Newbie Questions

[Mowgli]

@ Green

You've never seen a unit go to broken by a single combined fire action. That's a good point as it (as far as I understand it) indicates quite clearly that in a "combined units" fire action, the fire power of several units is summed up for a single action rather than several small actions.

I'm currently working on a little guide/manual in German for Panzer Campaigns, here is a quick translation of the "morale check" part:

If a unit has suffered at least one casualty as the result of a combat action, it needs to test whether it is forced to undergo a morale test. The more losses the unit had to take and the smaller the unit, the more likely it is that the unit is forced to make a morale check. Here is a table to give you an impression:  

suffered losses* = chance to force morale check
small unit (1 component) 5=50%, 10=66%, 15=75%, 30=86%
medium unit (2 components) 5=33%, 10=50%, 15=66%, 30=75%
large unit (3 components) 5=25%, 10=40%, 15=50%, 30=66%
*The loss of a vehicle or gun counts as 10

Some weapons/units or situations are more likely to force a morale check on some units (even if the inflicted losses are comparatively small)**:  
• HQ-units and hard targets (armored units, deployed infantry in bunkers or pillboxes) are vulnerable against artillery fire.  
• Tank units are vulnerable against non-self propelled anti tank units and non-self propelled heavy anti air units.
• Units who attack (not defend) in an assault are vulnerable. Especially at night [WIP: difficult terrain mitigates this malus somehow...]
** If a unit is "vulnerable", then the losses it has taken are doubled to determine the chance whether it needs to perform a morale check.

IF a unit is forced to perform a morale check AND IF the unit fails the morale check, it becomes disrupted or - if it's currently already disrupted and is at maximum fatigue - broken.

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COMBAT VALUE IN FIRE COMBAT

I've taken a closer look at the numbers in the very usefull "results window". Note I'm only refering to infantry engagements for now.

• "Range" obvisously refers to the range.
  
• "Modifier" indiciates the terrain bonus of the target.
  
• "Mod" refers to the quality modifier (of the firing unit) that is applied to the cv.
  
• "inf x%" indicates the strength of the unit (it's always higher than the actual strength, see manual, p. 38 --> infantry fire effectiveness)
  

I've also figured out that the the given number does already take into account the malus on defense that units get for being in travel mode, which also tells me that the given number already includes the (/defensive stat) part of the formula.

The problem I have, however, is that I still can't re-create the combat value which is shown in the window. This wouldn't be a big problem if my own estimations were somewhat close to the actual CV. But unfortunately, that's not always the case. My calculations are WAY off. Note that the cv shown in the game are very consistent, so there is no random factor. 

Perhaps an example can help to demonstrate my problem:
An infantry unit of 75 men (nominal 88%, so that means the max strength would be 85), quality F, soft fire 6, no fatigue, no disruption or other conditions
fires at
a soft target unit with defense 16, in travel mode (terrain is ignored), no hexside obstacles, no elevation difference

The actual result looks like this:
range = 1, Modifier = 0%
Fire = 60 (mod = -60%, inf = 95%)

whereas my own calculations suggest a very different result:
85 /10 *0.95 *6 *0.4 /16 *2
max.strength / 10 (infantry) * effective strength (as clearly indicated by the "inf" information) * soft fire * quality F / defense of target * 2 (target in travel mode)
= 2.4

Now obviously, there is a big difference between 60 and 2.4. If, for some reason, you don't divide by the defense of the target, then the result gets closer, but is still significantly off (38.4). 



On the other end of the extreme, I once had a tank unit fire at infantry and my own understanding of the formula promised me a cv of over 300 (without /defense) or ca. 19 (with /defense) . The actual cv was 150. As 150 is a suspicious value for a unit of 15 tanks, maybe there is an upper cap to the cv (cv capped to 10 * max. strength?)? The same could be true for the case above. The combat value changed to 30 when the target was not in travel mode (terrain was clear). 30 is 15*2. So maybe there is also a low cap for fire combat?

I don't want to crunch too many numbers. But the difference between what I expect (according to the rules) and what I get are simply too big here. I want to develop a base feeling for the game.