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Help needed - campaign bean counting

Concord

Concord

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Hello Good Men,

I'd like another set of eyes.

I'm designing a method to quickly and easily calculate losses in campaigns,
where there will be many units and many battles, without getting bogged down in bean counting.

The campaign battles will be based loosely on Rico's/Nathangun's rules systems.
The fights will be Quick Battles, with points allocated based on a unit's type and battle strength.

Here is the table for these (percentage battle strength, and QB purchase points):

QUICK BATTLE NOTES

Infantry units
100% / 1000 pts
90% / 900 pts
80% / 800 pts
70% / 700 pts
60% / 600 pts
50% / 500 pts

Armoured units: Armoured points / Mech infantry points
100% / 1500 pts / 1200 pts
90% / 1350 pts / 1100 pts
80% / 1200 pts / 960 pts
70% / 1050 pts / 840 pts
60% / 900 pts / 720 pts
50% / 750 pts / 600 pts

Mech units
100% / 1200 pts
90% / 1100 pts
80% / 960 pts
70% / 840 pts
60% / 720 pts
50% / 600 pts

Below I will outline my plan for calculating losses...
 
Battles will only involve one defending unit, but sometimes multiple attacking units.

Procedure for calculating battle results

On the CM AAR screen, it shows:
Men OK
Men Killed
Men Wounded
Men Missing

From the AAR screen:

Total participants
Calculate the total number of men that took part on a particular side,
by adding Men OK, Men Killed, Men Wounded, and Men Missing.
Record the total participants for the side.

Total survivors
Record the number of Men OK.
Add one third of Men Wounded (rounding up).
Add one third of Men Missing (rounding up).
Record this total number of survivors.

Percentage remaining/lost
Total number of survivors {divided by} total number of men that fought, {multiplied by} 100.
This gives you the percentage that survived the battle for a given side.
100 {minus} that number is the percentage of damage that was inflicted.

Applying losses
If there was only one company in the battle:
Enter (into a calculator) the percentage strength of a unit before the battle started, and then
minus the percentage of damage that was inflicted to see the remaining percentage strength. Round up or down to closest ten.
For example: Unit starts with 70% strength. It took 20% losses (calculated from the AAR screen).
In a calculator, enter 70, then minus, then 20, then the percent button.
This comes to 56, which is rounded up to the nearest ten, which is 60. The unit's new strength is 60%.

If there were multiple units that took part:
Use the percentage lost overall from the AAR screen calculations.
Apply this percentage loss to each unit individually.
For example: 3 of your units took part in the battle. They started as 80%, 70% and 60% strength.
The AAR screen calculations show that a grand total of 40% losses were taken.
80 - 40% = 48, rounded to 50. New battle strength = 50%
70 - 40% = 42, rounded to 40. New battle strength = 40%
60 - 40% = 36, rounded to 40. New battle strength = 40%

The new battle strength for each unit is updated on the master list.
 
Last edited:
Do you think this will work?
No major flaws?

I realise that it is not extremely accurate, and sometimes a unit will be advantaged or disadvantaged with rounding up or down.
But the goal here is to make an extremely streamlined way of calculating and recording losses over many battles.
 
Concord said:
Total survivors
Record the number of Men OK.
Add one third of Men Wounded (rounding up).
Add one third of Men Missing (rounding up).
Record this total number of survivors.
Click to expand...

I think both wounded and missing in action should be treated as casualties. They either get sent to rear areas for treatment or are now on their way to a POW camp.
 
Bulletpoint said:
I think both wounded and missing in action should be treated as casualties. They either get sent to rear areas for treatment or are now on their way to a POW camp.
Click to expand...

I agree ... at the time scale of this, WIA's can be considered lost.

Casualties counting should work ok -- it's simpler than it actually looks when explaining it.
 
The casualties points in quick battles are awarded for percentage casualties anyway, so you can get the percentage losses (incapacitated, dead, missing) from the score without having to go overboard with the maths. I think it's pretty much working out what you're working out anyway.

