Infantry Survivability

[Walrus]

Ha!
There you go then.
If they were my troops you had just smashed...I would have been complaining that troops were far too soft, that 50m squared is a bloody big area and that it's not like it's flat like a billiard table...and how could only three HE rounds make such a killing...etc...bla bla...bloody stupid SP code...he he he...

I love this game

[retired from gaming]

Walrus,
both you and me know that smashed in game turns means 3 or 4 were killed and others ran away, heading home. So the squad evaporeted from the map, in RL terms was just "disintegrated" ending his life as a combat force.
That's how I understand game mechanics at least.

[Walrus]

you are totally correct, of course.

I was trying to be funny...but obviously failed

I find that as I play, I will at one moment think my troops are too soft, or the enemy too tough...and then one turn later and i am thinking the exact opposite.

Perhaps they have the game mechanics closer to a good place than we sometimes give credit for.

Anyway...I had better stick to my day job eh, a future as a comedian does not wait around the corner.

Cheers mate

[retired from gaming]

geee, stupid maciej, Just ruined your brilliant future as comedian, only because lack of sense of humour

[2ndLt_Fjun]

Being an infantrygrunt was just about the safest combat job (so not counting rear area beancounters etc) there was and is.

That's backwards. All statistics show that the being an infantry grunt up front was the most dangerous job there was in WW2. Well, there are two positions that statistically were more dangerous. The grunts NCO's and platoon commanders had even higher casualty rates. See e.g. the classic "The sharp end" by John Ellis (highly recommended) or more or less any other serious statistics where someone made an effort to sort the actual rifle battalions out from the large non-combat part of the infantry forces.

This is a quote from an officer in the 1st Gordon Highlanders (from Ellis book):
'It occured to me to count the number of officers who had served in the battalion since D-Day. Up to March 27th, the end of the Rhine crossing, it was 102... I found that we had 55 officers commanding the twelve rifle platoons, and that their average service with the Battalion was thirty-eight days, or five and a half weeks. Of these fifty-three per cent were wounded, twenty-four per cent killed or died of wounds, fifteen per cent invalided, and five per cent had survived'.

Safe job? Not really.

About HE effectiveness. Most casualties in WWII were from HE fire in one way of the other, in contrast to WWI where 80% was gunshot wounds. I'm right now reading "With the jocks" by Peter White (highly recommended too) who was a British rifle platoon commander during the latter part of WWII in Netherlands and Germany. He had more than half of his platoon wiped out twice. Once in a vulnerable position where German mortars caused a whole lot of casualties. A second time in a prepared defence position where half the platoon was wiped out by HE fire from own tanks.

Not going into the debate about game mechanics though. I think SPWW2 models infantry combat much better than most games out there, and it's not an easy thing to do in a game for sure.

[Narwan]

That's backwards. All statistics show that the being an infantry grunt up front was the most dangerous job there was in WW2.
...
Safe job? Not really.

All statistics? Not the one's I've seen sofar. Sure there are examples with high rates of casualties among regular riflemen in specific actions or campaigns. But the chances off becoming a casualty where far higher when you were a tanker, an airmen, a submariner, etc. Crew served weapons tended to attract a lot of attention and firepower. A simple rifleman? Not nearly as much.
I never said it was a safe job so I'm assuming that remark was aimed at someone else. When its war few jobs in the army are safe. But when it came to combat assignments (and I did make the distinction between combat and non-combat assignments in my original post too), rifleman was the way to go if you wanted to maximise your chances of getting back out in one piece.

About HE effectiveness. Most casualties in WWII were from HE fire in one way of the other, in contrast to WWI where 80% was gunshot wounds.

Exactly, HE effectiveness, not HE efficiency. The amount of arty rounds spend to achieve that was gigantic. What you forget is that much of those losses are from 'quiet' periods at the front when there is relatively little direct fighting (rifle and mg fire) and a fair bit of artillery going back and forth. Most of the time most of the sectors were relatively 'quiet' like that. Combined with the advances in technology and the tendency to keep more distance from the enemy at the frontline than in ww1 it's no wonder that arty was the big killer. But it took a lot of time and a lot of rounds.
The game doesn't deal with those days or weeks of prep fire and the arty sniping in the downtime between attacks. It deals with those times and places when the front isn't 'quiet' but 'real' fighting takes place. The hours when much of those 20% gunshots wounds happened.

Narwan

[Imp]

Talking stats & may be wrong as a long time ago the amount of ammo expended for a kill was huge. WW2 bullets fired for a kill was around 10,000 if count everything like aircraft etc. Talking ground units only it was still about 1,000 rounds a kill. Sounds crazy but remember MGs inc LMG those in tanks soon chew through it. Also the majority of shots are suppresion not aimed shots to help you get a better position or just survive or Mr Conscripts wild efforts if he fired at all, hence semi auto mode despite the fact its less accurate than a single shot. Not until after Vietnam has this really gone down due to improved training though a lot of countries will still be about this accurate.