Night Disruption M44, etc.

[Strela]

Interesting discussion around QFM - this was bought in to allow German companies stand up when taking on Soviet battalions. It becomes more skewed when German are only using battalions called out.

Now that said we have realised that when we delivered the latest patch for Kharkov '43 that we introduced a change that is having unexpected consequences.

We made two key changes - we updated the OB file and built Panzer companies into a full TOE model so that if a company could theoretically have 17 tanks in it then it could if rested reach that number. Originally we had much lower theoretical numbers based upon the strength return data that was available at the time.

The second change was that we upped the German unit recovery rate from 2% to 3%. This has had an outsized impact as it is both further modified by morale and also looks at the current loss ratio to the full strength unit.

So a well intentioned change to slightly accelerate the German recovery rate has allowed a much faster recovery of any depleted German unit - but in particular the Panzer tank units.

If you read the rule definition at the end of this post you will understand the mechanics and why we have screwed up here.

We are thinking what should be done to fix this but as a stated I suggest any games drop the German recovery rate back to 2 in the PDT file and should consider even scaling this back to 1. For A grade troops a 1 would be modified up to 2 anyway. Any PDT file that is adjusted this way will impact any games underway now.

More problematic is the TOE strength for the Panzer units and we will give consideration to readjusting the OB if people feel this is still a significant issue.

As mentioned here is how Unit Loss Recovery rule works :

Unit Loss Recovery
Units that have taken losses in combat have the possibility of recovering some of their losses. This represents a combination of factors such as straggler recovery, wounded recovery, reinforcements, and vehicle repair. Loss recovery also applies to losses taken by air units. The determination of unit loss recovery is automatically made at the beginning of each player turn for the units for that side and reported in the Command Dialog of the Main Program. Loss recovery is based on Parameter Data for each side as given in the Parameter Data Dialog of the Main Program. Before a unit can recover losses, it must not move, fire, assault, be fired upon, or be assaulted during the previous turn. In addition, the unit cannot be Digging-In, be building a bridge, be Broken, or be in a minefield. The Parameter Data value for that side will determine what percentage of its losses the unit is eligible to recover.
The Quality of a unit affects its nominal recovery rate based on the following modifiers:
• Quality A units recover at 200% the nominal rate.
• Quality B units recover at 150% the nominal rate.
• Quality D units recover at 75% the nominal rate.
• Quality E units recover at 50% the nominal rate.
• Quality F units recover at 25% the nominal rate.

Examples:
• Suppose that an infantry battalion of C Quality had suffered losses of 200 men out of a total strength of 600 and that the Unit Recovery for its side is 2%. When eligible, it will recover an average of 4 men per turn.
• Suppose that an infantry battalion of C Quality had suffered losses of 10 men out of a total strength of 600 and that the Unit Recovery for its side is 2%. When eligible, it will recover an average of 0.2 men per turn or in other words, 1 man every 5 turns.
• Suppose that a tank battalion of C Quality had suffered a loss of 1 tank out a total strength of 35 and that the Unit Recovery for its side is 2%. When eligible, it will recover an average of 0.02 tanks per turn. In other words, it will take about 50 turns to recover the loss.

Note that as a unit is restored to full strength and the remaining loss decreases, then the loss recovery in absolute terms will drop as it is always calculated as a percentage of remaining losses. As in the previous examples, a loss of 200 men results in an initial recovery of 4 men per turn, but once the strength is restored to just 10 losses, then the recovery drops to 1 man every 5 turns.