

Ground combat at Canton (77,59)
  
 Japanese Deliberate attack
  
 Attacking force 22610 troops, 181 guns, 42 vehicles, Assault Value = 717
  
 Defending force 10706 troops, 86 guns, 0 vehicles, Assault Value = 343
  
 Japanese adjusted assault: 231 
  
 Allied adjusted defense: 357 
  
 Japanese assault odds: 1 to 2 
  
 Combat modifiers
 Defender: terrain(+), morale(-), experience(-)
 Attacker: 
  
 Japanese ground losses:
       634 casualties reported
          Squads: 3 destroyed, 42 disabled
          Non Combat: 0 destroyed, 27 disabled
          Engineers: 0 destroyed, 0 disabled
  
  
 Allied ground losses:
       921 casualties reported
          Squads: 1 destroyed, 70 disabled
          Non Combat: 2 destroyed, 43 disabled
          Engineers: 0 destroyed, 2 disabled
  
  
 Assaulting units:
     1st Ind.Inf.Group 
     67th Ind.Infantry Battalion
     68th Ind.Infantry Battalion
     104th Division
     20th RGC Division
     23rd Army
     21st Mortar Battalion
     Canton Special Base Force
     47th JAAF AF Bn 
     1st JAAF AF Coy 
     2nd JAAF AF Coy 
  
 Defending units:
     62nd Chinese Corps
     2nd Prov Chinese Corps

Double attack force I basicly tought this was a win with no problems, however it was obviusly not....
puzzled about why my AV was reduced from 717 to 231?
Why puzzled? Read on to combat day 2.

Code: Select all

Ground combat at Canton (77,59)
  
 Japanese Shock attack
  
 Attacking force 25769 troops, 232 guns, 42 vehicles, Assault Value = 692
  
 Defending force 10089 troops, 86 guns, 0 vehicles, Assault Value = 296
  
 Japanese adjusted assault: 1088 
  
 Allied adjusted defense: 373 
  
 Japanese assault odds: 2 to 1 
  
 Combat modifiers
 Defender: terrain(+), morale(-), experience(-)
 Attacker: shock(+)
  
 Japanese ground losses:
       855 casualties reported
          Squads: 2 destroyed, 52 disabled
          Non Combat: 3 destroyed, 48 disabled
          Engineers: 2 destroyed, 7 disabled
       Vehicles lost 2 (0 destroyed, 2 disabled)
  
  
 Allied ground losses:
       3340 casualties reported
          Squads: 189 destroyed, 0 disabled
          Non Combat: 114 destroyed, 1 disabled
          Engineers: 5 destroyed, 2 disabled
       Guns lost 4 (4 destroyed, 0 disabled)
       Units retreated 2
  
  
 Defeated Allied Units Retreating!
  
 Assaulting units:
     104th Division
     67th Ind.Infantry Battalion
     1st Ind.Inf.Group 
     68th Ind.Infantry Battalion
     20th RGC Division
     47th JAAF AF Bn 
     23rd Army
     21st Mortar Battalion
     1st JAAF AF Coy 
     Canton Special Base Force
     2nd JAAF AF Coy 
  
 Defending units:
     62nd Chinese Corps
     2nd Prov Chinese Corps

So second day I shock atacked just to see what "that button does" [:D], to see the effects of shocking them rather than deliberate attack that failed. Didnt expect to win but...
Couple of "strange" things here:
1. day:
22610 troops for attack with 634 casulties (I know most were disabled).
717-231= AV loss of 486
enemy has 10706 troops looses 921, mostly disabled.

2. day:
25769 troops for attack? I dont get this, I should have less because of disablements from previous day combat?
692 AV? with more troops less base AV?
692*2= AV 1384 (this is my imaginary expectation of AV doubled due to shock attack, sort of rough estimate [:D] . ofc it could be totaly wrong) 1384-1088= AV loss of 296 (why less AV loss than previus turn -> no clue)

enemy first day AV 343 adjusted to 357 = +14 - troops: 10706
next day AV 296 adjusted to 373 = +77 - troops: 10089
why more AV next day if they had fatigue/disruptions + disablements from previus day???


Anyway how to "know" when ur gonna be able to have a 100% win in combat? [:D]
I know u cant know 100% but still, I had double the troops and still didnt win with deliberate attack and this of one of those I tought I will win for "sure"....

