One Suggestion re Fight to the Last Man

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One Suggestion re Fight to the Last Man

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One Suggestion re Fight to the Last Man - 12/24/2021 8:25:30 PM

John S

Posts: 101
Joined: 9/5/2004
Status: offline

I would suggest that most units which receive a �Fight to the Last Man� order should see an immediate reduction of morale and, more controversially, should have a die roll based upon integrity and experience to see if they lose a percentage of troops during the night turn through desertion. The exceptions should be SS and the paratroopers of both sides.

I suggest this for two reasons.

First, the trope that you see in movies where guys get the order, suck in their gut and bravely dig is not necessarily reality. On the US side at the start, you have a combination of troops who have just gotten into the front lines plus the Huertgen veterans who have been in the front lines too long. On the German side, setting aside their highly motivated troops, you have a lot of guys with 3-5 months experience, poor training and in many cases, little in the way of artillery and other forms of support. Having a generally distant commanding officer tell them to stand and die will not necessarily be the same as saying the same thing to, say, a group of Navy Seals. I think it would be wise for the game to consider this.

Second, the fight to the last man order can be used in very gamey ways. In game terms, There is virtually no downside to telling 30 rear area troops armed with bazookas and small anti tank guns to fight to the last man at a roadblock. Of course, the officer issuing such orders should, when he gets back into his jeep to drive away, ask himself what are the odds that anything like this will happen with the group at the roadblock. I don�t play PBEM games but I would think that those who do would see exactly what I mean. Basically, I think there should be some downside and risk to issuing fight to the last man orders.

< Message edited by John S -- 12/25/2021 12:29:54 AM >

Post #: 1

RE: One Suggestion re Fight to the Last Man - 12/26/2021 4:38:30 AM

pedro0930

Posts: 29
Joined: 11/23/2021
Status: offline

There is already risk of setting retreat threshold higher than your morale. Taking % casualty higher than your morale can cause your unit to rout, which cause your unit to take more casualty and your unit is forced to retreat anyways. Unless the unit in question has very high morale to begin with (close to 100), setting retreat threshold to fighting to the last man will only work sometime (Vic can weigh in on the roll spread).

In your example of a road block ordered to fight to the last, it almost doesn't matter what retreat threshold you set as the unit will be overwhelmed immediately no matter what your setting is (actually may cause the road block to disintegrate faster if they rout instead of immediately orderly retreat when hit).

(in reply to John S)

Post #: 2