Beginners questions

[von Waldenburg]

Yeah, those parachute units are something like half-companies I believe (between company and platoon sized units). I think the whole batallion is 6 units. In previous games I have played I needed to combine the whole 6 half-companies to get the batallion fatigue acumulation factor (not enough with 3 or more as it should be theoretically). With less than 6 the units seemed to be considered a company.

[Glenn Saunders]

That's interesting, I'll be looking for that. Like I said, I only got it today and took a quick look. I'll start playing it later, against the AI.

There is an AWESOME book on this topic:

Breuer, William, Drop Zone Sicily (1983).

...it is a short paperback, covers US and British Operations and in some case many British units dropped into the Sea. As I recall too - some US Scatter into the sea was used to model the losses when the follow up US Airborne units were fired on my Naval AA as they flew over the fleet.

If you look at the root taken to the DZ in Normandy you will see they never crossed over the fleet after the Sicily experience.

Finally - some info on what and how we modeled the airborne is covered in the designer notes and that is worth a look too I think.

G

[alaric99x]

Another interesting book suggestion. Also let me congratulate you and the team, HPS games are the best I've every played in many years of wargaming.

I spent some more time with the opening moves of Sicily. There are, in fact, subunits all over the map that would be more effective if they were combined. I see this will take some time because many of them will be disrupted for some time while others are engaged with enemy units. I did have a few units that I combined, but I noticed something that seems unrealistic to me. I combined one unit of 38 men with 30 fatigue with another unit of 7 men with 217 fatigue. The resulting combined unit had 45 men and 217 fatigue, that doesn't seem right. I understand that 38 rested men can't give some of their "restfulness" to 7 tired guys, but a unit in such circumstances would let the 7 guys sleep while the other 38 remained active. I also understand that if the unit moved, the 7 tired guys would slow it down. Still, it seems to me that the fatigue level applied to the combined unit shouldn't be the fatigue level of the most tired unit in that combination, I think it should be averaged in some way.

[Hadge]

Hi and welcome to the club!

This is a good point that you have picked up on, and one that has been debated many times.

I tend to agree with your point of view personally, however the bottom line of the discussion, as witnessed over the last few years, is that its a design decision, that was taken on purpose, to simulate the effects of fatigue on unit cohesion/effectiveness (or not) at this level of play.

So, rightly or wrongly, you have to learn to manage that aspect of play appropriately.

Have you also noticed the effect that fatigue has on morale and therfore on combat effectiveness? - interesting little conundrums !! -

Enjoy the games and good luck

Cheers

Chris

[von Waldenburg]

there's a good thing about combining the 7 men unit with the 30 some one... that way you make eliminating the small unit harder.

[alaric99x]

I guess this means I'm not the first person to notice this.

OK, so we have to let units rest before we allow them to combine with low fatigue units or their "bad mojo" will infect the entire combined unit.

I'm leaving Sicily for later and started the campaign (against the AI) of France '40, one of the first games I got. In that game I combined 3 platoons(?) of Granite company(?) of Sturm Abteilung Koch. All 3 subunits had zero fatigue, two were normal with "A" morale and the third had low ammo, resulting in "B" morale. It will be no news to you that the combined unit of 108 men had low ammo with "B" morale. My guess is that the selfishness of the 72 men who refused to share their ammo created argument and animosity that resulted in reduced morale for the entire unit.

[Glenn Saunders]

It will be no news to you that the combined unit of 108 men had low ammo with "B" morale. My guess is that the selfishness of the 72 men who refused to share their ammo created argument and animosity that resulted in reduced morale for the entire unit.

It's a design feature - one that keeps players from using the combining rules to overcome unit definencies. I suppose you can look at it the way you are doing so, but the guy who came up with the idea also came up with rules to recover from low ammo or from high Fatigue. And these rules we developed before the series had companies. You see the series was designed on the BTLN with 1 km hexes as 1 km was a Btln frontage in WWII.

So what your finding now is combing units is not the best way to recover from things as you keep the worse conditions of the units involved.

Glenn

[von Waldenburg]

alaric99x, and the next thing you'll probably notice (if you have not already) is that companies fatigue much faster than batallions of even 2 companies grouped into a counter. To start with, only use companies where combat is light or non-existent. If you can afford it.

In some games the defending side moves 2nd naturally, and has companies in the 1st line directly exposed to enemy 1st turn devastating fire in some cases. In this case sometimes is even imposible to reform batallions, but I think that should be the goal of all it to stiffen the front. As long as you save even the broken unit then go behind your lines to rest it and later recombine when fatigue levels with the parent unit more or less match each other.

[alaric99x]

I can accept the fact that this is a design feature. I would prefer some kind of averaging when units are combined, but it's really not that big a deal which way this is done. I'm just learning the mechanics and now I know that I have to rest the subunits with high fatigue before I combine them with rested unit, whenever this is possible.

And no, von W, I hadn't yet noticed that companies (or subunits) fatigue faster than battalions, thanks for the info on that.

All this gives me a better idea of what to do with the airborne troops that land in the Sicily game. It seems that it will take a couple of game days to get them rested and fully organized.

The actual landing must have been some kind of fiasco and I'm interested in checking out some of the book recommendations to find out what really happened. This is one campaign I don't really know much about.

Thanks for all the recommendations and comments.

[Mr Grumpy]

The rule on fatigue accumulation for individual companies and combined battalions is the least known but all the same one of the most important rules in these games IMO. :eek1: