An Intense Conflict

Lokos · Post by **Lokos** » May 25 2005

Okay, so I'm playing as Serbia in the Balkans Scenario.

In 2012 Macedonia declares war on me. But I'm not too worried, my military is pretty massive (some 252 deployed units and 211,000 active personnel with about ~300,000 in reserve). My forces, with initiative set at 100%, begin smashing them immediately. Training and morale, apparently, play an absolutely enormous role in combat in SR2010. Whilst numerically inferior on my southern front for the very short term, my units inflict losses of 8,000+ on the very first day, suffering only 1,250 casualties.

To cut a long, long story short, the diplomacy thing makes my life difficult because every other AI declares war on me within two weeks. That's Serbia vs 6 AI regions. I'm thinking 'Oh, yeah, but I'm the biggest power (read: most units) here, so it doesn't matter'. When my Kill/Loss unit ratio goes up to 200/7 in a week, I start getting worried.

Skip forward a month, and the conflict is over. I have won.

From 23 May to Jul 6 the casualties were as follows:

(Civilian and military casualties are calculated together)

Serbia: 52,650
Croatia: 62,743
Slovenia: 45,181
Macedonia: 59,595
Albania: 79,407
Montenegro: 44,270
Republika Srpska: 34,352
Unknown (non-Serbian civilian casualties of otherwise unknown ethnicity): 68,872

Total: 446,550 casualties (both civ. and mil.)

Daily: 11,163 casualties

The number of dead should roughly be about 1/3 or 1/4 of the above figures.

And the final unit kill/loss ratio: 1515 units killed, 35 units lost.

Pretty damned intense.

Lokos

3iff · Post by **3iff** » May 25 2005

Wow, and I thought I was doing well with 199 kills to 11...

Lokos · Post by **Lokos** » May 25 2005

I was as surprised as you. It all seemed so surreal. They outnumbered me 7 to 1 in EVERYTHING on FOUR fronts. I didn't even bother controlling much of the military, I just let the AI take over and hoped for a good, eventful conflict (which I expected to lose in the end). Lo and behold my wartime AI kicks the **** out of six belligerents simultaneously. When the Slovenians threw their 20,000 men against my Croatian front (nearing Zagreb) things got a little tense. Most of my whole-unit losses occured there, as individual battalions fought a holding action. But the AI micro-managed my air force and quickly rerouted the much larger Southern Army to the Croatian front and stabilized the situation (the Macedonians and the Albanians lasted some ten days, together).

The fighting was BRUTAL. In the end, I'd attribute my victory to a total tank superiority (M84As vs T-55s, T62s and individual M84A battalions) at key points, as well as a predominance of Light Inf. vs the standard Conscript infantry battalions.

The Croatians weren't nearly as much a challenge as I expected from the second largest region - the aforementioned Slovenians fought much harder and more effectively.

The 'easiest' victory was against Montenegro. They were in the war for about three days. On each of those days, they suffered anywhere between ten and twenty thousand casualties, not including civilians.

The thing I found very interesting was that, apart from the tanks, I didn't really have anything better than the AI. And they outnumbered me HEAVILY. They also had tactical air superiority almost everywhere (my air force was concentrated on the Croatian Front). The only true advantage I held was that I had maxed out Training and nearly maxed out Pay and Maintenance, so that my troops had High morale and were very well trained.

But that advantaged translated into really lopsided casualty figures.

Lokos

3iff · Post by **3iff** » May 25 2005

Impressive. I just fought a battle as Marseilles and crushed Paris but we were apparently about equal in military power (whatever that means!). I controlled my units but that mostly meant sitting entrenched and letting the enemy come to me with a few fast units attacking breakthrough units. Once his attack was spent I was able to carefully gain ground...I wasn't in a hurry,

If you were horribly outnumbered, and 7-1 qualifies, then training and pay would obviously have a real benefit. Having good quality units would seem to help too.

I tended to go for a high proportion of light infantry and artillery. The speed of the light inf over garrison units makes them much more valuable. I didn't have enough tanks before but I'm aware of that now...

Lokos · Post by **Lokos** » May 25 2005

I'm in love with Light Infantry, right now. They hold the line so damned well, when backed up by AA and Arty. Did you find that you needed much AA in your Marseilles game? When I've got a 1-1-1-1 ratio set up (Tank-Light Inf-Arty-AA) even having no air cover whatsoever doesn't seem to hurt much.

Tanks are great, but only really neccessary when the other side has them, I find.

Lokos

3iff · Post by **3iff** » May 25 2005

I did buy a bit, but hard to tell what effect it had. A lot of it is low level AA and many land units have low level AA combat values anyway. Did build some expensive mid level range AA but I tended to blast the enemy aircraft with my planes...

I'll see what Barcelona throw at me tonight.

Lokos · Post by **Lokos** » May 25 2005

So I move on to the European map (sticking with the 'Balkan States'). In June of 2012, Germany declares war on Poland. I'm thinking the Poles have a month, tops.

How wrong I was.

From June 6 to September 7 the battle line has stayed almost exactly the same. Not because the AI is inactive, but because the sides are very, very evenly matched. An offensive starts, captures a few small towns and bases, then is pushed back and those sites are recaptured. This goes on, and on, and on, and on...

Polish military casualties after two months: 121,390
German military casualties after two months: 150,447
Civilian casualties on both sides: 847,598

I suspect Polish military casualties are, in actuality, somewhere around ~155-160,000. Casualty reports (which are supposed to be daily) sometimes simply don't show Polish casualties, and less commonly don't show German casualties.

I'm wondering how long these sides can keep at it. Theoretically, the Germans should have no problem with manpower - nor should the Poles at this attrition rate. But how long can their economies support a war of this intensity, taking into consideration how much equipment is being destroyed on a daily basis...

Lokos