So very few surrender now. Realistic?

[Lt. Kije]

In a seris of QBs as Germans against Russians, I have encountered the following.

If I'm lucky, two to four of my squads get some kind of target lock on one of the enemy squads and begin grinding little pieces off of it. After a turn or two, the enemy squad may begin to reduce in number. The 10 man enemy squad is now 8, now 6, now 4. But even when it's down to 2 or 1, the enemy squad continues to pop up and squeeze off a round. This can go on for turn after turn. Since my guys are given to panic if a round is fired anywhere near them as they are moving forward, this situation greatly slows my forward progress.

The computer's Russians resist breaking and they don't surrender. I had one squad last night sit placidly in its foxhole as a Mk IV stood off thirty yards and fired round after round of AP (HE exhausted) at them. They had German troops all around them and a very close tank firing into their foxhole and they just sat there. Yet my guys panic when they hear a gutteral Russian sneeze nearby.

Last night, I even Assaulted three of my units (two partial squads and a HQ, I believe, all with Low ammo) INTO a foxhole occupied by a suppressed Russian SMG squad, 5 guys remaining. They all just sat there in (or immediately adjacent to) the foxhole for a bit, my three units and the Russian squad, and then the Russians began a retreat. The SMG squad survived, all 5 of them.

Don't the Russians ever surrender? I've had Russian Maxims surrender, when down to only one guy who cannot move his heavy MG. I even had one Russian platoon HQ surrender. But so far, I have not seen a Russian infantry squad owned by the computer surrender.

I seem to be fighting against Japanese on Iwo Jima. Tonight, I'm going to begin a new QB and will, for the first time, stock up on flamethrowers.

Any thoughts on realism of all this? Did Russians expect immediate execution if captured?

Am I the only one having this problem? I'm sure I'm doing things all wrong, but I'm not sure how.

As usual, I'm baffled.

-- Lt. Kije

Befuddled, bothered, and bewildered

[Echo]

Were not both the Germans and Russians loathe to surrender for fear of execution?

[Le Tondu]

It seems about the same to me.

[zukkov]

well i can't speak for the computer russian as i play russian most of the time. when playing the tiger tiger scenario as russian, i had almost a complete squad surrender. funny thing though. when the aar screen came up, it said that 48 of my guys had surrendered. i searched the map and found only the one squad. didn't i read a thread somewhere about an aar surrender bug? by the way, in a qb with conscript russians vs veteran/crack germans, i did capture a depleted squad of 5 crack german infantry. don't you know they're going in my trophy case!! lol..

[Sabrewolf]

they'll usually surrender when they are broken and are being overrun by superior number

[Peterk]

Try a platoon of flame tanks one of these days. You'll see Russians surrendering.

[Andrew H.]

It depends on the experience level of the troops, too. I once did a QB involving one MG armored car vs. 700 pts of green/conscript hungarian infantry. (It's complicated).

I charged the AC into the midst of the infantry in open steppey hills and several of them surrendered to me, including an infantry squad with 8 unharmed men.

But, in general, I think that capturing works about right: most captures didn't occur by ones and twos as squads were worn down.

[Michael Emrys]

Soldiers on the Eastern Front were much more loathe to surrender than on the Western Front. The fighting there was truly barbaric. Surrendering often only meant that you were tortured and mutilated before you were shot.

Michael

[Nick Hyle]

Originally posted by Andrew Hedges:

It depends on the experience level of the troops, too. I once did a QB involving one MG armored car vs. 700 pts of green/conscript hungarian infantry. (It's complicated).

Sorry, but I have to ask - how did this end?

[Schoerner]

Originally posted by Michael emrys:

Soldiers on the Eastern Front were much more loathe to surrender than on the Western Front. The fighting there was truly barbaric. Surrendering often only meant that you were tortured and mutilated before you were shot.

Michael

During the first six weeks of Barbarossa, 3 million russian prisoners of fighting troops were taken.

[Compassion]

Originally posted by Schoerner:

During the first six weeks of Barbarossa, 3 million russian prisoners of fighting troops were taken.

