CMplayer Posted January 27, 2001 Share Posted January 27, 2001 I tried out the following test: In a confined area an exhausted, conscript platoon of german infantry starts out with pinned status. 31 men. They are packed together in the center of several tiles full of barbed wire. Around them are six chuchill crocodiles, a bit farther back is a cliff boxing them in entirely. (Though in their present condition they have no chance of exiting the barbed wire). The churchills start firing at them and get immediate surrender. I then order systematic area fire (with the flamethrowers) of the entire barbed wire area. After two turns of this, all the surrendered squads are eliminated, without having moved even a meter. Then I call in artillery onto the TRP which happens to be on that dead German infantry as well. 15 elite 155 VT spotters empty their loads, as well as 4 105 VT spotters. The Churchills remain during the shelling and continue to area fire the barbed wire with flamethrowers. Eventually most of the Churchills are immoble or otherwise damaged. Then, 6 14" naval gun spotters completely plaster the area. (In order to make this work, I had more German troops at a remote part of the map, just to prevent an autosurrender. It was also necessary to shift dates to get both VT fuses and 14" in the same scenario) The final result, of 31 Germans in the 'kill zone', was 31 casualties, of which _10_ were KIA. Now I believe that every single wounded man would have died in that artillery bombardment. Hence the 'KIA' figure in the after action screen is just sheer baloney, some randomly generated number. Obviously I have taken an extreme unrealistic situation, but there are many cases where similar things happen in real games, for instance if there is a nasty infantry fight in some woods, and artillery is called in shortly after. All those wounded lying on the ground have not suddenly become immune to being killed. You might not call in artillery there right away, if you know you have wounded there. You might want to move those guys out first. Another case is if there are wounded in a building which catches on fire. In that situation you might even see the enemy helping to move your guys out. I would love to see some better modelling of wounded, medics, stretcher bearers and perhaps even red-cross marked ambulances and aid stations available for some scenarios. Perhaps this isn't anything for CM, but it would intensify the game to have to think about and plan for trying to take care of the guys who go down. Even an abstracted handling of wounded, which takes into account the fact that they can be be killed could be of interest. This is not just to add realism in the sense of 'scenery'. One practical effect this could have on the game is in campaigns, where some more lightly wounded would already be ready for action again the next day. But if you shell the woods where they are waiting for treatment, you might not have them tomorrow. And in normal battles, the difference between the number of wounded, and the number of dead men would be a real indicator of your skill, instead of just empty 'bells n whistles'. regards, --Rett . [This message has been edited by CMplayer (edited 01-27-2001).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gremlin Posted January 27, 2001 Share Posted January 27, 2001 Man, you're a sadist ------------------ New to Combat Mission? Visit CM Boot Camp at Combat Missions for tips. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CMplayer Posted January 27, 2001 Author Share Posted January 27, 2001 Originally posted by Gremlin: Man, you're a sadist You mean to tell me you never bought a 14" spotter, upped his ammo, custom-named him Lt. Boom, and let him pound the living bejeezus out of a village full of conscripts just to watch the explosion graphics? Rett Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Dorosh Posted January 27, 2001 Share Posted January 27, 2001 Check out the bombardments at the D-Day beaches, or Monte Cassino, or Operation Veritable - and see how many men came out of it ready to fight. I can't think of a single instance in history where a bombardment - no matter how heavy - produced a majority of fatalities among the casualties it inflicted. You proved something the manual already explained - that the number of KIA is picked randomly. The number of killed to wounded in engagements have always seemed right on the money to me, and I have modelled one or two actual historical battles - the casualty ratios seemed very close to historical. You admit yourself your test was not a fair one. I think the great thing about CM is that it is HARD to kill infantry. Everytime I see a squad charge at me over open ground, I get scared - the same way the guys doing it for real do - cause there is no guarantee they will all be shot down. It makes for very interesting game play and some tense moments. And I think it is very accurate. To further your example, as stated before, open ground is seldom billiard table flat, and an infantryman can dig a decent shell scrape in a few minutes with his e tool. You say you had many batteries of 155s laying waste to the area and perhaps every man suffered a direct hit. I don't see that ever occurring in a regular game. I agree that lightly wounded guys would be interesting, but how do you model their effectiveness. Slow the whole squad down when they are on the move? Presents a lot of problems, and I think it is out of the scope of the game - the battalion commander usually leaves the care of the wounded to his RSM