Casualties Wounded to dead

[RT North Dakota]

Forgive me if this has been touched on before, but I notice that both sides seem to suffer a lot more dead than they do wounded. This seems both unlikely or unrealistic.

Has anyone else noticed this or is this down to by overly aggressive game play?

[Mr.X]

During my first battles, I thought it was my way to fight. which caused so many KIA. But actually, it is always the same with any tactics. And it is the same with CMSF. So, I think it´s a kind of bug.

[c3k]

Discussed a lot.

Highpoints:

- Aggressive play

- Oft-cited 3:1 WIA:KIA ratio is THEATER-wide, not at the pointy tip of battle. (A lot of minefield, harassing arty, etc., over a long period of time.) Back area guys get lighter wounds (relative) and faster medical care and live in more hygienic conditions. They survive more.

- Modern stats are FAR different from WWII: smaller bullets, better care, body armor.

There may be room to correct this, but I'm not sure this is a game-play problem.

A search should show a lot of posts.

Ken

[RT North Dakota]

Well having spent some time studying Operational Analysis on this very issue, the WIA to KIA ratios I have seen are specific to tactical engagements, and not Theatre wide

EG:

Falklands, Battle of Goose Green was 17 KIA 64 WIA (3.7:1) for the Brits, and 47 killed

145 wounded (3.08) for the Argentinians.

Ammunition Hill in 1967 the IDF suffered 36 were killed, 90 wounded (3:1)

Gettysburg was about roughly 3,000 killed and 14,000 wounded (4.6:1) for the Union and 4,000 killed 12,000 wounded (3:1).

The 3:1 figure has it's origins in OA dating back to WW1, or so I am told. It seems broadly consistent. Figures I get Bn(-) type engagements in CMBN are things like 145 KIA with 45 WIA or 32 KIA with 27 WIA.

[John Kettler]

RT North Dakota,

May I commend to your attention this excellent account of the Hallamshires in Normandy? The unit was in continuous action for 33 man eating days.

http://www.irdp.co.uk/JohnCrook/normandy.htm

The discussion of what a modern battlefield did to the men on both sides is particularly pertinent. Briefly, MIAs were obliterated or unidentifiable KIAs. You can read for yourself just how awful the casualties were on the pointy end of the spear. Over and over again.

Ibid.

(Fair Use)

"Hart Dyke comforts himself by observing that the heavy casualties had not been in vain. He also concedes that the strain of the 16th of July affected him more than he realised. He and his officers and men had been in the line for 33 days. Hallamshire casualties were now 33 officers and 460 other ranks. This was out of an original officer strength of 37 (2 officers had not been included in the battalion photograph taken before D-day) and 780 men."

Hart Dyke was the Hallamshires' battalion commander, and as you can see, the battalion was shot to pieces. I think this gives some small sense of what happens within a unit which is the parent of a typical CMBN Allied force.

Regards,

John Kettler

[RT North Dakota]

RT North Dakota,

May I commend to your attention this excellent account of the Hallamshires in Normandy? The unit was in continuous action for 33 man eating days.

John, many thanks.

I am pretty well versed in the human dimension of modern battle, including thorny issues like combat participation, and I realise there is a real limit to what CMBN can model.

CMBN does model some things extremely well, but the KIA to WIA issue does not generally match the reality of real operations, unless there is something I am not accounting for. - which may well be the case.

[Michael Emrys]

As far as the game goes, the final count depends to a large degree on giving buddy aid to the seriously wounded. I was tracking this in a recent game by calling for a cease fire after saving the orders for each turn and making note of how many dead and wounded were listed. What I saw was that after buddy aid had been provided, some of the dead were shifted into the wounded category. Something to think about...

Michael

[Vanir Ausf B]

Gettysburg was about roughly 3,000 killed and 14,000 wounded (4.6:1) for the Union and 4,000 killed 12,000 wounded (3:1).

.

Shiloh: 3482 KIA 16420 WIA 4.7:1 (both sides combined)

The Wilderness: 3741 KIA 19965 WIA 5.3:1

And this in an era -- the 1860s -- in which the vast majority of soldiers in an army were front line troops and had primitive medical care compared to WW2.

