Casualties Wounded to dead

[Battlefront.com]

There's been some good points made about why the ratio is not as "off" as it might appear. The Yellows not counting as WIA is a legacy decision which we probably should revisit because it does skew the results. However, the artificial nature of the game is the single biggest driver:

1. If you ignore your seriously wounded, you get more KIAs than WIAs. In real war tactical combat is impacted by wounded. In real life there aren't magical litter bearers appearing next to a wounded soldier and carrying him off the battlefield. The immediate tactical elements are the "1st responders". And if they are doing that they aren't fighting. CM simulates this ONLY to the extent the player allows it to happen. Which ties into the bigger point...

2. Players push their units harder, take more risks, and accept higher casualties without changing their plans FAR more than in real life. Even when players attempt to mimic more-or-less realistic tactics (i.e. not Banzai charging because there's 5 minutes left of play) they are still pushing the limits of plausibility. This is a standard problem with all wargames that can only be mitigated through ruthless umpiring (in whatever form it takes).

3. Let's not forget that battle statistics are only as good as the numbers being gathered. Historically I would say the forces which are more likely to break from 1:3 ratio are those least likely to either have, or at least wish to share, reasonably accurate statistics.

4. Scale does matter. Yes, averages for tactical through strategic do seem to run similar ratios. But at the tactical level you are MUCH more likely to get major statistical variations because there is nothing to average against. For example, I remember reading a 1st hand account of a US Rifle Platoon that suffered about 95% casualties within a few minutes (it was used as an example of poor junior level leadership skills). How many were KIA vs. WIA? The 2 survivors had no idea because they were concerned about not being a either statistic. My guess is the ratio was massively on the KIA side for that given situation.

5. What is a battle? In CM it is 1-2 hours of combat that simulates pretty much only the tip of the spear contact. How long was Goose Greene? Gettysburg? More than 1-2 hours Which means those statistics are averages of more than a few CM style engagements. I think everybody can agree that 1 hour of Gettysburg, chosen at random, would not necessarily exactly mimic the statistics drawn from another random hour of Gettysburg. Which means, by definition, one hour had more KIAs than WIAs than a different hour. Which means it is statistically impossible to look at Goose Green, Gettysburg, or any other larger battle and compare it to a single Combat Mission battle.

An interesting (but still highly flawed) method of comparison would be to find out roughly how many tactical engagements there were in a given larger, historical battle. Then set out to play that many battles and see what you came up with for an average. I say it's still highly flawed because you really need to know the nature of each of those battles AND compensate for all the artificial problems of it being a "game" as I mentioned above.

Even if you have objectively umpired games that closely mimic every engagement within a specific battle, you're still faced with non-CM like battle casualties. Battles tend to ebb and flow, often with many hours or days of non-CM like combat when forces aren't directly shooting into the whites of each others' eyes. Instead they try to pepper the other guy with artillery, air strikes, minefields, etc. The bigger the scope of battle, the more these other activities, cumulatively, are responsible for casualties. They are also more likely to produce wounded than killed. Not only because of the nature of their the attack but also because soldiers wounded in the rear are more likely to survive because they are in the rear.

Think about it this way. Three suicide bombers attack a fortified base. On the bomber side the casualty is 100%, which means the ratio is 3:0 KIA:WIA. The defender casualties are, what? Can you safely say they are 1:3? Doesn't it depend on how many were in proximity to the detonations? Or how many actually detonated? Or if there were things like blast walls between the detonation spot and defenders? Did any of the bombers detonate within a closed environment, or was it just outside? How well constructed were the vests? Oh my, but do the variables start to add up

I bring up this simplistic example because a CM battle is very, very, very much like this. 105mm Howitzer Shermans handled by a competent player are going to achieve a lot more KIAs (proportionally) than if he had Stuarts. Or if the German player is the AI or a massively good player.

