Casualties = Squad goes Tired in 1 Wego turn?

[Nolloff]

Hello there,

I´m currently playing the Courage and Fortitude campaign (2nd iteration of the fearsome bridge scenario) and have to do something at which I´ve always been very bad in CM - crossing a lot of open ground. I know ... supressive fire, smoke, etc. etc.

I´m moving my infantry squads with the Quick command. They all start rested. I hardly ever let them quick-move more than the distance which can get covered in a minute (e.g. WEGO turn) and then (if possible) leave them in position for a turn.

When the Germans cause the first casualties (1 or 2 men per Squad) which happens quickly after I start moving my troops the whole squad goes from Ready or Rested to Tired during one turn. While I´d be fine with a morale effect I don´t quite understand the immediate physical effect. They´re not really carrying their wounded around on stretchers or whatever.

Any thoughts, similar experiences?

I´ve searched the forum and the manual but haven´t found anything that explains a relationship between casualties and physical condition of the rest of the unit so I´m sorry if this has been brought up and discussed elsewhere.

Cheers

Nolloff

[Rex J.]

I believe units will move faster to their destination when they come under heavy fire. So perhaps what you're seeing is the units changing from a "quick" movement to a "fast" movement which will definitely cause them to be tired after less than a minute.

[umlaut]

I believe there is one major differenence in how fatigue works compared to CM1: In my experience, the effects of a quick dash or run is often not calculated/show (or whatever)until the troops have stopped moving. That means a squad can start out "rested" and remain so during the entire run, but when the reach their destination they´re suddenly tired.

Maybe this is supposed to simulate that if you´re running across an open field under fire, you´ll run until you reach cover, no matter what....?

Don´t know if it is so - but it´s my best guess.

[xian]

Were they running uphill?

[Baneman]

I believe there is one major differenence in how fatigue works compared to CM1: In my experience, the effects of a quick dash or run is often not calculated/show (or whatever)until the troops have stopped moving. That means a squad can start out "rested" and remain so during the entire run, but when the reach their destination they´re suddenly tired.

Maybe this is supposed to simulate that if you´re running across an open field under fire, you´ll run until you reach cover, no matter what....?

Don´t know if it is so - but it´s my best guess.

Hmm, can't say I noticed that - pretty sure I've seen my guys go from Rested to Ready during a run.

One thing I did notice when playing Closing the Pocket in the Demo is that sometimes 1 man "gets left behind" when doing a squad movement. If the squad then comes under fire, they all go to ground, but the movement order remains because 1 guy isn't "there" yet. Consequently, he Crawls ( Slow ) to the rest of the team resulting in him becoming Tired - which effectively counts against all of them - eg. if you have 2 split teams and one is Tired and the other is Rested, joining them together you have the entire squad Tired.

So all I can suggest, Nolloff, is check the numbers of the guys in the squad and see if any are widely separated. That's my best guess.

[Nolloff]

Thanks for your quick replies. I tried to reproduce the behaviour without success. My movement orders might have been too close to difficult terrain.

[Michael Emrys]

I believe there is one major differenence in how fatigue works compared to CM1: In my experience, the effects of a quick dash or run is often not calculated/show (or whatever)until the troops have stopped moving. That means a squad can start out "rested" and remain so during the entire run, but when the reach their destination they´re suddenly tired.

I'm pretty sure that's not so. A few days back I locked onto several units individually to watch them make their runs, and at least in some cases they went from "rested" to "ready" while still in motion.

Michael

[MikeyD]

Troops seems to take a significant hit in the 'slow' mode. The assumption is they're crawing of their bellies keeping as low as possible. Exhausting work. If a quick-moving unit got clobbered they may have automatically tried to crawl their way to cover, which is the most likely cause of what tired them out, depending on the distance they covered. CM:BN seems a bit more forgiving than CMSF. A slow crawl in CMSF would exhaust the men really quick and kept them that way for a 10-15 min on a very hot day.

[Drescher]

What MikeyD said, plus i find that when using QUICK i tend to give rather short waypoints, say 40-50m. With the way movement works in CMx2 units will sort of regroup at the waypoint, this gives them a little rest. Using this you can QUICK your guys around for quite some distance without getting them exhausted.

The reason why units did exhaust more easy in SF is AFAIU of course weather condition, plus individual equipment. No body armor, nightvision etc. helps running around, not so much while getting shot at though.

[Nolloff]

I made some further tests and am able to reproduce the behaviour. One of my infantry squads goes from status "Rested" to "Tiring" within 1 second of the WEGO replay.

Commands: Quick Move Command, approximately 40m forward, open, flat ground. At ..35 seconds of the replay the Squadleader gets hit. The Squad keeps running forward, the leader stays behind (wounded).

The squad runs forward until ..05 of the turn, hits the ground and switches directly from "Rested" to "Tiring" from second .01 to .00.

Could it be that the leader is considered "crawling" and therefore slow and his exhausted status 30 seconds later is then considered the status of the whole squad (just trying to find an explanation).

I can provide a savegame of the replay if a tester wants to have a look at it.

[Pvt. Ryan]

You say this happens during the replay. Does it also happen during the original turn? The replay may not be keeping track of the unit's status and may be showing the end state instead of the progression from rested to ready to tiring. By the way, troops recover from tiring a lot more quickly than they do from tired.

[finalcut]

Ft,Out of shape Soldiers.Theres a reason they are called "Dough Boys".

[Nolloff]

I made tests with the "Fast" and "Quick" command and the results are consistent with what I´m seeing here when taking into account that the AI turns my "Quick" command into "Fast" when the unit comes under fire. 100 - 120m "Fast" gets a unit from "Rested" to "Tiring".

The switch to "Tiring" happens at the end of the turn, "Ready" which is in between "Rested" and "Tiring" is not displayed at all during the replay.

Sorry for the false alarm and waste of time, bits and bytes.

[Pvt. Ryan]

Pvt. Ryan,

I don´t quite understand what you mean by original turn as I thought the Replay Phase is the original result of the orders phase getting executed.

My point is that I wonder why the unit seems to be suffering a physical fitness condition drop from "Rested" to "Tiring" due to casualties. The execution of the Quick command over the distance I´ve chosen (the unit started to go Quick and reached the end point of the command in approx. 40 seconds) should either not reduce the physical fitness at all or at maximum 1 level down.

Cheers

Nolloff

What I mean is that the first time a turn is played is a "play," not a "replay." CMSF had issues where you would see the end state of certain unit conditions instead of seeing them as they progressed when watching a replay. I believe many of them were fixed, but maybe what you are seeing is a holdover from that.

In addition, when a unit takes heavy fire or casualties, it will automatically change a move or quick order into a fast order in an attempt to reach cover more quickly. Fast tires units very quickly.

[Nolloff]

Understood. See my edited message above. Thanks for your help!

[xian]

One thing I did notice when playing Closing the Pocket in the Demo is that sometimes 1 man "gets left behind" when doing a squad movement.

Yes - this happens when a soldier is wounded.

[Baneman]

Yes - this happens when a soldier is wounded.

No, I mean a completely ( still green base ) unwounded guy. He just got his pathing wrong or something. The rest of the squad got into a firefight and he crawled all the way to them ( they got into position with Quick ).

Thing is, the Quick movement line to where the squad was remained even though he was crawling ( admittedly I didn't notice this at the time for several turns - when I did, I cancelled the movement order and the guy eventually reached the rest of the squad, but they were then "all" Tired for several turns ).

[xian]

Oh, sorry.

I'll look out for that.

[LongLeftFlank]

There was a slight bug in CMSF where if a unit crossed a Low Wall that was adjacent to a High Wall, the figures would instead go around and "through" the High Wall and lose a step of Condition for each man who did this. So that a rifle team would be EXHAUSTED by the end of the maneuver. Don't know if that's still the case in CMBN, and no idea if that has anything to do with your issue.

[womble]

As I understand it, any time your infantry move "Fast" they will become 'Tired' upon completing their Fast movement, thus removing the possibility of chaining Fast orders one after the other. My anecdotal experience is that you can put several Fast 'legs' together in one turn, and even though they're reorganising at the waypoints, they'll do the hops at Fast, and end up the minute 'Tired'. I also think that a post-Fastmove 'Tired' is actually recovered to 'OK' much faster than if you've ground your unit's stamina out over several minutes (with Slow, usually...)

I think what you're seeing here is the under-fire unit picking up the pace and changing its Quick to a Fast, causing 'automatic Tired-ness'. I think you'll see them recover quite quickly.