Casualties (Full Version)

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mooreshawnm -> Casualties (9/26/2015 7:59:55 PM)

Is there a way to change the loss modifier? In the winter of 43 I as the Germans I just made a deliberate attack on 2 Grds Rifle Corps in level 2 forts with 3x Pz, 1x PzG and 3x Inf Div's from 3 directions. My forces...108K men 1300 guns and 600 tanks. They have 51k men 600 guns and no tanks. I do two deliberate attacks. The Soviets hold. I don't have a problem with that. My problem...losses are WAY too low. First attack I lose 800 men and 6 tanks, second I lose 650 men and 4 tanks...their losses were equally insignificant and they lost a fort level. Really? What do the Soviets have force fields separating the two forces? Did they have a game of soccer? How do I add a straight up add 10x to the losses? 3 full strength German Corps (2 of which are mech) attack 2 Guard corps for a week and the total losses are 15 tanks and 2k men between both parties?

Weather is blizzard. Everyone's at full strength, rested and in command...Sov's had air superiority with 33 bombers first attack nothing the second.



HMSWarspite -> RE: Casualties (9/26/2015 10:29:24 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: mooreshawnm

Is there a way to change the loss modifier? In the winter of 43 I as the Germans I just made a deliberate attack on 2 Grds Rifle Corps in level 2 forts with 3x Pz, 1x PzG and 3x Inf Div's from 3 directions. My forces...108K men 1300 guns and 600 tanks. They have 51k men 600 guns and no tanks. I do two deliberate attacks. The Soviets hold. I don't have a problem with that. My problem...losses are WAY too low. First attack I lose 800 men and 6 tanks, second I lose 650 men and 4 tanks...their losses were equally insignificant and they lost a fort level. Really? What do the Soviets have force fields separating the two forces? Did they have a game of soccer? How do I add a straight up add 10x to the losses? 3 full strength German Corps (2 of which are mech) attack 2 Guard corps for a week and the total losses are 15 tanks and 2k men between both parties?

Weather is blizzard. Everyone's at full strength, rested and in command...Sov's had air superiority with 33 bombers first attack nothing the second.

Careful. Unless you attacked several times and used all your MP, you didn't attack for a week. If you attacked once, you attacked for a couple of days or so. Also, what were the final CVs? Did they rise (well coordinated and executed attack), or fall (the opposite). What were the final odds?

In RL, a full division assault by a triangular divison (3 regt/bde of 3 btn each) might involve 3 btn in the initial break in - possibly even 2. This could be 3 regts, 1 btn up, or maybe 1 regt 2 up. The rest would be reserve/exploitation. So phase one might be the 2 or 3 btns for 2-4 hours, with new btns as the second phase etc. If the attack goes well, the division gets to use more troops. If the initial attack bounces the follow up may never launch. The game doesn't explicitly model this, but needs to produce comparable results.

In game this is what an attacker CV dropping on execution might represent (fail to get traction on the initial attack so the attack fissles. When you extend to a corps attack, the system also scales. The corps might attack one or 2 divs up with the rest in reserve. I am not saying your result is actually right, I am saying it isn't automatically wrong and much more info is required.

Add a blizzard and you could easily have a confusing 'non-battle'.



chaos45 -> RE: Casualties (9/26/2015 10:52:36 PM)

The game does not model historical losses at all.

Issue has been discussed at length in the past. I know HMS just recently rejoined the WiTE forums but probably not 2 months ago was some very lengthy discussion on it and even those working with the system acknowledge the system in its current state doesnt accurately models historical losses nor can the system be made to do such do to the way combat is modeled.

That being said due to all the automatic tweaks to National Morale the system does at various points 2 players of close to equal skill can get about historical results on the battlefield but casualty rates will be about 50% or less of what they were historical based on same time frames. This leads to Army sizes for both sides which are usually much larger than historical as well.

For example the German army will never wear down, as you just wont ever be able to kill enough Germans with the combat system. However due to morale changes and the size of Soviet units you will eventually start driving the Germans back and getting historical advances as even with 80%+ strength units the Germans wont be able to stop a 100% ToE massive soviet army as you move into 1943 on.



elxaime -> RE: Casualties (9/27/2015 12:13:39 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: chaos45

The game does not model historical losses at all.

