FoW for encircled units..?

[Smileyou]

just an idea .. imagine your 2 divisions get encircles and their communication lines cut off and boom, just like that you can't control
them anymore, nor see them, a question mark with your country color would be seen there.. but the movement, fighting of those
units not seen anymore, AI would take control of them and try to break them through back to your side of the front-line.

maybe even simulate the amount of loss of communication by province distance, if your unit is encircled but your frontline is only 1
province away then you can still see them but only give orders without knowing if they will "accept" them.. if distance is 2 provinces
than you see a question mark but still you can send "orders" (stay and entrench, disband and try to reach our lines-it would be
equivalent of shattering and 15-25% of your men would reach your HQ but without equippment, or attempt to break through to your
lines-risk shattering with more punishing results for your troops), and if by 3 provinces you can't do anything, only see a question mark
until said province is reconed by plane or taken by friendly troops ...

 

[safe-keeper]

When you say so, yes, this should be simulated in some way. Maybe not as drasticaly as not even seeing the units, but yes, I feel it should affect them in some way, beyond just an encirclement penalty in battle.

 

[Smileyou]

yes because in reality those units are cut off more than just from supply, they have no information about what is going on nor
your HQ know about them, are they alive, how much supply, nor ability to provide them orders so even if they have the
means to move they don't know where..

right now we have great advantage that irl did not exist..

 

[Alex_brunius]

just an idea .. imagine your 2 divisions get encircles and their communication lines cut off and boom, just like that you can't control
them anymore, nor see them

Why would not a single working radio set ( something most western households at the time owned at least one ) exist in those 2 divisions that are cut off?

World war two wasn't really the dark ages in terms of communications

right now we have great advantage that irl did not exist..

Both HoI2 and HoI3 had combat penalties for being totally encircled with nowhere to retreat as far as I remember, to model all disadvantages that comes from this.

 

[scroggin]

loosing communication with cut-off units was a WWI issue not a WWII issue.......... radios

 

[Smileyou]

being cut off doesn't mean you have no radios.. when encircled a line of "communication" is broken,
if before your orders got received thusly : A to B to C to D..now C,D gets messed up, so you have to
communicate with your radio directly to A who does not have the relevant information about your unit
and so chaos ensues..which is the whole point in encircling and moving the distance between the encircled unit
and the front line deeper..

obviously irl its not a generic division connected to 1 supreme overlord in berlin, or moscow, but to a superior
who is connected to another superior etc.. you cut those lines by literally smashing one or more of those links
the lines get messed up, and orders become murky if not totally useless. you can get 2 or 3 orders which are
contradictory which happened to soviets units as those encircled units were forced to ask ever more higher
echelons of command for basic orders.. so yes, i think its relevant to simulate breaking of communication
lines..

 

[Alex_brunius]

obviously irl its not a generic division connected to 1 supreme overlord in berlin, or moscow, but to a superior
who is connected to another superior etc.. you cut those lines by literally smashing one or more of those links
the lines get messed up, and orders become murky if not totally useless. you can get 2 or 3 orders which are
contradictory which happened to soviets units as those encircled units were forced to ask ever more higher
echelons of command for basic orders.. so yes, i think its relevant to simulate breaking of communication
lines..

In HoI3 isn't that rather modeled by all HQ bonuses above being lost if you destroy a HQ in the chain of command?


If anyone in Berlin want to order a division to hold Stalingrad until the last man, that historically never was a problems regardless of the distance it is cut off.

 

[Bane5]

With the abundance of radios in this time period, encircled units did have contact with the outside. I don't think a fog of war applies here.

If a unit was mauled so badly that it did lose contact then its basically non-combat effective in practical terms and wouldn't be present on HoI4's strategic map anymore.

 

[Big Nev]

Yeah, I'm with Alex & Bane5 on this one.

There is an encirclement penalty which is in addition to the penalty applied for envelopment (for each province you're attacked from above the first) which, IMHO, adequately represents all the problems with being physically cut-off.

As for being "out-of-command" well... no. If your chain is broken then you'll suffer the penalty regardless (any unit that's encircled and out-of-command is "in for a world of hurt") but otherwise, it's not like orders had to be hand delivered or even over telephone lines. I also think it's safe to assume that every effort would be made to keep in contact with encircled formations so again... no.

I mean, seriously, if the UK can "see" U-boats 3,000 miles away in the Atlantic with land-based RDF, I really don't think any country with radios would completely loose all idea of what was going on 300 miles away.



Keep the ideas coming though.

 

[wingo]

As others said, no other penalty is necessary. But I like the idea of getting at least some manpower from encircled units back (after the enemy "destroys" them), after watching a Russian WW2 documentary I found out that quite often about 1/3 of encircled troops got back to the frontlines if the distance was not too great (so later stages of Barbarossa, not the early days when units could end up hundreds of km behind the frontline). These should probably go back to manpower pool, or maybe use the "shattered" mechanic and reform the divisions with xx% strength, depending on the distance from nearest friendly frontline (example: 30% if 1 province, 20% if 2 provinces, 10% if 3 provinces and 0% if more)?

 

[Wyrm]

The encircled 6th army in Stalingrad still had the ability to communicate with Berlin right up until Paulus surrendered.

 

[cacra]

use the "shattered" mechanic

 

[GarfunkeL]

being cut off doesn't mean you have no radios.. when encircled a line of "communication" is broken,
if before your orders got received thusly : A to B to C to D..now C,D gets messed up, so you have to
communicate with your radio directly to A who does not have the relevant information about your unit
and so chaos ensues..which is the whole point in encircling and moving the distance between the encircled unit
and the front line deeper..

obviously irl its not a generic division connected to 1 supreme overlord in berlin, or moscow, but to a superior
who is connected to another superior etc.. you cut those lines by literally smashing one or more of those links
the lines get messed up, and orders become murky if not totally useless. you can get 2 or 3 orders which are
contradictory which happened to soviets units as those encircled units were forced to ask ever more higher
echelons of command for basic orders.. so yes, i think its relevant to simulate breaking of communication
lines..

You are correct that orders were often issued in writing, augmented by telephone, to avoid congesting radio waves or allowing enemy to eavesdrop - but, as others pointed out, losing lines-of-communication in WW2 was nowhere near as severe as you think it was. The corps HQ could easily communicate with "lost" divisions through radio. Similarly, the division HQ would have the proper codes and frequencies to go directly to army HQ if corps went silent.