was rather interesting the mission looked to be a defeat we did try to blow the bridge but by dumb luck we turned it around turrets and the air support helped a ton not to mention we had relatively good obstacle location in the bride way which did help to narrow what the enemy did numbers dont lie though 6 to 1 kill ration is impressive in any conflict but i dont know if saying skill or luck decided the battle
A mix of both.
Behind the curtain: After you guys destroyed the 12th Mech (and the unit commander), I started rolling morale checks for the NPCs, though at a very easy TN (while an end-of-turn roll, it was done during the Weapons Fire Phase, with the modifiers for that turn's Weapons Fire phase added later, so as not to allow PCs to accidentally metagame the mechanic). Every 2 additional units they lost added to their negative modifier. Statistically, they'd have a little better than a 90% chance to break the time when they had lost their 32nd Mech (approx 85% casualties).
The skill involved was in outlasting a much larger force that
could have pushed through on sheer weight. The luck involved was being fortunate enough to have them break at all, and, frankly, break just as you folks were about at a Combat Loss Grouping. Both luck and skill are important in warfare.
As a note: pretty much ALL the "large" fights you take part in - from the beginning of the campaign - have had a similar mechanic. It's grossly unfair to the PCs when all the enemy units you encounter just "charge in until dead" and don't care whether they live or die. You broke the enemy under similar circumstances all the way back in the Taurian portion of the campaign at Firebase Rourke and on Terra during the action of 31 December, 2766.