The game does not count lightly wounded soldiers (yellow) in the end game stats, but I think even if it did the ratio would be less than 2:1.

[RT North Dakota]

The game does not count lightly wounded soldiers (yellow) in the end game stats, but I think even if it did the ratio would be less than 2:1.

Vanir - that I did not know. Many thanks.

It would seem to be an issue that has to be associated with how the model attributes the damage done by any event to a human being. I'd also suggest that the men in the game are probably far more likely to participate in combat than folks do for real, and thus are more likely to expose themselves to harm.

Does anyone know how the attribution of lethal effect is modelled?

[Vanir Ausf B]

To be honest I've always assumed the initial determination of a casualty as WIA or KIA was random instead of a consequence of his means of injury, but I don't know that for a fact.

[Childress]

Does anyone know how the attribution of lethal effect is modelled?

I brought this topic up a few weeks ago. JonS countered that, in a addition to the 'point of the spear' effect, the final K/W tally excludes the all the scrapes, sprains, battle fatigue, trench foot, rope burns, stubbed toes, headaches and hang nails that were commonly rolled into the Wounded column back then. I dunno. What we may be seeing are troops firing away with abandon when they should be cowering on the ground suppressed or routing off the board. Another theory is that carbines (not MGs) are too deadly at range, registering an excessive number of Hits, in particular, Kills.

[RT North Dakota]

What we may be seeing are troops firing away with abandon when they should be cowering on the ground suppressed or routing off the board. Another theory is that carbines (not MGs) are too deadly at range, registering an excessive number of Hits, in particular, Kills.

That is interesting and would account for a substantial anomaly. Real world analysis shows that Rifles, SMGs and carbines (hand held small arms) account for almost no actual worth in combat until the rang gets below 45m or even less. MGs and projected HE are what causes the vast majority of casualties as concerns platoon weapons.

I'll do some tests to see what the lethality looks like.

[ASL Veteran]

Keep in mind that only soldiers that get a 'brown' base after being hit have been immediately killed by whatever it is that got them. Soldiers with the red base are severely wounded and buddy aid will put them in the WIA category. If you don't perform any buddy aid on your red base casualties there is a good chance they will be counted as KIA at game end. You can't just take the end of scenario tally and use that as your guideline if you aren't religiously performing buddy aid on your troops (and it's a lot more difficult to do it when you are retreating). It's been my experience that brown base KIA are relatively rare. Also, keep in mind that wounded AFV crewmen will not exit the vehicle as they could do in reality. Wounded crewmen will simply disappear within the vehicle when the vehicle is hit.

[LongLeftFlank]

Allowing unwounded men to complete Buddy Aid on wounded (not KIA) casualties decreases the tally of final KIA -- a certain proportion of untreated wounded become KIA at game end. On the attack you might use bailed out crews or vehicle drivers as medics so as not to hold up your combat forces.

Edit: ASL beat me to the punch

[RT North Dakota]

If you don't perform any buddy aid on your red base casualties there is a good chance they will be counted as KIA at game end. You can't just take the end of scenario tally and use that as your guideline if you aren't religiously performing buddy aid on your troops (and it's a lot more difficult to do it when you are retreating). .

Ahh... OK, this is progress. When the action stops, those who are going to die, die. Hadn't considered that.

Clearly as there is no casualty evacuation modelled then KIA is going to seem excessive.

[YankeeDog]

EG:

Falklands, Battle of Goose Green was 17 KIA 64 WIA (3.7:1) for the Brits, and 47 killed

145 wounded (3.08) for the Argentinians.

Ammunition Hill in 1967 the IDF suffered 36 were killed, 90 wounded (3:1)

Gettysburg was about roughly 3,000 killed and 14,000 wounded (4.6:1) for the Union and 4,000 killed 12,000 wounded (3:1).

Goose Green is quite a special case; there were a number of major studies of the KIA/WIA in this battle done after this battle was over; quite a few soldiers on both sides survived with some pretty horrific injuries despite being left out on the battlefield for several hours and this was not expected. General conclusion of the studies was that mild hypothermia caused by the cold temperatures actually saved many of the WIA. Partially as a result of what has been learned from the Goose Green studies, in modern trauma treatment and surgery, they now sometimes deliberately chill the patient to reduce the chance of CNS failure and systemic shock.

