Source for real world small action casualty rates

[agusto]

Haha. If i think of all the virtual deaths i ve caused in computergames over the years since i ve started playing video games, i have probably ereased mankind at least several hundered times . Probably even several thousand times .

[Vark]

If you want real examples of the response to being under fire, there are thousands of hours of HD footage from the current war zones that show it. Academic books have their uses, but now we have access to a vast amount of primary source material, which can be extrapolated to the conflicts we wish to simulate.

Most soldiers, hunker down, if they do fire it's for suppressive fire, and the most often heard comments are. 'I can't see where they are, f*ck what was that? and the ever popular, 'can you see/ whose shooting at us/where it's coming from? Often engagements are under 500m, often far less. After burrowing down, they normally call up support, or occasionally, move tactically to close the range to destroy the enemy.

Question is, does CM simulate this dynamic? Should it simulate this dynamic, given the artificial time constraints of scenarios, often the lack of a bigger picture and more importantly its function as a piece of entertainment?

[JoMac]

Well, Iv'e played the CM:BN & CM:FI Demos for several months now ( played BB & AK for yrs ), and will eventually get the full CD versions @ 2.0 ( along with the rest of the WWII CMx2 series as they appear ). Like others, I also want to try and play CM as realistically as possible.

I think we can all agree for the most part that there are really two types of Levels in play here that cause casualties to vary in RL.

-Static: Troops on a broader front slowely grinding away to reach an overall objective. This will generallly cause lower casutalites, say up to 10%, but over a longer period of time ( weeks ).

-Breakthrough: Troops on a Narrow front attempting a quick breakthrough. This will generally cause higher casualties, say up to 25% and at a shorter amount of time ( hours, Days ). Also, if an attempted breakthrough is successful ( attacking an already weak enemy position ), then it will cause that 25% be toward the enemy more so, then upon yourself.

So, how can we translate that in CM Terms...

Well, some here simply say that the "CM Timescale is Compressed" for gameplay purposes which justifies the high casualty rates.

I for one ( like others ) want a more Realistic "Real-Time" approach to reduced casualty rates, and find myself leading towards these "Work Around" approachs mentioned by JasonC and others ( Green, Casualty Tolerences, Dynamic Flags, Exit Zones, etc ).

Now, in saying the above, I guarentee that my causualties will still be much higher then in RL, but maybe only by 2 fold...I can live with that.

As soon as I purchase CM:BN ( other titles later ) I would like to work with others in the CM Community ( Advice, House Rules, H2H PBEM Opponents, Scenario Design, etc ) who seek the same "Work Around" approach....War&Peace, this is also directed to you if interested in the above.

Joe

[JonS]

Here's an example:

March 1941, in the mountains of Albania. An Italian force of two corps loses 25,000 casualties in 6 days. Taking the ever popular (and highly misleading) averages, that's almost 700 casualties per battalion per day.

Given the opportunity, real commanders can be every bit as incompetent and heedless of their men's lives as a typical CM commander is.

[womble]

Here's an example:

March 1941, in the mountains of Albania. An Italian force of two corps loses 25,000 casualties in 6 days. Taking the ever popular (and highly misleading) averages, that's almost 700 casualties per battalion per day.

Over 6 days, that's 4200 casualties per battalion... Is that even possible? I know Italian squads are large, but their platoons aren't that much bigger than US ones, and their formations stack in pairs rather than threes, at many levels... 4200 casualties per regiment over the week (Sunday being a rest day in all wars, of course, with casualties only inflicted by overindulgence in Sunday lunch ), maybe? (2 Regiments per Division, 2 Divisions per Corps, 2 Corps would give 8 Regiments, so 3300 per Regiment over the whole debacle, 550 per day... Which of the assumptions and math are faulty?

Given the opportunity, real commanders can be every bit as incompetent and heedless of their men's lives as a typical CM commander is.

Regardless of exactly how the numbers pan out, the example remains a good support for this assertion.

[JonS]

Is that even possible?

Heh. I wondered the same thing. However it works out, it was a fiasco of the first order. (Example taken from the chapter on the Italian Armed Forces in Millett & Murray (eds), Military Effectiveness, vol. 3, The Second World War, p.141)

(whoops, I made a mistake: 25,000 cas / 6 days / 6 divisions / 6 battalions = 115 per bn per day on average, but AIUI the Italians had more than six divisions. But as mentioned, for the purposes of this thread averages are grossly misleading.)