So what exactly is the good of taking statistical averages, from cherry picked battles, and compare them to any one specific randomly selected Combat Mission battle? Given all the major flaws in statistical relevance (see above points), not much IMHO. At best it can show if there's something wildly out of touch with reality. Personally, I'd be FAR more worried about internal factors being off if the casualty ratio was significantly higher on the WIA side of things. Given all the artificial constraints, this would indicate big problems with our lethality modeling. Lethality modeling should be based on quantifiable effects, not select amalgamated historical averages.

At one point I was quite enamored with Dupuy's "Quantified Judgement Model" (QJM). But after spending 14 years doing research and making simulations... I don't believe it is possible to reliably predict X factor (with X = outcome, rate of advance, ratio of casualties, etc.) for any one individual tactical engagement based on numbers alone. The QJM was a sustained effort to prove the opposite, and it failed.

A long winded way of saying "I don't think there's anything significant to fix, except maybe the players. And players don't want to be fixed, so that's that"

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

A detailed example of pushing a unit harder in game than in real life...

In real life if a 9 man Rifle Squad took 0 KIA and 3 WIA from a mortar round it might be out of the rest of the fight. Or assume a defensive posture. Or be withdrawn, amalgamated into another unit with casualties, and moved forward again a bit later on.

In CM how many players cancel their orders for a Squad that's taken 3 WIA casualties? I'm looking around (virtually, of course) and I don't see many hands raised So what happens next?

In real life the casualty rate would stand 0:3 for that unit. In the game the player moves the Squad into more harm's way. Maybe it takes 1 KIA and 2 more WIA. Now the ratio is 1:5. Hey, that's pretty close to the average! But it shouldn't have happened that way at all! And certainly it wouldn't happen that the real life Squad would continue on it's attack with 3 men effective without pausing. And how many players have done this? I see by a show of sheepishly raised hands... yup, pretty much everybody. So then what? And how many are concerned if said remaining 3 guys have their LMG or are just armed with rifles? Yeah, that's what I thought!

The 3 soldiers now are at a statistical disadvantage vs. its historical counter part because its historical counterpart wouldn't have exposed itself to such risk in the first place. So now there's 3 guys, possibly without their Squad's best weapons, trying to do the tasks of 9 men. Cover fire is designed to do what? Reduce the chance of casualties, which is how effective with perhaps 50% or more decrease in suppression capability? How likely is it for an enemy to take out all 3 soldiers with one shot compared to if there were 9 or 6?

This is exactly why units with high casualties (30% or more) tend to avoid further combat for at least the time being. The better units are able to do more sooner, but even veteran units aren't likely to keep fighting the way players push them in CM. And for good reason, since it greatly increases their chances of becoming a statistic. And not to shell fragments, but to bullets and direct, close range HE impacts. The sorts of things which are less likely to leave wounded vs. dead.

Steve

[RockinHarry]

...

This is exactly why units with high casualties (30% or more) tend to avoid further combat for at least the time being. The better units are able to do more sooner, but even veteran units aren't likely to keep fighting the way players push them in CM. And for good reason, since it greatly increases their chances of becoming a statistic. And not to shell fragments, but to bullets and direct, close range HE impacts. The sorts of things which are less likely to leave wounded vs. dead.

Steve

They should rather avoid losses in the first place, instead of combat. I still see too many soldiers die/getting wounded, while reloading weapons without diving to cover first, applying buddy aid while beeing unable to do it from cover (prone) position and other occasions that make me think, even veterans don´t know anything about self preservance.

What´s that "target briefly" worth, if it can´t be combined with a hide command. Target briefly + hide would make for a nice german "Feueruberfall" (concentrated surprise fire), the basic means of low level fire tactics on the battlefield. They then can reload weapons while back in hide or full cover and prepare for next actions.

[Hister]

Very good idea RockingHarry about the target brief and hide command combo but I think this part of the game should do such things automatically due to otherwise too big of a micro-management!

Edit: Thank you Battlefront developer for giving your point of view on the matter. What you said is very relevant and a refreshing inside opinion but as the poster above pointed out some of the things soldier do in-game are pending to be improved in the future right?

I was missing developer comments for quite a long time here on forum - I know you were very busy and taking time answering the forum would take away the time spent on the game but some most critical game-related topics should be commented from you if only with a brief "can't be fixed/will be looked at, etc". It would sooth us players you know!

[Wicky]

What´s that "target briefly" worth, if it can´t be combined with a hide command.

You can do that with a delayed for 15 sec movement order with a hide order at the end

[Battlefront.com]

They should rather avoid losses in the first place, instead of combat. I still see too many soldiers die/getting wounded, while reloading weapons without diving to cover first, applying buddy aid while beeing unable to do it from cover (prone) position and other occasions that make me think, even veterans don´t know anything about self preservance.

Everything is a tradeoff/balance. It's very, very difficult to get the sort of behavior from the TacAI that people expect (rightly, and very often wrongly). Unfortunately, for gamers tend to focus on the 1 in 10 times things go wrong instead of the other way around. Especially those who have a tendency towards micromanagement (i.e. "if I had better control things would be perfect"). Which is to say I don't disagree with there being room for improvement with the TacAI, but I don't think it's a huge source of the issue being discussed.

The primary cause of casualties in CM are players putting their units in the wrong places in the wrong circumstances. Time and time again I see someone say "this battle can't be won. I always get 50 casualties" and a whole bunch piling on with "me too! Fix or dosomefink!". Then some others come on and say "huh... I took 2 casualties and won a Decisive Victory on Iron Man Mode".

Honestly, few of us are as good at this game as we think we should be. Or at least aren't as consistently good as we think we should be. I don't distance myself from that comment

What´s that "target briefly" worth, if it can´t be combined with a hide command. Target briefly + hide would make for a nice german "Feueruberfall" (concentrated surprise fire), the basic means of low level fire tactics on the battlefield. They then can reload weapons while back in hide or full cover and prepare for next actions.

For those who wish to micromanage low level behavior, the tools are there. Unfortunately there is only so many different ways we make them work without getting into problems of some sort or another.

Steve

[RT North Dakota]

However, the artificial nature of the game is the single biggest driver:

Strongly concur. My experience is that H2H battle for a given formation size tends to be extremely bloody affairs, far more so than in real life.

My interest in the WIA:KIA ratio is purely because CMBN does model most things really well. Certainly well enough to gel with any other real world simulation system.

Broadly speaking, the game adheres to the basics of combined arms tactical doctrine extremely well, which is why the disparity in casualty data peaked by interest.

[Childress]

The argument seems to be: when does the game take the unit away from the player? Those who request Suppression are really asking for more inaccessible units. Steve's saying: go ahead and send that wavering, depleted platoon into the fray. If the KIAs mount up you have no one to blame but yourself.

[YankeeDog]

The argument seems to be: when does the game take the unit away from the player? Those who request Suppression are really asking for more inaccessible units. Steve's saying: go ahead and send that wavering, depleted platoon into the fray. If the KIAs mount up you have no one to blame but yourself.

Indeed. Related to this is the fact that while individual soldier routing & surrender is reasonably well modeled in CMBN, the "group surrender" of entire squads, platoons, and even higher formations as a unit is not, really.

To give an example, consider a platoon that has taken significant casualties and is now surrounded by superior forces; a platoon that is in an absolutely untenable position.

IRL, a platoon commander in this situation might decide to order his platoon to surrender as a unit to avoid further casualties. Whether or not a junior officer would decide to surrender rather than fight to the last breath depends on a lot of factors. But in the historical records, you don't have to look too hard to find incidents of entire platoons and even companies surrendering when faced with a tactically impossible situation.