Gettysburg as a whole is way above CM scale; you'd be better off looking at the KIA vs. WIA that happened in, say, the "hot" part of the engagement for Little Round top, if you wanted something comparable to a CM scenario.

I know less about the Ammunition Hill engagement so I can't comment there.

I think a number of good points have been raised here. There are certainly some factors specific to CM as a game that may be skewing things. In addition to what has been mentioned, I will add:

-- Yellow "injured" soldiers should be included in WIA counts where comparing to historical ratios. CM does not count these as WIA.

-- in CM, any WIA on the battlefield that have not received buddy aid when the battle ends are assumed to have not been cared for, and are very likely to end up KIA. This is true even if the casualty fell in the final minute of the battle, and there are friendly units nearby that could easily administer first aid and evac the casualty.

Overall, I think there might be something to the assertion that KIA/WIA ratios in CM are a bit off. But it's very hard to tell how far off, due to all these factors that are probably skewing the in-game results.

[Childress]

-- Yellow "injured" soldiers should be included in WIA counts where comparing to historical ratios. CM does not count these as WIA.

Are you sure about that?

-- in CM, any WIA on the battlefield that have not received buddy aid when the battle ends are assumed to have not been cared for, and are very likely to end up KIA.

Even with diligent buddy aid the figures still don't add up, imo. And doesn't help the retreating defending force.

Overall, I think there might be something to the assertion that KIA/WIA ratios in CM are a bit off.

I believe there's case to be made for the super long reach rifle theory. This phenomenon is obscured in CMBN with the claustrophobic ranges but is readily apparent in CMFI.

[YankeeDog]

Are you sure about that?

Confident. Just had a battle end where I had only 2 casualties, but over a half dozen "yellow" soldiers on the field.

[RT North Dakota]

Gettysburg as a whole is way above CM scale; you'd be better off looking at the KIA vs. WIA that happened in, say, the "hot" part of the engagement for Little Round top, if you wanted something comparable to a CM scenario.

I have had to study and comment on KIA:WIA as part of what I do for a living. As I said, it's broadly consistent regardless of the size of actual engagement, (or date) providing you have real data to analyse.

[Childress]

I have had to study and comment on KIA:WIA as part of what I do for a living.

You're a marriage counselor?

[womble]

Well having spent some time studying Operational Analysis on this very issue, the WIA to KIA ratios I have seen are specific to tactical engagements, and not Theatre wide

EG:

Falklands, Battle of Goose Green was 17 KIA 64 WIA (3.7:1) for the Brits, and 47 killed

145 wounded (3.08) for the Argentinians.

Ammunition Hill in 1967 the IDF suffered 36 were killed, 90 wounded (3:1)

Gettysburg was about roughly 3,000 killed and 14,000 wounded (4.6:1) for the Union and 4,000 killed 12,000 wounded (3:1).

The 3:1 figure has it's origins in OA dating back to WW1, or so I am told. It seems broadly consistent. Figures I get Bn(-) type engagements in CMBN are things like 145 KIA with 45 WIA or 32 KIA with 27 WIA.

One thing I've noticed drives the KIA:WIA up is the presence of armour. AFV crews often take 100% casualties when a vehicle goes up catastrophically. Tank weapons kill more than they injure when they're 75mm and bigger direct hits on teams. None of the individual engagements you cite included armour. The effects of tanks in WW1 on the ratio will have been swallowed up in the massive total casualties over the several years that tanks were not involved.

Having said that, even with infantry-mostly battles the ratio isn't 1:3, at best it's 1:2, IME.

[Vanir Ausf B]

I just went back and loaded the final turn of 2 games I finished. I cycled through every friendly unit and counted the number of lightly wounded, and also the number of un-buddyaided wounded (I buddy aid most of my wounded, but not all). Both of these games were played against the AI.

Bois de Baugin

60 end screen KIA

67 end screen WIA

33 lightly wounded

12 un-buddyaided

Total casualties: 60 KIA, 100 WIA, 1:1.7

The end screen AI casualties were 73 KIA, 34 WIA.

