Taking care of wounded - how important

[slysniper]

I wouild like to get feed back from others as to how important you feel it is to try and take care of the wounded in your game play.

I think it is one of them situations in how the game is scoring, but if you are not sure how it is scoring (a scenario) then what type of impact is it having in the game if you leave some unattended

[RockinHarry]

...for the good feel of not letting your men suffer out in nomans land or anywhere. Beside that off course I also consider scoring purposes as some of the unattended wounded could be counted dead at last.

[Statisoris]

I read somewhere that having wounded guys sitting around hurts the morale of their unit. When they are treated, their morale improves. (have not tested, but makes sense). Like you said, scoring is a big factor for me. I usually can not afford to give buddy aid as defender since you are usually so outnumbered and on the run, but as attacker, I try to clean up the battlefield of wounded. It really keeps the KIA numbers down by turning them into WIAs.

Also, I have found buddy aid very useful for picking up important weapons like the MG-42 LMG, BAR, AT weapons, however, I hate it when a soldier picks up a new weapon, but only picks up like 20 rounds of ammunition for it. The new weapon is pretty useless if they don't pick up enough ammo for it.

[General Jack Ripper]

I will give buddy aid to every single soldier except when it might get more guys killed. At the end of a scenario, I leave no man behind on the battlefield.

Personally I don't care about buddy aid for scoring purposes, it's just a matter of honor.

[Erwin]

It's probably the most innovative feature of CM2 and it does help keep more alive for endgame scoring purposes. My only gripe is that we have lots of relatively useless HQ units but no medics. How about another way to split a squad - split off a medic?

[c3k]

Split off a medic? Only if those dastardly fanatics mentioned here http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=100592 can make it into the game, as well!

[thejetset]

I think it would be nice if there was maybe a small (like 5% - 10%) chance of a WIA solder being able to immediately get back into the fight as "hurt" after receiving buddy aid. This could be a situation where the wound was not as bad as initially thought and the solder feels they can get back into the action before receiving additional aid.

Also, this would provide an extra incentive to do buddy aid.

[DavidFields]

I have a contrarian view of this: I find the buddy aid thing a nuisance. We are fighting a battle, and, though it may seem heartless of me (realize, however, these pixeltruppen...are..not...real), it is another thing to fuss with--maybe this is because I have been playing larger scenarios/campaigns.

Part of the issue is that we don't, I don't think, know when it is going to happen, or not happen. So pulling squads around so that, maybe, they will help someone is, again, just another distraction--particularly if there is any chance it could get someone else killed, or off-balance the attack/defense--which is also another way of saying, possibly getting someone else killed.

And, personally, as a matter of taste [prepares for incoming hand grenades], I find it too precious, too SIMS, too much Modern Warfare ethos rather than WW2.

You don't have to tell me about the great medics, and bravery, of front line WW2 troops, and what they did to try to save their buddies. But the ethos for, for example, the Allies, was to get to Berlin as quickly as possible and end the war. Thus, no, not every single soldier was so valuable. Have a few of your supposedly submergeable tanks plunge to the bottom of the sea off Normandy, drowning the crews? Oh, well...the fight continues. Today there might be a Congressional investigation with regard to possible incompetence. Then, you had to do something as bad as needlessly destroying an entire division in Italy before such scrutiny would be applied.

My job, I think, it to not let a squad/platoon/company be thoughtlessly destroyed by bad tactics. The bandaging of the wounds, like the soldiers having enough time to take a pee, or getting them lunch, I want to leave to others. Personal preference, and I value that others enjoy different parts of the simulation--I am not advocating for a CM2 change.

But to the extent that, in CM2, if affects game play and scoring, I will likely need to play more attention to it.

[Sgt Schultz]

I use XOs as medics/sweepers when attacking. The parent unit is most likely busy moving on, but I don't want to just leave the wounded(and their weapons) laying about needlessly.

I think specialised medic units would be nice, but where do you draw the line?

Company level 2-3 man team?

Platoon has one medic if any?

Jeeps with Red crosses?

--

Neat but not high priority imho.

-

[GreenAsJade]

If someone can authoritatively describe the mechanics of how buddy aid can affect scoring, that'd be a great help.

GaJ

[Sgt Schultz]

Pg66.

Seriously-wounded(red-base) soldiers who have NOT received buddy aid(i.e. disappeared) by the end of the game have a 25% chance of becoming KIA in the final tally.

---

With our new penchant for 'destroy' points... every man may count for something.

With the other 'casualties less than X%' system ... the man you don't treat could be the one that gives a wad of points to the enemy, and/or denies points to you.

----

In other words ... you can leave the "brown base" dead soldiers for Graves Registration(if you don't need their weapons) and not incur possible points penalties.

Red-base wounded should be attended to if at all possible.

I will keep tweaking destroy points until you folks take care of your men d@mnit.

[GreenAsJade]

Great thanks - I reckon that's just how it should be!

GaJ

[John1966]

I have a contrarian view of this: I find the buddy aid thing a nuisance. We are fighting a battle, and, though it may seem heartless of me (realize, however, these pixeltruppen...are..not...real), it is another thing to fuss with--maybe this is because I have been playing larger scenarios/campaigns.

