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At what point does a unit become pinned, retreat and rout? It seems that I can never heavily suppress a unit and 'go in at the point of the bayonet', it always fires back with effective fire even when I have fired at it with A LOT of mgs. How about another category of suppression when a unit is not exactly going to run away but is going to be a bit less likely to return fire? I know we don't want everything spelt out but if you've poured shedfuls of fire into a target you would probably have an idea if it was 'likely' that they were reasonably suppressed. This is still by far and away the best wargame I've played though, and I'm looking forward to v4.

Bill

It does happen and it is hard to set a rule. Most units do have some "desperation" fire as the attacker moves adjacent. I would expect that.

But a heavily suppressed unit 50+, let's say will not do much firing. In fact, some units when you try to enter the hex "with the bayonet" will retreat one or two hexes without firing a shot.

But you gotta really pound 'em first! I mean really!

Glad you are posting here, Bill. Good questions!
Wild Bill

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In Arduis Fidelis
Wild Bill Wilder
Coordinator, Scenario Design
Matrix Games

I always smile when the following happens...

T-34 takes out main gun of a Tiger.
T-34 enters hex and the hidden infantry that was there flees due to the previous suppression caused by my Katuysha rocket barrage.

Originally posted by Panzer Commander:
I always smile when the following happens...

T-34 takes out main gun of a Tiger.
T-34 enters hex and the hidden infantry that was there flees due to the previous suppression caused by my Katuysha rocket barrage.

Why would a PANZER Commander laugh at that? Who are you fighting for anyway? Me'thinks we have a spy in our midst.

BA Evans

Supression is very nicely modeled as it is now i think. It makes it much easier to take out supressed targets but not too easy.

The best way to learn how to fight an enemy is to see the battle from their view point. What makes them shake in their boots.

Besides, my father-in-law refuses to play anything else except the Germans.

To reply to the original post by Bill, three are three issues at play here:
When you fire at a unit/hit it it is suppressed and its ability to fire back is lessened
When you fire at a unit, it may spontaneously lower its supression level, this represents a unit deciding that they have had enough and are not going to be pushed around any more and start fighting back
When you get close to a unit (about 2 hexes) it undergoes a check based on morale and training (IIRC). If it passes these checks, it may get "extra" oppertunity fire shots. This represents a unit fighting extra hard to avoid being overrun. In the US Army this is called "final protective fire". A unit fires all its weapons at full rate to put up a wall of steel regardless of ammo expenditure and barrel burnout. Additionally it is for game balance in that it prevents a player from soaking off a unit's oppertunity fire shots and moving in with impunity and certainity that there will be no defensive fire.

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An old soldier but not yet a faded one.
OK, maybe just a bit faded.

while frustrating at times, i'm forced to agree that overall the newer suppression rules are better than the old (though i think some tweaking is still in order, Ver4 is supsd to have this so i'll be very interested in testing it) Playing SP:II right now makes a great comparison. In general i "know" having played that game so much that all i need to do is get at least two good fire rounds on a target inf group, regardless of range or type of weapon and 95% of the time, that unit is done resisting and can be easily dealt with by me. SP:WAW eliminates such a 'sure thing'

using the old rules it was very easy to predict how units would react and proceed accordingly. now, its not such a sure thing. (hence the frustrating part) Heavy suppression still tends to work well but a good mortar bombardment is usually needed to produce such dramatic results.

i do hope to see more routing and retreating though...squads tend to get decimated pretty quickly with the new rules

In general a unit is "OK" until it receives suppression greater than 20-25% of its morale value, Then things start to go down hill based on a number of factors, but essentially each "increment" coupled with a variety of checks, progress the unit form pinned, to retreated to routed.

The "old rules" had set "suppression awards" for various actions, we changed that to variable suppression, usually based on warhead size. Unfortunately a bug made many of these awards "binary" 1 or 0 so units didn't get the suppression they were supposed to and hence didn't retreat like they were supposed to...That is all fixed now.

Note that pinned units get a defensive benefit but suffer spotting and hitting penalties. Fire against Retreating and routing units is "half strength". (Most combatants respected the decision of the enemy to take the "better part of valor" and sought only to encourage them on their way...)

[This message has been edited by Paul Vebber (edited September 07, 2000).]

It makes sense now. Applying what you guys have been saying to my current battle means I can understand what is happening. Cheers.