and the Medical Officer and concentrates on fighting the battle. Neither the RSM nor the MO are simulated in the game, and for good reason. What would they do? Just more to worry about and get in the way of fighting the battle. You make strong cases for historical accuracy, but I personally would find the inclusion of medical units as at best interesting chrome and at worst a pain in the neck when I'm not only ordering three companies of infantry, plus tank support, plus offboard artillery, but now have to keep my ambulances safe from harm and tell wounded men where to collect. A real life commander would delegate those functions to others, and in the game, so do you - by "letting" the computer handle this. You do make one excellent point - that of shelling areas where you know wounded men to be because the game doesn't model them. Did you know that it was standard German practice to have their own positions pre-registered, and the second they were lost, they bombarded them with mortar and artillery fire as a prelude to their counter-attacks? It seems to me that these preplanned fire missions were not cancelled in order to spare their own wounded. War is hell. ------------------ http://wargames.freehosting.net/cmbits.htm [This message has been edited by Michael Dorosh (edited 01-27-2001).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Mirage2k Posted January 27, 2001 Share Posted January 27, 2001 It also must be pointed out that, in CM's terms at least, there doesn't need to be any differentiation between KIA and wounded. At the game's scale of an hour-long battle or day-long operation, a seriously wounded person will be just as out of the fight as someone who is killed. -Andrew ------------------ "No, it's not that kind of relationship. We're just friends. We are together all the time, but I never touch her porcelain skin, her soft, red lips, like rose petals from the emperor's bathwater! Bathwater, I tell you, bathwateeeeeeer!" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tss Posted January 27, 2001 Share Posted January 27, 2001 "Upseerin käsikirja", 1940 (Officer's Handbook), has the following rule of thumb on casualties: The casualties are distributed in the following way: - 20% KIA - 15% wounded who can't walk or sit. - 20% wounded who can't walk but can sit. - 45% wounded who can walk. - Tommi Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pvt. Ryan Posted January 27, 2001 Share Posted January 27, 2001 Do you enjoy pulling the wings off flies? I think CM counts KIA and WIA according to their initial status as a casualty. What I mean is that a wounded soldier can't be killed no matter what you do to him. This is just a guess. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
109 Gustav Posted January 27, 2001 Share Posted January 27, 2001 Not all the non KIA casualties are wounded. Others are just so badly panicked that they are completely unable to fight for the rest of the battle, and are therefore of no more use in the battle than a WIA or KIA. "Never get off the boat! Never get off the boat!" ------------------ Well my skiff's a twenty dollar boat, And I hope to God she stays afloat. But if somehow my skiff goes down, I'll freeze to death before I drown. And pray my body will be found, Alaska salmon fishing, boys, Alaska salmon fishing. -Commercial fishing in Kodiak, Alaska Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Dorosh Posted January 27, 2001 Share Posted January 27, 2001 Originally posted by 109 Gustav: Not all the non KIA casualties are wounded. Others are just so badly panicked that they are completely unable to fight for the rest of the battle, and are therefore of no more use in the battle than a WIA or KIA. "Never get off the boat! Never get off the boat!" Extremely good point. Patton slapped those kinds of men, but by 1944 they were considered in most (western Allied) circles as legitimate casualties. The Canadians and British called it "Combat Exhaustion", I believe the Yanks called it "Battle Fatigue." Evacuation to a safe position for a few hours or a day (ie the rest of a Combat Mission game) was the initial prescription. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisl Posted January 27, 2001 Share Posted January 27, 2001 Originally posted by 109 Gustav: Not all the non KIA casualties are wounded. Others are just so badly panicked that they are completely unable to fight for the rest of the battle, and are therefore of no more use in the battle than a WIA or KIA. "Never get off the boat! Never get off the boat!" Some of them may even be perfectly healthy or very lightly wounded but carrying the seriously wounded from their squad out. The actual status of guys removed from combat is very abstracted. ------------------ "If you can taste the difference between caviar on a cracker and ketchup on a Kit-Kat while blindfolded, you have not had enough aquavit to be ready for lutefisk." (stolen from some web page about lutefisk) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seanachai Posted January 28, 2001 Share Posted January 28, 2001 Originally posted by CMplayer: I tried out the following test: Perhaps you should get a pet? ------------------ Tremble, tyrants and you perfidious opprobrium of all the parties, Tremblez! your parricidal projects finally will receive their prices! But these sanguinary despots, But these accomplices of Berli, All these tigers which, without pity, Bauhaus the centre of their mother! We will enter the career When our elder is not there any more, We will find there their dust And the trace of their virtues Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
