Prisoners

[Psyched]

Is there any other way to capture troops other than the opponent surrendering and ending the game? I see nothing about it in the rulebook, and in all the games I've played,prisoners have never been taken. They always fight to the death if you let them. Am I missing something? Thanks.

[Pvt. Ryan]

I find immobilized MGs and vehicle crews are the most likely to surrender when they are close to enemy units. I don't know how the game calculates the parameters for surrender, but it happens on it's own. I suppose morale of a particular unit plays a large part.

[Psyched]

Thanks, Pvt. Ryan. Maybe when my blood-thirsty novice days are over, I might actually capture someone!

[Guest Michael emrys]

I think any weapons crew that runs out of ammo or has its gun knocked out is apt to surrender if approached by enemy troops.

Michael

[Jagdwyrm]

Occasionally standard infantry squads will surrender if surrounded and cut off from command, but ive only seen it happen when squad is down to 1 or 2 healthy.

[109 Gustav]

Rush them and surround them. Green and conscript troops will surrender readily when they are outnumbered after a sudden assault.

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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.

http://www.angelfire.com/ak5/TheLastDefense/index.html

[ropey]

I captured a whole platoon of regulars in a recent game. They were flanked in 50m fog with a tank in my support, and over two or three turns they all waved the white flag.

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Never leave your mind so open your brains fall out.

[Hawkmek]

I have made several captures of a variety of troops. Some POW squads were even at 50% strength! The key is to outnumber them and surround them. When they rout and turn to run only to find more enemy troops, they usually give in. More than once though, I have seen my troops massacre the surrendering opponents, ala Saving Pvt. Ryan. Sometimes I guess Joe is too caught up in the heat of battle.

Last nite, I captured a Hetzer crew. I wanted them dead though. That Hetzer had survived 8 bazooka strikes, and wiped out a few of my guys.

When's CM2 coming out again?

[Matt the Paladin]

I also think the overall morale effects things a lot. I played one game against a very stubborn opponent who refused to surrender. Once his overall morale was at 4% entire relatively entact squads started surrendering as soon as my troops open fire. When I accidently left a few unguarded, they ran off and then surrendered as soon as my troops came into LOS.

The type of troops you and the enemy are using also seems to have an effect. I've noticed that after the infantry loses tank support they start to surrender more often.

And of coutse, the number of nearby enemy and friendly troops also has an effect.

It also seems like there might be some sort of randomization factor in surrenduring.

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"War is like a cat, it is easy to let out of the bag, but hard as hell to put back in!"

-Me

[Atlas]

As mentioned above, surrounding the enemy is key. None-the-less, it is very difficult to get enemy units to surrender if they are controlled by a human opponent. Humans tend to move units out of harm's way before they surrender.

[Psyched]

Thanks for all the replys to my thread. But a few more questions to carry the point forward.

The only advantage that I can see in capturing the enemy is that I assume that you get more victory points when the AAR is calculated. Plus you save ammo for not having to shoot the poor devils. But I see one major disadvantage: the need to commit troops to guard them, which I assume effectively takes them out of the battle where they may be critically needed.

This leads me to my final two questions: How many troops does it require to guard prisoners, and can the POW's be escorted off the map edge without the guards also having to permanently leave the gameboard?

[Tanks a Lot]

Originally posted by Psyched:

Thanks for all the replys to my thread. But a few more questions to carry the point forward.

The only advantage that I can see in capturing the enemy is that I assume that you get more victory points when the AAR is calculated. Plus you save ammo for not having to shoot the poor devils. But I see one major disadvantage: the need to commit troops to guard them, which I assume effectively takes them out of the battle where they may be critically needed.

This leads me to my final two questions: How many troops does it require to guard prisoners, and can the POW's be escorted off the map edge without the guards also having to permanently leave the gameboard?

You can guard them with a single crew from a knocked out tank or vehicle. You don't have to exit any of your troops when you escort them off the map.

[Stefan Fredriksson]

In almost every pbem I've had so far, there have been at least a few prisoners.

I use to guard them with crews, or if nearby the front, place a plt.hq among them. They have not run away yet...

But - can you actually escort prisoners away??

What about using them as human sheilds. If you have prisoners among a plt, perhaps the opponent will think twice before throwing artillery at it (if he sees the prisoners that is)?