For example, quick battle Meeting Engagements have 600 points available for causing casualties. If one player brings 100 men and loses 50 (50% losses), then his opponent will have 300 points (50% of 600). Its not 100% accurate (I think there are overheads for killing whole formations), but it you're rounding it anyway then that shouldn't matter too much.
 
What @Bulletpoint and @Rico say simplifies your post battle task. Just divide a side's number of surviving effectives (OK) by the total number of participants (OK, KIA, WIA, MIA) for the new strength percentage.

Question: Are your proposed Mech/Armor points higher than Infantry to account for vehicles?
I leave it to others to validate that both their quantitative and qualitative differences don't produce imbalanced disadvantages against straight infantry.
 
Badger73 said:
Question: Are your proposed Mech/Armor points higher than Infantry to account for vehicles?
I leave it to others to validate that both their quantitative and qualitative differences don't produce imbalanced disadvantages against straight infantry.
Click to expand...

As I see it, one of the good things about a campaign is actually that it produces imbalanced scenarios.

So I might be asked to defend a bridge with only half a company of infantry, and I know the other guy is bringing a full strength Panzer unit. I know I will probably lose, but the challenge would be to see how long I could hold out, and how many casualties I could cause.

If casualties to infantry and tanks were counted, my loss would not be in vain. I'd have helped my side by bringing the attack to a halt.
 
Thank you for the input gentlemen!
I will remove the one third rule for WIA and MIA.

However, I would like to somehow reward players who do battlefield first aid - even if it a bit artificial and unrealistic.
Could be as simple as saying that the player can subtract the number evacuated from their battle losses.
I don't expect that it would be more than a handful anyway, so it shouldn't unbalance things too much.

I don't plan on modifying the calculations for vehicles/mech.
Although somewhat unrealistic, my primary aim is to make this procedure a no-brainer.
It could be justified (at a stretch) by saying that replacement vehicles are being brought up by rail etc (which was the case, from my brief research into the operation).
This would be no more than a narrative excuse, but I want to avoid extra calculations as much as possible, so basing it purely on head-count is okay with me.
It will turn out alright I think, because the reduced points of the company will affect purchase options in future battles anyway.
 
Concord said:
Hello Good Men,

I'd like another set of eyes.

I'm designing a method to quickly and easily calculate losses in campaigns,
where there will be many units and many battles, without getting bogged down in bean counting.

The campaign battles will be based loosely on Rico's/Nathangun's rules systems.
The fights will be Quick Battles, with points allocated based on a unit's type and battle strength.

Here is the table for these (percentage battle strength, and QB purchase points):

QUICK BATTLE NOTES

Infantry units
100% / 1000 pts
90% / 900 pts
80% / 800 pts
70% / 700 pts
60% / 600 pts
50% / 500 pts

Armoured units: Armoured points / Mech infantry points
100% / 1500 pts / 1200 pts
90% / 1350 pts / 1100 pts
80% / 1200 pts / 960 pts
70% / 1050 pts / 840 pts
60% / 900 pts / 720 pts
50% / 750 pts / 600 pts

Mech units
100% / 1200 pts
90% / 1100 pts
80% / 960 pts
70% / 840 pts
60% / 720 pts
50% / 600 pts

Below I will outline my plan for calculating losses...
Click to expand...

Quick notes on the QB points in mine & @Nathangun system:

The Mech points were higher to accommodate halftracks and light foe support vehicles and halftracks and arm cars - which Russians don’t have.

Also our system included additional artillery units to add extra punch to attack/defense (limited to max approx 105 gun or 120 mortars.)
… the 1000 or so QB points don’t buy you that much once you need AT guns etc.

Also extra QB points for defenders for foxholes/trenches would be a good thing.
Anybody defending should automatically get at least foxholes.

I would also suggest limiting the Russian players’ access to SMG infantry units a bit?
 
@Stafford Good man, thank you very much.
In fact, all the players will be calculating their own battle results, and I will then update a master list of force strengths.
It will be a case of many hands, light work.

@Rico Great reminders indeed!
The one aspect I hadn't even thought of is Russians not having any mechanised (only motorised).
The easy solution is to have neither in the game. This operation (historically) was largely regular infantry anyway.
I can spice things up with other kinds of variety.
 
