Shot in the back...

[Noman]

A friend of mine and I are having a debate. As the defender I was practicing the "hit and fallback" routine, and during the "fallback" portion I had a unit set to "run". Said unit turned and began to run before coming under a lot of fire from man different directions. It quickly broke, and my friend made a comment about it not being surprising since it was shot "in the back". I said it broke because it was during a "run" move, and because of the combined firepower of the units targeting it. He agreed but stated that direction the firepower is coming from also matters. He went on to say that units are more likely to surrender if they are flanked or "surrounded" by fire. I thought it was just proximity to the attackers combined with morale/status. In the case of armour, I understand, but I don't think an infantry unit "shot in the back" is any more likely to break/surrender then a unit taking fire from in front of it (even though the unit will have to turn and face it's attacker). Who's right?

[GAGA Extrem]

Well, as for me, i believe a unit that is hit from the side is much more likely to go prone. And from the back its even worse.

I have had a few "situations" were my poor fellows were moving and an enemy manged to maneuver behind them. I can remember at least 3 times, were the unit was routed after the first salve from the back. Okay, it were some SMG from distance ~30m, but my boys were advancing in a light building!

I guess it is depending if the unit is moving or not. If it is stationary, it will rotate towards the enemy. But now imagine a dozen men are running over a field and suddenly someone fires from the back...

I will do a few test runs to be sure, but i am certain, yes, flanking and back shots deliever much more distress . and maybe even higher casulties - as frontal combat.

As for the surrendering, imho its more important that the attack gets between the enemy and his friendly map edge. Maybe units are more likely to surrender when someone is behind them, but in general, firepower, envelopement (thats were backshots belong to) , low ammo, low morale and low experience and being out-of-command are all important for this.

Edit:

In my test, Inf in open ground was shot from palmes ~40m away. I made a setup for every experience level.

From the front, the first salvo did often "only" pinn them, however from the back, they were panicked (or even broken / routed) in about 80% of the first salvo.

Even elite infantry broke often after the second or third salvo from an unknown enemy from behind...

Interesting: Quite a lot units surrendered when they were shot from the front AND the back. Mostly it were VET+ boys, 5 times even the elite squads threw their weapons away, still having 5 or 6 men!

[ April 15, 2007, 01:38 PM: Message edited by: GAGA Extrem ]

[John Kettler]

Noman,

Direction of fire is reflected in unit reaction, and being shot from behind is a big deal, let alone from several axes at once. That's only part of what's happening, though. You see, the Run command is THE

most vulnerable movement option in the game. A Running unit is assumed to be paying zero attention to cover and is simply moving from one place to another as fast as possible. Call the combination you described deadly!

Regards,

John Kettler

[Silvio Manuel]

I was recently playing a QB of a company of Green russian infantry plus two T-34/76's were attacking against two German platoons plus a 76 inf.gun, a PaK40, and maybe an ATR and a 81mm mortar.

I chewed up the 1st (forward deployed) platoon and the inf.gun, sending in the two T-34 left, around the flank and they wound up (1) finishing off the 1st plt (2) mauling a platoon trying to advance forward and from the left to right to counterattack...

The interesting part was that the when I manuevered such that the two tanks appeared just a hair behind the PaK40's 3-o-clock, as soon as the two tanks were noticed by the PaK40, it surrendered, after only some MG fire plus a few short 76mm shots from around 200m. Granted, the AI's morale was horrible right then, but it was definitely a hasty reaction without much firepower landing near (let alone on) target.

[McIvan]

There is, it seems to me, a dramatically increased chance of surrender from the mere fact of an enemy unit being behind you.

[Noman]

Why are these things not in the instruction manual? My friend said, "It's common sense, man," to which I replied, "Um, maybe in real life, but in games, I expect to be told things like that." I am disappointed in the manual writers. Oh well. Thanks guyzos.

[edit] Don't get me wrong. It's cool that the game takes that into account. I just think that's an important detail worth noting somewhere.

[ April 16, 2007, 12:40 AM: Message edited by: Noman ]

[Joachim]

They (BFC) can't put everything in the manual. Real life battles are way too complex.

Besides... if there was a complete list of all features the forum would have suffered from several breakdowns. All those grogs out there complaining what is missing and what is modelled totally wrong.

Oh... and yes, with your line of retreat cut, you are more likely to surrender. This is in CM and was discussed long time ago (according to my memory).

