Newbie Questions

[All_American]

Just curious, what do you like about Moscow '42?  I was thinking about picking that one up.

A really large variety of scenarios, and to maneuvre with you have ski battalions and cavalry instead of tanks. But I think in the end it comes down to my personal interest in the Battle of Moscow. 

The title does a very good job at depicting how hard pressed the Red Army was in the winter 1941-42, yet managed to prevail. Scenarios are not a slugfest like that in Kursk '43, but they are full of brutal infantry combat. It is a fun title.

Summer campaign scenarios are fun as well. It is an alternate history campaign, but one that came close to happening and worth wargaming.

[Mowgli]

1) Perhaps the unit that is spotted that is outside of the LOS of your units LOS has been spotted by another one of your units that does have a LOS on that hex, without being able to see the units on a map it is difficult to comment, but someone must be able to see that hex, enemy units spotted by dust spotting are shown with a ? on their counter. 
2) No, LOS is updated at the start of your next move so on your present turn you may bump into hidden units or units appear if they fire ranged weapons from more than one hex away, so using Recon spotting you can attempt to reveal hidden units on your present turn before you bump into them.
3) Good question, understanding assault results can be a bit of a grey area and reading the rules does not really help, the casualties are a result of a whole host of factors including a high and low "dice roll" so you can see quite large variations in casualties and fatigue, but as a rule of thumb the winning side usually (but not always) suffers from fewer casualties.
4) I think the general consensus is that the casualties caused are the same both ways, however if you fire six times rather than three you have more chances of causing a disruption result, however this approach also has the downside of allowing more defensive fire shots back from the defending units.
5) You will find that 95% of the guys here play via the default turn system where all defensive fire is handled by the computer, this system speeds up the game considerably. Multiple phases may work in very small scenarios but would be impossibly unwieldy in the larger ones.

Thank you (and all the others!) for the answers! :) 

@ 2 (and also 1): That's good to know. The manual doesn't mention this anywhere. So spotting only happens at the start of the turn (or - in manual defensive fire mode - at the start of the movement phase?). Also, enemy units within theoretical line of sight who open fire (opportunity / defensive fire) are immediately spotted. In addition, you can use "recon spotting" during your turn (obviously you first move the recon unit, then activate the recon spotting)

@3: I've also taken a look at the Squad Battles series. And here, it is quite clear that assault casualties (or, more precise: casualty points which are later translated into casualties) are distributed amongst all the units who participate in an assault, weighted according to their strength (the manual is quite detailed on how to determine the "weight" of vehicles). So I suppose a similar mechanism is used by the Panzer Campaigns series. 

@ 4: Very good point about the increased oppportunities for enemy opportunity fire (if you don't play in phases, that is). As you say, I was just wondering if the game adds the fire power of several units to perform a single, "stronger" fire action (increased chances to cause casualties and force a morale check) or reports the sum of the casualties caused by several fire actions of the individual units (several "weaker" fire actions). It's not an unimportant question. For example, the way I understand the manual, the larger (1/2/3 component units) a target unit is, the more casualties need to be inflicted within/by a SINGLE fire action in order to force a morale check on it. So in this case, you want to pack maximum fire power into a single fire action. (For the same and other reasons, using units either in a combined or split-up manner seems to be a rather important decision...)

@ 5: I see. But what about the intermediate method "manual defensive fire" mode with optional "automatic defensive fire" turned on? 

Also thanks for all the recommendations! I've started with Sicily, as that's the campaign I know most about (if only I could modify the Primosole map!). I will take a closer look at Smolensk and Budapest. What about the France 40 title? Early war appeals to me. Are the scenarios comparatively large?

[Mr Grumpy]

@5 I cannot give you precise figures but in the 15 years I have been at this forum discussions on using anything but the default phase system have been almost nil, my 95% estimate might have been an understatement!   

In no way would I try to put you off using the other options but you might struggle to find opponents, if you persevere and get a couple of PBEM games under your belt be sure to post here about your experiences using the alternate phases option.  


France 40 has a whole range of scenarios from a few turns to the monster campaigns.

