What the heck happened?

[Der Kuenstler]

PBEM game in the dark. My full strength Panzergrenadier Platoon (plenty of ammo, in command) is pursuing a broken Russian motorized Rifle Squad into a small patch of woods. I can see the lone squad (not just a symbol) hiding about 20 meters away. I give my platoon "assault" orders.

Next turn: My squads go right up to the hiding russian squad (one meter away) and kneel down right next to it without firing at all. After about 10 seconds, the enemy squad gets up and runs away without firing. Nobody in my platoon fires at it. Huh???

[mike8g]

That reminds me of the scene from "The Longest Day" where a US Airborne squad and a German patrol pass each other in the dark without recognizing the nearby enemy.

Marcus

[JasonC]

Simple, they didn't see each other.

"but they were 1 meter away!"

Oh. You think your men are in human pyramids on 2x2m pixels? The squad marker is the center of a grouping of men...

[GJK]

Were they captured? Click on the enemy squad and see if it says that they are "Prisoners".

[Der Kuenstler]

No - they weren't captured. They must not have seen each other like Jason said. I think they all need glasses.

[Paul AU]

Der Kuenstler, knots in the code. There's plenty.

Just think of it as part of the Rich (knotted) Tapestry of Life.

"Five metres? That can't be! That's inside the room!"

[Corvidae]

And game imitates life,

there are thousands of accounts of units encountering eachother and simply not bothering to fight,

I guess the russians traded some vodka for some german cigarettes, maybe a few cans of sardines got swaped for a few tins of jam,

and then the two groups went their seperate ways,

[SpitfireXI]

I am playing a night game in CMAK right now and similar things are happening. I am just chalking it up to the fact that fighting in the black of night is going to confuse you as well as your soldiers.

[Gpig]

Also, sometimes a squad will not waste it's ammo on routed enemy units. Especially if they are on LOW ammo.

Gpig

[MikeyD]

I'm reminded of a story from an old jungle fighter.

U.S. units come up to a bridge. A couple Japanese soldiers some distance away on the far bank watching. Nobody fires on anybody for fear of bringing on an unwanted firefight. A U.S. tank (Stuart?) rolls onto the bridge, unaware the Japanese had half-sawed through the supports the previous night. The bridge collapses under the Stuart into the river, the tankers scramble out and drag themselves onto the bank, looking like drowned rats. The japanese soldiers on the other side can be seen literally rolling on the ground with laughter at the sight!

From what I can tell the 'no shoot' behavior is often associated with guys who have been in action a long LONG time, who've seen it all and just can't work up the enthusiasm for starting up a new round of fighting unecessarily. Green troops would probably get panicky and start firing wildly at a first sight.

[ June 02, 2005, 09:53 AM: Message edited by: MikeyD ]

[Dschugaschwili]

Given that friendly fire is enabled at night, you were probably lucky that they didn't fire. You may have taken more casualties than the enemy otherwise, especially if your squads were quite bunched up.

Losing half of a platoon to friendly fire while shooting up an enemy unit standing right inside your platoon is nothing uncommon.

Dschugaschwili