Extreme assault?

[1925frank]

I've read other posts were someone tries multiple assaults with good odds and fails, and then the person tries an assault with exceptionally low probabilitities just for giggles and takes the hex. That might reflect the lowering of the morale of the defenders from the previous assaults. Still, it doesn't seem to ring true. Then again, maybe after three failed assaults with favorable odds, a machine gun section could literally walk in.

If the defender wins 10 percent of the time regardless of odds, and if the assaulter wins 15 percent of the time regardless of odds, and if the assaulter has 7 units in position to assault, the assaulter might try 7 independent assaults at bad odds and, if the percentages are correct, he should be able to take the hex -- preferably sooner rather than later. If the assaulter does this, presumably on those occasions where the actual odds matter, the assaulter would take a beating in SP losses. It's that beating that would discourage the assaulter from taking this approach. On the other hand, if the assaulter is not in a position to have good odds but has seven units that can assault at bad odds, the assaulter might try it for lack of a better alternative and still come out taking the hex.

I've read some posts (I'm not quite sure where) that you should put all your eggs in one basket for one assault with exceptionally good odds. I'm not sure I agree with that when 25 percent of the time the odds are irrelevant to the result. I would think you'd want multiple assaults with good odds (2 to 1 odds). You wouldn't want to squander AP when 25 percent of the time the extra AP don't contribute to the result one way or the other.

One of Umbro's earlier posts suggested, at least to me, that statistically, in the context of the game, the smart move is not to assault but to engage in a firefight. If, in real life, the smart move is to assault, then the game parameters are out of order with reality. If the response is that in real life, you should assault in these circumstances, the problem is that, for game purposes, assaulting is the wrong choice. I have no military training, so I'm clueless on when assaulting is the right choice in real life. For game purposes, everyone, regardless of military training, will learn when an assault seems to be the right choice.

Under the regular assault rules, the player was apparently better off assaulting for game purposes than he would have been in real life. In real life, an assault under given circumstances may have been a risky or expensive proposition, but for purposes of the game, the assault was risk free.

If I'm misreading how the odds are irrelevant 25 percent of the time, please correct me. I'm a little confused on why the odds should be irrelevant 25 percent of the time.

I always thought assaults were expensive in casaulties for the assaulting force. Under the regular assault, it was usually risk free for the assaulter. I've read posts where there should be more bad results, in terms of disruptions or casualties, for both the assaulter and the defender. Again, I've no military training, but that seems right to me. I think assaulting requires getting out of your protected area and running in the open where presumably the defender is waiting to shoot you.

Edit: I thought one of the explanations for the 10 percent defense-wins-regardless-of-the-odds was that the assault was effectively called off or aborted. If that's the thinking, then perhaps the result should be "Assault aborted" instead of "No result" or "No effect," both of which imply the assault took place and failed without any adverse consequences to either side. We already see something like that with starshells, where not every attempt to file a starshell succeeds. With an "Assault aborted," I think players wouldn't balk at the result quite as much. I don't how difficult it is to launch an assault, but it might be that launching one is never a sure thing.