[Green]

@ 4: Very good point about the increased oppportunities for enemy opportunity fire (if you don't play in phases, that is). As you say, I was just wondering if the game adds the fire power of several units to perform a single, "stronger" fire action (increased chances to cause casualties and force a morale check) or reports the sum of the casualties caused by several fire actions of the individual units (several "weaker" fire actions). It's not an unimportant question. For example, the way I understand the manual, the larger (1/2/3 component units) a target unit is, the more casualties need to be inflicted within/by a SINGLE fire action in order to force a morale check on it. So in this case, you want to pack maximum fire power into a single fire action. (For the same and other reasons, using units either in a combined or split-up manner seems to be a rather important decision...)

I do not think the answer to this is explicitly given in the manual. I suspect, but cannot be sure, that a combined attack by multiple units is handled as a single calculation. On average the casualties will be the same either way but the decision to attack as a group or separately could impact on the chance of causing a Morale Check.

The User Manual gives the probability of forcing a Morale check as the ratio of losses to losses plus base-value where base-value is;

•  5 for platoon and uncombined company units.
• 10 for combined company units consisting of 2 subunits.
• 15 for battalions and combined company units consisting of 3 or more subunits.

For example assume you had a group in a hex that comprised three identical units, and that the average damage done by one of these units attacking a particular target of Battalion size was 5 men. So if all 3 of these units attacked that same target as a group, the average damage would be 15 men. The chance of a Morale Check for an individual attack would be 5/(5+15) or 25% and the chance for a combined attack would be 15/(15+15) or 50%. So the chance of at least one Morale Check based on three individual attacks would be about 58%, although conceivably you could get three Morale Checks!

A variation to this would be when the chance of causing casualties was small. Say if in the above example the expected loss from a single unit attacking was only 1/3 men (before rounding) and hence 1 man for a combined attack. Then on average there would be only one morale check possibility of around 6% or 1/(1+15) whether attacking as a group or not. So the difference would be minimal but once again, multiple Morale Checks could result when attacking individually, if extremely lucky.

On the other hand, if I am not correct in my assumption that a multiple unit attack is handled by a single calculation then the probability of a single Morale Check would be the same whether attacking as a group or not. But attacking individually would still be preferable as only then do you get multiple Morale Check possibilities. And if not using phased play, attacking individually could result in a unit being broken with your first attack, giving you options to either attempt to break it again, assault it, attack another unit, etc.

So, Ignoring the Defensive Fire issue, as presumably you can when playing phases, individual attacks seem the way to go. Having never played using phases, I am not speaking from experience. But for the normal non-phased method of play Defensive Fire is a big factor. Personally, I tend to use combined attacks quite often. Apart from anything else, it is quicker! Sometimes just playing the game gives a better feel for this sort of thing than trying to analyze the rules, in my opinion.

[Ricky B]

Turn off Results by Map and you get a dialog showing fire results. There you will see that firing a stack of units is still resolved as separate fires by each unit, not a summed up fire.

Also, ANY loss will trigger a disruption check, there is no calculation to determine when to do this, a single man from a 1000 man unit will check for disruption. Firing 5 units at once, all of which cause at least 1 loss, will result in 5 disruption checks.

Hope that helps.

Rick

[Green]

Turn off Results by Map and you get a dialog showing fire results. There you will see that firing a stack of units is still resolved as separate fires by each unit, not a summed up fire.

Also, ANY loss will trigger a disruption check, there is no calculation to determine when to do this, a single man from a 1000 man unit will check for disruption. Firing 5 units at once, all of which cause at least 1 loss, will result in 5 disruption checks.

Hope that helps.

Rick

Thanks Rick,

That does help. So the firing is handled separately for a stack. That makes sense and does simply things.

But are you saying the manual is incorrect regarding when Morale Checks are required? The example given says;

"Thus a battalion unit that takes a loss of 15 men has a 50% chance of requiring a morale check and a battalion unit that takes a loss of 60 men has about an 80% chance of requiring a morale check."

What am I missing here?

[Green]

Turn off Results by Map and you get a dialog showing fire results. There you will see that firing a stack of units is still resolved as separate fires by each unit, not a summed up fire.

I have tried this but to my mind it does not really prove that the calculations are done separately. The Combat Display shows the attack values separately for each unit but just gives a single result. It is not possible to know from this is the attack values are combined into a single combat calculation or if the results from separate calculations are combined. Both ways produce the same losses but the number of Morale Checks would be different. Do you have inside knowledge on how this works? I cannot see anything in the manual that explains this.

