Assault vs. Assault Damage

[The Red Baron]

Anyone know the difference between Assault and Assault Damage on the element details window? Which combat characteristic is used in what situation(s)?

[Ace]

Assault determines percentge chance unit will succeed in making melee damage.
Assault damage is the damage done for each succesfull assault during melee phase.

[The Red Baron]

Ace, how is assault damage expressed? If the value is 10, what does that mean? 10 hits? A drop of 10 cohesion points?

[Ace]

Assault damage is depicted by these numbers 2/15 for example. This would mean 2 hits and 15 cohesion points.

[The Red Baron]

I think you have your terms mixed up. As an example in the element details window for early war cavalry, I see:

Assault: 11/11
Assault Damage: 15

Based on your explanation above, I take this to mean:

Assault: 11/11 --> 11 hits and 11 cohesion points lost
Assault Damage: 15 --> 15% chance to cause damage during melee combat

Yes?

[Ace]

No, 11 hits would be too much, no single unit can score so many hits. It would mean loss of 330 men during just one round of combat from the unit composed of 600 men.
Scored hits are usually 5-15 times less than scored cohesion hits.

Do not have the game open right now, so I 'll comment on the unit screen values later, but these are the stats from the early cav unit model file (the one which game uses for units stats)

TQ = 10 (Discipline)
Assault = 10
AsltDmgDone = 1
AsltCohDone = 15

Chance to hit someone during melle phase is TQ×Assault×(game modifier)

Damage done are 1 hit, and 15 cohesion if successful hit.

Don't know what is the exact game modifier, but the more disciplined troops with the higher assault values will perform well in melee.

Undisciplined militias will surely rout after initial melee contact, especially if they are out of their home state when theirs discipline value drops to just 2.

So in your example, assault values are 11 both on offense and defense, with cohesion damage 15. Sadly, it seems (I still have to check that), that assault hit damage is not displayed in the stats.

[The Red Baron]

You're right: 11 hits of damage per round of combat makes no sense. I'm quite curious to hear what you have to say after checking the stats.

[Ace]

After checking, it is as I stated above. No assault hit damage indicator, only cohesion damage is indicated. Assault damage is 1-3 per hit for most units. The bigger cohesion damage, the bigger hit damage.

Chance to hit during assault phase Discipline*Assault*0,4 (I have checked the value of game coefficient).

So your cav has 40% chance to hit.

A militia at home has 5*6*0,4 = 12 % chance to hit during assault.

When they hit, militia has 3 times less assault damage than cav. So, without special combat events like cavalry charging which give even more bonus to cav, cavalry is about 10 times stronger in melee than militia.
Since overall offensive fire power in the game is limited, you now know why militas are uselless on offense.

[The Red Baron]

At long last I get it. Thanks for the explanation. The manual leaves a lot left unsaid/unexplained. Since such information is available in game, I would like to use it when planning strategy, but lack of proper documentation makes it very difficult.