Replacement question

[Green]

Recovery is modified by quality.

Replacements are modified by the OOB value (if any) and the parameter data value as Ricky B explained. It's also modified by the local supply value if it's below 70 for FWWC or 50 for PzC. I don't own any MC titles, so I'm not sure what local supply value is used for 100% replacements in that series.

Breaking down units decreases the variability in results (more checks tend to mean strength increase is closer to the average result for a certain situation), but has no impact for units consisting of men.

Breaking down battalions into companies is often a good idea for units consisting of Guns and Vehicles, as strength is recovered/replacement using a check based on percentage chance to determine whether a gun/vehicle is replaced. It's better to have 3x10% chance instead of a 30% chance, as you can never recover 3 guns/vehicles with the latter situation whereas that is possible when breaking down units. Another advantage for nations that can break down units.

ComaradeP,

Everything you say is correct. Variability is the basic difference in recovery in terms of whether or not units are broken down. The averages are equivalent mathematically but a higher number of calculations means higher variability in terms of individual results. But I think the calculations for men and vehicles/guns are probably the same. It is just that for men the numbers tend to be larger so the recovery normally relates to more than 1 man, rather than fractions of a man. Although, in all cases they would still need to be rounded to whole numbers.

So, as you rightly point out there is an advantage to being broken down but mathematically it is not huge. Let us take an example of 3 units with a single  tank loss each and assume these units could combine into a single unit. If the recovery rate was 5%, each sub-unit would recover .05 of a tank each turn on average and the combined unit would recover .15 of a tank. In reality they each will recover either zero or 1 tank on a given turn, so what are the chances?

For the combined unit the chance is 15% that it will recover a single tank. For each of the sub-units it is 5% each. So the chance of zero tanks recovered for the combined unit is 85%. The chance that on a given turn all sub-units recover zero tanks is 85.7%, which is roughly the same as if combined (but slightly worse). The chance of the sub-units recovering 1 tank only is 13.5%, of recovering exactly 2 tanks is 0.7% and the chance of recovering all three is 0.1% (or 1 in a thousand). So there is a difference but it is probably not enough to base a decision on whether or not a unit should be broken down. The recovery rate would need to be quite high for the difference to become significant. It is often lower than the 5% I have assumed and so its impact is often very small. Of course I have not seen the code so I am making some assumptions about how it all works.

John