Part of the issue is that we don't, I don't think, know when it is going to happen, or not happen. So pulling squads around so that, maybe, they will help someone is, again, just another distraction--particularly if there is any chance it could get someone else killed, or off-balance the attack/defense--which is also another way of saying, possibly getting someone else killed.

And, personally, as a matter of taste [prepares for incoming hand grenades], I find it too precious, too SIMS, too much Modern Warfare ethos rather than WW2.

You don't have to tell me about the great medics, and bravery, of front line WW2 troops, and what they did to try to save their buddies. But the ethos for, for example, the Allies, was to get to Berlin as quickly as possible and end the war. Thus, no, not every single soldier was so valuable. Have a few of your supposedly submergeable tanks plunge to the bottom of the sea off Normandy, drowning the crews? Oh, well...the fight continues. Today there might be a Congressional investigation with regard to possible incompetence. Then, you had to do something as bad as needlessly destroying an entire division in Italy before such scrutiny would be applied.

My job, I think, it to not let a squad/platoon/company be thoughtlessly destroyed by bad tactics. The bandaging of the wounds, like the soldiers having enough time to take a pee, or getting them lunch, I want to leave to others. Personal preference, and I value that others enjoy different parts of the simulation--I am not advocating for a CM2 change.

But to the extent that, in CM2, if affects game play and scoring, I will likely need to play more attention to it.

I tend to agree with this. If I'm supposed to be attending to the wounded because it is realistic to do so then give me some medics. Otherwise, if the squad has to move on, then it has to move on.

Even if we did get specialist medics, I'd rather it was automated or abstracted. As Rankorian says, its just another thing to fuss over.

(Please toss the grenades Rankorian's way. I'm just backing him up )

[hoolaman]

There's not really any obligation to use it if you dont want to.

[slysniper]

As mentioned by others, I just like to do it because I was taught, leave no man behind.

In game play I find it is not hard if I am on the side winning at the moment and I am advancing. It is easy for trailing units or reserves to treat the wounded while behind the front line forces. In a losing situation, then it is very hard to justify, like has been said. I have more important things to think about, like keeping my good units alive.

So this brings up a point that happens. Man goes down, their in a firefight and I see buddy aid going on, I have also watched the guy die during giving aid. Seems realistic but I have a hard time accepting it in the game when it is units in the mist of the fight. I think real life would find guys helping their buddies. but they would get them and try to drag or move them to someplace safer before trying to give first aid.

[bodkin]

Pg66.

Seriously-wounded(red-base) soldiers who have NOT received buddy aid(i.e. disappeared) by the end of the game have a 25% chance of becoming KIA in the final tally.

---

With our new penchant for 'destroy' points... every man may count for something.

With the other 'casualties less than X%' system ... the man you don't treat could be the one that gives a wad of points to the enemy, and/or denies points to you.

----

In other words ... you can leave the "brown base" dead soldiers for Graves Registration(if you don't need their weapons) and not incur possible points penalties.

Red-base wounded should be attended to if at all possible.

I will keep tweaking destroy points until you folks take care of your men d@mnit.

I'm not sure about the points benefits of saving the WIA casualties from becoming KIA, aren't they just all counted as casualties in the final tally at the end of a scenario? I don't think you get more points for KIA's or do you?

[LukeFF]

I have a contrarian view of this:...

Yeah, except that, since WWII (maybe even before that), American soldiers have been trained to give buddy aid on the battlefield. It's not a trivial matter. Medics can't be everywhere at once. It would be less realistic to have soldiers not giving buddy aid at all.

And on that note, I think CMBN's implementation of buddy aid is pretty good. Typically, if troops are under fire/engaging the enemy, they will not stop to give buddy aid to downed comrades. We can debate the merits of whether or not the game would be well-served by adding true medics to the game, but at the moment the game's simulation of battlefield first aid is IMO pretty good.

(Spoken as a former Army medic).

[akd]

Pg66.

Seriously-wounded(red-base) soldiers who have NOT received buddy aid(i.e. disappeared) by the end of the game have a 25% chance of becoming KIA in the final tally.

---

With our new penchant for 'destroy' points... every man may count for something.

With the other 'casualties less than X%' system ... the man you don't treat could be the one that gives a wad of points to the enemy, and/or denies points to you.

----

In other words ... you can leave the "brown base" dead soldiers for Graves Registration(if you don't need their weapons) and not incur possible points penalties.

Red-base wounded should be attended to if at all possible.

I will keep tweaking destroy points until you folks take care of your men d@mnit.

Casualties are considered "destroyed" whether treated or not (which makes sense as they are out of the battle for good regardless). I believe the final KIA to WIA ratio is really just a personal benchmark. You are not going to "win" or "lose" a scenario via buddy aid.

[black_prince]

Personally, I like the buddy aid system. I don't think there's any need for medics to be added. It wouldn't work very well anyway-unless the 'aquire' command was modified so that units could aquire weapons and equipment from each other rather than just from vehicles. I'm slightly more blasse about casualties in CMBN but in CMSF I would go to great lengths to rescue wounded men. For me it greatly added to the immersion.

