Source for real world small action casualty rates

[Apocal]

I'm not sure that CM is too off on the casualties, actually...and I don't think that average casualty figures are relevant.

*Every battle* in CM is the most important battle of the war.

There are plenty of unexceptional actions included in CMx2.

It's Team Desobry at Noville and Foy (1st batt./506 PIR took 200+ casualties in a day); it's the 106th ID in the Schnee Eifel; and it's the 26th VG Div. trying to take Bastogne. Across open fields. While being shelled by 105s.

And in all those cases the casualties were lower than they would be in CMx2. Team Desobry in-game would have sustained roughly 75-90% casualties. And you can get those figures from far less motivated forces, mashed together relentless. Unlike real life where attacks almost always broke off when they took thirty percent casualties, very frequently less than that. A whole battalion might attack and take fifteen dead, forty wounded and call off the whole affair as a pointless, bloody endeavor.

The other example: two battalions from the 26th VG Div set in a hypothetical scenario, map size 2km wide and 3km deep, scattered woods leading into the start of suburbs. Opposing them are two platoons of paratroops, five attached machine guns, an off-map 81mm mortar platoon, three wire modules, a module of mixed mines, seven TRPs - then at two minutes in three modules of 105mm howitzers come in along with a module of 155s, followed at the twenty minute mark by a pair of Shermans and an additional two platoons of leg infantry (no heavy weapons attached, to simulate straggler units that were roped into Team Snafu).

The artillery alone will eviscerate the attacking force, inflicting probably a complete battalion's worth of casualties at the minimum. Did that ever happen IRL? Probably, in the extreme outlier end of things. But its a routine occurrence in CMx2, any battle featuring large amounts of responsive artillery means the attackers are not just stonewalled, not just bled white but utterly, totally smashed in the attempt.

Average days, for people in the front lines, are something like: Dig foxholes, hear some trucks moving around, and be shelled by mortars for 30 minutes. There's one casualty when Private Smith gets a piece of shrapnel in his leg and is sent to the field hospital.

Or - not rare - there is an attack, so you march your company to jumping off point...but you can't find it and the attack goes on without you.

Whole companies failing to find their jumping off point and being delayed? Uncommon, but happened often enough. Failing to attack entirely? I'm sure it happened somewhere, at some time, but I can't think off the top of my head of any specific incidences.

[LUCASWILLEN05]

In CMSF using US or NATO forces I have had games where I have taken no losses at all or just a couple of lighty wounded. Other games with similar forces I have taken really significant losses. Some games I have even lost while still acheving a Syrian surrender.

Simliar story with WW2 though losses tend to be higher. If you do the "typical Waffen SS thing" and press your attacks aggressively you are very likely to take higher losses. Nothing ridiculous and withn the boundries of possibility. It really depends on how you play it and how skilled you are.

[Childress]

I'm not sure that CM is too off on the casualties, actually...and I don't think that average casualty figures are relevant.

Agreed, that case can be made. If you disregard CM's end battle breakdown the net number of men hors de combat can be interpreted as plausible: the dead, the wounded, the severely wounded, the walking wounded, the routers, the skulkers and the shell-shocked. But BF needs to get these stats right eventually. If only for the sake of chrome.

[Apocal]

Agreed, that case can be made. If you disregard CM's end battle breakdown the net number of men hors de combat can be interpreted as plausible: the dead, the wounded, the severely wounded, the walking wounded, the routers, the skulkers and the shell-shocked. But BF needs to get these stats right eventually. If only for the sake of chrome.

Only problem with this is that the routers and the skulkers would come back within minutes or hours whereas in-game those who are casualties are mostly gone (during a campaign).