[warrenpeace]

Ok, I think I have found a info source that is a perfect example of the question that I started the thread with.

http://www.coulthart.com/134/

The site contains information about the 134th regiment of the 35th infantry division. This regiment first saw action in the St Lo campaign in Normandy. Of particular relevance for this discussion are the morning reports which are broken down by company (only A, B, C are available). I'm still looking at these, but the data seems quite interesting.

[JasonC]

What is an Italian casualty?

An Italian without a rifle, with his hands in the air.

What is an Italian wounded in action casualty?

That's when the dropped rifle fell on his foot.

What is an Italian KIA?

When he actually loaded the rifle, and it went off as he dropped it.

[Childress]

Funnily enough, BFC aqree with you, and a degree of nerfing to offset the clumping caused by action spots has been in the game since Day 1.

Right. Also extant WW2 photos show considerable clumping. One thing the photos don't support are the existence of 'formations' - in any elaborate sense.

In my opinion the number one factor in casualty inflation is the absence of any mass surrender mechanic. One recognizes how thorny this would be to code but, in reality, entire platoons and higher were known to raise the white flag in dire situations.

[Michael Emrys]

Right. Also extant WW2 photos show considerable clumping. One thing the photos don't support are the existence of 'formations' - in any elaborate sense.

In my opinion the number one factor in casualty inflation is the absence of any mass surrender mechanic. One recognizes how thorny this would be to code but, in reality, entire platoons and higher were known to raise the white flag in dire situations.

I think every part of that statement is true. I don't know about the difficulty of coding mass surrenders, I imagine it would of course involve some work, but more than a number of other things that will probably appear in due time?

Michael

[Childress]

. I don't know about the difficulty of coding mass surrenders...

Fuzzy logic? As Tony Soprano would say, fugheddaboutit.

[JonS]

I'm going to quote something I wrote on this topic two and a half years ago. Funnily enough it was responding to Mike Emrys, who wanted to have battles end early once some casualty threshold had been reached. My comments then are just as relevant now.

Think carefully about what you just asked for there. If that were part of the game, this AAR Battle would have probably been over at the 20-25 minute mark. The fight for Hill 144 would never have happened. The fight between the JgPz and the Shermans would never have happened. The set up and battle - brief as it was - for la Campagne would never have happened. Elvis would never have had to come up with a new plan on the fly. I would never have needed bother move my reserves about. The duel between the 50mm and the Sherman would never have happened. The MG suppression of the infantry moving up the centre would have been utterly irrelevant. The sniper's influence on the battle would have been negligible. Neither of us would have learnt a darned thing about improvisation and making do and changing plans.

None of those things - which individually were handled quite realistically - would have happened because the battle would have ended on the forward slopes of Hill 154.

I, for one, am profoundly glad that the battle did not end there.

There is nothing, except yourself, preventing you from simming battles and the effects of casualties anyway you want. There are even mechanisms already in the game to savagely punish players who're careless with their men's lives, and other mechanisms already in the game to make troops less likely to do our incompetent bidding. You can also make a judgement call at any time to cease the slaughter and ceasefire or surrender. Mass surrender is already in the game. You don't have to keep fighting.

If you want to play that way, go right ahead. The only thing stopping you is your own inertia.

IMO you will be short changing yourself a LOT. I think that games of CM played that way would typically end after the first large contact, and everything that could have happened in the game from that point onwards would be denied you. You'll never have to try and herd cats to hold a collapsing position together. You'll never have to change gears and come up with a new plan on the fly. You'll never have to do any of the improvisational stuff that makes CM so much fun. Either you'll win the first big contact and thus the game, or lose both. Either way the game will be over.

Some people will undoubtedly see value and fun in that, and if that's you I say: go for it! Don't wait - do it now, because you already have amply sufficient tools to play that way.

[Erwin]

Those are good points. I think the main issue with the CM2 Victory Calculation System is that they often make no sense. I have had big wins recorded by the game system in battles that I really should have lost due to massive losses, and have lost games, where every objective has been met and I have no ideas what else one was supposed to do. In the end one usually has to make a subjective judgement of whether you did well or not regardless of what the game system tells you.

I think the issue is that often designers have not calculated a good balance of penalty points for friendly casualties vs Victory Points for objectives or enemy casualties. This calculation is clearly rather complicated, much more so than in CM1, in which the victory/loss levels usually made sense.