[SelfLoadingRifle]

As a point of interest, the doctrine for dealing with wounded in the real world doesn't seem consistent. Winston Churchill records that if a man went down in Afghanistan (1880s I think) two other men were removed from the fight when they went to assist. Reading between the lines, the same would seem to apply in that theatre today - shades of: "When you're wounded and out on Afghanistan's plains and the women come out to cut up what remains".

As an old Cold War grunt I was always taught in training that the wounded had to look after themselves until after the immediate tactical situation had been resolved, but then again, we had 'man down' drills which I always thought confused the issue! Different era, different enemy. CMN of course concerns the generation before mine; different again. I am a Brit. The German and American doctrines on such matters might not be the same as ours.

Comments please.

SLR

[RockinHarry]

There's not really any obligation to use it if you dont want to.

Not quite true. If your on the defense and occupy an AS that you don´t want to abandon (FH/trenches/other...), WIA in this AS is applied BA automatically if remaining squad members feel temporarily "secure". This oftentimes lead to additional casualties among the wannabe medics, but the cause is mainly wrong stance. See also here:

http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=100506

Should be rather applied like that:

[Sgt Schultz]

Casualties are considered "destroyed" whether treated or not (which makes sense as they are out of the battle for good regardless). I believe the final KIA to WIA ratio is really just a personal benchmark. You are not going to "win" or "lose" a scenario via buddy aid.

My bad, I was under the impression that only KIA and MIA counted towards points totals.

With no incentive to provide buddy aid(besides weapon scavenging), what's the point of all that coding? This seems to promote leaving them behind, unless you are snatching their weapons from their cold dead hands.

I think treated(disappeared) soldiers should not count towards casualty lists in the points department.

---------

Which begs the question ... are "yellow base" wounded in the AAR WIA totals? Never thought to check that.

------

Found something else in the manual that may be related ...

It is on the section Force Wide Objectives - the casualties less than/greater than points...

Pg49.

Note: dead(KIA) and severely wounded soldiers(NOT eligible for buddy aid) are counting as "casualties", while lightly wounded and incapacitated soldiers(eligible for buddy aid) are counting against "condition".

---

More edits - Thinking about it more, it seems that the only incentives for buddy aid on the game side are weapons/ammo, and the "casualties" Victory Condition.

So, if you don't need the weapons and there are no points awarded in the 'casualties'(25% chance of wounded dying and tripping the switch) area of that battle ... you just leave 'em lie???

Cold-hearted game mechanic if so.

I would like a BFC comment on this area please. It seems just a tad murky and not well documented.

[DavidFields]

Not quite true. If your on the defense and occupy an AS that you don´t want to abandon (FH/trenches/other...), WIA in this AS is applied BA automatically if remaining squad members feel temporarily "secure". This oftentimes lead to additional casualties among the wannabe medics, but the cause is mainly wrong stance. See also here:

http://www.battlefront.com/community/showthread.php?t=100506

Should be rather applied like that:

This is one of my technical concerns--I think buddy aid is done kneeling, which I find is an incredibly more vulnerable stance than being prone.

And to LukeFF: The issue I have, and I am uncertain about this--maybe buddy aid will grow on me--, is about complexity and implementation. Indeed, I like to think of buddy aid as actually "medic", and would prefer to see this: If a unit with an injury has not fired its weapons for a certain number of turns, and if the unit were away from the enemy for a certain distance, an injured soldier in the unit would have a certain probability of being healed (a level).

That gives the buddy aid/medic role, but abstracted. You would have to worry less about the Tac-AI, or yourself, doing something unrealistically dangerous.

It still gives the "interesting decision" (and that is what one wants in a game), to pull units with injured soldiers off the line.

As to the quote about losing two soldiers (effectively) for every injured soldier, I am also conflicted about this. There may be some truth to that. But its implementation would be radical for these types of simulations--for every wounded soldier in a squad, one or two other soldiers would disappear, representing them taking the wounded soldier to the aid station. (Which reminds me of the ancient tactic of cutting the achiles tendon of the defeated soldiers, rather than killing them--a crippled soldier being more of a drain on the enemy than a dead soldier.)

One can get around this issue by presuming there are people on the battlefield who we do not see--medics, support people--who are performing this role. There is also the issue of the time frame--left behind, but not forgotten, the wounded would be tended to afterwards, and the soldiers helping may simply not be available for the next immediate battle.

This is getting to the issue, which CMBN bumps up into, where more "realism" might, in some circumstances, cause less realism, because of unmodeled issues.

Which, alas, is prompting me to start another thread.

[Edit: nice link, RonckinHarry. I see you and LukeFF have been working on this for awhile.]

[drrowley]

been doing aid to pick up extra ammo and what i thought was helping my score, but i have yet to see ammo picked up. some grenades and, happily, a couple of charges.

[monkex]

I thought you would like this site

http://www.mtaofnj.org/content/WWII%20Combat%20Medic%20-%20Dave%20Steinert/index.htm#World%20War%20II%20and%20the%20Combat%20Medic