251/16 HT Obosilete under new assualt rules

[Chuck10mtn]

What has a longer attack range a personal flame thrower AKA an engneer unit or a flame thrower tank/ half track. That could go a long way to solving the problem. I don't see anything wrong with Jasons Idea as long as ALL like units have the same ability.
I would also say that in all honesty its a game, and for every action there is also an opposite re-action. The more you add the more they want, the bigger it gets the harder it gets, the harder it gets the less people will play. When it gets to being a job to play I'll just stay at work. I like the graphics updates and xtra scenarios, but just because some REMF hauled up supplies on a donkey doesn't mean I want to see him on my computer screen.

Chuck

[junk2drive]

Agreed Chuck.

Since we don't have flame graphics and animations, I'm still trying to figure out what they do.

[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

[Mike Abberton]

There were also a fair number of "walk-in" surrenders in France at least, but the majority of those were not in combat situations like a CS assault.

Regarding the range of flamethrower units, vehicle based flamethrowers typically had much greater range than hand-held units, but it was still fairly limited. Based on my experiences with the Combat Mission game, WW2 flame tanks typically have a range of about 75m to 150m. Handheld units top out at about 35m.

[Von Luck]

Ok all points taken but how do you resolve it.Huib's idea to me seems good.Umbro has pointed out real cases but would 2 disrupted sp soviet mg units stand against 12 full strengh Panthers + 3 A/C in an assualt i dont think so.Im not saying they would surrender but surely retreat.Not going against anyone here but surely there can be some die roll thing where superior attacking forces force back disrupted units.Jason seems keen on Huib's idea so its up to membes to voice their thoughts on this.The more the better.That way we get things fix now before 1.05.

[Von Luck]

PS Thanks to all the input btw.

[simovitch]

I noticed the ineffectiveness of FT's as well - does this mean "assault factors" are not considered in the resolution of assaults anymore?

In Wyatts explanation:

Essentially, when a hex full of units is attacked by an assaulting force, the game takes count of all the factors of the attacker vs all the factors in the defending stack

It is still unclear to me as to what factors are being considered.

[Mike Abberton]

Simovitch,

From what I understand, assault factor is still the primary factor for a close assault. However, the defender's morale and the terrain of the hex weigh in much heavier than they have in the Talonsoft EFII/WF/RS rules.

That is why the key to assaulting now is to drop the defender's morale as much as possible (since you can't do much about the terrain other then forcing a retreat to a clear hex or something). So rather than just getting that first disrupt and move on the next unit, you want the defender to have to make (and hopefully fail) as many morale rolls as you can before assaulting. That usually takes a lot of direct fire for high morale units like the typical SS PzGr, so much so that sometimes it is easier to kill the unit with direct fire rather than assault.

Multiple smaller assaults might help too, since each assault would have a chance at lowering each defender's morale. High strength indirect fire probably helps, too, since it attacks all units in the hex not just one. I should note though that I wasn't all that good at the old assault rules, and am certainly no expert at the new ones, yet. So all these suggestions are not necessarily 100% accurate.

Hope that helps,
Mike

P.S. Supposedly there are either special rules for armor assaulting without infantry support in hexes with buildings (city, village, special buildins, etc.), or armor's assault factor is just generally drastically reduced in building hexes. Either way, the days of racing ahead with armor to clear out small urban areas with disrupt-and-capture are gone, as it probably should be. You need feet on the ground now.

[simovitch]

Mike, thanks for that.

So if the assault factor is still the primary factor, how are FT vehicles considered obsolete? Even with the introduction of morale checks in assaults, shouldn't we still see big SP losses from the defender in the 1st round of combat, making the 2nd round much more likely to succeed?

[Jason Petho]

One could take some time and whip up a test scenario and see how the effects play out. 'Tis good practice too!

Overall, Mike is correct in his statements.

Jason Petho