The longer I stay in this club and play these simulations, the more surprised I become at how much I still don't understand! One of these recent revelations on my part involved the discovery of fatigue value calculations within the HPS game engine.
You can spend a great deal of time within the User's Manual trying to find out how fatigue results are calculated, and you will eventually find the answer under the combat results section. There you will find this short and seemingly innocuous entry: "Fatigue results are calculated as random values between the casualty value and 3 times the casualty value!"
And, of course, this is exactly how HPS distinguishes between firing casualties and what they refer to as "combat fatigue." Thus a unit will always acquire at least the same increase in fatigue level as the number of casualties taken in any one turn, quite often more!
But that's certainly not the entire story. When we get around to melee, we find that all meleeing units will suffer double the fatigue increase as in normal fire combat! And to make matters even more disconcerting, in the case of the melee loser, fatigue losses are doubled again! So if you understand how combat losses are calculated, you can see how with these fatigue calculations a unit may suffer relatively light to moderate casualty losses over the course of a battle, while suffering completely debilitating fatigue levels.
And it behooves every commander to understand the effects of fatigue levels upon his units.
There are three levels of fatigue: Low (green, 0-299), Medium (yellow, 300-599) and High (red, 600-899). A unit with a fatigue value of 900 is said to have reach Maximum fatigue! At Low fatigue a unit will continue to function normally. At Medium fatigue a unit will have 1 subtracted from its Morale value during Morale Checks. It will have 10% of its strength subtracted when it participates in a melee, and 10% will be subtracted from its fire strength. At High fatigue a unit will have 2 subtracted from its Morale value during Morale Checks. It will have 20% of its strength subtracted when it participates in a melee, and 20% will be subtracted from its fire strength. At Maximum fatigue a unit will have 40% of its strength subtracted when it participates in a melee, and 40% will be subtracted from its fire strength. These are the effects of fatigue as described for infantry and cavalry. Artillery suffers double the fatigue effects described. Fatigue levels can be subsequently lowered in a unit, provided that it has met some stringent restrictions in any one turn; but the recovery value is usually only 5% per turn, as found within the Parameter Data.
On top of all of that, there is nighttime movement fatigue, which can be researched within the MDT for all sorts of comments! But any commander who takes the field against an opponent without at least some idea of what fatigue is all about, is asking for a thrashing! Believe me, I know that experience first-hand!
_________________ General Jos. C. Meyer, ACWGC Union Army Chief of Staff Commander, Army of the Shenandoah Commander, Army of the Tennessee (2011-2014 UA CoA/GinC)
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