What happens to POWs in the event of a country dropping out of the war? An article in the treaty of Brest-Litovsk provides for the exchange of prisoners between the former enemies:
http://www.firstworldwar.com/source/brestlitovsk.htm
This led to a large number of German prisoners returning home, and inevitably many were redirected into the military depots to be recycled for the front.
In general, then, how to represent in more depth the consequences battles?
Descriptions of such usually describe figures in terms of number of casualties (killed, wounded and taken prisoner), and the number of guns captured (often running into hundreds in large battles, since retreating gunners would leave intact hardware behind).
To what extent were captured artillery put to use? There are examples, the main problem being the production of compatible ammunition, since different pieces used differing calibers of shell.
What percentage of “destroyed” infantry can be regarded as being taken prisoner?
What percentage can be regarded as wounded? (I’m thinking wounded infantry can be sent back to their depots to be recycled.)
Some suggested ways of reflecting the greater mobility of war in 1918:
Tank bonus - it seems the morale effect of tanks was much greater than their actual combat ability. Yes, they could break through enemy lines, but mechanical unreliability meant that they could rarely exploit the advantage; rather, accompanying infantry felt more confident with tanks leading their advance. So, rather than tanks being that much more powerful in attack, how about something like:
For each tank involved in an attacking army, one accompanying basic infantry attacks at 2. This can apply on each successive round of combat if the tank/infantry ratio is maintained. The bonus does not apply in defence. This seems to me more appropriate than the inf/art bonus from A&A; artillery did not move forward with the troops in this way.
I’m more than ever convinced of the validity of some kind of supply rule, particularly in regard to artillery. Very often armies could advance only at the rate at which they could keep their artillery supplied with shell.
I also feel that different kinds of shell are significant: armour piercing against tanks, gas shell versus infantry. But perhaps more significant than either of these is smoke shell, which was increasingly used to simulate the benefits to the attack of fog; effectively cancelling out the advantage of entrenched defences.