In CMBN, though, you pretty much always have to press home the attack against a cut-off and attritted enemy unit. After beating a platoon down to the point it is at 20% strength or so, you may be able to get a few of the survivors to surrender on an individual basis, but you will never see a platoon at, say, 50% casualties and no hope of withdrawal raise a white flag as a group. You collect surrenders in CMx2 in ones and twos, never in groups of a dozen or more.

I think the lack of any "group surrender" modeling does certainly increase the overall casualty count, and probably skews the KIA/WIA ratio as well, as finishing off attritted & suppressed positions almost always involves (a) blowing them up with big direct-fire HE, and/or ( closing the range and finishing them off at very short range with gunfire and grenades. These are exactly the types of casualty incidents that are more likely to be KIA, rather than WIA.

I don't really see an easy way to "fix" this issue. Modeling "group surrender" would be extremely difficult as the game would have to somehow take into account the unit's awareness of the overall tactical situation -- e.g., does the unit "think" it has a viable route of withdrawal? Does it "know" of any friendly units nearby that might be able to rescue it? And in any event, even if realistically modeled, I suspect most players would not like it if a whole platoon in their force suddenly raised the white flag.

Picking up from some of Steve's comments, I think the only practical way to model this sort of thing would be to add a function to the game allowing a human "umpire" to observe the battle and decide things like when certain units have taken enough of a beating to surrender en masse. I could see an umpire feature set being added if the game ever gets picked up as a training tool for use by some military somewhere, but as long as the game is being produced only for the civilian market, I doubt we'll ever see something like this.

[RT North Dakota]

I don't really see an easy way to "fix" this issue. Modeling "group surrender" would be extremely difficult as the game would have to somehow take into account the unit's awareness of the overall tactical situation -- e.g., does the unit "think" it has a viable route of withdrawal? Does it "know" of any friendly units nearby that might be able to rescue it? And in any event, even if realistically modeled, I suspect most players would not like it if a whole platoon in their force suddenly raised the white flag.

IIRC CMx1 as in CMAK had a very good surrender model. If you surrounded a unit you got very high numbers of captured.

It also seemed to produce a more viable ratio of KIA:WIA.

What's changed?

[Childress]

I don't really see an easy way to "fix" this issue. Modeling "group surrender" would be extremely difficult as the game would have to somehow take into account the unit's awareness of the overall tactical situation -- e.g., does the unit "think" it has a viable route of withdrawal? Does it "know" of any friendly units nearby that might be able to rescue it?

Good points, YD. A proper mass surrender routine would require a super computer or the hiring of a programmer proficient in fuzzy logic. I seem to recall CM1 stopping a scenario if the losses exceeded a given threshold on one side. Not so in CM2. (I think)

[Chainsaw]

well, we do have some kind of "surrender all" function. When a scenario ends early because you beat the living **** out of the AI. That's when you have beaten them so good so they realize there is no point in continue fighting.

Funny enough, most people complains over that and most scenario creators adds hidden reinforcements to prevent that from happening so the player gets to clean up the enemy before scenario ends. (Im one of them who prefer to clean up instead of early surrender)

[YankeeDog]

IIRC CMx1 as in CMAK had a very good surrender model. If you surrounded a unit you got very high numbers of captured.

It also seemed to produce a more viable ratio of KIA:WIA.

What's changed?

It's been a long time since I played a CMx1 game, but I don't recall getting significantly larger numbers of surrendered in CMx1 games as compared CMx2 games. Maybe slightly, but not by a lot.

But I'll be the first one to admit that my memory of what happened in CMx1 games I played 4+ years ago is not very reliable. Assuming there is a difference, I suspect the source lies in the CMx1's abstract unit modeling vs. CMx2's individual soldier modeling. Surviving members of a squad at 50% casualties in CMx1 surrender as a group because they have to - as far as the game is concerned, the squad is a single entity. But CMx2 sees this same unit as 4-6 individual (albeit related) soldiers, each which makes the decision to surrender individually.

