I really like this game, but I really don't understand how combat works here.

[Holy Diver]

Because of upcoming Gold version of RUS and TEAW which i would like to buy in a future a tried to get back to my old RUS which I bought some time ago but actually never played it much(not because I did't like it but I didn't have much time so I only played it from time to time). But as at the beginning i really cant figure out how does combat work here. The final outcome of a battle is always unpredictable for me. I can have much bigger forces and totally loose, the Ai for some reason can inflict much bigger causalities on my with smaller forces than I would. When my forces are attacked by much bigger enemy my whole unit is wiped out after 1, 2 or 3 battles, they usually don't like do retreat even if I order them to retreat if engaged. On the other hand when I try to this it can take almost forever to destroy enemy unit with much superior forces, than can retreat and retreat or have very low casualties.
What actually is the combat strength? How precise is this factor? How can I estimate forces I would need to win battle?
Look at some of my battle reports. They are not the best, i had much more strange(in my opinion) results with much more superior forces but i have only this screenshots. Look at my loses and AI's . The first two maybe are not so good because to combat value were quite equal which I didn't know before battle but look at the last one - battle of Minsk - I was much stronger, I won but with what casualties?
[ATTACH]33778[/ATTACH][ATTACH]33779[/ATTACH][ATTACH]33780[/ATTACH]

[ERISS]

I almost don't play, but I think I'm not false here:
. 1stBattle: You had twice troops but ennemy had 5 times cannons
. 2ndBattle: Conscripts quality is not very good to attack and ennemy had 3 times cannons
. 3rdBattle: Militia quality is not very good to attack and ennemy had 1.75 times cannons
(I guess the losses are mainly on Militia)

If you attack with many poor quality troops and/or with much less cannons, you'll suffer.
Instead, try to make the ennemy to attacking you..

[alwaysfish]

I am not expert in the game, however by looking at combat reports i noticed that all of your casualties are from ranged combat. Opponent forces always had more cannons than you, they were entrenched and attacks were done in the plain terrain. Any general would say that attacking with slightly bigger force an entrenched enemy force which has a lot of cannons and has perfect line of sight is just suicide. My personal solution would be to try to outmaneuver opponent and get him on offensive. Also bring more guns, if possible.

[Holy Diver]

Thnx. Now I see, looks like I have to start again and regroup my forces at the beginning. Any advises for polish side in this scenario?
Should I place my artillery in divisions or place them separate in corps? I Think, I've read somewhere that tanks and other vehicles should not be used as separate units but as a part of division. What about others kind of units?

[andatiep]

Also, in the vanilla version of RUS, the losses in battle where too big and not historically accurate, so it have been reduced in different patches and so in the Gold version.

[James D Burns]

You only have 1 star leaders in first fight so you probably have a big 35% command malus in play here. Second fight saw the 2 star leader die, not sure how that might affect command malus in battle, possible a penalty is applied for results that occur after death. Last fight looks like everything for enemy is support except armored trains so my guess is auto route after fire phase so no chance for your big infantry advantage to make up for casualties during fire phase. Basically you killed everything you could in that fight the rest fled, but because they had lots of artillery your infantry suffered a lot first.

Jim