Issue has been discussed at length in the past. I know HMS just recently rejoined the WiTE forums but probably not 2 months ago was some very lengthy discussion on it and even those working with the system acknowledge the system in its current state doesnt accurately models historical losses nor can the system be made to do such do to the way combat is modeled.

That being said due to all the automatic tweaks to National Morale the system does at various points 2 players of close to equal skill can get about historical results on the battlefield but casualty rates will be about 50% or less of what they were historical based on same time frames. This leads to Army sizes for both sides which are usually much larger than historical as well.

For example the German army will never wear down, as you just wont ever be able to kill enough Germans with the combat system. However due to morale changes and the size of Soviet units you will eventually start driving the Germans back and getting historical advances as even with 80%+ strength units the Germans wont be able to stop a 100% ToE massive soviet army as you move into 1943 on.


I wonder though. SLA Marshalls study of men and fire in WW2 postulated that only a minority actually put themselves out there, shot their weapons, charged home.

http://strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pubs/parameters/Articles/03autumn/chambers.pdf

This is a well-known phenomena. Hollywood movies love to show armies wading into each other like WWF wrestlers. But scientific analysis of old battlefields suggest a lot of the humans involved retained their survival instincts. Targets fled before the bayonet charge hit home, etc. There is also some suggestion that WW2 ordnance hit empty dirt a lot more than assumed, either dropped from the air or fired from a cannon.

Still, it would be interesting to hear from the WITE developers what their actual algorithms were based on, e.g. percentages dead, wounded, missing, deserted, returned to combat after treatment for light wounds, etc. Many WITE combats seem rather stereotyped, e.g. one would expect more POW from a successful assault, more defenders casualties when overrun, and more attackers losses when engaged in combat in built-up areas. The current numbers don't seem to reflect a very complex analysis, since they always seem to fall into certain predictable ranges.



chaos45 -> RE: Casualties (9/27/2015 1:20:06 AM)

SLA Marshalls very often quoted study was also proven to be debatable or even have been falsified/manipulated by him to prove his own point/theory.

So his study cant be used as fact. I would have to dig up where I saw all this through the years but basically what it amounts to is he was trying to prove this to get backing for some program of his and manipulated the data.

Even the article you posted states that his findings have been in dispute....

Also all in all each soldier firing a weapon is really not a massive factor in casualties being that most were caused by shrapnel or some variety or another.

The thing the game designers dont seem to understand is that in the military when your given an order its not optional. Corps tells your division to take that hill you better take that hill or come back with a good reason you didnt....good reason being- enemy resistance to strong and you took to many casualties usually being that good reason. Acceptable losses usually being 20% of your force to achieve an objective in military terms.

So if an attack fails the game system should force the assaulting forces to keep battering away at the defenses until losses reach the break off point if you want a realistic simulation.

Real life casualty numbers back this up- almost every US Division took around 100%+ losses over the course of the fighting in Europe. German statistics are abit harder to find but I would bet their divisions on the eastern front from 1941 on probably took upwards of 200%+ losses over the course of the war. Soviet divisions were also completely destroyed many times and rebuilt often from the remains which would be as low as 10% of the original.

Also even reading company/BN level combat reports on the eastern front they often describe entire companies wiped out in 1 days fighting and this would attrition fighting by WiTE scale. In past posts I pointed out instances of entire regiments/divisions being basically destroyed in 1-2 days of combat, effects that will never happen in WiTE unless they are encircled and surrender.

I tire of debating it has been beat like a dead horse for months...and the team working on patching the game have said they agree its not realistic but they cant fix the engine to make it realistic as it would take a complete overhaul of the combat system.



mooreshawnm -> RE: Casualties (9/27/2015 1:58:52 AM)

The odds did change from 1.2 to 1.9. Remember these aren't dead these are just casualties. I imagine in those conditions these two forces would have lost that many just in accidents. I attacked twice. Both times with divisions in place and they used all their movement...well they couldn't do another deliberate attack. 600 tanks and they fell back to their lines after losing 10...



chaos45 -> RE: Casualties (9/27/2015 3:30:59 AM)

The best way to inflict losses in WiTE isnt combat, which is what makes the casualties/combat system not work as in real life.

