PoWs

[PzKpfwIII]

Originally posted by 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

Surrendered troops being returned is a bad idea. I have a hard time believing that prisoner exchanges were done all that often, given the track record of brutality on both sides regarding treatment of captured soldiers. More importantly, infantry battalions only held their prisoners temporarily, they were evacuated as swiftly as wounded soldiers were far up the chain of command - infantry battalions and even regiments had no facilities for permanently keeping prisoners of war in any numbers and the division is the first level at which sizeable military police units are found.

Finally, why bog the game down with statistics on prisoners, and moreover, what mechanics would you use for the actual exchange? Sounds like a lot of "chrome" for no real benefit, even if such things had been done routinely, which they weren't.

If this was really going to be included, the next step would of course to calcuate how many Soviet POWs were really defectors, and then calculate the number of freshly-minted Hilfswilligen in the German rear echelons...

[Bigduke6]

And let's not forget the German forced labor formations, they did good work and many of the buildings and factories they put up, are still standing. Interestingly German POWs had a reputation of a much higher quality laborer, than your average Soviet Joe. Imagine that...

[John_d]

Russophile,

hate to be pedantic, but what you said about earlier about Paulus surrendering the 91,000 men under his command isn't technically true. Paulus only ever surrendered his HQ on Red Square and left his subordinate commanders to make their own arrangements. Consequently, the fighting in Stalingrad continued for several days after Paulus surrendered, especially in the north of the city

Interestingly German POWs had a reputation of a much higher quality laborer, than your average Soviet Joe

Teutonic efficiency at its best!

[PzKpfwIII]

Originally posted by John_d:

Russophile,

hate to be pedantic, but what you said about earlier about Paulus surrendering the 91,000 men under his command isn't technically true. Paulus only ever surrendered his HQ on Red Square and left his subordinate commanders to make their own arrangements. Consequently, the fighting in Stalingrad continued for several days after Paulus surrendered, especially in the north of the city.

That's an excellent point; kind of ties in with my response to MHofbauer really.

[RSColonel_131st]

Originally posted by John_d:

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?

I guess the appriorate penalty for a player who sacrifices his troops pointlessy is to give the remaining troops in the campaign lower morale?

[sonar]

From what I've read,the German doctrine when overrun or surrounded,was to sit tight till the front was straightened out.They knew their command would be doing their best to relieve them,where as surrendering,or running away,would lead to a collapse which in fact lessened your chance of survival.This tactic,was what led to the men in Stalingrad,holding out for so long.Because it was normal to expect relief.