One thing that *might* help make surrendering somewhat more (realistically) common in CMx2 would be to make the surrender routine somewhat "contagious". That is, when one soldier of a unit decides to surrender, this should increase the chance of other nearby soldiers in same squad or platoon also surrendering, even if they're not immediately under fire. Some sort of routine to this effect may already be in the game, but if it is, the effect seems to be very slight and IMHO could be turned up a bit.

[JasonC]

"Those who request Suppression are really asking for more inaccessible units."

Yes indeed, but I am asking for them on both sides of the field, not just mine.

"go ahead and send that wavering, depleted platoon into the fray. If the KIAs mount up you have no one to blame but yourself."

If my opponent does it, and the game doesn't penalize him in VPs, he gets a lopsided end of game screen and more out of his men that could actually be asked of them historically (that they'd actually do). If I run sooner to mimic realistic breakage, it is unilateral disarmament.

The game thus sets unrealistic capabilities and incentives, and players respond to those capabilities and incentives. The game isn't made more realistic or historical because there is a human player in the loop that the designers choose to ignore.

I get that Battlefront doesn't see it as something they want to change. Their call, obviously. I have better options...

[YankeeDog]

well, we do have some kind of "surrender all" function. When a scenario ends early because you beat the living **** out of the AI. That's when you have beaten them so good so they realize there is no point in continue fighting.

Yes, but the AI giving up the entire battle once its entire force has been thoroughly trounced is a little different. I was talking about the chance of, e.g., an certain platoon in a Company or Battalion-sized engagement deciding to give up as a unit because it is cut off and has little chance of further affecting the course of the battle. This sort of thing definitely happened IRL, but does not in CM.

[Childress]

I get that Battlefront doesn't see it as something they want to change. Their call, obviously. I have better options...

I admire your spunk!

I believe a case can be built for both approaches.

[RT North Dakota]

Actually there is not much debate about the conditions that cause folks to surrender. I would have thought the logic process of that was fairly easy to model, bearing in mind the morale model that is already in use.

[YankeeDog]

Actually there is not much debate about the conditions that cause folks to surrender. I would have thought the logic process of that was fairly easy to model, bearing in mind the morale model that is already in use.

Individual human behavior is notoriously difficult to create computer models for. Great strides have been made in the last couple of decades with so-called "fuzzy logic" routines, etc. but this is still the sort of thing that eggheads at MIT and the like spend years working on.

Knowing the "conditions that cause folks to surrender." is one thing. Creating computer code that can elegantly and efficiently model this in real time, over a broad range of possible circumstances, is quite another.

[RT North Dakota]

Individual human behavior is notoriously difficult to create computer models for. Great strides have been made in the last couple of decades with so-called "fuzzy logic" routines, etc. but this is still the sort of thing that eggheads at MIT and the like spend years working on.

Knowing the "conditions that cause folks to surrender." is one thing. Creating computer code that can elegantly and efficiently model this in real time, over a broad range of possible circumstances, is quite another.

It's a simulation, so it is a model that approximates to reality. I would suggest that factors associated with suppression, proximity of loss and having no secure line of retreat would all produce pretty sound and realistic grounds for surrender. As I said before it seems to me that a lot of basic factors that would feed into that have already been modelled.

[Childress]

Mass surrenders are especially common when a 1st world citizen army colliides with a 3rd world military. You get white flags by the hecatomb. Herding captives impact operations significantly. That dimension was lacking in CMSF where it was especially needed. But we can agree that capitulations en masse, being complex and situational, are really, really hard to program.

BF might consider re-introducing Routing routines. Routing is present in the manual as a feature, but not implemented. A good way to remove shaken, low experience, low motivated troops from the player's control and get them off the chess board.

[Lanzfeld]

They should rather avoid losses in the first place, instead of combat. I still see too many soldiers die/getting wounded, while reloading weapons without diving to cover first, applying buddy aid while beeing unable to do it from cover (prone) position and other occasions that make me think, even veterans don´t know anything about self preservance.

