Night Fatigue question

[cmurphy625]

*is changing travel mode moving?

*do you get same supply being in travel mode as being in normal mode?

*if i move hq vill this change supply?

*what about dusk and dawn...what kind of supply is there then?

It is actually MOVEMENT in non-rail and non-travel or non-road movement that causes the Disruption.

Supply is not affected by night, dawn or dusk or Deployed\Travel state.

Supply is determined at the start of the turn for the entire turn before any movement and repeated at teh start of the next turn. It is not calculated on the fly so it is not affected by any movement during the turn.

So if you are already in T mode and stick to roads, can you move at night without accumulating Fatigue?

[Ricky B]

No, Glenn was stating the night movement rule as it applies to the new night disruption rule, rather than how night fatigue works. You MAY be able to deploy from travel mode without incurring fatigue, I don't know why I have thought that might be true though. But definitely doing any other actions will incur it - any movement hex to hex, firing, taking fire that causes anything but a no result, digging in, etc. Patrolling may not incur night fatigue though, but it doesn't use any points either.

Rick

[Dog Soldier]

Rick,

Unless I misunderstood your statement above, I believe units always accumulate night fatigue (assuming the OR is active) by deploying from travel mode. This makes sense as deploying a formation from column to combat formation would entail some small confusion (and result is less than optimal deployment) in the dark. This being represented as the fatigue accumulation makes sense.

I ran a quick test of this and found that higher quality units will sometimes escape night fatigue entirely when deploying from travel mode at night. It appears to be a factor of these qualities.

1. High morale (and quality)
   
2. smaller unit sizes experience less night fatigue
   

The smaller units criteria seems to hold for all night maneuvers. This makes sense as a smaller unit would be easier for the officers to keep control over than a larger one.

Dog Soldier

[Ricky B]

Thanks for testing it, and it seems from your test that my vague thought was right, at least partially. So based on your test, units did not get any fatigue in SOME cases, but not all - which is even more bizarre than I thought. I will say it is very hard to understand why Mr Tiller would check for "small" units and sometimes not give them night fatigue, there is definitely nothing documented or ever been said about that - but I am happy to lknow that at least sometimes units won't get fatigue at night for deploying from travel mode as I thought, since I never knew why I thought that. My only thought is what would a "small" unit be for this, any thoughts? Your term for it, it would be good to narrow it down to a specific size as the code would basically have to do that also, so if there is such a small unit check on fatigue, what amount it is would be good to know.

And it is a bit surprising that night fatigue may not be gained for high quality units in some cases, may have to test that for consistency and get with Glenn on it.

Regarding the OR, DS, I was basing all my comments on the OR being off, so maybe that makes a difference in what you are saying - and I take it you do agree now that units will not "always" accumulate night fatigue, or is that only based on the OR being turned on?

Thanks Brian
Rick

[Dog Soldier]

Rick,

First to be sure we are calibrated, I am only testing how the Night Fatigue OR works and not the new night disruption rule which is not yet rolled out in patches to all the PzC games. That new OR is only in the F14 game and one or two recent patches in PzC, IIRC.

I tested taking units out of travel mode during the first of the customary two turn night turns, without any movement from their hex. Then I checked those units the next night turn for fatigue gained.

Small units I used were T-34 tank units in the stock K44 game where there is 10 or less tanks. One of three units with B quality (no fatigue so B morale also) did not accumulate any fatigue with the NF OR on by just expending 1/3 MP to deploy from travel mode.
C morale units fared worse. All accumulated fatigue.

I repeated the tests today. After testing 12 times I only had the one B morale tank unit (nine tanks) fail to accumulate fatigue. this suggests that my original test of one in three units escaping fatigue is actually much more rare.

I did some further tests and determined:

1. Taking a unit out of travel mode during a dusk or day turn immediately preceding a night turn does not accumulate night fatigue.
   
2. Taking a unit out of travel mode on the last night turn will still accumulate night fatigue in the next dawn or day turn after the night tuen in which the unit is deployed from transport.
   
3. Units brought on board as reinforcements do accumulate night fatigue even if not moved after being placed on the board from the reinforcement dialog.
   

The first and second cases are as expected from experience. Even though the night fatigue is assigned to the unit at the beginning of the next turn the game correctly accounts for the turn in which the MP are expended. This can lead to confusing fatigue accumulation for novice players who do not realize how this mechanism works.

The third case was a bit strange to understand as the units were simply placed on map from the reinforcement dialog during a night turn and did not expend any MP to do so. Yet they are treated as having expend MP for the purpose of the night fatigue OR. Since they had to travel from off board to arrive on board, this makes sense, though no MP are deducted from the units to make this movement.

So while it is possible to escape night fatigue by expending MP during a night turn to move from travel mode to deployed mode, it is rare and may not be a function of unit size at all as you suggest, but only a coincidence of many trials over time. The assignment of fatigue is random and certainly not related to unit size. I found small units (>100 men equivalents) receiving up to 25 fatigue points. the same rang held for larger (>100 men equivalents) units.
All this means is small units can receive a disproportionate amount of fatigue during a night turn compared to larger units since size is not a factor in the fatigue point algorithm. Commanders should be cognizant of the additional fatigue when moving smaller units at night.

Dog Soldier