CMBS balancing and the 'value' of casualties

[Tumatauenga]

Common wisdom among forum members seems to be that for the best balancing quick battle players should stick to UKR Russ games.

I think this is a bit of a pity so I embarked on a wee experiment where I have played three Russ attack US defend games giving the Russian side a 10% points advantage. Two of these have been mirror games with GazNZ and one with Libera where I was the Russian attacker.

Result: one major victory to me as the Russ attacker but two likely losses emerging in the mirror games with GazNZ (he's not top 'o the ladder for nothing folks!)

Conclusion is that 10% is unnecessary and that its best to stick with the default attacker/defender offset already built in to CMBS.

However, it raises in my mind some interesting if slightly tangential questions:
I have noticed that my most successful strategies in CMBS (and other CMx2 games if I think about it) invariably involve sacrificing a fair chunk of 'cheap' infantry to allow armour or other heavy weapon assets to locate, pin down and destroy the opponent. For example, its much more tactically effective in a small QB to field close to a full battalion of dismounts with the odd ARV (and lose a hundred and fifty men) than it is to invest a couple of platoons of APS enabled ARV's

Its hard for me to imagine any modern army claiming victory while sustaining the casualty rates that we might sustain in winning a typical CMBS QB.

So, I wonder if casualties attract a sufficient penalty in QB play in CMBS.

Would increasing the penalty for casualties shift the nature of the game? Would it make it better - feel more modern? Would it increase the likelihood of us using toys like APS, airsupport?

[PoorOldSpike]

I once had a crack at creating maps with various points values assigned to objective areas and troop losses but maths is not my strong point so I had to give up on it (sniffle)

[GAZNZ]

Casualties are counted in all CMx2 games, but if u get to the wounded and treat them it helps mitigate your points against you. So losing scouts is not necessarily a bad thing.
Saving the wounded - leave no man behind mentality. I always try to treat my wounded.
Wounded is not dead so if you treat them you technically haven't lost a man ie Dead.

Also is life cheap these days - tanks are not.
So better to move guys forward than lose ya tank.
Tactical choice
There are other options as well regarding advancing so you lose less but whatever you do you need boots on the ground.
That's the reality.

I recommend playing all sides for variation.
the US is not as dominating as they make out to be.
Ukraine I find to be quite deadly with some of there units.
Corsairs are there Jav essentially

Ill be writing a CMBS guide soon to discuss how weapons work and options.
All sides have pros and cons.

[hypaspist]

thing is that all these wars we see in avghanistan iraq,syria,lybia and some other african countries are wars between super powers, great powers and militias. there the casualty rates are low, but so is the intensity of the operations (except Iraq where us raped them but did so because of the technological advantage,knowledge and skill ). today if us was to invade ukraine or russia, war would be bloodier than ww2. also considering we players make bold moves without blinking,its not a surprise we have these casualties