What´s that "target briefly" worth, if it can´t be combined with a hide command. Target briefly + hide would make for a nice german "Feueruberfall" (concentrated surprise fire), the basic means of low level fire tactics on the battlefield. They then can reload weapons while back in hide or full cover and prepare for next actions.

I have to agree that this is an EXCELLENT idea. Steve? You still here?

[thejetset]

If you do buddy aid to 100% of your soldiers, it yields about a 3:1 WIA:KIA ratio.

The trick is to be on the side that is advancing and not retreating.

I just wrapped up a PBEM where I had the fortune to attend to all of my soldiers that were hit. End result was 7 WIA and 2 KIA.

This seems pretty reasonable to me. .... And if not, just adjust the figures in your head.

[Battlefront.com]

CMx1 had Global Morale. This was basically totaling up the morale states of individual units to determine, overall, roughly how well the battle was going. There was a bit more to it than that, however that's what it boils down to. This factor was then used, amongst others, to determine if a unit surrendered. It was always on a unit by unit basis, never a coordinated, logic based "mass surrender" function.

As YankeeDog pointed out, it's a piece of cake to describe the basic logic for surrendering, it's extremely difficult to translate that into code. Well, if you want it to be an overall improvement to the realism element of the game. Because I can tell you right now, the most likely outcome of a mass surrender logic system is one entire side folding up shop when theoretically there could be a good fight left to play out.

Here's where we get into the "is this a game or a simulation?" dilemma. If we did things completely realistically in CMSF, for example, the player might start 100 battles and only actually engage the enemy in a meaningful way a couple of times. And even then it would be over quickly. Why? Because, realistically:

1. The enemy wouldn't even show up to fight in the first place.

2. Would "melt away" or surrender as soon as the shooting started.

3. Would fight so ineffectively/uncoordinated that it would be akin to shooting fish in small buckets.

So this is definitely a "be careful what you ask for" sort of proposition. Even militaries don't want these sorts of simulations for training because, well, better to train for worst case and experience best case than the other way around.

CMx2 has Global Morale as well, though we decided not to show it since commanders wouldn't have that info. Players should instead "feel" if their forces have had enough.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

If my opponent does it, and the game doesn't penalize him in VPs, he gets a lopsided end of game screen and more out of his men that could actually be asked of them historically (that they'd actually do).

The game penalizes a side based on the Victory Conditions set forth by the scenario designer. If the scenario designer doesn't want casualties to count for much, he can do that. If he wants a tiny bit of casualties to determine if it's even possible to win AT ALL, he can do that too. I played plenty of CMSF battles where only a handful of casualties would cost me victory.

I get that Battlefront doesn't see it as something they want to change. Their call, obviously.

Yup, we don't want to change the control and flexibility scenario designers haven and instead impose upon them draconian, hyper realistic conditions which would remove diversity and overall realism. It is our call and I'm confident that the vast majority of CM customers, hardcore grogs and gamers alike, are supportive in the way we have approached things.

I have better options...

Heh. Funny

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

I have to agree that this is an EXCELLENT idea. Steve? You still here?

No can do. Hide is a state which is incompatible with any other action. You can't BOTH hide AND shoot. It's one or the other. Doesn't matter if you're talking Target, Target Briefly, etc.

Having said that, I do wish we could implement a dedicated Ambush Command. This would have Hide as the default and an Arc as a trigger for opening fire, then be accepting of additional Commands. For example, Ambush + Hide means after there is no enemy in the Arc, go back to Hiding. Or Ambush + move back 50m means engaging the enemy until the Arc is clear and then relocate.

Obviously people can think up with hundreds of new Commands and Command combos. I mean on top of the hundreds you've already suggested over the years But at the end of the day we have to code, test, and support all of these. At the end of the day you guys need a reasonable cap on the amount of stuff to manage (even if you don't think you do). It's always a balancing act.

As 2.0 demonstrates, we are willing to expand the Command offerings (Target Briefly). We simply need to be very cautious.

Steve