[Childress]

. Mass surrender is already in the game. You don't have to keep fighting.

Yeah, then it's over. I submit that it wasn't uncommon to see entire platoons surrendering, even within the scale of a CM-sized battle. And the battle continued. Mind, it's understandable that, aside from the programming challenges, BF hesitates to remove gaping chunks of assets from the player's control. It's a game, after all.

In the scenario Primosole Bridge the player attrits the Italians down to the last condottieri. What actually occurred was that the bulk of that force surrendered and the British paras had to devote precious time and resources to processing POWs. The entertainment value would be nugatory.

[JonS]

I have had big wins recorded by the game system in battles that I really should have lost due to massive losses, and have lost games, where every objective has been met and I have no ideas what else one was supposed to do.

That's mainly a communication problem between the designer and the player, rather than anything to do with mass surrender or other game-killing mechanisms. In most cases the designer will have come up with a points scheme that makes sense, but hasn't communicated the intent or specifics of the scheme very well. That leaves the player baffled as to what they're trying to do, so they overlay the situation with their own logic, which can easily be at odds with what the designer intended.

[JonS]

Yeah, then it's over.

Well ... yeah. That's the point. That's why people surrender.

I submit that it wasn't uncommon to see entire platoons surrendering, even within the scale of a CM-sized battle.

I disagree. Platoons surrendering wasn't all that uncommon, but not in the midst of a CM battle.

[Macisle]

I'm going to quote something I wrote on this topic two and a half years ago. Funnily enough it was responding to Mike Emrys, who wanted to have battles end early once some casualty threshold had been reached. My comments then are just as relevant now.

There is nothing, except yourself, preventing you from simming battles and the effects of casualties anyway you want. There are even mechanisms already in the game to savagely punish players who're careless with their men's lives, and other mechanisms already in the game to make troops less likely to do our incompetent bidding. You can also make a judgement call at any time to cease the slaughter and ceasefire or surrender. Mass surrender is already in the game. You don't have to keep fighting.

If you want to play that way, go right ahead. The only thing stopping you is your own inertia.

IMO you will be short changing yourself a LOT. I think that games of CM played that way would typically end after the first large contact, and everything that could have happened in the game from that point onwards would be denied you. You'll never have to try and herd cats to hold a collapsing position together. You'll never have to change gears and come up with a new plan on the fly. You'll never have to do any of the improvisational stuff that makes CM so much fun. Either you'll win the first big contact and thus the game, or lose both. Either way the game will be over.

Some people will undoubtedly see value and fun in that, and if that's you I say: go for it! Don't wait - do it now, because you already have amply sufficient tools to play that way.

Big +1. The tools are already there, if you want to push things in that direction. However, for most players, the results would be major fun-kill for the game.

I'm actually dealing with using some of these tools now, as I need to update my scenario to add casualty penalties for the attacker. But to add TRULY realistic casualty penalties would mean the scenario ends the first time the attacker gets a bloody nose. That equals no fun. So, the casualty points need to hurt enough to have impact, while still allowing the attacker to press forward.

[womble]

Those are good points. I think the main issue with the CM2 Victory Calculation System is that they often make no sense. I have had big wins recorded by the game system in battles that I really should have lost due to massive losses...

As JonS said, this is about design, or communication of the designer's intent. Most of the scenarios I've played which had a "force preservation" objective didn't make the preservation of your force sufficiently punitive to warrant prioritising that objective over taking the big fat terrain objective at the back regardless of casualties.

A sliding scale of force preservation VP would go some way to ameliorating this, since the current "threshold" determination simply says "if this VC has less VP allocated to it than a terrain VC, ignore it in favour of grabbing terrain". If the penalty ramped up at higher casualty rates, pushing harder would become less attractive.

And of course QBs don't have any force preservation VCs.

[JasonC]

JonS - I have now finished "A Hard Way to Make War". Overall I must say I was disappointed, it is not in my opinion a good history. It is a very conventional history reporting very conventional views of the campaign at a high level, with a couple of minor, tacked on sections lifted from "lessons learned" documents that are of slightly greater interest, if one has never seen those before.

