Disband, Withdraw, Reconstitute, Evaporate

[Marquo]

f a unit scheduled to withdraw is instead disbanded, what are the consequences? In case of withdrawal all the equipment leaves with the unit, but in case of disbanding, "Disbanded units are removed from the map and return their equipment
to your Supply Pool." Does this gamey loophole actually allow one to prematurely disband a unit to significant advantage?

If a unit is disbanded, but otherwise tagged to reconstitute, will it do so or is there a failsafe?

The manual uses the word "evaporate" only one time in reference to the fate of units sitting on a thawing super river/marsh; what does evaporate mean in regards to units KIA or during disengagement? All material and men lost? I presume so.

[Currahee]

I think you have in fact identified a loophole; a lot of designers have an honor rule that disallows all voluntary disbanding, to avoid such issues; as a practical matter, few scenarios have such a large number of units slated for withdrawal, that their premature disbanding would make a huge difference to the replacement pool. Also, I don't know if a disbanded unit would later reconstitute. That could be counter-productive to disbanding, as reconstituted units usually come back as "untried", although the designer can change that, too. Another gamey gambit would be to disband low-proficiency units, to use the equipment to resupply better units.

On "evaporating", this from the revised searchable help file:

In most cases evaporation is different from what most wargamers are used to calling "elimination". Unless the evaporating unit is isolated, all surviving troops and equipment are still available for distribution to other units. Isolated units (those not able to trace a line of communication back to a friendly supply point), on the other hand, are truly eliminated when they evaporate. Their troops and equipment are permanently lost - assumed surrendered to enemy forces.

Time allowing, many evaporated units will eventually be reconstituted from available replacements.


And this, on "losses" generally:

Much of the equipment "lost" during combat is not actually destroyed. Instead, it is considered damaged or temporarily unserviceable. This damaged equipment goes to the replacement pool unless the owning unit is out of supply. In the case of air and naval equipment, the fraction of damaged equipment going to the replacement pool is proportional to the owning unit's proficiency.


If I'm not mistaken, for ground equipment (including personnel), 1/2 of "lost" equipment is actually damaged, and returns to the pool...unless the unit was surrounded, in which case, all is lost.

So for a typical ground battle, there may be several rounds of "losses", 1/2 of that equipment goes back into the pool, and 1/2 is truly lost; but when "evaporation" occurs, all equipment remaining at that point goes into the pool....it's usually not much! And unless, of course, the unit was isolated.

Rules are slightly different for pestilence losses:

"Half of infantry, cavalry, and horse transport equipment lost by units in supplied locations is sent to the replacement pool. All non infantry, non cavalry, non horse transport equipment lost by units in supplied locations is sent to the replacement pool. All other pestilence losses are permanent."