...and then they learned...

[Nippy]

Originally posted by Compassion:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Schoerner:

During the first six weeks of Barbarossa, 3 million russian prisoners of fighting troops were taken.

...and then they learned...</font>

[Ben Galanti]

Originally posted by Schoerner:

During the first six weeks of Barbarossa, 3 million russian prisoners of fighting troops were taken.

I thought that this was much more in the strategic relm then the tactical relm. Large formations getting cut off and surrendering, not from the last 3 guys from a million different squads surrendering...

Ben

[illo]

In one scenario i had weird auto-ceasefire.

I had 7 casualties out of around 240men OK, 27 tanks ok 0 destroyed. Opponent had 48 tanks killed and around 200 casualties. I was just going to encircle remnants of his troops to force surrender when game suddenly ended in cease fire!!! :eek:

I would have never ever agreed ceasefire on such circumstances. I was about to knock out 10 remaining tanks which were panicking most with their guns damaged and capture/kill large number of his troops with about no risk whatsoever.

Then sudden ceasefire (which i had not agreed) ends the game 10 turns before end. What is this?

[ October 22, 2002, 05:32 PM: Message edited by: illo ]

[kump]

Seems about the same to me too.

However, in CMBO, one time I had almost three complete platoons surrender without ending the game. That's right, that is platoons, as in about three squads each. Some hadn't taken a single casualty and they were regular. Had superior forces on two flanks and front, about to envelope. They had enough.

I've never seen that in CMBB, but I could never duplicate the event in CMBO either. When they surrendered in mass like that, it seemed absolutely logical and the right thing to do. I was greately impressed. Another play event that sent my respect for CM through the roof.

I'll have to keep attention on CMBB and see if surrender is based on year. But I think its the same regardless and probably not changed from CMBO, but you can never tell with the CM master minds.

[KNac]

When are you guys going to learn that huge surrenders were done at strategical levels? And even then they prefered to stand and fight than surrendering (after all they would met the same thing, death).

There are docens of examples about armies and corps being cut-off and large surrenders or suicidal trial of breakthrough to escape of the "pockets of death".

I don't have exact numbers, but I'm sure that only very few percentage of surrenders where due to tactical combat, but strategic reasons where the most common case for huge surrender rates.

However when the global morale is low and the enemy is overnumbered and overpowered they will surrender more likely, as in RL.

[Lawyer]

I'm reading "War Without Garlands" now, and there are many excerpts from Germans talking about how Russians would fight till the last man, even when it was hopeless. These were small tactical battles, including Russian wounded who fired at German medics sent to help them and kept on fighting until shot to death.

It started with the Soviet Brest-Litvosk(?) fortress contingent that fought under horrible conditions for 10 days. The Germans seemed surprised after their experience in having accepted French/British surrenders on the West Front when the enemy troops knew they were outmaneuvered and beaten strategically.

Apparently, the Soviet/Russian troops were plenty motivated to fight and die for their country.

[ October 22, 2002, 06:49 PM: Message edited by: Lawyer ]

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by Schoerner:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Michael emrys:

Soldiers on the Eastern Front were much more loathe to surrender than on the Western Front. The fighting there was truly barbaric. Surrendering often only meant that you were tortured and mutilated before you were shot.

Michael

During the first six weeks of Barbarossa, 3 million russian prisoners of fighting troops were taken.</font>

[xerxes]

Large surrenders are possible in both CMBB and CMBO. It generally requires you to have surrounded and cutoff the enemy. Low global morale encourages surrendering also.

I played one scenario were I had to setup 4 POW camps in 4 large buildings to hold all the troops that started surrendering.

[Schoerner]

Originally posted by KNac:

When are you guys going to learn that huge surrenders were done at strategical levels

No one was expecting huge surrenders in CM. My answer was in addition due to Michael's argument, that soviet morale was that good. It wasn't.

The extremely bad morale was the main reason for the "Fackelmänner-Befehl", the excessive use of NKWD-officers for the right "motivation" and the rename of the war to "Großer vaterländischer Krieg" (great patriotic war).

