PoWs

[John_d]

What provision will there be for troops captured in battle? I'm assuming that the numbers will potentially be far greater in CMC than the one or two we got in CMBB due to auto-surrender. Will they have to be moved or provided for or will they just disappear (presumed dead!). And if they do remain in play, can they be liberated and sent back to the front-line, a favourite tactic of the Russians in 1945 I believe

[Dirtweasle]

Why would they not be removed from the active roster / OOB and simply presumed to be in the care and keeping of the appropriate rear echelon troops?

In other words, why are you presumming they are dead?

[C'Rogers]

In other words, why are you presumming they are dead?

I think, though I may be wrong, that he is asking if they are counted for the same as if they were dead. Does the game mark captured troops no longer availble, or does it track them differently than soldiers killed.

My first thought on this that the game's timeframe seems a little too short to incorporate POWs. For a soldier to be captured, rescued, and put back on the front lines seems too rare in a span of a couple of weeks (which, from what I have read seems the most the game is meant to duplicate, and that would be a huge span of time to play).

As I thought about it more though, POWs could be put in as part of the operation. Part of one players goal might be rescuing POWs. Not sure if that would add much more value though.

Good question though, I'm interested what the answer will be on captured troops.

[John_d]

Bascially, what I was wondering was given that when you capture enemy units normally they remain on-map and under your control, what would happen if an entire platoon (company, battalion etc) were captured. Would CMC deal with them in the same way that CMBB does (i.e. that they would fall under your control to do with as you please) or would they simply be removed from the game as if they were normal casualties? or would they wander aimlessly about til you got bored and brought an artillery strike down on them like in CMBO?

Also (this has just occurred to me) what about abandoned but otherwise relatively undamaged tanks and vehicles? couldn't they be reused by the enemy if captured?

[General Bolt]

Captured tanks, I think not. CMBB will be basically unchanged except for the interface with CMC.

Will abandoned tanks be treated the same as abandoned tanks in a regular CMBB operation? Control the area and they can come back after a few battles.

A battalion or regiment of POWs. Cool. I wonder how many will surrender at the Stalingrad campaign.

[MPK]

I think that you have got to

get some sort of intelligence

benefit from capturing enemy

soldiers...

Seems to me that this could work in CMC...

[PzKpfwIII]

Originally posted by General Bolt:

Captured tanks, I think not. CMBB will be basically unchanged except for the interface with CMC.

Will abandoned tanks be treated the same as abandoned tanks in a regular CMBB operation? Control the area and they can come back after a few battles.

A battalion or regiment of POWs. Cool. I wonder how many will surrender at the Stalingrad campaign.

Given that the upper limit of the game seems to be a division, I'd say that three or so regiments would have to be pretty badly beaten up before a player would surrender; one would also not see it on the tactical maps. Does raise the question of whether or not auto-surrender will be possible in the operational phase, but like everything, seems like a wait-and-see until the game actually comes out.

[John_d]

Which raises the point of what incentive would there be to voluntarily surrender? Although as been pointed out in other threads, there would be the incentive to try to withdraw troops from a losing battle, what about if there was no way of doing so? For example, if a company was surrounded with no way to escape, or if a rearguard found itself horribly outnumbered and unable to withdraw.

The only real reason I use the surrender option normally is to bring a game to an end that would otherwise drag on pointlessly, but given the fact that every casualty inflicted on the enemy is one less you have to fight later, why surrender at all? Surely not for humanitarian reasons.

If you did it so that your little pixel soldiers could one day return to their little pixel wives and kids, you should probably put the game down for a while and maybe see a doctor

[mrpwase]

Originally posted by John_d:

If you did it so that your little pixel soldiers could one day return to their little pixel wives and kids, you should probably put the game down for a while and maybe see a doctor

Don't joke about that. I feel terrible when my troops are unnecessarily cut down by enemy MG fire, even if they are virtual ones. Regardless of the fact that CM is a game, it is a game that resembles real life, and can still affect us (me?) in the same way. :mad:

[John_d]

I feel an interesting ethical debate approaching...

