251/16 HT Obosilete under new assualt rules

[Huib Versloot]

<soapbox ON>
I may have mentioned this before :-) but I think that the primary design simulation of assaults is being missed.

Assaults in CS are NOT supposed to represent crushing the life from your opponents troops under the tracks of your Tigers.

IMHO, assaults were initially designed to represent the surrender of troops whose position was compromised - surrounded, low on morale, etc...

A quick estimate of german losses versus captured reveals approx 5M killed, 6M wounded and 11M captured. Ratios from double this (France 92K:50K) to quadruple this (Belgium 7000:1800) exist for other occupied combatants. The ratio for victorious combatants is in the range 3:1 (Britain), 5:1 (USSR), 7:1 (USA) and 50:1 (Japan). I would argue that capture was thus an important aspect of WWII tactics and the only way that this is represented in CS is via assault.

I would further argue that the original assault rules represent this state of affairs more accurately (it IS a forgone conclusion that when the enemy surrenders I capture him!) than the newer style assault rules, and thus units such as the 251/16HT can have their place restored.

umbro

<soapbox OFF>

The majority of captures took place after the countries had surrendered. On tactical CS level captures are far less frequent. At least in my own historical scenarios there where not many captures during the real battles themselves. That goes for all, around 30 historical scenarios I researched and made. The new assault rules make all these scenarios more realistic actually, slowed down the game pleasantly and reduced unrealistic massive captures and removed the gamey looking tactics that came with them.


Huib