As an example of how conventional, everything from the fall of Rome to the end of the war is covered in 14 pages. Once major, whole-war narrative focus shifts off the theater, time ends, in other words. The Polish fight for Mount Cassino rates one short sentence. Meanwhile, the strategic discussions before the Sicily landing rates 3 times the space of the last year of the war. Why? Because politically important muckety mucks disagreed on strategy at that point, so it was journalist level news.

Overall I find the blunt assessment of the whole campaign by Fuller in one phrase, quoted at the end, a superior history of the campaign than the whole of this book.

There is a studied lack of analytic clarity throughout. As an example, the final lessons learned section gives a detailed description of a one time achievement in air ground coordination in the spring of 1945, without managing to convey that this was entirely exceptional, new, and utterly unimportant for the actual conduct of the campaign, which was over at that point. It is of interest only from a standpoint of the evolution of military technique past the endpoint of the war - "we once pulled off coordination this close, long after it could possibly matter for anything in WW II".

As a similar example, the strength matchups are always done by counting divisions, based on secondary reporting. (And loose secondary reporting at that, e.g. counting German FJ divisions as "mobile" formations, when they were pure infantry, if higher quality than most infantry). Occasional anecdotes refer to units being below strength, usually in outlier form "some battalions were down to X men". No actual accounting of strength or how it rose or fell through the fighting, or why.

It tries to conclude at the end that the Germans did not inflict greater losses on the Allies than they suffered by quoting a whole war figure that is 50% POWs in the case of the Germans, with those concentrated in 1945, right at the end. For the rest of the fighting the loss rates ran 3 to 2 against the Allies, but he never mentions it, and indeed cites the whole war figure as evidence that the Allies inflicted greater loss on the Germans.

Throughout, the author is concerned to cover the backside of prominent commanders, and the British ones especially. Power corrupts history writing, and this history suffers from the flattery of the powerful in spades.

If one knew literally nothing about the campaign, the bare outline of the narrative would useful as an overview, if a highly conventional one. That is about the best that can be said for the main thrust of the work.

There are only two bright spots beyond that basic tedium. One, his coverage of the air fighting is OK, and particularly the numbers and statistics of its early phases, recording the defeat of the Axis air arm in the Med. Against this, his reports on what air superiority actually did for the Allies once achieved, is air force press release stuff, long on inputs and short on outcomes.

And two, the aforementioned lessons learned sections report some believable tactical detail and some important points, if a bit repetitively. Nothing you could not get and surpass by reading some of the primary source lessons learned material, but better than nothing on that score.

Those looking for a fair or balanced assessment of the campaign, or what its actual tactical challenges were and how well or poorly those were met, will have to look elsewhere, in my opinion.

[JonS]

Fair enough. I've mentioned elsewhere that the proportions dedicated to various phases of the campaign are heavily frontloaded, and that I would have liked to have seen more on the campaign north of Rome. But, on the other hand, his basic thesis had already been shown by Rome, and the rest of the campaign was largely reaping the benefits of learning achieved up to that point. Allocating the same number of pages to the last year of the war as Sicily got would have had some interesting bits (there were some interesting operations, and some innovative techniques developed), but it would have been very repetitive.

It is no surprise that Gooderson spends more time on the British, since it was they who did the heavy lifting in Italy.

It tries to conclude ...

That's not really true. That is a small component of his wider point that the campaign in Italy forced the Germans to commit significant forces to that theatre, forces that could have been really useful in Russia and/or France. Furthermore, specifically on the casualties, he makes the very modest assertion that they were "fairly balanced" (fairly in the sense of 'reasonably well'), which is true. Even if we take the absurd position that every single German 'missing' casualty was due to becoming a PW on 6 May 45, then the Allied and Axis casualties are still "fairly balanced". Granted, though, if you're part of the simple-minded crowd that dogmatically and pigheadedly believes that the Allies were just wasting their time in the Med, then the actual conclusions he makes aren't likely to be very welcome. In that case it'd be more fun, and intellectually comfortable, to nitpick strawmen.

It is small surprise that the details found in the book can also be found in various primary sources. If they couldn't then the book would be fiction, or the kind of pseudo-non-fiction which really only appeals to Kettlerian readers. The whole point of a good non-fiction book is that it summarises, analyses and contextualises those disparate details into a coherent narrative with definite conclusions.

[JasonC]

"his wider point that the campaign in Italy forced the Germans to commit significant forces to that theatre, forces that could have been really useful in Russia and/or France"

Like I said, he is trying to cover the backsides of various higher ups. But he basically fails to do so.