[Bartokomus]

I don't know about ethical debate; some people are just squeamish about wasting lives pointlessly, even if it is pretend. I fall under that category; i won't play any of the major city battles anymore, because for either side it just feels like a giant meat grinder.

the pointlessness of it is what gets me...

[securityguard]

i have tendancies to run hundreds of my virtual soldiers to their doom through rocket artillery and mg42 positions. their screams of agony reek of victory.

[Dirtweasle]

Originally posted by securityguard:

i have tendancies to run hundreds of my virtual soldiers to their doom through rocket artillery and mg42 positions. their screams of agony reek of victory.

You have a very simaler style to my friend Parabellum, perhaps you are related.

Aside from the pathos of it all, the fact is preserving your force makes victory much much easier. In many ways the victory flags are a distraction in that if you destroy the enemy while preserving your own troops, you will come out on top and be able to claim enough of the flags to get those points too.

[John_d]

Much as I hate needlessly wasted troops, this wasn't really my point (and I apologise to anyone offended by my joke about the wives and kids of our brave soldiers)

Like I said before, let's suppose that you have a infantry company, understrength and short on ammo, holding a position that is of little of no strategic value to anyone. Now suppose that they find themselves surrouned, outgunned and outnumbered. There is no chance of a breakout, no re-enforcments on the way and the whole thing is going to end in a bloody, pointless massacre. Let's say for arguments sake that the your force only has extremely limited AT capabilities and the opposing side has enough HE to level your position without even engaging properly.

Now, not being a military expert or anything, in real life, the CO of the company would surrender for humanitarian reasons. Even in a normal game of CMBB, you might be tempted to surrender just to spare ourself the agony (not to mention the frustration) of watching your troops get slaughtered. But if the situation above occurred in CMC, what would be the incentive to surrender? Faced with total defeat, it would be better to at least take a handful of the enemy with you, rather than surrender (of course, eventually auto-surrender would kick in anyway). You will lose the troops either way, so you might as well make the enemy pay for it. As stated above, the only reason for surrender (which would probably be the realistic course of action for the battle) would be to save the lives of your troops. But not even the most 'humane' CM player would consider doing this. There would be absolutely no point. Granted, as has been pointed out by a couple of members here, it is unpleasant for many people to lose their troops, even if they are just pixels. But when was the last time you lost sleep over how many troops you lost in a game of CM? The vast majority of people would order them to stand and fight, even though it was a suicidal order.

Really, what I'm trying to say (in a rather long-winded way) is:

Will there be any advantage to the player to surrendering troops that are lost anyway? Like an overall morale boost amongst your remaining troops, or even better, penalties for sacrificing the lives of troops you should have surrendered.

Or will we get rather unrealistic fights to the death in such situations instead?

[PzKpfwIII]

Originally posted by John_d:

Now, not being a military expert or anything, in real life, the CO of the company would surrender for humanitarian reasons.

That's not a given. And certainly not in the case of many units on the Eastern Front where no quarter was, as the old phrase goes, neither expected nor given. I'd be interested to see an example of a Waffen SS unit who simply "gave up" for "humanitarian reasons."

I think you may be confusing larger situations with that of a company. An encircled company was capable of doing and expecting much more to alleviate its condition than an encircled army.

If you can present some examples of organized company-sized surrenders, I would be interested in reading them. A company might fall to pieces in action and the men surrender in droves, but an organized surrender, at the decision of the company commander, would have been a rare thing - and probably unheard of in most corners of the Eastern Front.

Or will we get rather unrealistic fights to the death in such situations instead?

The fight itself would be realistic. If men started to surrender in droves, that would be realistic too. But an organized surrender by a company commander without a fight would seem on the face of it to be something of a fantasy.

[John_d]

You definitely have a point about it being on the Eastern Front- I dare say many troops would rather take their chances on the battlefield than in Nazi captivity.

I'm afraid I don't have any examples of companies surrendering. How come an army is in a worse position to defend when encircled than a company? I'm assuming its due to its supply lines being cut, but is there any other tactical reason. On reflection, you probably are right about this

[PzKpfwIII]

Originally posted by John_d:

How come an army is in a worse position to defend when encircled than a company? I'm assuming its due to its supply lines being cut, but is there any other tactical reason. On reflection, you probably are right about this

When I said "alleviate" I wasn't referring to the defence necessarily - I was thinking primarily of the ability to infiltrate out of its encirclement, but this could also mean digging in and camouflaging (hiding, if you will, or at least remaining inconspicuous), breaking out, or waiting for the remainder of its battalion or a neighbouring unit to break in.