[Mowgli]

Turn off Results by Map and you get a dialog showing fire results. There you will see that firing a stack of units is still resolved as separate fires by each unit, not a summed up fire.

Also, ANY loss will trigger a disruption check, there is no calculation to determine when to do this, a single man from a 1000 man unit will check for disruption. Firing 5 units at once, all of which cause at least 1 loss, will result in 5 disruption checks.

Hope that helps.

Rick

Thank you, that's very usefull! I wasn't aware what this "option" does. Anything that provides information helps. The option to get to know the total modification and the combat value is excellent, especially for me as a newbie. It also increases my trust in the game as a whole. :)

I have not had the time yet to take a loser look yet at if and what it might tell us about multi-unit fire actions.

[Mowgli]

@ 4: Very good point about the increased oppportunities for enemy opportunity fire (if you don't play in phases, that is). As you say, I was just wondering if the game adds the fire power of several units to perform a single, "stronger" fire action (increased chances to cause casualties and force a morale check) or reports the sum of the casualties caused by several fire actions of the individual units (several "weaker" fire actions). It's not an unimportant question. For example, the way I understand the manual, the larger (1/2/3 component units) a target unit is, the more casualties need to be inflicted within/by a SINGLE fire action in order to force a morale check on it. So in this case, you want to pack maximum fire power into a single fire action. (For the same and other reasons, using units either in a combined or split-up manner seems to be a rather important decision...)

I do not think the answer to this is explicitly given in the manual. I suspect, but cannot be sure, that a combined attack by multiple units is handled as a single calculation. On average the casualties will be the same either way but the decision to attack as a group or separately could impact on the chance of causing a Morale Check.

The User Manual gives the probability of forcing a Morale check as the ratio of losses to losses plus base-value where base-value is;

•  5 for platoon and uncombined company units.
• 10 for combined company units consisting of 2 subunits.
• 15 for battalions and combined company units consisting of 3 or more subunits.

For example assume you had a group in a hex that comprised three identical units, and that the average damage done by one of these units attacking a particular target of Battalion size was 5 men. So if all 3 of these units attacked that same target as a group, the average damage would be 15 men. The chance of a Morale Check for an individual attack would be 5/(5+15) or 25% and the chance for a combined attack would be 15/(15+15) or 50%. So the chance of at least one Morale Check based on three individual attacks would be about 58%, although conceivably you could get three Morale Checks!

A variation to this would be when the chance of causing casualties was small. Say if in the above example the expected loss from a single unit attacking was only 1/3 men (before rounding) and hence 1 man for a combined attack. Then on average there would be only one morale check possibility of around 6% or 1/(1+15) whether attacking as a group or not. So the difference would be minimal but once again, multiple Morale Checks could result when attacking individually, if extremely lucky.

On the other hand, if I am not correct in my assumption that a multiple unit attack is handled by a single calculation then the probability of a single Morale Check would be the same whether attacking as a group or not. But attacking individually would still be preferable as only then do you get multiple Morale Check possibilities. And if not using phased play, attacking individually could result in a unit being broken with your first attack, giving you options to either attempt to break it again, assault it, attack another unit, etc.

So, Ignoring the Defensive Fire issue, as presumably you can when playing phases, individual attacks seem the way to go. Having never played using phases, I am not speaking from experience. But for the normal non-phased method of play Defensive Fire is a big factor. Personally, I tend to use combined attacks quite often. Apart from anything else, it is quicker! Sometimes just playing the game gives a better feel for this sort of thing than trying to analyze the rules, in my opinion.

Thanks a lot. As your "5 casualties on average" example demonstrates, the different methods of firing (if they're actually in use by the engine!) can lead to significant differences (for the chance to force a morale check on the target). In your example, letting units fire individually had a 7.6% greater chance (57.8%) to force a morale check on the target than letting the same units fire in a combined manner (50%). 

Then again, you'd probably also have to consider that if, e.g. 3 units fire individually, there are 3 randomization rolls/processes (random number between cv*low/high threshold), rather than just one? In other words, the result of a 3x "combined fire" would be more random than the result of 3x "individual fire".

[Mr Grumpy]

I agree, after a few games you start to get a "feel" for how things work "under the hood" without being able to explain in detail exactly what is happening.