[mortarforker]

If you really don't want to deal with prisoners (or you're just a bloody minded SOB) you can light 'em up with area fire . Or put them in a building's top floor and bring the house down on them. I confess I've done this a few times to particularly infuriating prisoners, i.e the mg42 that nearly wipes out a platoon then surrenders to the remnants, "too late Hans."

As for human shields, since pow's are worth more than kills there is a (gamey) arguement for taking out your cowardly comrades with a well placed 155 barrage.

[Guest wwb_99]

Personally I think the cowardly bastards should be shot. I would not think twice about dropping some arty or HMG fire on a platoon escorting my prisoners.

WWB

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Before battle, my digital soldiers turn to me and say,

Ave, Caesar! Morituri te salutamus.

[Matt the Paladin]

It is true that POWs are worth more points than kills, but I wouldn't reccomend actually trying to kill them unless time is almost up. Otherwise, I would try to rescue them, and deny my opponent any points at all.

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"War is like a cat, it is easy to let out of the bag, but hard as hell to put back in!"

-Me

[abuassad]

in my xperience, i left them to fend 4 themselves, n at the end of the battle, i still received points for 'prisoners'.

[MC]

If you light prisoners on fire, will they run?

[CavScout]

Originally posted by MC:

If you light prisoners on fire, will they run?

If they're smart they'll stop, drop and roll!

[marsunit]

Originally posted by 109 Gustav:

Rush them and surround them. Green and conscript troops will surrender readily when they are outnumbered after a sudden assault.

yes..I agree..rush them and the will throw they're hands up.or try running your tank close to isolated Mg's or F/O and same result will happen.Nicht schiesen:miene kommaraden!

[Lom Ping]

Originally posted by Stefan Fredriksson:

... can you actually escort prisoners away??

...

Once you've captured them, you can issue movement orders to prisoners. They are actually quite compliant and will follow your orders for several turns without an escort as long as their buddies are out of sight. Send them to the vicinity of your FO's who've used up their ammo and are just sitting around doing nothing anyways. Bazooka and panzerschreck teams with no more remaining rounds also can make themselves useful guarding prisoners at some convenient spot in the rear.

[Lom Ping]

Originally posted by Stefan Fredriksson:

... can you actually escort prisoners away??

...

Once you've captured them, you can issue movement orders to prisoners. They are actually quite compliant and will follow your orders for several turns without an escort as long as their buddies are out of sight. Send them to the vicinity of your FO's who've used up their ammo and are just sitting around doing nothing anyways. Bazooka and panzerschreck teams with no more remaining rounds also can make themselves useful guarding prisoners at some convenient spot in the rear.

[Lt. Fuzz]

Now this was from the first demo mission I played so I'm sure it doesn't apply to full CMBO, but what the heck: a few German crews surrendered to a Sherman I had sent running around on the east side of the map once I had KO'd enemy armor and AT assets. (No infantry support either. I don't pretend to be a military genius). The Sherman left the prisoners to continue his job running around and drawing fire, but the prisoners just sat there with their hands up. I had no idea what to do with 'em so I just ordered 'em to hike down the road to my infantry at the crossroads, which they did as soon as gunfire settled down.

[Schugger]

I usually order any captured units to move off map ( to my map edge ) and so far they never managed to "free" themselves even if the were unguarded by any troops from my side.

POWs can only become free again if units from their side get close to them and they "see" a chance to escape unharmed and even then they're useless in terms of combat effectiveness as they are the absolutely unarmed.

I also remember that this was discussed in the past and the wisest tactic is indeed to retreat your POWs from the map ( IIRC Steve has stated this ).

I've found some dated threads which you might find of interest. Here you are:

http://www.battlefront.com/discuss/Forum1/HTML/000127.html

and

http://www.battlefront.com/discuss/Forum1/HTML/000682.html

Edit:

I've just finished a game where I had moved the lone survivor of a MG team off map. The AAR screen shows one captured soldier so it really works.

[This message has been edited by Schugger (edited 03-23-2001).]

[Bog]

In one scenario I managed to make a full 8-man Ami paratrooper squad surrender. It was a Veteran unit too. Just goes to show that with a little surrounding and low morale, even experienced guys can surrender.

I have noticed that the Germans shoot prisoners more often then the Allies, often an Allied unit will surrender, only to get shot down a few seconds later.

Prisoners can also just be killed by stray bullets if they tarry in a firefight too long.

One thing I thought was funny was when the last survivor of a para .30 MG team surrendered. Since he was about 100m away from any of my forces, and because it was night, right after shouting "Don't shoot, we surrender", he ran back toward his own lines!