Waving the white flag

[jp10]

While this question applies to both MBT and WW2 I shall post it here because an owl hooted three times this morning.
Surrender. It just does not seem to sim appropriately in the game. While the moral/national characteristics effects seem a good concept the "surrenders if no path to retreat" seems weak to me. The game would feel a 1 hex retreat into a valid hex to be good enough to avoid surrender. It seems that commonly in battle soldiers do not believe the odds of a 50 yard dash while under pressure and already suffering the effects of battle worth the risk and prefer their chances as a POW.
I feel the game is close and granted certain historical venues saw greater or lesser amounts of surrender but does lowering a side's morale suffice or just make one side run away faster as opposed to giving a good fight till being overrun.
I pose these question about the surrender mechanism in WINSP, not so much for designed battles where units can be modified to produce results but more for generated battles and campaigns.
Should a 'prone to surrender' switch be created that modifies a side for a specific battle as opposed to the whole campaign?
Should a WINSP 'leader' being killed increase that units chance of surrender?
Should a unit in 'hand to hand' suffer surrender loses in addition to KIA casualties.
Could surrender losses be tallied separately from KIA totals?
Should the surrender rather than retreat occurrence be greater for urban or fortification hexes?

I apologize if some of these effects are already in the game but have not been encountered or noticed by myself. I am not looking for a weaker enemy but just a greater decision point of "Do I fight, run or give up?" which in reality is a snap decision made hastily in judgement of the outcome of the entire situation rather than "I calculate a clear hex is behind me". Too many times the unit will rout a hex only to be wiped out the next turn.

I now return you to your regular programming.

[Felix Nephthys]

The way I always understood it was that the game didn't differentiate between killed, wounded, and troops that for one reason or another are simply incapable of fighting any longer. Troops will disperse at times which means that the ones who are left simply ran away. And, sometimes, they will surrender. I for one feel the game models these things pretty well already. As for a prone to surrender switch, I'm not sure what that would do that can't already be accomplished with the selectors in the Preferences menu. As for a leader being killed, that will already reduce the chances for subordinate units to rally which will increase their chances of retreating/routing.

[Imp]

No idea if you meant units should surrender more or less often.
Lots of factors affect it by making morale plummet, seeing friendly units die for example or enemy’s killed.
Encircle them and they are more likely to surrender, then of course there’s the Japs.
Game works well and does something most don’t, throws you a surprise when routed troops suddenly decide to make a stand because somebody killed a few enemy soldiers.

[DRG]

Yes it's always interesting when a unit that is on the ropes has a fire volley that causes enemy casualties suddenly realizes all is not lost and they start fighting back more effectively.

[Aeraaa]

Found an interesting link with similar topic:

https://wavellroom.com/2018/09/25/sl...nd-psychology/

Generally speaking according to the article, combined arms, successful flanking and close combat have a larger impact on morale and tend to produce more casualties to surrenders.

[jp10]

What specifically started this subject for me was historical scenario battles (understandably more available in WW2, MBT has many hypothetical battles) like the Wolmi Do landing (136 captured) 2nd Para in Darwin (1000 prisoners) and the battle of Asal Uttar where after the end of the battle a Second Lieutenant leading a team of 20 soldiers searched a sugarcane field and shouting out for those hidden inside to come out – the Commanding Officer of Pakistan’s 4 Cavalry came out along with two majors, one captain and 17 other ranks to be made prisoners of war.
I have tested these battles and other scenarios that had a notable POW tally several times and only rarely have units surrendering. Holding their positions, pinned or routed till they disperse (and using up my ammo) yes, but routed, HQ broken and in contact with my forces they still refuse to wave that white rag.

The requirement to be encircled is too constrained in my opinion. I offer that a routed unit with an adjacent enemy unit triggering a surrender check would be an appropriate standard. If they don't surrender then (Hande hoch! Waffen weg!) then they can be fired up.

[Felix Nephthys]

Originally Posted by jp10

What specifically started this subject for me was historical scenario battles (understandably more available in WW2, MBT has many hypothetical battles) like the Wolmi Do landing (136 captured) 2nd Para in Darwin (1000 prisoners) and the battle of Asal Uttar where after the end of the battle a Second Lieutenant leading a team of 20 soldiers searched a sugarcane field and shouting out for those hidden inside to come out – the Commanding Officer of Pakistan’s 4 Cavalry came out along with two majors, one captain and 17 other ranks to be made prisoners of war.
I have tested these battles and other scenarios that had a notable POW tally several times and only rarely have units surrendering. Holding their positions, pinned or routed till they disperse (and using up my ammo) yes, but routed, HQ broken and in contact with my forces they still refuse to wave that white rag.

