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Armor takes losses in the art fire phase, according to the manual only inf,art,AT and flak are supposed to take losses. What´s the story on this?

When attacking with a pz corps vs. a inf corps which contains only inf squads(zero guns) the pz can take quite big losses.
How is that? Does inf have an AT-value?
If so does it increase when new weapons like magnetic mines and panzerfausts become available?

How much of a HQ´s air assets are lost if the HQ is shattered?

When a surrounded unit surrenders does it lose all equipment and men? The battle reports says different, not all afvs, guns and squads are counted as destroyed.
Are part of the afvs lost by a surrounded unit returned to the pool?

Thats it for now.
Voyrep

Originally posted by voyrep:
Armor takes losses in the art fire phase, according to the manual only inf,art,AT and flak are supposed to take losses. What´s the story on this?

I am not sure about this one - I don't have the manual in front of me - but I would guess that AT/whatever are causing losses to the tanks then anyway (the manual is plain wrong about many things).

When attacking with a pz corps vs. a inf corps which contains only inf squads(zero guns) the pz can take quite big losses.
How is that? Does inf have an AT-value?
If so does it increase when new weapons like magnetic mines and panzerfausts become available?

This should be more reasonable in the next release, without the massive tank losses to 2 AT guns (or 0 as you saw). I believe the infantry does get some weighting in antitank combat, but not sure how much. The AT guns do increase in strength from year to year also, to represent greater average power.

How much of a HQ´s air assets are lost if the HQ is shattered?

When a surrounded unit surrenders does it lose all equipment and men? The battle reports says different, not all afvs, guns and squads are counted as destroyed.
Are part of the afvs lost by a surrounded unit returned to the pool?

Thats it for now.
Voyrep

Not sure about the air units, but some planes do return with the air units I am fairly sure. A surrounded unit that shatters (it has a retreat location occupied by another friendly unit for example) will only lose a portion, based on the shatter rules. This will be greatly reduced in the next release, as Soviet units surrounded and shattered on the first turn were returning with 60% of their pre-battle strength on average, which is ridiculous. I always thought surrendered units did lose everything, but maybe not.


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Rick Bancroft
Semper Fi

quote:

How much of a HQ´s air assets are lost if the HQ
is shattered?

When a surrounded unit surrenders does it lose
all equipment and men? The battle reports says
different, not all afvs, guns and squads are
counted as destroyed.
Are part of the afvs lost by a surrounded unit
returned to the pool?

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Hi, Well I do not know for fact but I alway's assumed that if you shatered a HQ with air groups, the air groups lost those aircraft that were not in the air. ie, when you plot a n air attack the computer does some calculation to see how many aircraft actually take part in the mission, I always thought it did the same type of calculation, those remaining on the ground were lost. I think that makes sence.

---------------------------------------------
Quote

Not sure about the air units, but some planes do return with the
air units I am fairly sure. A surrounded unit that shatters (it has
a retreat location occupied by another friendly unit for example)
will only lose a portion, based on the shatter rules. This will be
greatly reduced in the next release, as Soviet units surrounded
and shattered on the first turn were returning with 60% of their
pre-battle strength on average, which is ridiculous. I always
thought surrendered units did lose everything, but maybe not
---------------------------------------------


I would have thought that all heavy equipment would be lost, or at the least 99% of it. I am a bit shocked that up to 60% could survive an encirclement in the first week of the battle/war. Without looking up the figures I seem to remember that Army Group South alone was responsible for the capture of 650,000 POW in the first 6 weeks, that's effectively the equivalent of 60 to 70 combat ready Division's, there is no way that 60% of these losses managed to get back to Stavka. I would say less than 5% managed to get back to the relative safty of the Russian front line.

I'm curious, what is the new figure that returns to the field?

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StratMan

[This message has been edited by StratMan (edited January 17, 2001).]

Originally posted by StratMan:
I would have thought that all heavy equipment would be lost, or at the least 99% of it. I am a bit shocked that up to 60%
could survive an encirclement in the first week of the battle/war. Without looking up the figures I seem to remember that
Army Group South alone was responsible for the capture of 650,000 POW in the first 6 weeks, that's effectively the
equivalent of 60 to 70 combat ready Division's, there is no way that 60% of these losses managed to get back to Stavka. I
would say less than 5% managed to get back to the relative safty of the Russian front line.