[khyberbill]

Chinese troops are exceptionally weak. I suspect that if you continue to do what you have done, you will advance quite nicely. Be sure to put some of your attackers in reserve. Then they will pursue and really chew up any retreating Chinese. As people get used to the new ground model I think that the AARs will have some more tidbits about how to advance in China. Massed artillery attacks are particularly deadly if the opponents troops are in combat mode (forced into combat mode from reserve status by deliberate attack. I was losing 5k - 10k a day behind lvl 4 forts (about 50av per attack destroyed per day).

[PMCN]

To be frank the ground combat in PacWar was dubious. The "shock attack" in this game is even more dubious. As you can see even though you lost the first battle you killed more enemy soldiers, which is odd when I launched a deliberate attack and some troop mysteriously showed up in the combat I ended up taking 5x the casualties of the defender for the same odds you got. Then by selecting shock attack you get an automatic adjustment to your final AV giving a final odds boost of +4 or +6 and when you succeed your damage goes up by a factor similiar. What is surprising is you lost nearly 900 troops with the shock attack I would have expected closer to 400 as the ratio is usually 10:1. Which in itself is difficult to accept.

I've seen a shock attack get odds of 1:2 and then next day the same units get something like 4:1 so there is a degree of variability in the combat calculations that is beyond my understanding even if I've been playing war games for over 30 years.

Bombardment attacks are generally equally absurd since there seems to be no automatic counter battery fire from the defenders even though I was sure I read it was supposed to occur in the manual. Plus given the combat is over a one day period why is not all combat simultaneous? I've seen so many wonky things in the last few weeks ground combat wise it is difficult to take it seriously. It is one of the most inherently frustating aspects of the game as far as I am concerned. Artillary doesn't seem to require setting up, nor is there a bonus to the defenders for sighted in guns (unless that is part of the entrenchment bonus) and so on. The Japanese didn't have much in the way of radio communication so they had to run wire for example of one thing that would slow the set up.

I am finding it difficult to be polite on the topic because frankly I've seen too many battles which should have been close fights turn into one sided slaughter fests. My opinon would be an "unprintable obscenity" cubed. But it was like this in PacWar so it seems something designed in by Grigsby, possibly to give the game the first japanese victories as occured historically. What is the really annoying part is not loosing but loosing with so many one sided casulties in fights that aren't so heavily favoring the japanese. Also since virtually nothing is explained in the combat summary you can't figure out what to do to improve the situation. This makes planning virtually impossible. I fall back on "if it works in real life it should work in the game" and go from there.

(added in edit)
Trying to be fair about this probably the worst part of the whole mess is that there is no useful information provided in the combat feedback to tell you what went right or (generally speaking) more importantly what went wrong.

A suggestion would be to change the way it is printed out. This would result in somthing like:
Attacker: shock (+3)
Defender: morale (-,5)disruption(-,3)leadership(+1,2)

Then you would be able to correlate your units morale, disruption and leadership values to see what you should do.

As it is now I can't figure out if a unit will hold, if I have a chance in a battle or what. And the variability between one battle and the next confuses me. It's not just some sort of progression but a case of odds dramatically changing.

There are also obvious combat modifiers that aren't included such as river crossing and amphibious assault without proper landing ships. Further modifiers would be flanked due to insufficient front line forces and lack of infantry support for armour attacks.

Also in terms of the losses for a field battle (not an island one) it is difficult to understand why there is such high losses even for a unit displaced. Withdrawl under fire is hard but even an inferiour force can do an elastic defence. The hex is 46 miles across there is lots of room for manuever by regiment sized units who have frontages of less than 5km. Overruning the support troops seems less than likely in this case.

Also nowhere in the manual does it state units in march formation will launch shock attacks upon encountering the enemy. The only thing stated about march formation is that there is a slight combat penalty.

It is hard to express how exceptionally frustrating it is to get combat results that you can't begin to understand the reasons for. It makes me want to pull on my rapidly vanishing hair at times.

[erstad]

I've seen a shock attack get odds of 1:2 and then next day the same units get something like 4:1 so there is a degree of variability in the combat calculations that is beyond my understanding even if I've been playing war games for over 30 years.

I've seen this stuff in China in some test games. Two factors that contribute some:
1) The chinese often start with barely enough supply on the first attack, and the second turn they have a significant malus due to undersupply.
2) If losses on both sides are similar but substantial, that benefits the attacker.

Of course, there is a fair amount of variability on top of that.