The requirement to be encircled is too constrained in my opinion. I offer that a routed unit with an adjacent enemy unit triggering a surrender check would be an appropriate standard. If they don't surrender then (Hande hoch! Waffen weg!) then they can be fired up.

But the game isn't meant to play that way though as I understand it. You can play most scenarios over and over again and never get the same outcome as before, that was the fun of it in my opinion. There will always be that random element where one unit might screw up horribly in one battle and the next day you play the same battle again and it might save the entire position. If it wasn't for that then what's the point of playing? It's fun to take a historical scenario and see how well you might do in that situation but at the end of the day, it's just a game. If I wanted it to come out the same way it did historically then I might as well just read the book. Besides, those situations I don't think could be handled by any game on the market anyways because they are of such an extraordinary nature to begin with. I'm reminded of Kirk with the Kobyashi Maru test in Star Trek, to change the conditions of the test in order to win.

As for the adjacent unit next to a routed unit, doesn't the game already handle this appropriately? With preferences you can already make a unit into either Terminators on one hand or a 3 year old with a skinned knee on the other. Then sometimes you always have the element of surprise where your whole day just goes to hell, like in the picture below.

[scorpio_rocks]

Originally Posted by jp10

What specifically started this subject for me was historical scenario battles (understandably more available in WW2, MBT has many hypothetical battles) like the Wolmi Do landing (136 captured) 2nd Para in Darwin (1000 prisoners) and the battle of Asal Uttar where after the end of the battle a Second Lieutenant leading a team of 20 soldiers searched a sugarcane field and shouting out for those hidden inside to come out – the Commanding Officer of Pakistan’s 4 Cavalry came out along with two majors, one captain and 17 other ranks to be made prisoners of war.
I have tested these battles and other scenarios that had a notable POW tally several times and only rarely have units surrendering. Holding their positions, pinned or routed till they disperse (and using up my ammo) yes, but routed, HQ broken and in contact with my forces they still refuse to wave that white rag.

The requirement to be encircled is too constrained in my opinion. I offer that a routed unit with an adjacent enemy unit triggering a surrender check would be an appropriate standard. If they don't surrender then (Hande hoch! Waffen weg!) then they can be fired up.

Remember when the last few men of a unit "disappear" when the unit disperses they are more than likely captured rather than killed (or at least hiding in that field).

[Aeraaa]

Originally Posted by scorpio_rocks

Remember when the last few men of a unit "disappear" when the unit disperses they are more than likely captured rather than killed (or at least hiding in that field).

Tbh I imagine it as even more abstract than that: casualties in the game include men that are not participating in the battle anymore. The reasons can be several including:

1-KIA/WIA (of course)
2-POWs
3-Men in a unit that lost cohesion and therefore not knowing what to do
4-Soldiers distracted by other tasks (like carrying the wounded)
5-Soldiers cowering from intense fire
6-Routs (irrecoverable)


There can also be combinations in the above eg casualties of type (5) become casualties from type (2), because the cowering soldiers have been found by an advancing enemy and captured.

In fact with the above method, men can be assumed to be fired upon when they actually aren't physically in the same hex anymore. Believe it or not, this is IMHO more realistic. In reality, there isn't any indicator that the place you fire upon has any enemy on it and many times you fire into an area, rather than point targets. The probability that you actually fire blindly into an area is quite high (and Z fire does not completely cover this case).


Also with the above method, actual battle casualties are probably 1/3 on average of the final tally in a scenario. It probably fluctuates between attacker and defender (attacker probably around 1/2, defender around 1/4, since defender usually has more casualties that couldn't escape and were captured). Around 1/3 should be casualties that can be recovered within a small amount of time (routed soldiers going back to their unit).

[Felix Nephthys]

Originally Posted by scorpio_rocks

Remember when the last few men of a unit "disappear" when the unit disperses they are more than likely captured rather than killed (or at least hiding in that field).

The impression I've got is that he wants a "hard surrender" when the game already handles this, and I think he wants it to happen much more often and alot easier as well. In my opinion the game is already working fine the way it is in this respect and has been since it came out 23 years ago. It's simple, blast away at an enemy unit long enough and it will be pinned and eventually retreat and rout, kill enough and it will disperse and disappear and under the right conditions and depending on the quality of troops it may surrender. Sometimes units will simply fight to the last man also and that's just something you'll have to deal with. I'm sure every player wishes the enemy would sometimes just give up but like real life it's never certain that will happen, just take a look at any campaign against the Japanese during WW2.




Jack Crow "Remember that day we thought they'd just give up?"