Kamikaze Tactics?

[Primarchx]

So I've been playing for a couple of days now as NATO and don't understand why WP forces forge ahead taking catastrophic casualties so that you have to wipe them out to the last unit before they stop advancing. You'd think if you're only down to 4 effective tanks out of 11 or 1 infantry squad out of 20 you might want to think about pulling back.

Can someone help me reconcile what's going on here?

[CapnDarwin]

In most cases units that beat up will and should fall back. The Soviets are slanted to be more aggressive and less likely to fall back under fire/losses. In some cases units get so beat down that they are unable to move or find a good fallback. One thing we will be looking at closer in the work for 2.04 is the addition of a surrender ability and we can also look closer at the scooting and falling back logic and tweak it if a major issue is seen. Since you are seeing some odd cases, please post screen shots and save games with descriptions in the Tech Support area and we can use those to hunt down issues.

Thanks.

[Mad Russian]

Have you ever read anything about Soviet tactics?

If you haven't, we can recommend some things for you to look at.

If you have, you should be able to answer your own question.

Good Hunting.

MR

[loki100]

I'd suggest a few bits of rationalisation.

For a start, in the context of modern warfare, thinking about pulling back and doing so are different. They might, at a purely personal level, decide that going to ground is there best option. Also given the EW present in the game, the command cycle is slower than the death rate if you've made a mistake - in other words it may take longer to adjust to a situation than you really have.

In this game, the assumption is the Soviets have attacked from barracks. I played enough operational WP/NATO games to assume that means this is the classic win early or win never gamble. If they can get deep into the NATO lines and take out the tactical nukes and REFORGER bases, then they have the scope to win big. That means every level of the Soviet command chain is emphasising speed and commitment, not care and minimising losses.

Below that, drawing on their experience in the Great Patriotic War, to the Soviets recon was combat. You used recon to make the enemy reveal themselves as they were not sure if this was simply a probe or the real thing. Second Soviet offensive doctrine was about reinforcing success. So if a given attack started with 3 lines of advance, one failed, one stalled and one broke in (despite losses), you reinforced the latter.

Its not to say the Soviets didn't care about losses, or that individual Soviet troops were any more keen than anyone else on getting killed, but their doctrinal approach basically argued the way to take less losses in the long term was aggression and commitment on the offensive. Suvorov's maxim 'more sweat on the training ground, less blood on the battlefield' was still widely quoted as an underlying maxim.

[Primarchx]

I understand Soviet doctrine to some degree, this isn't my first trip down Central Front lane. I guess what I'm getting at is that I see many Soviet units reduced from 12-22 units to 1-3 units and are still moving forward under fire. I'd think such a unit would be shattered to the point that they couldn't sustain combat and at least pull back to cover, regardless of doctrine.

Don't take this as a criticism, just an observation.

[Werewolf13]

ORIGINAL: Primarchx

I understand Soviet doctrine to some degree, this isn't my first trip down Central Front lane. I guess what I'm getting at is that I see many Soviet units reduced from 12-22 units to 1-3 units and are still moving forward under fire. I'd think such a unit would be shattered to the point that they couldn't sustain combat and at least pull back to cover, regardless of doctrine.

Don't take this as a criticism, just an observation.

^^^^
THIS!

No matter how fanatical a unit at some point it essentially ceases to exist.

That said: A unit that cannot route will fight like a cornered animal and like the animal will fight to the death if it cannot get away. In real terms one must define fight to the death. Last man? Not really? Or inability to continue fighting as a unit - that's how I'd describe it. A common term used is shattered.

For Flashpoint:RS I would suggest that if a unit is routed but has no where to go that it fight on - up to the point where the model says make a shattered roll.

[Mad Russian]

The Soviet offensive doctrine was to attack. If they get stopped they attack someplace else until they find a place that they don't get stopped. The reality in modern war is that when you attack that aggressively your unit may not make it back in one piece.

The AI will do that to you as well. It will have a thrust it pushes at you. If you stop it be prepared to defend somewhere else because as long as the AI has forces it will try to get past you.

Good Hunting.

MR

[Tazak]

lets not forget that in WW2 entire battalions would get wiped out, and while it makes no impact on scenario gameplay not every 'kill' is a outright destroy, a kill may be shattered optics, damaged gun barrel or other 'softkill'.

So while it may appear that a T80 company gets wiped out, there may be only 3 burning with the others withdrawn or hiding

[jenrick]

Tazak hit the point I was about to discuss. Just because the combat hint says KIA, doesn't mean it's an actual kill.

-Jenrick

[TigerTC]

I dunno. If I'm in a T-80 rushing across 2000 meters of rolling German land, taking fire from unobserved M1s and streaking TOWs, if I'm one of the few that make it halfway across, what else am I supposed to do?

I sure as heck don't want to turn back and go back through all that carnage. Maybe, just maybe, if I can survive 10 more seconds we can return fire and find cover. So keep going.

Also, frankly, how many of the attacking troops would know what was happening? The tank commander on the company net might know, but the driver can only see what's going on in front of him and the gunner is scanning for targets, not watching his left and right where his tovarischen are being blown up.