[PMCN]

It was in china in fact. I was fighting in Wenchow (the eastern port) the Japanese invaded with 4 divisions from the sea. Afte a fair amount of back and forth including a few failed shock attacks they launch a new one. Odds are 1:2 and they loose 1200 men and I loose 480 or so. Then the next day they launch an attack with pretty much the same forces and get 4:1. But the surviving combat factors were closer to Japanese 500, Chinese 300 so a 1:1 or so. Just had another between the Japanese with AV 150 and PI units with AV 170 that also became a 4:1 slaughter of the PI units. Then I did a deliberate assault with chinese units and got 1:2 odds but lost 5x the troops the defender did (on a deliberate assault???) a lot worse compared to what I see when the AI launches one and gets similar results, that shock attack above would have inflicted double the casualties in this case and a failed shock attack should be a nightmare. I am hard pressed to not be cynical and think there is a AI cheating but this is probably just frustration speaking.

The game manual claims combat should be attritional, long grinding battles but I've never seen anything of the sort. Either the battle is more or less a no show: I've had 3 battles now ongoing for nearly 3 weeks but no one is dieing in the bombardments. Or the japanese launch a shock attack and get 10:1 casualties and mangle the force in question resulting in a one day victory that is the wet dream of any general.

I must admit that upon reflection this is very much like War in Russia when you play as Russian from 41 to early 43 where you can't seem to do much. I'd just forgotten how vastly, vastly frustrating that is.

Speaking personally I would make the shock attack something that happens based on odds and morale checks on either side and seriously tone down the losses but that is just me. I would also put some sort of a cap on how much higher AV can be increased and how much lower it can be decreased. Though I would not say what the limit should be that would be something that needs testing for darn sure. I'll probably be complaining in the opposite way when 43 rolls around and I'm fighting entrenched Japanese forces.

[henri51]

I don't really know, but have you considered that shock and bombardment attacks and engineers can considerably reduce fortification levels, that fatigued, unsupplied and disabled units can get a huge penalty, that units unable to retreat can be eliminated, and so on?

So if the first attack reduces fortification levels by say, 4, the defender has used up all his supplies during the first attack, defender fatigue and morale have reached critical levels, the defender's HQ and support units have been destroyed, the defender's guns have been destroyed or have run out of ammo, and perhaps other factors, it is quite possible for battles between the same units can have vastly different odds in two successive battles.

But I have no idea if this is the case for your particular battle.

Henri

[PMCN]

Unfortunately none of that applies, the first battle was a 1:2 loss by the japanese, my fort levels were at 2 and remained at 2 for the next battle. My units were not substantially weakend in terms of AV. The book says the attackers of a failed shock attack are badly disrupted but I don't see that happening nor given the slightly more than 2:1 in my favor losses they suffered is that comparable to the damage a unit subject to a shock attack suffers if it suceeds. The next attack was actually by only 3 of the divisions and only one of them was in good shape (at least one had a AV of 50 so maybe I am wrong about the effect of the 3 or 4 failed shock attacks they launched). As I said my final AV reported in the combat window was something like 300, the japanese was around 500. Given fortifications, defending a city, I had supply, a HQ unit and so on plus the last attack with 4 divisions getting no more than 1:2 odds I would have expected them to hold. I'm not even sure the japanese units had a supply line excepting what they brought ashore with them. Plus the japanese had lost 3-4 shock attacks previously.

I just had a japanese attack go to 1:9 against me and what amazed me was the lack of casaulties. I did an attack that ended up at 1:2 with say 100 AV on my side versus 150 AV on the Japanese and I lost 50% of my troops and most of those destroyed, the AI blew the attack nine ways to tommorow and didn't suffer anything similar. And the AV on each side in this battle were comparable to the one I lost at both sides being around 150 AV.

I am just not seeing "brutal attritional" battles. I'm also not seeing failed shock attacks hurting the attacker (well except when my units launch them by movement) to the extent a sucessful one hurts the defender. Fixing bayonets and charging is all well and good but most people had machine guns and in many cases knew how to use them.

In real life I'd be handing out medals to the men in those units in Wenchow. They held that city for a week against 4 divisions. Heck the reinforcements were even hurt before they got in there.

I'm finding it hard to find rhyme and reason to the way things go so I planning on what force is required to do the job I want is difficult.

[seydlitz_slith]

I agree that the shock attack seems to be too powerful. Disruption and casualties should probably be higher for the attacker than I have been seeing. I normally like deliberate attacks. I mean, after all, one would think that that is how a professional army trains to do things. However, I see constant failure even when I have favorable initial odds every time that I use it. Yet, if my leaders get the troops liquored up on rice wine and whipped into a patriotic frenzy they all become samurai and tear through my opponent, in many cases winning against much larger forces without heavy casualties or destruction. I just wonder if this is WAD....

