50k Soviet Casualties a Turn - No Combat

[ezhik1]

Hi - I am sure there is a reason for this which I cannot figure out. If I take a season or two off from fighting, every turn my Soviets take 40-50k of casualties even though no combat had taken place that turn or previous turn? With that alone, over 200 turns of a full game the Soviets should take 10mln casualties. Before they even see a single German. Any thoughts as to the reasons for this?

Would be grateful.

Martin

[EwaldvonKleist]

If units are on the frontline, they take low intense fighting attrition losses. According to the manual, between 0,5% and 1% of their strength, dependant of several factors (Morale, Experience, Fatigue, Leader???).
If you have 7 000 000 men and all are in contact with Germans, 1%=70 000 men attrition losses. As far as I know, the attrition is independent on the CV of your opponent. A romanian infantry brigade will cause the same attrition as a German Panzer division.
So try to minimize the number of men in contact with the Germans, for example in the mud when less divisions are sufficient to hold the line. And train your divisions up to National morale and experience before you sent them to the frontline.

[EwaldvonKleist]

As a test move all your units away from the Germans (which should be set to manually controlled) and look at the attrition losses. Would be interested in them myself.

[ezhik1]

Thanks for that. It really is incredible how involved this "game" is. I really think it should rebrand itself. This is not a game. Is FSX a game? Possibly. Is Steel Beasts Pro a game? Even less so than FSX likely. Oh never mind.

Coming back to the question. And thank you very much for your response. "Attrition losses" is completely valid logic. But what bothers me is that it is only me (Soviets) that takes those casualties and not the Germans. Turn with no combat - Germans 0 casualties, Soviets - 50k. Turn after turn. Assuming I decide to go static defensive.

[EwaldvonKleist]

Can't help about the 0 German casualties. This is either a bug or related to the turn resetting mechanism. Morvael is the right man to answer such questions...

[morvael]

Germans take a few thousand attrition losses per turn as well (many more during first winter). You don't see these as the turn losses counter resets. But I have improved this for the next patch and you will finally see all German losses since their last logistic phase (and they yours). Some of these men will return from disabled, also those losses will be reduced in time as the experience of your troops will grow.

[gmtello]

I believe that moral affects attrition. More moral or exp lessen attrition. Is that true?

[EwaldvonKleist]

Yes

[BlueAndGray]

I'm sure there have been discussions on this before, but is there a reason why the attrition casualties are so HUGE compared to direct high intensity combat? I'm not sure I've ever delivered (or taken) more than 10-20k casualties in a week/turn of direct combat (obviously I'm not including surrender numbers here where 100-200k is easily possible), but I'm always going to take those 50k attrition casualties and I can't really wrap my mind around the idea that I should expect for a typical week that I take 5 times more casualties from attrition than from direct combat.

Even looking into the details for a deliberate attack I only seem to take ~1% casualties (maybe 3% for a bad attack) - considering that I'll usually have 100s of heavy artillery pieces, rocket launchers, and tanks it seems strange that the lethality is the same as the small unit (squad/platoon with mortars being your primary fire support at this level) actions where the mission is usually to initiate contact with the enemy defensive line to make sure they are still there and then get out with a few prisoners if possible. This doesn't even take into account the weather - you are just not going to be capable of patrolling as aggressively during mud/blizzard turns as you could in clear weather.

Taking this a step further and it doesn't seem right that you get penalized just for having more troops on the front line. For example, if I have 1 division with 10k men on the front line they will take 100 casualties. In that same hex if I have 3 rifle corps with 100k men then I'll take 1,000 casualties (10 times as many casualties because I have 10 times the men) to patrol the same hex. To top it off this is not affected by whether or not the opponent has SS Panzer divisions opposing you or a depleted Hungarian border brigade. This just feels like it goes against the concept of the game where every shot is supposed to be simulated.

It's not that attrition won't cause casualties over time, it just seems like direct combat should be at least on par with with attrition for total losses?