I also made the experience, that troops don't surrender as they really should, or if not surrendering like in CMBO, they don't behave in a realistically manner.

Troops in wood being encircled and panicked several times, keep on running and escaping of the encircling ring of enemy forces without any losses although they are crossing complete squads with fire orders in a distance of 15m and less, then waiting for being encircled the next time and so on - sometimes till the end of the map.

This would seem ok to me, if i don't give fire orders - just encircling the enemy - but it is extremely unrealistic and annoying, when half of a completely devastated and encircled platoon can't be kept down or can't be eliminated in a few seconds by a platoon @ 90% nominal strenght when they receive fire orders.

I wouldn't care that much about it, but in the end, every non wounded, killed or captured soldier is bad for the victory-calculations.

I guess the chance of making prisoners was reduced a lot (that's ok on the eastern front), but the behaviour of totally devastated troops, that would have surrendered in CMBO needs a few adjustments.

If i'm remembering correctly, BTS stated, that panicked troops will no longer need to be prosecuted half over the battlefield. But i can't see this effect.

[ October 22, 2002, 07:28 PM: Message edited by: Schoerner ]

[Ligur]

Yup, Eastern Front was where you didn't want to surrender. In the game a badly beaten platoon can keep on fighting in close quarters as long as you don't have plenty units between them and their home. Surrounding and separating the enemy from their friendlies seems to contribute the most to surrender in my experience.

In CM:BO I mostly saw that when the fast CM:BO infantry rushed past units en masse and they would just drop their weapons when a platoon or so got past them, even if 90% were alive.

This is quite rare in CM:BB by the way, as with the suppression it is quite hard to completely cut and encircle your enemy in a 20 - 40 minute tactical fight or run them over with mass like in CM:BO.

[Michael Emrys]

I am truly sorry, Schoerner, but we seem to be suffering a language barrier, because I can't make heads nor tails of what you are trying to say and I don't think it is due to a lack of intelligence on the part of either of us. Would you care to reformulate your statement?

Michael

[Schoerner]

What i tried to say was, that the war in the east wasn't led from the german side in a barbaric manner from the beginning on and the morale of the soviet troops was strenghtened by several diabolical (but brilliant propagandistic) actions, after Stalin had noticed, the nations were praising german troops as liberators from 20 years of communistic tyranny with more than 20 millions murdered people.

Although i.e. "Roter Handschuh" (red glove) was used against german prisoners from first day of Barbarossa on, IMO the highest german command tried it's best, to keep the fighting regular and the commanders had problems to keep up the discipline, when the troops saw what happened to wounded soldiers, that had been left back, and the locations were reoccupied a few hours later.

Therefore from the beginning on, german morale was even higher than in France, 'cause every german soldier knew, that a prisoner or wounded soldier couldn't expect a treatment in a civilized manner.

In huge strategical operations whole soviet armies were encircled (in the mid of their preparing for the attack on germany as Victor Suworow prooves), and those troops had a very bad morale and stopped fighting as soon as they could.

The morale of the soviet troops in the first phase of the war can't be compared to those in later war: when the fruits of Stalin's Fackelmänner-Befehl started to grow, and after Stalin had forgotten about communistic ideology and started to use the power of nationalism and patriotism (no more words about fighting for the communistic world-revolution, just fighting for the fatherland and it's nations :eek: ) in conjunction with the great propaganda and after the NKWD-officers became part of all troops the morale of the soviet troops became MUCH better.

[Andrew H.]

Originally posted by Nick Hyle:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Andrew Hedges:

It depends on the experience level of the troops, too. I once did a QB involving one MG armored car vs. 700 pts of green/conscript hungarian infantry. (It's complicated).

Sorry, but I have to ask - how did this end?</font>

[WWB]

One thing I dont see mentioned too often: many people caputured were incapacitated, or casualties in CM terms. Of course, given the treatment of the enemy on the eastern front, many of these wounded never quite made it to the gulag/camp/factory.

WWB