[PMCN]

In honesty I don't like you can select that a shock attack happens. I think it should require a leadership check, a passed morale check for the attackers and a morale check failure on the defenders. It should not affect the odds calculation but should result in higher losses to the defender regardless of win or loose but in the advent the attacker looses the frontline losses should be much higher for them while even winning should result in higher losses since you are pushing harder.

I am seeing losses often on the order of 10:1, worse I had some units caught getting on trains and the attacker didn't loose a single man. This is a problem when it is impossible to determine how much time you have til a unit arrives. On the other hand when the Japanese shock attacked Rabaul even though they won, and won with a 4:1 odds or so they lost almost the same number of troops as did the Australians. I wonder if the defenders morale has an impact? What I think is causing the trouble is that the fact of a shock attack affects the odds, then the odds generate the losses and then there is a further bonus (possibly) just because it is a shock attack and so the shock attack comes in squared or somesuch thing. So when you win, you win big time and you are more likely to win anyway.

It was in PacWar so I assume shock attack is WAD at least in for Grigsby and co. I often end up a bit two minded over it since truthfully the Japanese bayonet tactics did work in the early part of the war though I'm not sure they inflicted casualties so much as often the troops would just withdraw. And if you did in an island battle breach the defence perimeter you would inflict huge losses to the second line troops but in open field battles I am very dubious of that happening.

The shock attack also pretty much invalidates a "fighting withdrawl" or standard delaying tactics since the unit subject to one is so badly brutalized without costing the attacker much.

I also agree that "deliberate attack" is how professionals did things. I have a mental block with "shock attacks" unless you mean something like the opening hours of operation Uranus. Also as the manual say the war in the pacific was a brutal attritional style of combat yet that is exactly what you do not see once shock attacks start happening.

[erstad]

Caveat that I have really only played AE PBEM and head-to-head, so if there is any AI bias or cheats I wouldn't know.

Two observations:
Regarding the Wenchow Japanese being out of supply except for what they bring with - Interestingly, it's often easier to have an invasion force in good supply. All of the supply in the transports is loaded into the LCUs, and there's nowhere for it to go. By contrast, an LCU sitting in a base somewhere is sharing supply with the base, and there could be other bases/LCUs that think they want the supply more and steal it away. The engine does an OK job of keeping the supply where you want it but it's far from perfect. Not an issue for invasions.

regarding the chinese versus the Australians, and Chinese losses in general - Never forget the Chinese troops are really, really bad. Their infantry squad has about half the firepower of an IJA squad, their experience is really, really low (which seems to then cause low morale), etc. So regardless of the numbers they are going to suffer casualties at an advanced rate. Think about Rorke's Drift [8|]

[treespider]

Ground combat in a very small nutshell -

1. Shooting occurs with lots of randoms based upon Leadership, Planning, Experience, Morale, Disruption, Fatigue, Leadership, Disruption, Morale, Planning, Experience, Firepower etc etc etc... the shooting inflicts casualties and disruption which the affect step 2.

2. More randoms affect final Assault Value, the AV is essentially unrelated to the firepower of the unit.

3. Deliberate Attack vs Shock Attack -
- Deliberate - Side A and Side B shoot, then Side A Assaults ....
- Shock - Side A and Side B shoot (IIRC), then Side B shoots again, then Side A assaults with a doubled modified AV. High firepower units defending against a shock attack will inflict serious damage on the attacker. Low firepower units not so much.

[ago1000]

NOOB question if I may.
I usually play the Allies and still learning the game basics. If I'm assaulting a IJN base, let's assume that it's assault strength might be AS=150. If it has a fort level of 1 then I would need at least 3 to 1 (+2 from manual) odds to reduce the fortification, keep fighting and capture the base eventually. If I form an assault force of say AS = 500 to 600, wouldn't that guarantee that I would capture the base?

[Streptokok]

In old Witp I would say yes, in AE Im just not sure [:)]
Other things seem to effect combat in AE more then they did in "old" Witp, like fatigue, disruption and I think that expiriece/morale have bigger impact also.
So if u bring 600 AS army wich has exp/morale 25/25 and is fatigued/disrupted than i would say no
But if thats not the case than you should be able to take the base in 1 turn.
However be careful that when you are attacking, specialy when you are landing onto atoll, that your unit has its preparation points set for that spot ur landing in (some more expirienced players say at least 75 prep points for atoll attack) or your 600AS will turn into much reduced number due to landing casulties and disruption that you get when your unit charges the beaches...and those nasty CD units costal defense with big naval guns) can wreck havoc onto your landing force, so make sure you bring extra units to compensate for the loss of AS due to all nasty things that can happen.