You want to inflict the most losses you encircle them, wait a turn then make them surrender as they basically almost auto give up after one turn of encirclement.

Next best thing you can do to inflict losses is hope the other side is max stacked or close to it, and especially if they did this to the two hexes behind where your going to hit. The use secondary attacks to hopefully push the flanks back and stack up/overstack the enemies hexes. Then hit the stack that will have to run through the most overstacked hexes to reach an empty hex. If you have a bunch of Zoc's on those overstacked retreat hexes the defender that has to retreat through them will lose a bunch of guys due to all the overstacked zoc hexes they have to run through.

Again tho only do this if you cant get and hold an encirclement. If you make them retreat several hexes through overstacks/zocs they will either rout or make the retreat....either way taking alot more losses.

Casualties are overly based on retreats, and especially making the enemy retreat through hexes you have zones of control exerted on.




SCAR -> RE: Casualties (9/27/2015 7:07:32 AM)

I am one of the ones complaining about the losses. But seems if they can't fix the losses, why can't the replacement rates and manpower pools be reduced? Won't this give us the same effect? If the units don't gain replacements as quickly, and/or the replacement pools are greatly diminished, it will give the same effects as historical losses, right?



HMSWarspite -> RE: Casualties (9/27/2015 9:17:41 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: chaos45

...

Issue has been discussed at length in the past. I know HMS just recently rejoined the WiTE forums but probably not 2 months ago was some very lengthy discussion on it and even those working with the system acknowledge the system in its current state doesnt accurately models historical losses nor can the system be made to do such do to the way combat is modeled.

...


It's a fair cop, I did indeed miss all the earlier chat. However I mainly chipped in to address a different issue; I was careful to say I wasn't agreeing or disagreeing with the poster. The point is that taking issue on game results by citing one particular case is never a useful or valid thing to do. If I had £5 for every time someone had posted something on one of many game forums equivalent to 'this game is broken, I had a 15" battleship gun hit a thin piece of paper and fail to penetrate, the paper protection needs to be nerfed', and then be shown via multiple tests (if not statistically significant, at least likely to have reasonable validity) that the result quoted was a 1 in 10000 case and normally the shell kills the paper quite happily, I would not be dropping out of game forums for 2 months at a time due to RL, I would be retired and modding games from my gold plated bath tub on my yacht in the Bahamas!



swkuh -> RE: Casualties (9/27/2015 1:51:36 PM)

Glad to see this topic, as I've a question about "losses" myself, and maybe I can get some satisfaction. (Note this is not a game stopper for me!)

Doing C'41, playing Axis w/90-110 balance factors, I see that Axis losses following Soviet turn way exceed Soviet losses, sometimes 10:1 favor Soviet. This after Axis got 3:1 or better in their attack phase.

Game code must be very complex. Wonder if all that is needed.



chaos45 -> RE: Casualties (9/27/2015 2:38:21 PM)

When you first start your turn it shows you, your attrition losses. Soviet attrition losses wont show until Soviet player starts their turn....typically Soviet attrition losses are 2-3x Axis.

My understanding is unit experience level factors into attrition losses as well so as Soviet national morale increases and thus Soviet experience levels their attrition losses should decline some but not alot as by then you will have corps in contact with the Axis and thus more men being hit by the % rolls.



mooreshawnm -> RE: Casualties (9/28/2015 1:38:44 AM)

In regards to encircling as recommended...

Actually that doesn't seem to work either. Soviet losses to date (By winter 41 we had 1.5 mil sov prisoners...it's now Oct 43):

Surrendered:5.7 mil
KIA:2.2 m
Disabled:2.4 m
Tanks:40k
Guns:166k

Lost:
Arm Corps:38
Inf Corps:142
Mech Corps:6
Cav Corps:37

And of course a plethora of divs and bdes. Front is currently manned by impenetrable stacks of Inf Corps. Really think the commies could have fielded an army after those losses? They currently have 10.7 million men!

