Unit Breakdown Penalty

[ComradeP]

Losses suffered by a battalion might theoretically be suffered by any of its component squads/platoons/companies, whereas losses suffered by a company apply to that company.

To me, it makes sense that as the base unit is a battalion, smaller units suffer from penalties as they don't have the means to absorb losses that a battalion has.

[Ricky B]

Losses suffered by a battalion might theoretically be suffered by any of its component squads/platoons/companies, whereas losses suffered by a company apply to that company.

To me, it makes sense that as the base unit is a battalion, smaller units suffer from penalties as they don't have the means to absorb losses that a battalion has.

Exactly and what Jeff said. Now if the impacts were purely manpower based, there could be a logical argument there too - so a 100 man battalion suffers the same fatigue as a 100 man company. But I would guess for simplicity using unit size, with a battalion being the base, makes sense.

Rick

[Xaver]

The problem i see on this rule is when we talk about low number of soldiers in a battalion because or is heavy damage or when we talk about the small battalions like the one type we can see in soviet side in Budapest4.

I remember did a test where a guards battalion with 185 soldiers starting with 0 fatigue needs lose 93 soldiers to rise fatigue one level while a company of german VG infantry (same C quality than guards) lose 34 soldiers and earns 1 level of fatigue, this means a unit a 85% bigger receive 1 level of fatigue at 50% casualties and the other unit 33% faster when the battlation has smaller company size, around 63 soviet soldiers per company.

Here i like a lot the 70% rule for firepower in units, you dont lose it linear, you lose 10% until you arrive 70% casualties, over this forepower decrease faster because is supposed that even if survivors pick the heavy weapons the lose of firepower is more noticiable when numbers lower under 70%.

[Taffy6]

Gentlemen- My two cents as a once-upon-a-time Modern Campaigns scenario designer is that in the case of DF85 (and FG85, NGP85 and K85), the unit breakdown / fatigue issue caused me to shelve my scenario work indefintely.  The battalion/company/platoon breakdown / fatigue mechanics may make sense in the 1940's PzC, but absolutely no sense in the 1980's MC.

To me, the fact is that NATO doctrine was to fight as company heavy combined arms teams against Warsaw Pact heavy battalions.  The scale of one or more miles per company front was not unrealistic against WP heavy battalions.  Even stacked heavy battalions.  We even trained that way in the US Marines during the period.  I know this because my "Leg" unit was trained for a Norway mission during the late '80's.  

Yet US Army, UK and Bundeswehr battalions (and the other nations), broken down into companies, cannot fight in MC per doctrine and survive contact.  At least not in my MC gaming experience.  

During extended scenario play testing, the ability of Warsaw Pact artillery and massed battalions to completley obliterate NATO company teams in the span of a single two-hour day turn made breaking down into companies certain death. In playtesting my Zapad_85 scenario, NATO breaking down into companies lead to huge holes in defensive coverage, vaporized units, crippled NATO BN-level formations, and the complete inability of NATO to hold the line.  The NATO cavalry screen, for example, could not fight the covering battle at all.  Broken down, the screen was obliterated.  Combined, the screen couldn't cover the avenues of approach..

Since there are no plans to change the MC breakdown / fatigue mechanics, not even as an optional rule for the scenario designer, there is little point of playing MC designer scenarios against a human opponent.  Aaron's 1989 Bolt was about as close as a good DF85 scenario could get under the circumstances. The "KG" solution was a flawed work-around at best, but better than the default mechanics.  In the end, for my DF85 scenario, I just gave up.

Regards,

Taffy

Edited to note that the OP was referring to PzC, not MC.

[Jeff Conner]

I haven't worked with the OOB editor in PC or MC, so maybe there is a reason you can't do this, but if you think that NATO companies should have more staying power, then make them battalions in the OOB. You would have to remake the whole OOB, but you could have a brigade made up of regiments (which would actually be your battalions), which in turn are made up of units that are listed as being battalions (but are in reality, companies). I think this would give you what you want. The downside would be that the graphics wouldn't be correct and you couldn't combine units, although the only reason to do so would be to remove clutter. Your companies, which the game system would treat as battalions, will almost never break and will rarely reach high fatigue. Instead, they will continue to obey orders to the last man. And another advantage of this would be that since you can now break your companies into platoons, you can form company sized task forces by swapping infantry and tank platoons (which are listed as companies in the OOB).

And like I said, maybe there is a reason you can't do this. It would definitely change play balance from the current situation.

Jeff