Odds +2 does not mean that you will reduce the fort level, odds +2 mean that you will take the base and rout/destroy enemy unit.

Forts can be destroyed with use of combat engineers, theres a special calculation for that in ground combat resolve phase as manual says, so for a fort to be reduced you dont have to have +2 odds but you have to have combat engineers with attacking force (japs have them within larger units like Bde or Div and have special Combat Engineering units, dunno about allies, sorry):

The assault phase consists of the following steps:
1. Assault values for surviving forces are determined, as well as the minimum odds for a successful assault. Defending support type squads are counted as having an assault value of 1/10 for odds calculations.
2. Combat Engineers reduce the value of the defender’s fortifications
3. Assault is resolved and the base holds or is captured

And finaly forgot to say that any +2 odds as manual says should rout the enemy unit from the hex and you should take control of it (sieze the base).

[Central Blue]

ORIGINAL: treespider

Ground combat in a very small nutshell -

1. Shooting occurs with lots of randoms based upon Leadership, Planning, Experience, Morale, Disruption, Fatigue, Leadership, Disruption, Morale, Planning, Experience, Firepower etc etc etc... the shooting inflicts casualties and disruption which the affect step 2.

2. More randoms affect final Assault Value, the AV is essentially unrelated to the firepower of the unit.

3. Deliberate Attack vs Shock Attack -
- Deliberate - Side A and Side B shoot, then Side A Assaults ....
- Shock - Side A and Side B shoot (IIRC), then Side B shoots again, then Side A assaults with a doubled modified AV. High firepower units defending against a shock attack will inflict serious damage on the attacker. Low firepower units not so much.

That makes sense to me for a system resolving ground combat on a forty mile hex.

The only way to hold anything with the Chinese troops is to have two times as many as the Japanese with decent prep points. The only way to attack with the Chinese in the early war is when he is already on your ground, your base is somewhat supplied, you have decent prep points, you have three times the number of troops, and you have changed out all the leaders. Then you can at least give the AI a bloody nose, even at the hard setting.

[PMCN]

I can say from experience that the chinese do not need 2:1 force ratios if they have at least some entrenchments. I have 3 battles between the chinese and japanese which have been ongoing for 3 weeks where the AV on both sides is about even. One may not count as it is in the mountains but the others are open field battles and in each case the japanese have stalled. When attacks do go in though the losses are pretty much even on both sides in those battles, excepting the mountain one where they tend to favor the chinese. When the Japanese concentrate their forces it is a different story but where they haven't they don't make that much progress. My current strategy is to hold as much as I can for as long as I can and to keep nibbling on things where I can. I'm not doing full scale offensives (other than at Singyan but in that case I had the troops there and thought "why not?"). Even in that case it took the Japanese moving out 17 units from Hangchow to toss me out, the local garrison was loosing the attacks it was throwing at me.

A deliberate assault by a PI division threw out two japanese tank regiments as well.

I also must admit I go a lot more by the number of troops reported then by AV since AV changes all over the place.

Part of my frustration (the only solution to which is a "grin and bear it attitude") is that it's simply impossible to even guess how long a unit might hold it's position. I have also not seen the sort of casualties I would have expected on a failed 1:10 final odds attack compared to what I suffered on a failed 1:2 attack.

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: treespider

Ground combat in a very small nutshell -

1. Shooting occurs with lots of randoms based upon Leadership, Planning, Experience, Morale, Disruption, Fatigue, Leadership, Disruption, Morale, Planning, Experience, Firepower etc etc etc... the shooting inflicts casualties and disruption which the affect step 2. SPIDER..., you don't mention the two MOST IMPORTANT factors in fire resolution...., Terrain and Fortification. How much of a factor are they?

2. More randoms affect final Assault Value, the AV is essentially unrelated to the firepower of the unit.

3. Deliberate Attack vs Shock Attack -
- Deliberate - Side A and Side B shoot, then Side A Assaults ....
- Shock - Side A and Side B shoot (IIRC), then Side B shoots again, then Side A assaults with a doubled modified AV. High firepower units defending against a shock attack will inflict serious damage on the attacker. Low firepower units not so much. Perhaps "doubled" is too much. Has anyone experimented with reducing this from 200% to 150%?