Don't misunderstand...love the game. Had it since the beginning but never played past the first winter till they fixed the super sovs...1.3? Anyway love the game just want more and right now it looks to me like casualties are too low and replacements are too high.



chaos45 -> RE: Casualties (9/28/2015 3:39:59 AM)

mooreshawnm-

If your playing at soviets at +10% keep in mind that also increases their production if your doing it as an across the board bonus.

Also historical Soviet Army by records- almost 35 Million Troops.....With casualties around 15-20 Million over the course of the war depending what source you believe- official Soviet Losses are only around 10 Million but most researchers believe this number is a lie and far to low and most estimate the Soviet losses at closer to 15-20 Million.

1.5 Million Soviet prisoners in 1941 I dont think is that far outside the averages for the start of campaign......also 10 million total losses for 1943 is probably abit high but not by alot....think we are seeing 6-7 Million+ being the averages for late 1942/early 1943 in the current version of the game.

So if you gave the computer +10% production easily explains 10M man soviet army....as most Soviet players see around 8M men by the end of 1942.

Again as per above the game is out of whack on losses so both armies end up way stronger than historical but as the national morale changes and soviet ToE changes to include more equipment- artillery especially the tide turns.

Another thing, I dont think the AI has a limit to AP like a human player....thus you will see far more corps units in the AIs army over another human player. Human players in pvp are very limited by AP use in how large the Soviet army gets.



chaos45 -> RE: Casualties (9/28/2015 3:48:29 AM)

Also another interesting Fact to back up my comments- battle in the Crimea- not encirclement straight up combat and pushing the soviets back towards Kerch in 1942- 17,000+ Soviet losses in 4 days of combat. Now the show im watching doesnt give German losses but I imagine they were heavy as well....as early in the campaign it was saying 22nd Airlanding was down to combat strength of only 1 regiment and that was in September of 1941...again something you will never see in WiTE.

WiTE is doing an alright job of representing the war purely based on the National Morale lever without it, it would be a massive flop of a simulation.

The reason the game needs the national morale lever as an artificial fix is because the combat system doesnt work when it comes to inflicting accurate amounts of losses.



swkuh -> RE: Casualties (9/28/2015 3:05:53 PM)

@chaos45, thanks. (Small thing OK adds to game fun.)

Aha! Soviet attrition losses not seen. Explains why aggregate losses are as expected, but turn losses not.




robinsa -> RE: Casualties (9/29/2015 6:38:46 AM)

I have no idea how accurate the statistics are on this page but I was really surprised to see how even the losses were spread out month by month for much of the war (with a few exceptions summer 44, 45 etc). For some reason I would have expected that the losses during the winter 41 would see a bigger increase than they do and I would also have expected a much higher loss rate in 1943.

http://www.feldgrau.com/stats.html



Denniss -> RE: Casualties (9/29/2015 9:04:43 AM)

Wounded/disabled would probably a lot in winter 41/42



verdugo94 -> RE: Casualties (9/30/2015 7:54:59 AM)

I agree with mooreshawnm point of view, casualties in WITE are too low, i have seen many battles with more than 30k of people per side with only 400 casualties. It looks like very unreal.

Attrition inflicts more casualties to german than soviet army in many cases.



morvael -> RE: Casualties (9/30/2015 8:10:11 AM)

Casualties will change in .05, bigger battles and battles in locations most suited to defense will see higher losses. This is mostly due to reworked "too many attackers penalty" which IMHO was too severe, in that the biggest battles were the least bloody, because very little elements fired.



Bozo_the_Clown -> RE: Casualties (9/30/2015 2:21:24 PM)

So absurd combat results like this one will be fixed in .05? That would be nice.

Can someone explain why in .04 a regiment attacking a division in swamp across a major river has 0 losses?



[image]local://upfiles/45102/874995CE2F5B4110A9B5F57FDB052961.jpg[/image]



morvael -> RE: Casualties (9/30/2015 2:31:06 PM)

Attacking force was so small the defenders couldn't find anyone to shoot at... Perhaps all elements were disrupted by river crossing and there was no combat. Interesting there were no "attackers withdraw" casualties, though. Perhaps they are not taken from those disrupted at the crossing.

edit: what does the details window shows? Perhaps all defender's losses were caused by attacker's air support?

Do you have a way to provide a save for replication?



chaos45 -> RE: Casualties (9/30/2015 2:39:33 PM)

Most likely losses to defender were from air support.

Still very odd attacker took no losses lol.



Bozo_the_Clown -> RE: Casualties (9/30/2015 2:40:51 PM)

Details. Should't someone at least slip and crack his head open.


[image]local://upfiles/45102/1296A4B592224728B83D54B10D3DC702.jpg[/image]



morvael -> RE: Casualties (9/30/2015 2:45:31 PM)

So only half of the regiment managed to cross the river, of these the Soviets only managed to damage 4 elements and disrupt 7. I guess with such low numbers and integer math there were no candidates for destruction and loss during retreat.

I can't guarantee such results will not appear again in 1.08.05 as this comes from the core of the combat engine and how does it work. I was focused on repairing the other end of the scale (big battles).



Bozo_the_Clown -> RE: Casualties (9/30/2015 3:01:44 PM)

Ha, ha, I'm trying to picture this scene. 800 men are crossing the river while being bombarded by 200 artillery pieces. Then they decide it was not worth it and cross the river AGAIN without taking a single loss. [:D]

This is a server game by the way. I have a flair for the absurd so I don't mind this stuff. I'm sure this can be used to game the system. Maybe increase fatique or reduce fortifications before a major attack?



Bozo_the_Clown -> RE: Casualties (9/30/2015 3:03:27 PM)

quote:

I can't guarantee such results will not appear again in 1.08.05 as this comes from the core of the combat engine and how does it work. I was focused on repairing the other end of the scale (big battles).


I do appreciate your efforts in trying to fix this game. [&o]



morvael -> RE: Casualties (9/30/2015 3:17:20 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Bozo_the_Clown
Ha, ha, I'm trying to picture this scene. 800 men are crossing the river while being bombarded by 200 artillery pieces. Then they decide it was not worth it and cross the river AGAIN without taking a single loss. [:D]


Looks like the enemy artillery was only shooting at those on their own side of the river. And since the airmen reported huge concentration of enemy troops, and the regiment commander saw he will be able to ferry only a battalion sized group to the other side before nightfall, he was wise enough to call off the attack before someone got hurt. Well, maybe his career was hurt, as news of insubortination reached Adolf...



xbmoore -> RE: Casualties (9/30/2015 3:51:14 PM)

Well, I sent the Security detachment over with special crates of "Vodka"..... it seemed to have worked!!!!

Actually was just seeing how bad the results would be for the Regiment if I sent them a couple of times(well 3 times) over the river into the swamp since we are just messing around with this game until .5 comes out. I was surprised with some of the results. It will cause fatigue at the expense of wins/morale/exp and will allow the air force to intercept more planes if so desired and set up correctly. By all means I'm no expert and consider myself a noob in the game but I love experimenting with different things.



Bozo_the_Clown -> RE: Casualties (9/30/2015 4:18:46 PM)

No harm done in this case as you did the deliberate attack first followed by those three hasty attacks. I can see this being a problem the other way around since fatique increases. I think this strategy has been used by the so called "good" players for years.

It's important to try out these things. All this should have been discovered and fixed during beta testing of the original game many years ago. I don't think it has a major effect on game play (maybe on fortifications?) but it's just embarrassing for a war game that wants/claims to be a simulation.

The Russians did appreciate the Vodka shipment. Morale instantly increased by 2. Experience, however, only increased by 1, which is very realistic since you don't learn as much when you are intoxicated. [:D]



chaos45 -> RE: Casualties (9/30/2015 4:56:02 PM)

Bozo- "soaking" attacks arent always the best. As even though u use up some of the defenders ammunition and cause fatigue they also most likely gain morale.

Especially against 1941 Soviets...wins as Soviets in 1941 as precious as those units with wins quickly convert to Guards which then forms your counterattack forces in winter and your good defense/counterattack forces of 1942.

Not to mention your lowering your units morale being used in the soaking attacks.....yes it can help you get a position or so but not sure its a long term viable strategy. TDV vs Brian AAR has probably seen the most wide spread use/abuse of this and as you can see in that AAR both sides are extremely beat up and its counter-encirclement/encirclement operations all 1942 long.



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