Surrenders at lower levels were probably very tricky to orchestrate; not insignificantly, no army in the world taught its men how to go about giving up. In fact, surrender was discouraged strongly if not forbidden outright in principle if not precise orders. As for the latter, orders to "hold out to the last man" can be dismissed as rhetoric by an Army commander, but to a lowly lieutenant, captain or major, repurcussions for failure to adhere to these orders would have been severe. Executions for cowardice in both the German and Russian armies were probably as common as the issuance of "stand or die" orders.

Even for units engaged in less dramatic operations with no such orders, it would have been expected of troops to perform their duties without regard for their lives. One sees in both the Landser and the Frontovik a certain fatalist resignation to the performance of their duties, bordering in some cases on fanaticism. One does not like to generalize, but the intensity of operations on the Eastern Front seems, to me, to be testimony to the dedication soldiers on both sides had. And a reluctance to simply give up in order to preserve human life; this seems inconsistent with what is generally known about the combatants on both sides and the nature of warfare in the East.

In fact, every German soldier swore an oath, avowing that "as a brave soldier I am prepared to give my life for this oath at any time." It was expected.

An Army commander, on the other hand, would be responsible for thousands of lives. The company commander can morally pledge to fight to the last knowing that he shares the same risks as the few dozen men under his command and will share their fate. I think - without ever having been one myself, naturally - that an army commander may proceed from different moral assumptions when surrendering his command.

[Matt May]

Maybe they can represent them as trucks like they plan to do for heavy arty. <#@$%&!*>

[John_d]

Interesting stuff. Not much gets discussed on the moral obligations of officers round here normally. Bit of a minefield I suppose. It would be interesting to look into the differences between the Western and Eastern fronts on this matter, although I suppose that in many ways the answer is pretty obvious

[PzKpfwIII]

Originally posted by John_d:

Interesting stuff. Not much gets discussed on the moral obligations of officers round here normally. Bit of a minefield I suppose. It would be interesting to look into the differences between the Western and Eastern fronts on this matter, although I suppose that in many ways the answer is pretty obvious

General Wainwright was regarded - retroactively - as a hero even though he surrendered all US and Filipino forces in the Bataan peninsula. In fact, he got the Medal of Honor for his direction of the fighting up to the final capitulation. There is much speculation as to how politically motivated the award was, but the fact remains the award was made after the surrender (in fact, after the war ended and Wainwright returned home).

Conversely, Paulus was demonized for his surrender of the 6th Army at Stalingrad - though much of this may have to do also with his broadcasting for the Russians while in captivity. But he certainly did not get the Knight's Cross. He was promoted by Hitler in the belief that he would kill himself; no German Field Marshall had ever fallen into enemy hands alive. Paulus surrendered the 91,000 remaining men under his command the next day.

Different cultures. The Germans seem to have been rather more nihilist; suicide was very common and shooting officers for no other reason than losing a battle was not unheard of - the unfortunate commanders of the garrison at Remagen were tried, convicted and - those that hadn't been captured - executed swiftly and summarily. They had commited no crime nor had they deserted their posts. They simply happened to lose the battle. That is an extreme example and things were rather chaotic in the last weeks of the war but still illustrates well I think some of the underlying differences you speak of.

[ October 27, 2005, 04:44 PM: Message edited by: Russophile ]

[M Hofbauer]

russophile, I don't know how you came to your conclusion that there were no company-sized organized surrenders and that soldiers were intentionally not instructed about surrenders.

I think you are wrong but I am too lazy to dredge out my books to cite concrete examples. Even then, the Wehrmacht obviously instructed both in the handling of enemy prisoners and own capture.

