Trying to figure out how Assault works

[Xerxes77]

So after getting a series of wild results when attacking enemy positions, I decided to look into the actual numbers and test a few standard situations. For that I created a simple Grenada scenario with matched units and let them have at each other in a series of test assaults.

So far my findings have been... weird, and I wonder what I'm missing. This is a bit long, but I'm really intrigued.

Essentially, losses resulting from assaults seem to be all over the place. I understand the results are intended to be swingy and unpredictable to a point, as they're based on a number internally selected at random from a wide (but known) range of values. The problem is I'm getting casualty rates that are well outside that range.

Example 1:


In this test scenario, my 10 American soldiers have just assaulted an enemy unit of equal strength and successfully dislodged it from its position. The outcome was 9 to nil, so I don't think they're popping the champagne just yet. Still, that went better than...

Example 2:


Another successful assault, at the cost of a complete squad wipe-out.

Here are my main questions:

1) According to the manual, defending units should never retreat UNLESS they've suffered losses, after which morale calculations come into play. See Example 1 for a counterpoint. I've seen several cases where this is simply not the case and they will retreat at full strength.

2) If the assault resolution works as outlined in the manual, as far as I can tell the attacking unit should simply not suffer that many losses. The process is a bit involved but clear enough: the infantry assault value and the weapon assault values of the defending unit are multiplied by their respective strength and normalized against a baseline (1/10000 for the whole SB series) before being applied to the Attack Low/High Loss parameter values (24-240). This establishes a range of possible losses for the attacker. Unless there's some other modifier involved not mentioned in the manual, I cannot explain the relatively common occurrence of casualties exceeding the higher endpoint of that theoretical range.

3) Perhaps more worryingly, assaults against Pinned and even Demoralized units did not seem to yield significant differences in my tests. According to the manual, pinned units defend at 1/4 value, and demoralized units at 1/8, so the difference in maximum losses should be visible. Yet in the relatively small set of tests I did, pinned and demoralized troops seemed to hold their own in this regard (not so much for retreats, which are based on morale). 2 pinned guys were perfectly capable of killing 9 healthy attackers, which seems to go against the base assault resolution math.

I know there's an optional rule that flattens this volatility a bit, but I'm trying to grok the basic assault mechanics and I wonder if there's some giant obvious factor I'm overlooking? 

[Warhorse]

Weapons carried add different values too, anything they carry has an assault value!

[Jeff Conner]

Weapons carried add different values too, anything they carry has an assault value!

[Jeff Conner]

I wrote a couple of paragraphs that seemed to have disappeared. I am at work and don't have time to write them over, but I will try and respond when I get home tonight

Jeff Conner

[Xerxes77]

Weapons carried add different values too, anything they carry has an assault value!

I am indeed taking the weapons into account. Here's the breakdown:
The defending squad is comprised of ten men with 10 AK-47s. The men themselves have an assault value of 10 as per the scenario's Infantry Assault Value, while each AK-47 has an Assault Value of 18.

That gives me a total Assault value of 280 (10 x 10 men + 18 x 10 weapons).

Mapped to the Attack High Loss Value (240), that gives me 280/10000 * 240 = 6.72. As far as I can tell this result means that I should see a maximum of 7 casualties, and not too often! Clearly my calculations are not correct, but why?

[Xerxes77]

I wrote a couple of paragraphs that seemed to have disappeared.  I am at work and don't have time to write them over, but I will try and respond when I get home tonight

Jeff Conner

Thanks. Looking forward to your input!

[Jeff Conner]

I wrote a couple of paragraphs that seemed to have disappeared.  I am at work and don't have time to write them over, but I will try and respond when I get home tonight

Jeff Conner

Thanks. Looking forward to your input!

I came up with the same numbers that  you did, a range of .67 to 6.7 losses with a median of about 3.7.  So it is possible, but not likely to cause no losses, an average result would be 3-4 and the maximum is 7.  If you are getting higher numbers than that, something else is going on.  Do you have the Quality Loss Modifier optional rule selected?  If you do, and it is very commonly used, then depending on the morale of the unit suffering loses, they can be either increased or decreased from 50% to 200%.  C morale units do not have their losses modified.  If that's not going on, I don't know what's causing your out of range results.

[Xerxes77]

I came up with the same numbers that  you did, a range of .67 to 6.7 losses with a median of about 3.7.  So it is possible, but not likely to cause no losses, an average result would be 3-4 and the maximum is 7.  If you are getting higher numbers than that, something else is going on.  Do you have the Quality Loss Modifier optional rule selected?  If you do, and it is very commonly used, then depending on the morale of the unit suffering loses, they can be either increased or decreased from 50% to 200%.  C morale units do not have their losses modified.  If that's not going on, I don't know what's causing your out of range results.

Thanks Jeff. All optional rules are turned off. However I am now running a series of tests and taking notes, and will use the Quality optional rule to see if it affects results.

Btw I'm now testing with a different title and still getting out of range casualties on a consistent basis. I believe this behavior can be replicated. I will try a few more things and share my results when the dust has settled a bit.

[Stas_sche]

I have experienced another issue with assaults: I played Spanish Civil War title. One of WP was held by Demoralized unit of 2 people left (initially they were 8). The unit manager to repel 3 assaults against non-disrupted units of 5-10 soldiers. All with result 0/0.

[Xerxes77]

I came up with the same numbers that  you did, a range of .67 to 6.7 losses with a median of about 3.7.  So it is possible, but not likely to cause no losses, an average result would be 3-4 and the maximum is 7.  If you are getting higher numbers than that, something else is going on.  Do you have the Quality Loss Modifier optional rule selected?  If you do, and it is very commonly used, then depending on the morale of the unit suffering loses, they can be either increased or decreased from 50% to 200%.  C morale units do not have their losses modified.  If that's not going on, I don't know what's causing your out of range results.

Well after several hours of clicking, furious note-taking and copious amounts of coffee my preliminary conclusion is that assaults are indeed *not* working as intended; that is, the information in the manual is not accurate as to how the game resolves assaults.

Moreover, based on all the data I have collected I now have a pretty good idea of where the actual calculations deviate from those outlined in the manual and what's the surprising impact in game terms. I'll try to put up a post tomorrow with my findings.