How Would You Define 'Distrupted' ?

[MisterMark]

Obviously there is an academic definition for 'disrupted', but how would one look at it in military terms in real life as well as the scope of PzC?

For instance we can all probably agree that in real life and within game, a 'broken' unit has no more will to fight and has lost combat effectiveness due to some combination of lack of leadership, man power, ammo and/or morale.  And in PzC that is evident and mathematically reflected by the reduction of the values of those specific variables.  

It's also evident that a disrupted unit loses some part of it's combat effectiveness but in terms of relating that condition to real life, what exactly does that mean?  Does it mean that vital communications have been cut?  Does it mean that a majority of the men in the unit become temporarily panicked/shocked or fatigued?  Does it mean there is a fundamental logistics issue?  Bottom line what is the real world combat equivalent to 'disrupted' that relates to the game?  

I have a hard time getting my head around it when in PzC you can have an almost full strength unit that becomes disrupted but has no hits on morale and/or fatigue and that is fully supplied.  And the consequences of being disrupted are quite dramatic...  attack values cut in half, no ability to assault or dig in as well as a host of other game mechanics that I don't fully understand just yet.

Please don't misunderstand me... I'm not suggesting that the status of disruption is a fundamental problem for the play-ability of PzC.  But it is a pretty pivotal game mechanic that the tactics and strategies of the game are hinged on.  I just want to understand it more and find a way to relate it to real world combat in order to deepen the immersiveness and appreciation of the game.

Very interested to hear others thoughts on this.

-Mark

Well, if I ever see a '1 Man/D' result, I assume that the CO got hit, or the radioman along with his radio.

I see 'disruption' as a combination of being pinned down, communications break down, loss of psychological momentum to keep at it. NCO gets hit: do the troops keep it together, do they understand what they need to do? Can the next in charge reestablish comms with the LT or HQ?

Injuries can also potentially bog a unit down. They might get involved in tying off stumps and getting the stretchers and stretcher bearers set up for the slog back to the advanced aid station. 

There are all sorts of interpretations for what might cause a unit to lose cohesion and/or focus.

I still had some additional thoughts on all this... 

I do still find it odd that when 'fog of war' is enabled your own army can still detect when an enemy unit is disrupted (even from a single casualty) but not have any idea of what an enemy unit's moral or fatigue state is.

You would think that in real life, units engaged in combat would start to get a sense of the quality, fatigue and moral state of the opposing unit, especially if the engagement lasts a period of time. Unfortunately, PzC doesn't have a method of accounting for that subtly. However, as simple as it is, the fog of war mechanic on how big or small a unit is by only displaying the numeric place value seems to work and feels 'right'. Maybe WDS will eventually find a way to implement some sort of progressive spotting/intel regarding the other factors? For example, the longer two opposing units are engaged, the more can be revealed about fatigue and moral?

Anyway, if we go by what the manual says about disruption, it's more or less a result of a unit taking on overwhelming or surprising fire which results in a loss of command/control and in the case of tanks, limited visibility from commanders 'buttoning up'... and is reflected by the attack value being cut EXACTLY in half. Which makes some sense but you would think it might not be quite that finite. Would be interesting if that particular negative effect of disruption was somewhat randomized and scaled by some combination of the units moral and fatigue state.

Obviously there are limits to any war game and PcZ isn't necessarily an operational combat simulator, but the more I think about it, 'Disrupted' is really a crude game mechanic that still lends it's self to some shortcomings. None the less, I don't consider it a deal breaker at all but maybe it's something that can be refined over time to make a great gaming platform even better.


-Mark