109 Gustav Posted January 28, 2001 Share Posted January 28, 2001 Originally posted by chrisl: Some of them may even be perfectly healthy or very lightly wounded but carrying the seriously wounded from their squad out. The actual status of guys removed from combat is very abstracted. Good point, Chrisl. Some of them would also be escorting prisoners back to the rear or patching up their wounded comrades. In the 278,510th gamey use for crews, I usually use crews for prisoner escort, though. ------------------ Well my skiff's a twenty dollar boat, And I hope to God she stays afloat. But if somehow my skiff goes down, I'll freeze to death before I drown. And pray my body will be found, Alaska salmon fishing, boys, Alaska salmon fishing. -Commercial fishing in Kodiak, Alaska Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dumrox Posted January 28, 2001 Share Posted January 28, 2001 Funny you should mention the prisoner escort thing. I just read Florida Congressman Sam Gibbons account of being dropped in France the night before D-Day. He mentions using glider crews to watch prisoners because they weren't of much use in actual combat. The URL to his story is http://www.military.com/Content/MoreContent1/?file=dday_0004 Here's a quote: 'Everyone was in the firing line except for the two glider pilots and their prisoner. The glider pilots couldn't have done much good anyway because all they had were pistols, and I could see them huddled over by the side of the road about 100 yards north of me. ' Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Commissar Posted January 28, 2001 Share Posted January 28, 2001 Originally posted by Michael Dorosh: ...by 1944 they were considered in most (western Allied) circles as legitimate casualties. The Canadians and British called it "Combat Exhaustion", I believe the Yanks called it "Battle Fatigue." Evacuation to a safe position for a few hours or a day (ie the rest of a Combat Mission game) was the initial prescription. ...and in the USSR this was called "a coward and traitor to the Motherland". A 30 second visit to your local frontline commissar was the last prescription you were ever going to get. I cant wait till CM2! ------------------ "...Every position, every meter of Soviet soil must be defended to the last drop of blood..." - Segment from Order 227 "Not a step back" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vanir Posted January 28, 2001 Share Posted January 28, 2001 CM does not calculate KIA vs wounded until the battle is over. All casualties are the same until the battle ends and then the game just randomly assigns a percentage of the casualties as KIA and the rest as wounded. I don't see a problem with this as there is no real practical difference between the two for game purposes. As far as ambulances and aid stations and the Red Cross, you will probably see those about the same time BTS puts cows into the game as they would both add about the same amount of realism IMO. ------------------ You've never heard music until you've heard the bleating of a gut-shot cesspooler. -Mark IV Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Dorosh Posted January 28, 2001 Share Posted January 28, 2001 Originally posted by Vanir: CM does not calculate KIA vs wounded until the battle is over. All casualties are the same until the battle ends and then the game just randomly assigns a percentage of the casualties as KIA and the rest as wounded. I don't see a problem with this as there is no real practical difference between the two for game purposes. As far as ambulances and aid stations and the Red Cross, you will probably see those about the same time BTS puts cows into the game as they would both add about the same amount of realism IMO. Hey, Muzzle Velocity had cows! They also had trains and civilian cars you could shoot up and civvie girls you could run over. Not exactly the most realistic thing you ever saw... ...what was my point again? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest TomServo Posted January 28, 2001 Share Posted January 28, 2001 they had those damn planes w/ machine guns that could blow up a tank too! amazing stuff. MV was fun times. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CMplayer Posted January 28, 2001 Author Share Posted January 28, 2001 Originally posted by Mirage2k: It also must be pointed out that, in CM's terms at least, there doesn't need to be any differentiation between KIA and wounded. At the game's scale of an hour-long battle or day-long operation, a seriously wounded person will be just as out of the fight as someone who is killed. -Andrew Sure, but then it is really cheesy to get this box at the end which says 31 casualties (10 KIA). It's just crud. If they are going to tell you how many are KIA then they should track it, at make it possible for wounded to be KIA'd later. Even without the medics and aid stations, etc. For example, wounded in a house which catches fire might have a much higher chance of being KIA'd than someone nicked by MG fire at 1000 meters in an open field who remains behind while the action shifts forward. regards, --Rett Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Dorosh Posted January 28, 2001 Share Posted January 28, 2001 Originally posted by CMplayer: ...wounded in a house which catches fire might have a much higher chance of being KIA'd than someone nicked by MG fire at 1000 meters in an open field who remains behind while the action shifts forward. regards, --Rett Explain why. A bullet can kill you just as dead as fire can. I would think bullets are actually more lethal than a burning building. You've made the point already that some situations are seemingly more lethal. But you haven't given a convincing reason why this should be tracked in the game. What possible difference would it have to the game play or outcome of a scenario? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sergeant Huang Posted January 28, 2001 Share Posted January 28, 2001 CMplayer : I see your point, but take my advice, it is just a game, you can not expect the BTS model it as the real war. Sometimes, you have to forget the trivia and foucs on the primary issue. ------------------ Staff Sgt. Huang I LOVE my country, but my government suc*s. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gremlin Posted January 28, 2001 Share Posted January 28, 2001 Regarding cows, actually that would be quite realistic in CM. A number of books (including eyewitness reports) make note of the countless dead, reeking cows from the D-Day bombardments. Apparently the smell was really hard to live with in summer. *** Anyone have any credible sources about casualty figures from arty in WWII? TIA ------------------ New to Combat Mission? Visit CM Boot Camp at Combat Missions for tips. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CMplayer Posted January 28, 2001 Author Share Posted January 28, 2001 Originally posted by Michael Dorosh: Explain why. A bullet can kill you just as dead as fire can. I would think bullets are actually more lethal than a burning building. I'm talking about men who are wounded, have a hard time moving, and then find themselves trapped in a burning house. First they get wounded, then they may die. A guy lying wounded in a field, won't be much of a target once the action moves forward because the enemy is too busy engaging more threatening targets. Of course there can be exceptions, but I'm talking in general terms. You've made the point already that some situations are seemingly more lethal. But you haven't given a convincing reason why this should be tracked in the game. What possible difference would it have to the game play or outcome of a scenario? My only point is that it is silly to get a result at the end telling you how many were KIA, if the game doesn't even make an attempt to determine this. It's just sheer baloney. regards, --Rett Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CMplayer Posted January 28, 2001 Author Share Posted January 28, 2001 Originally posted by Sergeant Huang: CMplayer : I see your point, but take my advice, it is just a game, you can not expect the BTS model it as the real war. Sometimes, you have to forget the trivia and foucs on the primary issue. Okay, the primary issue. What I _really_ want to see modelled is field kitchens. The quality of your field kitchen ought to have an effect on morale, also, guys ought to be able to go back and get some chow once in a while. And if you use the dead cows in the fields for hamburgers there are a lot of food poisoning issues which could come into the game (very realistic as well) regards, --Rett Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
109 Gustav Posted January 28, 2001 Share Posted January 28, 2001 Originally posted by CMplayer: And if you use the dead cows in the fields for hamburgers there are a lot of food poisoning issues which could come into the game (very realistic as well) The cafeteria at my college has already modeled this, so I'm sure BTS could do it. Cheaper that way, and the only students (like me) who eat there couldn't afford good food anyway, so we can't complain. I have to agree with Michael, the number of KIAs versus WIAs may be arbitrary, but it has no effect whatsoever on gameplay. Besides, there is nothing at all that you could do to change the outcome, so why bother simulating it? ------------------ Well my skiff's a twenty dollar boat, And I hope to God she stays afloat. But if somehow my skiff goes down, I'll freeze to death before I drown. And pray my body will be found, Alaska salmon fishing, boys, Alaska salmon fishing. -Commercial fishing in Kodiak, Alaska Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CMplayer Posted January 29, 2001 Author Share Posted January 29, 2001 Originally posted by 109 Gustav: The cafeteria at my college has already modeled this, so I'm sure BTS could do it. Cheaper that way, and the only students (like me) who eat there couldn't afford good food anyway, so we can't complain. I have to agree with Michael, the number of KIAs versus WIAs may be arbitrary, but it has no effect whatsoever on gameplay. Besides, there is nothing at all that you could do to change the outcome, so why bother simulating it? Well it could have an effect on gameplay. If you enjoy the planning stage of a battle then you might enjoy setting up assembly areas, and evac routes. If you have wounded in an area you *might* choose not to use artillery on that area, if they can subsequently be KIA'd. If you observe a marked enemy medical you *might* choose not to direct fire there. (could be a house or in the open) Or you might shoot the medics first, I don't know. There are other things, but I just wanted to reiterate the point I made before that this is not just for 'look and feel' but that it does indeed have to do with gameplay issues. regards, --Rett [This message has been edited by CMplayer (edited 01-29-2001).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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