I'm curious, what is the new figure that returns to the field?

------------------
StratMan

Unfortunately, the number is still higher than I would like to see. In some basic testing, it looks like on average 30-35% will make it out. The problem is that the game cannot figure out if the units are encircled at the time of combat, which is what I asked to have it do, and so it uses the basic shatter formula that is used for all shatter events. Under the old calc, that returned 60%, so it is probably a little more than half of before. Arnaud did not think he could easily figure out if a unit was encircled so that is what he did to make it play out better anyway.


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Rick Bancroft
Semper Fi

Think of it this way: if you encircle and destroy a unit in the same move (causing a shatter), then the circle is still loose, and much of the debris of the encircled units can slip through. If you destroy it the turn after you encircled it (causing a surrender), then the perimeter has been filled out with infantry and artillery and very little gets through.

Originally posted by Yogi Yohan:
Think of it this way: if you encircle and destroy a unit in the same move (causing a shatter), then the circle is still loose, and much of the debris of the encircled units can slip through. If you destroy it the turn after you encircled it (causing a surrender), then the perimeter has been filled out with infantry and artillery and very little gets through.

That is what was discussed as justification, and it makes sense for the war as a whole. There is just one thing that bothers me, and that is on the first turn the Soviets have extremely low readiness, and it is hard to believe that these surprised Soviet units would be able to escape with even 30% of their original tanks in the first week, when so many wouldn't run or broke down almost immediately.

After the first couple of turns, I don't have any real problem with it - it is mainly that start turn where historically the Soviets were not able to salvage very much from the frontier area. In playtesting (with myself as the Soviets) the old return levels made it very difficult for the Axis as these tank units were showing up in battle a second time still having many tanks (hundreds per division), whereas historically many were not much more than motorized infantry divisions after their initial battles.

The significantly lower levels that we now have should help this, but I would still not expect the Soviet tank divisions to retain even 30%, especially after combat losses on top of the losses in escaping. Once the units have higher readiness, then the shatter levels seem pretty reasonable. As you say, a ready unit would be able to escape with a larger portion of its equipment through the loose encirclement.

The key will be the overall play and losses caused, which seem real close.

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Rick Bancroft
Semper Fi

A unit which is forced to a "true" surrender lose all equipment, right? Are tanks that are lost in the surrender permanently lost or do the damaged (one third?) return to the pool as replacments?

Tanks like pzIIIe, pzIVd and R35 are not listed in the pool, what happens to the "damaged part" of their losses? Are they all destoyed or what

Voyrep

Originally posted by voyrep:
A unit which is forced to a "true" surrender lose all equipment, right? Are tanks that are lost in the surrender permanently lost or do the damaged (one third?) return to the pool as replacments?

Tanks like pzIIIe, pzIVd and R35 are not listed in the pool, what happens to the "damaged part" of their losses? Are they all destoyed or what

A true surrender results in the 100% loss of everything. Squads, Arty, AT, Flak, Vehicles. All vehicles are permanently lost.

The obsolete vehicles aren't listed but are handled exactly the same was as the other vehicles are, they just don't show in the display.

Originally posted by voyrep:
Thanks for your clarifying replies!
Now Iam curious about the losses caused by blizzards and being out of supply, are they normal or permanent losses?

Voyrep

Blizzard manpower losses are permanent. I don't know about equipment losses to blizzard moves or out of supply, but I wouldn't be surprised if they are treated as combat losses, with at least some tanks returning to the pool. Probably only a detailed test tracking reinforcements compared to prior turn losses would tell, or an analysis of the code.


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Rick Bancroft
Semper Fi

Ed,

This has nothing to do with this thread, I just thought you might be interested in the games on this site. (http://www.2by3games.com)

Originally posted by Svar:
Ed,

This has nothing to do with this thread, I just thought you might be interested in the games on this site. (http://www.2by3games.com)

Been there, thanks. I really wonder who is going to produce their new "War in Russia" game they are working on, it apparently won't be Matrix.

Thanks for your clarifying replies!
Now Iam curious about the losses caused by blizzards and being out of supply, are they normal or permanent losses?

Voyrep