[treespider]

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl


ORIGINAL: treespider

Ground combat in a very small nutshell -

1. Shooting occurs with lots of randoms based upon Leadership, Planning, Experience, Morale, Disruption, Fatigue, Leadership, Disruption, Morale, Planning, Experience, Firepower etc etc etc... the shooting inflicts casualties and disruption which the affect step 2. SPIDER..., you don't mention the two MOST IMPORTANT factors in fire resolution...., Terrain and Fortification. How much of a factor are they?

They are important as well ...very important...I just didn't think they were random.

2. More randoms affect final Assault Value, the AV is essentially unrelated to the firepower of the unit.

3. Deliberate Attack vs Shock Attack -
- Deliberate - Side A and Side B shoot, then Side A Assaults ....
- Shock - Side A and Side B shoot (IIRC), then Side B shoots again, then Side A assaults with a doubled modified AV. High firepower units defending against a shock attack will inflict serious damage on the attacker. Low firepower units not so much. Perhaps "doubled" is too much. Has anyone experimented with reducing this from 200% to 150%?

I've always been in favor of making Shock attacks involuntary...with them only being launched only on River crossings and Atoll landings and Paradrops.

[herwin]

ORIGINAL: treespider

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl


ORIGINAL: treespider

Ground combat in a very small nutshell -

1. Shooting occurs with lots of randoms based upon Leadership, Planning, Experience, Morale, Disruption, Fatigue, Leadership, Disruption, Morale, Planning, Experience, Firepower etc etc etc... the shooting inflicts casualties and disruption which the affect step 2. SPIDER..., you don't mention the two MOST IMPORTANT factors in fire resolution...., Terrain and Fortification. How much of a factor are they?

They are important as well ...very important...I just didn't think they were random.

2. More randoms affect final Assault Value, the AV is essentially unrelated to the firepower of the unit.

3. Deliberate Attack vs Shock Attack -
- Deliberate - Side A and Side B shoot, then Side A Assaults ....
- Shock - Side A and Side B shoot (IIRC), then Side B shoots again, then Side A assaults with a doubled modified AV. High firepower units defending against a shock attack will inflict serious damage on the attacker. Low firepower units not so much. Perhaps "doubled" is too much. Has anyone experimented with reducing this from 200% to 150%?

I've always been in favor of making Shock attacks involuntary...with them only being launched only on River crossings and Atoll landings and Paradrops.

Terrain is a multiplier, usually to the detriment of the attacker. Fortification is also a multiplier, just quite a bit milder.

Shock attacks involve trading off tempo against casualties. They were utilised heavily by the Japanese in China and by low-quality Japanese units everywhere.

The USMC had a preference for higher tempo attacks than the US Army, figuring that in the end, the casualties would be less. However, it is good to remember that USMC divisions never stayed in the line indefinitely.

[jwilkerson]

01 - Ground combat in AE works the same way it did in WITP - the few tweaks we made were related to device range shifts - but the basic system is the same.

02 - Odds calculations and shooting combat are almost completely separate activities in AE, just as they were in WITP. The attacker and defender shoot various numbers of times and then an odds calculation determine what happens to the defender, like whether he is shifted out of the hex. All this is has it was in WITP. The separation of firing and odds calculation is why you can see a 1 to 2 odds attack which results in more losses for the defender than the attacker. The odds calculation and the firing are separate activities, same as it ever was.

03 - Shock attacks also work the same as they did in WITP. Basically attacker AV is increased at the expense of increasing defender fire. Shock attacks can be forced on the attacker by crossing a river or by amphibous landings on small islands or Atolls. This being said, some WITP players have made house rules against voluntary shock attacks. The shock attacks in open terrain in China can make things quite a "crap shoot" as equal forces now have the ability to knock each other out with one attack. If you don't like this, then you might like the "no voluntary shock attacks" house rule.

04 - Land combat in this system has always been the more abstract of the three components represented (Air, Navy Land). We briefly considered rewriting it - but decided that was out of scope and would have to wait for the elusive "WITP_II". What we did instead was add in the Op Mode and Combat Mode changes, these have various effects on combat and movement, but did not require changing the land combat model itself.

[Streptokok]

04 - Land combat in this system has always been the more abstract of the three components represented (Air, Navy Land). We briefly considered rewriting it - but decided that was out of scope and would have to wait for the elusive "WITP_II". What we did instead was add in the Op Mode and Combat Mode changes, these have various effects on combat and movement, but did not require changing the land combat model itself.

So nothing changed when ground combat takes place in the sense of exp/morale and fatigue/dirsuption effects?