@Rico I just realised...although it will be easy enough to drop the pure mechanized units, there is still the problem of how to buy the accompanying infantry for the armour.

Armoured units: Armoured points / Mech infantry points
100% / 1500 pts / 1200 pts
90% / 1350 pts / 1100 pts
80% / 1200 pts / 960 pts
70% / 1050 pts / 840 pts
60% / 900 pts / 720 pts
50% / 750 pts / 600 pts

Any suggestions?

- We could reduce the points available for the infantry side of things and make only regular infantry available to go with the tanks.

- Or, we could force the Soviet side to make due with motorized (losing out on the light armour / tracks / machine guns of their counterparts).

- Or, we could give the Soviets Tankodesantniki SMG'ers (probably tipping the balance scales way over to the other side in the process).

- Could let the Soviets buy from the Guards Sapper battalion or Guards Rifle list.


Normal infantry for both would be an easy fix.
Be a shame to lose those Panzergrenadiers from the OOB though.
Maybe use the Soviet motorized, but sweeten the deal somehow. Armoured cars?
 
Concord said:
However, I would like to somehow reward players who do battlefield first aid - even if it a bit artificial and unrealistic.
Could be as simple as saying that the player can subtract the number evacuated from their battle losses.
I don't expect that it would be more than a handful anyway, so it shouldn't unbalance things too much.
Click to expand...

Kill your darlings. This is the kind of thing that needs to go, if you want to streamline the rules. I do buddy aid too, but it's not worth it to complicate things for just a couple of casualties.

It's much more important to keep track of the number of tanks and vehicles knocked out.
 
@Bulletpoint ok will do.

@Rico If I was to keep it standard infantry accompanying the tanks, would you suggest using the same points as given to infantry only (instead of the inflated mech component)?
I'm still deciding what to do about this.
The idea of using Russian motorized and Panzergrenadiers is still tempting.
 
@Nathangun could you remind me how you handled purchasing for and damage to armoured units in your bulge campaign?

Was the restriction to numbers of tanks based solely on the points available to purchase?

You never tracked individual vehicles in the end did you?
 
As the one who initially suggested the !/3 rule for wounded to return let me clarify what it is and isnt
It insnt really historically accurate for wia to return in short order (though not unheard of).
It is however a way to encourage and reward recovering your wounded men which is otherwise entirely ignored quite often.
It is also a way to slightly adjust the overly high casualty rates cm can produce.
It is also a fairly simple rule to apply. all you need is the end result screen.
 
holoween said:
As the one who initially suggested the !/3 rule for wounded to return let me clarify what it is and isnt
It insnt really historically accurate for wia to return in short order (though not unheard of).
It is however a way to encourage and reward recovering your wounded men which is otherwise entirely ignored quite often.
It is also a way to slightly adjust the overly high casualty rates cm can produce.
It is also a fairly simple rule to apply. all you need is the end result screen.
Click to expand...

I always pay a lot of attention to give buddy aid to wounded guys, even though it's just a single player scenario. It just seems like the right thing to do.
But it's also a bit of a silly thing to worry about, given that these aren't real people after all.

In order to adjust the high casualty rate, casualty numbers could be divided by (for example) two...

Or, since this is a campaign, the losing player could simply surrender before his force was completely destroyed. That would simulate a retreat, and I think that's primarily what limited casualty rates historically.
 
Concord said:
@Rico If I was to keep it standard infantry accompanying the tanks, would you suggest using the same points as given to infantry only (instead of the inflated mech component)?
I'm still deciding what to do about this.
The idea of using Russian motorized and Panzergrenadiers is still tempting.
Click to expand...

@Rico @Nathangun
Another possible solution has occurred to me. The Germans could buy their Panzergrenadiers from the motorized variety as well.

Comparing the two motorized armoured infantry types...
The German squads are large, and have mp40's, 2 portable MG42's per squad and some anti-tank weapons.
The Russian squads are much smaller, but have a mix of various rifles and smg's (ppsh and pps43 - kind of like a MP40).
 
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