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Routing British Troops


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I've noticed in a couple of the campaign battles that my British troops seem to be routing far more than the US troops ever did - which I think is a little odd. usually it's vehicle crew, after their tank/APC has been destroyed. I can't honestly believe that this is realistic - I mean, these are highly trained and motivated soldiers, they are hardly going to just bugger off in the middle of a battle! I can understand them getting pinned, or legging it for the nearest ditch, but going AWOL seems just wrong. I never saw this with the US crew - they tended to stick it out well.

Anyone else seen this?

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hm why not, americans and syrians can rout too. its just a matter of pushing hard enough. i didnt had any westerner rout in ages. when they get out of the vehicles now they are rattled or so and are back in action a minute after, you must have done something special to get em to panic and vanish.

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Well, they were a little exposed, but not too badly supported - not under direct fire I think. I can see untrained Militia routing, but US or Brit troops.. would be so rare as to be extraordinary, surely, and I've had it it happen twice, in situations which were dangerous, but I cant believe trained, veteren troops would rout in.

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"Routing" is such an ugly word. :) I dunno, if I had a tank shot out from under me and clambered away, heart a-pounding, I'd probably look at my comrades and say, "Let's stay out of the infantry's way and go get ourselves a new pair of treads, yeah?"

It wouldn't be a "rout" so much as a wise tactical move made while scared pantless.

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I'm just replaying the original campaign under 1.2 and had a Stryker (with infantry inside) hit by an anti-tank missile. Both crew were killed and the infantry took a couple of casualties; they bailed out and then, over the next five minutes or so, melted away one by one into the Syrian desert... it seemed a little strange, what with four Abrams and their mates between them and the opposition. :)

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When the AAR screen shows Brit soldiers as "missing", I wouldn't necessarily interpret that as meaning they went AWOL like a bunch of deserters or something. Maybe they were so cheesed off with getting nearly blown up they decided their time would be better spent helping to carry a wounded colleague to safety. I've read that in wars through the ages, helping the wounded to the rear was a common way for soldiers to remove themselves from danger without necessarily deserting.

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Routing troops do not run.

Troops that run are trying to get out of the position you've put them in. The two instances are liable to occur in similar situations which can lead to confusion.

If you put troops in a position where there is nowhere to run to then they are likely to get shot up. That should be realistic. If they are shot up and have somewhere to run to that will break contact, that is where they ought to run. If they are running in odd directions then that might be a problem, but it is not a problem that can be addressed unless there is evidence.

If it is a reproducible situation then a save game or a map that can demonstrate it would be the way to go.

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If they are running in odd directions then that might be a problem, but it is not a problem that can be addressed unless there is evidence.

If it is a reproducible situation then a save game or a map that can demonstrate it would be the way to go.

There's a map called "House Cleaning" which is an attack on a large hospital building. The pathfinding in the hospital is interesting, to say the least. I played it (with 1.2) the other day and saw a fleeing squad head from the front-right of the hospital (safe) diagonally towards the back-left of the hospital (very very unsafe.) They fled right through the building, straight towards three (or more) spotted enemy squads that were shooting at them, instead of backing out the door they'd just gone in... messy. I think that's the sort of thing skinnedpuppy means, it does happen from time to time. About as galling as those little orange !s. :) (I guess if the pixeltruppen use an A* algorithm or whatever it's called then assigning squares with bad guys in a high negative value is the thing to do. But I imagine it's more complicated than that!) :)

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I can't remember last time I saw one of my troops route. I'm no tactical genius, I just use a lot of smoke and try not to get exposed.

To add to what flamingknives was saying, routing troops go to "!" and disappear, troops displacing are trying to find somewhere less dangerous. If that happens to be toward the enemy then c'est la vie.

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There are many exemples in history were elite troops routed.

The Spartans at the battle of Leuctra, the french Guard at Waterloo and many more in all nations.

The fact that they are well trained etc.. Doesn't mean that they will not rout but that they will suffer more before they break.

I don't like the system of vanishing soldiers. I miss the old CM 1 system, because you could sometimes take your men back to the fight. This gave more importance to good leaders.

I also miss a lot prisoners, and i still hope that maybe we will have those features back.

I once took a veteran group of US infantry prisoner in the mist. They were ambushed by two german groups and decided to surrender without a single shot. They were smart enough to see that fighting was a suicide.

Somtimes it's better to run away and keep on the fight later than to die in a lost battle. See the Japanese during WW2. Very few prisoners, fighting to death for what result ?

I was disappointed by the way troops reacted under fire. Syrians use to die, pinned down on building stupidly.

After patch 1.11, i saw something very interesting. One squad was under the fire of a Bradley with 2 men badly wounded and one lightly. 3 men ran away and found cover.They were separated and the others try to rejoin. The first man could but the wounded was killed by the Bradley. He was too slow due to his wound. They reacted like humans trying to survive not like robots in a game. I stopped playing to watch them trying to survive and i was sad when i saw the wounded man killed.

For fun i played a QB with four Abrams against Syrians. I was watching BMP's and tanks burning when i made a mistake. While two tanks were in overwatch, the others tried to flank the enemy. One Abrams was hit on the flank with only light damage. The crew (veterans) decide to bail out and to stop listening to my stupid orders for the rest of the battle:D.

I really love when things like this happen.

In CMBO, i was waiting for US attack near Remagen with Volkssturm conscripts. One mortar shell fell in the middle of the village i was defending and they all started to run away. No dead, no wounded. I took the manual to find the command "execute the traitors" but i could not find it:D.

I was able to bring them back to fight after a few minutes. In fact they escaped the artillery preparation and would suffer heavy losses if they had obey my orders.

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To clarify here’s an example of my troops “running” into enemy fire

British Section occupying the bottom floor of a multi story building start taking incoming fire (from the front) eventually the weight of fire proves to much and they bug out (which in mind is a rout since at this stage I have no control over them). Now the building has two doors one in the front (toward fire) and one in the rear.

Which door do they take? In my experience the front one and get massacred, now this doesn’t happen every time but often enough that I have noticed, and shouted my frustration at the buggers

From what I remember this happened in CMX1 when the friendly map edges were incorrectly defined in the scenario, hence my earlier suggestion.

Anyone else have experience with this?

Next time it happens I’ll post screenshots and make a save available so people can look into it.

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There are many exemples in history were elite troops routed.

The Spartans at the battle of Leuctra, the french Guard at Waterloo and many more in all nations.

The fact that they are well trained etc.. Doesn't mean that they will not rout but that they will suffer more before they break.

Right.. but what have the Spartans and the French Guard got to do with anything? Their training was far less exhaustive than the modern British/US Army. Highly motervated, trained troops should not just be disappearing from the battlefield on a whim!

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ah, I think you'll find the reason they're voluntarily absenting themselves from the battlefield is a little more than a 'whim'

I had one leave me in a recent battle. The wagon he was in got smoked by an ATGM, several people on board were killed and a number of the remainder wounded. Of those that made it out, everyone was badly shaken for several turns. Most of them pulled themselves together, but one poor bloke didn't or couldn't, and disappeared in a puff of "!" I put it down to shellshock and imagine him sitting in a ditch at the side of the road, sobbing, curled up in a ball with **** trickling down his leg. And, to be honest, in the circumstances I can't say I blame him.

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