Closing the Pocket

35 end screen KIA

24 end screen WIA

13 lightly wounded

5 un-buddyaided

Total casualties: 35 KIA, 37 WIA, 1:1.06

The end screen AI casualties were 56 KIA, 42 WIA.

[RT North Dakota]

None of the individual engagements you cite included armour. The effects of tanks in WW1 on the ratio will have been swallowed up in the massive total casualties over the several years that tanks were not involved.

There is a wealth of simulation data on the fact that armour causes disproportionate casualties as well as good OA evidence. I am not aware of any data-sets that show armour kills more versus wounds, though that would seem likely.

..... but that is something that CMBN models very well. Correctly employed, armour causes the most casualties.

Having said that, even with infantry-mostly battles the ratio isn't 1:3, at best it's 1:2, IME.

Really? That is not what the OA data sets show.

As concerns predominately infantry combat, the Falklands and Vietnam, regularly show actions where the ratios are in excess of 1:5.

Actually engagements in the 1:<2 region are incredibly rare, and where they do occur, they are usually explainable due to heavy supporting fires and/or the presence of very capable weapon systems, and/or some highly significant tactical condition. - thus real screw ups like Operation Silver Bayonet in 1965.

[womble]

There is a wealth of simulation data on the fact that armour causes disproportionate casualties as well as good OA evidence. I am not aware of any data-sets that show armour kills more versus wounds, though that would seem likely.

Sorry, I wasn't clear: my (rough, empirical) observation in CM has been that DF HE produces at least as many dead as wounded in the game. I don't have any view or evidence as to whether that's realistic or not.

Really? That is not what the OA data sets show.

Sorry again. I was referring to the ratio in-game, not disputing the historical record.

[JasonC]

On armor, I have looked over detailed casualty reports for entire campaigns on US armor forces, with detailed breakouts of the casualties by arm - the armor proper, the armored infantry, the engineers, artillery, etc - and by class, WIA, KIA, etc. Along with detailed vehicle losses from the same formations.

From those stats it is clear that the notion that tankers got KIAed more than the infantry is untrue. First, they take losses per man that are only 1/3rd those in the infantry. Second, the ratio of WIA to KIA is the same, between 4 and 5 to 1 WIA over KIA.

The dominant cause of wounds to infantry is shell splinters, which are much more likely to leave the man WIA but alive. Sure large HE can kill outright with blast, and large fragments can do frightful things, but in the nature of HE those happen only to small areas around each shell burst, while wound-only fragmentation covers much larger areas, and therefore impacts many more soldiers.

For tankers, exposed crew take losses from shells splinters and small arms fire, but much less than infantry does. The main reason for their 1/3rd lower overall loss chance is the protection against widespread fragment wounding that their armored vehicles provide.

They are mostly killed or wounded by penetrating AP fire. But that still doesn't kill most of those made casualties, because losses to spalling and fragmentation inside the vehicle is more common that total brew up losses. Even in eventual brew ups, if the fire is slow enough many manage to get out of the vehicle. It is true it was worse before wet stowage etc, but the overall average for the ETO still shows many more WIA tankers than KIA tankers. Which proves they mostly didn't go up too fast for most of the crews to get out, or didn't go up at all.

The typical losses per vehicle knocked out were 1/2 of one man KIA, and 2 men WIA. Understand, some of those are getting wounded or killed without the vehicle being lost (including exposed crew with hatches open, time outside of the vehicle an unexpectedly being shelled, etc). So the losses per actual field KO olf a tank are even lower than that - as an average. The mental image of most tanks that are hit being total KOs with everyone dead - or even half of them, that being the case - is just wrong, empirically. Not how it happened.

I also note that particularly for the infantry (including armored infantry in US terms, the infantry of armored divisions), the high ratio of wounded to killed was a vitally important factor in morale and willingness to risk the dangers of combat. The loss turnover of the infantry forces was quite high. The divisions in action the longest turned over their infantry strength at least once, while the later arrivals had battle losses around half their total force at least (other than those entering action only very late). But the men did not look on that as a death sentence. They expected to be wounded, but for only the unlucky to actually die as a result. (Too many did, of course, as a human matter. Just saying, the ratio made it bearable to face).