Tunisia was a major victory and the Germans dumb to commit forces there.

Sicily was cheap and fast, and didn't harm anything significant for the Allied time-table, and helped push Italy to the brink of surrender.

Salerno was momentum beyond that, and barely justified as a way to collect the ripe fall of Italy out of the war. The side effect of some southern Italy airfields was useful, though only marginally so.

But basically the entire campaign after that was a serious waste of Allied resources in an inessential side-show theater.

The Germans would have had to garrison both the south and the north, as well as the Balkans, from then on - regardless of what the Allies did from that point on.

That the Allies committed major resources after that to taking Rome and then lesser ones to pressing north late in the war, was just theater momentum plus higher ups trying to vindicate past command decisions that had not worked out as they envisioned.

If the German decision to stand in southern Italy could have been made as stupid a mistake as sending major forces to Tunisia, then there might have been some point in the Italian campaign after the fall of 1943. But the only attempt made in the direction was a shoestring gamble not pressed (Anzio), and everything done to save it after that failed, was just good money thrown after bad.

That basic strategic stuff aside, Allied tactics in Italy were also remarkably poor. He alludes to it at times when he praises the effectiveness of trained mountain troops in Italy - but then he gave the French mountain forces maybe 3 paragraphs in the whole book. 10th Mountain he rightly praises for its ability but it was too late to matter.

His discussion of firepower tactics is WW I stuff and it was very inefficient on the attack in Italy. Better when the Germans were accommodating enough to attack into it.

He also suffers from the typical ground control focus - measuring success in which way the front moves and how far, not by strategic accomplishments or losses inflicted; firepower arms subordinated to maneuver for that ground control purposes - basically everything stupid about how the Allies fought the campaign, he signs off on as though it were obvious military truth (it isn't, even remotely). JFC Fuller's verdict is much more to the point, and he pretends not to understand it.

The bottom line on the campaign was that is was a sideshow, indecisive, and was poorly conducted on the Allied side. You can read his entire history and come away with the opposite impression on every one of those points, simply because he is blowing sunshine up the backside of his own army's commanders.

That is not what I call good history.

Anyway, you asked what I thought of it, now you know. I am still happy for the recommendation and glad I read it - I just wouldn't cite it as the definitive history of the campaign.

[Childress]

I disagree. Platoons surrendering wasn't all that uncommon, but not in the midst of a CM battle.

True. A platoon- 30+ men- that surrenders would be a traumatic event for all but the most humongous CM engagements. But not a squad. Presently you seen one, two, 'maybe' three guys getting down on their knees in situations deemed hopeless. 9-12 soldiers , that's another story. Painful to the owner, but you'd see more plausible casualty* results at battle's end. And throw in some AWOLs who simply bugged out.

*Determining actual K/W stats seems a murky undertaking in CM. Never mind what the final screen says.

[kensal]

I don't agree with the suggestion that the casualty rates suffered in CM battles are necessarily unrealistic compared to the rates suffered in real life in Normandy or that battalions did not suffer more than 50 casualties in one day. On the allied side, most days most battalions may have suffered very limited casualties or not have suffered any casualties at all. However battalions engaged in big set piece battles often suffered very badly on one single day.

As a first point, I think most people are broadly aware that the CM games compress time, so that several hour / day long engagements are played over 1-2 hours of game time. The reason for this is that we don't want to spend 6 months fighting a 6-8 hour game. To do this the game basically loses those parts of a real life battle where soldiers were hunkered down behind a wall or in a ditch for 2 hours without doing anything and waiting to be told what to do or for something to happen.

So a battalion engagement where each side suffers 150 or so casualties in a 1 hour 30 minute game is really a reflection of a fight perhaps lasting 1/2 a day or a whole day.

In the British- Canadian - Polish sector of the beachhead battalions routinely suffered catastrophic casualties in day long engagements. Examples include 7 Royal Hants' attack on Maltot, supported by 4 Dorsets on 10 July and 5 DLCI's fight for Cornwall wood on Hill 112 on the night of 10 July and into 11 July.

British infantry battalions had a TOE of 845 men including HQ elements and support company. Rifle companies had a strength of 122 men.

