a little question!

[MasnarT]

how come that in Panzer campaigns, a single recon unit, composed of under 10 light armored cars (6-8 cars) can resist an assault of a battalion with 600-700 Men??
same question for those small (around 6) antitank guns unit.

in 2 hours of time, in 1km Hex, that recon single unit can stop the assault and hold the ground while the assaulting battalion may be motorized or even mechanized.

[Ricky B]

A lot of things could be said on this, regarding the realism of that happening. First, I would say that this is a rare situation, and may depend in part on the rules being used and the unit ratings in play. But either way, tying it back to a historical context, I would say that this situation is related to both a true war Fog of War situation where the attacking forces don't KNOW there are only 6 recon cars in front of them, or maybe the unit leading the attack got lost moving into position, or delayed but something else.

But ultimately, I would just say that the game results factor in a lot of real life variables that impact the end results, rather than lining up the two sides and assuming everyone fires, hits, etc. If the two sides were lined up and fired away in reality, battles would be very quick things, rather than the dance of death that occurs, requiring 2000 rounds from a rifle to kill a single soldier, or whatever it was in the war.

I recall 3-4 situations during the war where a single riflemen or MG held up an entire battalion's advance for an hour, so it isn't unheard of.

Rick

[Dog Soldier]

Could it be a morale issue? Quality over quantity? If the scout cars are Morale level A and the battalion of infantry is morale level D with both units not disrupted, it is quite realistic that the infantry will refuse to charge the machine guns of the AC with just hand grenades.
Another outcome is a few AC are destroyed and a number of men are killed with the rest of the infantry returning to a safe distance and the AC holding the ground. After surprising the AC and getting some teams close enough to do damage the AC inflicted enough casualties and moved within the hex in a way that caused the other infantry teams sent in for the assault to lose heart and not want to die today.

Do not think of this as the whole 600 -700 men charging the AC from all directions. When a battalion of infantry moves in close to some spotted armor for close combat, most of the infantry companies/platoons in the battalion are held back to form a reserve, guard the battalions flanks and rear and other mini-missions in the same two hours that are not visible in the game on an operational level.
The battalion commander might not inspired much confidence this turn. The infantry making the assaults on the AC failed their morale checks (in a tactical game morale checks are used to consider a host of reasons the assaulting infantry fails to damage the armored target of an assault), weapons fail, men refuse to follow orders, the target spots the assault and moves, so on and so forth.

Close combat is never a sure thing.

Dog Soldier

[Dog Soldier]

RickyB,
Looks like I started to answer this at the same time you did. I just got interrupted and left the web page for a few minutes.
We seem to agree.

Dog soldier

[Dog Soldier]

I recall 3-4 situations during the war where a single riflemen or MG held up an entire battalion's advance for an hour, so it isn't unheard of.

Rick

Yes, especially if that soldier was a marksman. How do you find a sniper? According to the infantry manual, you send a guy out in the open and see if he gets shot.

Any volunteers?

Dog Soldier

[Glenn Saunders]

I recall 3-4 situations during the war where a single riflemen or MG held up an entire battalion's advance for an hour, so it isn't unheard of.

Rick

Another great example is the Syrian who halted their attack on the Golan Heights in teh Yom Kippur War of '73.

But going right back to the raw numbers.

I've set up an Assault - 579 men D Quality - US INf in N44 - Assault Value 12

vs. 9 C Quality German AC's - hard targets

The odds - FOW OFF is 723 to 28

Both times I tried it the Attacker won.

So off hand I would say what you say nornmally happens may or not happen every time. But it is one possible result only depedning on many variables.

I repeated the test with the Axis unit as A Qaulity - and the Assault was met by OP Fire which caused the assaulting unit to be disrupted - no attack.

Again I repeated the test - this time the Opt fire didn't disrupt the attacker but the Axis unit held.

Then I repeated the test with B Quality Inf from the US Big Red One. Here The attack was meet by op fire - no disruption, but the defender held on with only two remaining vehicles - much like the Israelis on the Golan.

Anyway - my point is, there are lots of variables in a situation you have discribed in your original post that haven't been defined and would have a HUGE impact on the outcome.

Glenn

[Glenn Saunders]

Another follow up - I ran one quite test - N44

579 men - US Inf - D Quality
vs
6 37L49 PAK German AT Gun - C Quality

The Allies - won the first try, lost the second try and on the third try Op Fire Disrupted one US Unit and the other two on their own was able to win.

...seems OK to me.

NOTE - all of the above results in the last two postswere using the default OOB with the Default Fire and assault rules. These can and are often changed in some mods, but that adds yet another variable.

Glenn

Glenn