John_d,

your point about pixel wives and kids is not the only aspect. it is also a question of gameyness vs. simulation.

your statements seem pretty gamey to me: if the company is lost anyhow, maybe they would surrender in reality because it is so futile and only a massacre, but in the game, hey, maybe I can kill even one enemy soldier while the company gets massacred - doesnt matter because for me they are gone anyhow.

its like edge-creeping, jeep-rushing, using crews as scouts/bait or taking other conscious advantages of weaknesses in the modeling of certain vehicles or game functions.

dont get me wrong - I am not saying that it is an ethically bad thing. it is just a different style of playing, and it *is* a game after all.

but some people prefer it to be more of a simulation of real world situations.

lastly, I find the idea of the handling of POWs highly intriguing, too. I am also highlyinterested in how the breakthrough of armor into the soft rear-area innerds will be modeled.

and generally the whole CMC.

let's just say I am rather excited and very much looking forward to CMC.

[PzKpfwIII]

Originally posted by M Hofbauer:

russophile, I don't know how you came to your conclusion that there were no company-sized organized surrenders and that soldiers were intentionally not instructed about surrenders.

I think you are wrong but I am too lazy to dredge out my books to cite concrete examples. Even then, the Wehrmacht obviously instructed both in the handling of enemy prisoners and own capture..

But neither the handling of enemy prisoners, nor conduct in enemy hands, has anything to do with instruction in "how to surrender" which is the point I was trying to make. Apologies if I was in some way unclear. Naturally soldiers would be instructed in the treatment of enemy POWs, and their responsibilities as prisoners themselves would be a routine subject to be covered during their training.

If, however, you can point to a manual or even a recollection of a German (or Russian) soldier being instructed in the best way to physically surrender themselves to the enemy, I would be quite interested in reading that.

As for my comments about company-sized surrenders, my exact words were "an organized surrender by a company commander without a fight would seem on the face of it to be something of a fantasy."

If you overcome your laziness or someone else can provide a quote, it would be of interest. Going beyond the face of things, I could imagine such surrenders being arranged in the Stalingrad pocket, for example, as conditions deteriorated, or indeed as part of the overall capitulation. Word would spread slowly throughout the pocket that a cease fire had been arranged and individual companies would make their local arrangements, but I was thinking more along the lines of the original example - ie a single company surrounded and cut off from a division otherwise still fighting effectively. Perhaps I had tunnel vision by that presumption?

[John_d]

Hofbauer,

I think I have once again made myself unclear (seems to be a bit of a recurring feature on this thread for me!). I was commenting on the kind of approach that would resulting in a player sacrificing, say, a company of men in order to inflict a single casuality on the enemy instead of surrending might be considered 'gamey' behaviour. My point is:

1) Is this actually gamey? (according to historical accounts)

and

2) If it is, will there be anything to prevent it in CMC other than the 'goodwill' of the human players?

[M Hofbauer]

Originally posted by John_d:

Hofbauer,

I think I have once again made myself unclear (seems to be a bit of a recurring feature on this thread for me!). I was commenting on the kind of approach that would resulting in a player sacrificing, say, a company of men in order to inflict a single casuality on the enemy instead of surrending might be considered 'gamey' behaviour. My point is:

1) Is this actually gamey? (according to historical accounts)

if you are recreating an event that actually occurred then no it is not gamey.

if you are changing what would have happened in reality only because you are playing it as a game, to illustrate, you are only sacruificing the men because you know that it is just a game, then it is gamey.

2) If it is, will there be anything to prevent it in CMC other than the 'goodwill' of the human players?

same as hitherto re. edge-creeping et al.

the best way to "prevent"* it is to carefully choose who you play with.

*btw who says you should prevent it? if both sides have the same attitude of "everything goes, this is a game after all, so lets take it as that", then they can have fun and there is nothing per se bad about gameyness.

it is only important that both sides are in agreement over what style to play. otherwise they will be frustrated.

[Ike]

And will prisoner exchanges be allowed, either as such or by virtue of some feature in the CMC program which restores your surrendered troopers after the passage of some specific or calculated period of time? If you can get your surrendered troops back, in the "company hopelessly surrounded" hypothetical presented above, then surrender would make sense, in the game context. That is so - given the existence of a feature whereby you get your surrendered troops back - whether company-level surrenders occured in real life or not.

Ike