In Operation Jupiter the 43rd Division appeared to operate a practice of having about 10% of their rifle companies' manpower "left out of battle" as a cadre to reform the battalions in anticipation of catastrophic losses. Accordingly these battalions may have operated 110 man companies or withheld one company each from the engagements. On that basis the rifle strength for each battalion may have been between 360-440 men for the fighting on 10 July, with additional manpower from carrier platoons and HQ elements.

7 Hants' attack on Maltot resulted in 18 officers and 208 other ranks becoming casualties in less than a day. 9th Royal Tank Regiment supported 7 Hants' attack on Maltot and lost 16 tanks during the day and 65 casualties (a quarter of the regiment's loss during the whole war).

5 DCLI's attack on and subsequent defence of Cornwall wood on Hill 112, which lasted a night and a day ended with 75 survivors retreating back to their start lines, with about 320 casualties, including the CO. 7th Royal Tank Regiment supported 5 DCLI's attack on Cornwall wood and suffered similarly, its CO also killed.

I haven't found the casualties for 4 Dorsets but they suffered badly also.

Overall 43rd Division suffered 2,000 casualties in a day and a half. 4th Somerset Light Infantry received 470 replacements the day after Jupiter ended to reform the battalion.

German casualties were also very heavy, particularly in the 9SS PzGr companies counterattacking 5 DCLI over open ground and in the face of the corps and divisional artillery used by the British. One of these companies had 5-6 men left at the end of the battle.

These casualties for a day long engagement were, on occasion, matched by Canadian battalions fighting for the villages around Caen and in Carpiquet.

I recognise that the situation in the American sector was very different - the fighting to expand the beachhead until Cobra was not characterised so much by big set pieces like Epsom and Jupiter. Rather the fighting was characterised by a continuous daily advance through difficult bocage country where the advancing battalions were continually losing men at a steady rate day in day out. In that respect the lower daily average losses quoted earlier in this thread may have rather more relevance.

[Erwin]

So you saying that for certain operations like invasions, casualty rates could be very high. But, what about later day to day combat? I don't know where I got my 10% figure from but I always understood that was an approx. assessment regarding whether a unit was considered unfit for future combat.

In most CM2 game scenarios my internal victory assessment is that I do not deserve a major or decisive battle if I lose 15%-20% or more... maybe tactical at best - regardless of objectives. Otherwise one gets into the mindset of fighting to the last man just to get the final objective.

This of course is why campaigns are far more satisfying as one has to think ahead to the next battles as well as take into account logistics, ammo resupply and reinforcement levels (if any).

I agree that for most games, designers should enact more penalties for friendly casualties to avoid the "fight to the last man" phenomenon.

The other intriguing idea mentioned is to play almost exclusively with Green troops.

[JonS]

So you saying that for certain operations like invasions, casualty rates could be very high. But, what about later day to day combat?

Op EPSOM was later 'day to day' combat. It was over a month after D-Day.

I don't know where I got my 10% figure from but I always understood that was an approx. assessment regarding whether a unit was considered unfit for future combat.

A unit that suffered 10% cas had, literally, been decimated, and that unit probably would be combat ineffective for at least a few hours. But the US and UK both had highly effective replacement streams that were usually able to replace even seemingly horrific casualties within 24-48 hours. And, by dint of repeated practice, units also got used to operating at substantially below authorised strengths for extended periods of time.

kensal; 10% LOB was a carry over from WWI, and was standard practice for CW units throughout WWII. There were various ways of skinning that particular cat, but rather than keeping a whole company out, it was generally applied at an atomic level - so, for example, the platoon commander would be in the battle, but the platoon sgt held out LOB. Same for company OC and 2iC, and there was also a reasonable number of privates held out. The idea being that the LOBs would, in toto, provide a good skeleton structure to rebuild the battalion from should disaster occur (as happened during EPSOM, and to the Canadian Black Watch during Op SPRING, and ...). It was also a way to give guys a break and provided a psychological lifeline - you didn't have to partake in every battle because sometimes, regardless of rank, you'd be LOB. That also meant that CW units at all levels were normally going into battle at least 10% below their TO&E strength, which is something for scenario designers to bear in mind. It was only for really exceptional events - like 6 June, or 17 September, that units went in at or over strength.

The LOBs were supposed to be held well back, out of trouble. Sometimes that didn't quite work out though. The South Africans bollixed it during Op CRUSADER (Nov 41) and had their LOBs right forward with Bde HQ in the Bde Box, where they were overrun during the Totensontag battle.