[Parker]

So, getting back to the OP, did the unit break so quickly because a) “run” makes them very vulnerable to losses, which contributed to them taking several casualties almost simultaneously, or because it was shot from multiple directions at once (which I’ve always thought contributed a lot to panic and breaking), or because c) the game defines infantry’s “back” as the opposite of their direction of travel, so running (or advancing or whatever) toward the rear causes a moral hit similar to having an enemy “get behind you” in the normal sense? Or perhaps a combination of a and b?

[Kineas]

Every effect of a small arms fire (including lethality) is having a 2- or 3 times multiplier bonus if received from the back/sides.

It's just my experience, it can be wrong. That's why I don't like the trend 'everything is simulated as in real life, no need to include exact rules in the manual'. I just know there's a modeling behind the curtain, so I need to voice I'm with Noman on this. There were threads about this, some fear they would have to solve differential equations during the game instead of command decisions, so I doubt we'll have too detailed manuals.

There were also threads about the need of a "fighting withdraw" move mode. Maybe in CMx2 this won't be a problem because half of your squad can withdraw while the other half is firing.

I think withdrawing under fire is very difficult in CM, maybe the withdraw command has some uncovered secrets.

[Bonxa]

The withdraw command is even worse morale wise since it carries a morale hit with it. Often you will have troops pannicing just from receiving the order. The advantage of it is that there is a very short command delay involved. It's a "get the heck out of there" command.

I concur with the difficulty of conducting a fighting withdrawal. If the terrain won't admitt breaking LOS quickly you are bound to have a world of trouble keeping your boys from routing.

[McIvan]

It's practically impossible to conduct a real life fighting withdrawal in CM (or, at least, what my vision of one is). If you put anything well forward, you should really be prepared to lose it OR get it exposed and routed while the enemy are still some distance away, so that your squad has a reasonable chance of surviving the retreat and rallying later on.

[Silvio Manuel]

Originally posted by Parker:

So, getting back to the OP, did the unit break so quickly because a) “run” makes them very vulnerable to losses, which contributed to them taking several casualties almost simultaneously, or because it was shot from multiple directions at once (which I’ve always thought contributed a lot to panic and breaking), or because c) the game defines infantry’s “back” as the opposite of their direction of travel, so running (or advancing or whatever) toward the rear causes a moral hit similar to having an enemy “get behind you” in the normal sense? Or perhaps a combination of a and b?

Regarding your statement of, "c) the game defines infantry’s “back” as the opposite of their direction of travel"-

The game defines all units "back" as the direction of the friendly map edge. In QBs, this will be East for the Allies and West for the Axis. In non-QBs, it can be different but probably in most cases is the default (as in QBs)

Withdraw - is really only good for retreating when there is little to (preferably) NO chance of coming under small arms fire. You are still likely to "panic" but not to break/rout as long as you don't come under fire.

Withdraw can occasionally be effective when you see the 1-2 spotting artillery rounds come in (esp. if they seem to be of a large caliber) and you want to retreat before the full strike comes in the next round. They may still break/rout but you don't have to wait for the command delay and that may save casualties.

[Parker]

I wasn't asserting it, I was asking if it was true!

[The Coil]

The game defines all units "back" as the direction of the friendly map edge.

I don't think that's quite true - it's back is opposite the direction is facing. However, fire coming from the direction of the friendly map edge will still tend to panic quicker, so maybe it's more of a question of what you mean by 'back'.

Interestingly, this all points out one of the drawbacks of surrounding an enemy in CM. I've had my opponent work his way behind my men, only to have them surrender almost instantly once there was contact. Sometimes flanking = good, surrounding = bad if you run into serious opposition.

[ April 19, 2007, 11:41 AM: Message edited by: The Coil ]

[Kingfish]

Originally posted by McIvan:

It's practically impossible to conduct a real life fighting withdrawal in CM (or, at least, what my vision of one is). If you put anything well forward, you should really be prepared to lose it OR get it exposed and routed while the enemy are still some distance away, so that your squad has a reasonable chance of surviving the retreat and rallying later on.

Try using the 'advance' or 'assault' command, only instead of going forward you plot your unit towards the rear. You get the benefit of unit cohesion + morale boost and cover fire.

[McIvan]

I do do that, with some limited sucess. Once reasonably closely engaged, I find that the fact of turning and receiving fire from the rear (which is going to happen at least a couple of times if you're on slow advance orders) overcomes the morale benefit from the advance order.

You can sometimes get troops away. The best solution, I find, is to put them on a rise and sneak them away for a short distance before switching to fast. Sneak is my preferred method of breaking contact, not advance.