East Front: Forgotten Battles - Now with Medical units

[Crossroads]

We had a rather interesting discussion a while ago regarding whether adding medical units to JTCS would be a good idea or not. As it was, a 75/25 majority of those participating in the poll thought not.

For that one quarter, and for perhaps those still sitting on the fence with this one, here they are for further experimenting.

Here's a few thoughts of mine to go with them.

Scale

Why not? Medical units were presented in the TO&E for the countries available in the game, and for most part fit the platoon size scale of the game quite well. So here they are:



- Medics (SP2 squads), one for each company. These would support well the truly mobile infantry action.
Alternatively:
- Medics (SP4 platoon), one for each battalion. See the medics on reverse slope of highway down in the middle.

- Battalion Aid Station (SP4), one for each battalion. There's one near the factory on the right, protected with an IP.
- Mobile Field Hospital (SP5), one for each regiment. Not seen here, the bitmap has two tents instead of one.
- Hospital (SP6), one for each division. One can be seen fixed to a building on the top.
- Ambulances. A few of them seen here too. For Axis, ambulance buses. For Allied, ambulance trucks.

But what do they do? Stick band-aid on wounded to have them return to battle. I don't think so. My justification for the scale can be seen for an example from this scanned picture found in "The Lions of Carentan", a book about FJR 6:



To repeat: Here the Fallschirmjäger and the SS Grenadiers deliver wounded to the doctors, and then return to battle. The recovery of disrupted units into their normal status is to simulate them being relieved of their wounded comrades.

The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

Well, these units are leaders. There is no separate way to present morale boost. As such, they can of course perform other duties the Unit type=Commander units can do. As leaders, you don't see the unit bitmap in unit info, but a leader pic instead. As leaders, they can spot too.

Foul play? Well if you see them used in offence, they are legitimate targets. For this reason, their VP value is zero.

On a more positive example: if an enemy field hospital is left behind your advancing forces, they can be captured into POWs with an assault without a negative result for victory score.

As for ambulances, they are regular transports. Ambulances do have negative victory value, you should not be firing at them... Even if your indirect fire accidentally destroys an ambulance, you are penalised. I am sure the opponent would do a PR shot of the "inhumanity of your actions", while knowing it was not delibarate...

That's the negatives, not that serious imho. Somewhat Bad, yes, but not outright Ugly, right?

As for The Good, I think the positives outweigh the negatives.

I really liked the additional capability the medics do to boost your fighting capability. I always play (as most everyone else too I guess) with CC optional rule on, so this is just another layer of TLC a commander should give to their troops. Added functionality, not just eye candy.

Added difficulty, too. Like with Battalion Aid Stations, it took for some planning to have them near but not too near the front lines. Especially as they have a 100 AP load / unload cost, the risk of losing them to enemy is real.

As for medics, having them on an out-of-LOS hex just behind the front line works very well with my practice of rotating disrupted units out of front line to recover. Stretcher bearers were kept busy, while the recovered platoons became available sooner than without medics.

All the above could be simulated with placing your leader there too, but this way you can actually free your battalion leaders to be much more active with their combat duties, instead of being stuck behind the lines to boost disrupted troops.

Caveat: as the medical units are leaders, they need to sit on a proper level of the OOB. Unless you want to dedicate the medics for their parent units only, they all need to sit on a top level. I provided the scenaro designers with Coy, Bn, Regt and Div OOBs, but they should remember to distribute these units within the OOB to have them with any effect. For the scenario I provided for test, I put them all on top level, so they will help any wounded units regardless of their organization.

The download is available here:

https://www.theblitz.club/message_boards...#pid374262

There's a scenario there to test them too, the scenario description mentioning the inclusion of medical units, per popular demand.

Those interested to give them a shot, the download includes medical capabilities for Axis and Allied Russia, Axis and Allied Germany, Axis and Allied Finland, and EF US and EF UK troops the EFFB mod includes.


Thanks to Jason for encryptions, and to Mike Amos and Stefan / call sign Panther for their help with 2D and 3D bitmaps.

For 2D zoomed out, I used the NATO symbol of a cross inside a square with unit specific variations. For 2D zoomed in, the aid stations and hospitals are derivations of HQ symbols, with red cross instead of radio.

Let me know what you think! Go easy on me though, this was a lot of work