Captured cities should be immediate supply depots

[chuckfourth]

As my previous thread got highjacked by Fort placement I will start a new one here.

OK So I think I can safely assume it is no longer a plausible strategy for the Russian to just withdraw and hoard his assets as in #1 excellent.

However the method used to achieve this seems to add an unnecessary level of complication.

Instead of the theoretical process of winning points for capturing various cities, The Player should get an immediate practical supply bonus right then and there, this will have the same game effect but allow a level of complexity to be removed. I haven't calculated any volumes or numbers but it would be reasonable to assume that capturing say Minsk in 41 would give the Germans enough supply to feed everyone for some time, So the supply requirements of the relevant units could be dropped to just ammunition and possibly fuel for a week or month or something. I find it problematic that the Germans get no supply bonus in 41 for capturing cities, considering that all these cites are obviously massive larders. These cities should automatically become substantial supply DEPOTS as soon as they are captured.

[sillyflower]

A captured city will be in a very poor state of repair with badly damaged infrastructure and is unlikely to have much of military interest other than food. Even russian petrol wasn't much use.
A delay of 1 week to restore sufficient functioning to be able become a major depot (and every depot on the map represents a substantial operation) seems to be very reasonable, even very efficient.

[Sardaukar]

As sillyflower said.

WW II was not Viking Age where one could pillage and take stuff into immediate use. To use captured supplies and equipment took time and effort.

[loki100]

also the retreating side would put some effort into sabotage, booby traps etc. So you can say that some of the delay is the small scale clearing up of all that sort of minor annoyances?

I know its fiction, but one of Philip Kerr's Bernie Gunther books (Man without breath) is partly set in Smolensk in 1943 and part of the plot revolves around some of the city being off limits even after 2 years of German occupation due to Soviet booby traps etc. No idea if this is true, but for the most part his books were well researched.

[Sardaukar]

To add, both Germans and Soviets did "live off the land" often during the advance, when supply had difficulties to catch up.

That did mainly mean foodstuff. But there is way more to supply than just food and fodder. Captured ammunition and weapons were of no immediate use usually, fuel so so (especially if capturing diesel as Germans) etc.

[Blagrot]

On a related note, in WitE units gain some supplies/fuel from displacing HQ's. Is that still something that happens? (With HQ's or depots?)

[loki100]

a little, you'll pick up some but its not going to make much of a difference. The more dramatic result is the destruction of supply stocks in the displaced HQ - which is a variant of the pt that Sardaukar is making above .

[Blagrot]

That's fair, I'm thinking more Kampfgruppe Peiper style single units charging ahead a bit on stolen supplies than getting an entire panzer corps its needs [:D] It's probably complexity for complexities sake but I like the idea of being able to move further on stolen Soviet fuel at the cost of more breakdowns, probably more effort than it's worth though [;)]

[chuckfourth]

In the first month or so of operation Barbarossa a captured Russian city will be running at about 95-100% capacity from day one for three reasons. First the Germans did not rely anywhere as heavily as the allies on massive artillery barrages, cities are big its hard to flatten the entire place. Second the city population stayed put the bakeries etc continued to function throughout. Thirdly the Russians were in Chaos early on there was little or no time to implement much of anything. Moving various factories eastward was about it. The Germans began immediate heavy requisitioning as soon as they arrived. It will mostly be food/Fodder, Though without looking it up and working from memory Van Creveld does mention an episode where an entire German corps was kept as I recall for some weeks running on captured Russian fuel. I think boobytraps are non-existant at this time, there is certainly no evidence I can find of them and the civilians still living in the cities would probably remove them themselves thinking them a bit inconvenient.
Ammunition and most fuel needs to come along the rails, but when supply is limited the food and the fodder can be and was found locally.
A city and its immediate environs can feed an entire army, If you read Supplying War you will see that cities have done exactly that forever. Also there will be plenty of intact industry to repair and service damaged vehicles, Hospitals etc etc.

Ignoring the contribution of city supply is a serious error, resulting in a major underestimate of German supply capabilities. This leaves the game open to the charge that the supply is purposely nerfed to limit the Germans initial attack.

[timmyab]

Kiev was famously booby trapped by the Soviets in September 1941. Don't know about other places, bu Kiev is a well known example.

[Sardaukar]

ORIGINAL: timmyab

Kiev was famously booby trapped by the Soviets in September 1941. Don't know about other places, bu Kiev is a well known example.

Also Viipuri (Vyborg).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%A4kk ... ven_polkka

In the Continuation War, the Russians stationed radio mines in Vyborg that were tuned to be triggered at a certain frequency. The mines exploded after resonance if a certain triad was played on the radio frequency; each mine had three sound irons that oscillated at specific frequencies unique to each mine. Immediately after the conquest of Vyborg, the Finns wondered at the strange mine explosions. At first, the pioneers suspected they were time-triggered mines. On August 28, 1941, the pioneers found triggers packed in rubber bags in Antrea from a 600 kg explosive charge installed under the Moonlight Bridge. The pioneers quickly delivered those devices to Headquarters in Mikkeli, which delivered them to the Communications Department. The Communications Department ordered Captain of Engineering (later Professor) Jouko Pohjanpalo to take them to Helsinki as a matter of urgency, and with the help of YLE, they were dismantled and investigated. It was subsequently found that mines had been located throughout the city. The Finns found out the places of the mines from the Soviet soldiers imprisoned in the Soviet Union.

On September 1, the General Staff received one broadcast car from YLE, which was driven to Vyborg.[2] It could transmit the transmission frequency on the mines frequency. The car in question was a REO 2L 4 210 Speedwagon taken from Nuijamaan auto Oy. The car was used by N. Sauros.[3]

On September 1, the General Staff received one broadcast car from YLE, which was driven to Vyborg.[2] It could transmit the transmission frequency on the mines frequency. The car in question was a REO 2L 4 210 Speedwagon taken from Nuijamaan auto Oy. The car was used by N. Sauros.[3]

Säkkijärvi polkka was chosen as the record from the car's record collection. Thus, in order to thwart the enemy's goal, they started playing the Säkkijärvi polka - and specifically the version recorded by Vesterinen - without any pauses, so that the frequency of the triads used by the enemy were interfered with to the point that the mines were completely unusable. On September 4, it was noticed that Soviet troops were constantly transmitting in triplicate on the same transmission frequency. Thus began the battle with the radio waves. This broadcast was continued for three consecutive days until Aunus received another car from Vyborg.[4] In the meantime, an examination of the dismantled triggers had revealed that Soviet troops had radio mines operating on three different radio frequencies. The great fear was that the internal combustion engines running the transmitters' generators would disintegrate, and therefore the military quickly ordered additional 50-watt transmitters[5] from Helvar, which were delivered as early as September 9, 1941. These then transmitted interference transmissions until February 2, 1942.[6] The military had calculated that the mine batteries were depleted within three months at the latest.

Music has it's uses in war too...

[ranknfile]

ORIGINAL: loki100

... Philip Kerr's Bernie Gunther books ....

My very favorite author and character. Read them all. Brilliant series. Phillip Kerr will be sorely missed.

[Farfarer61]

Now I know where the band "REO Speedwagon" got its name. Seriously I never knew.

[GloriousRuse]

I do not believe that upon any longitudinal analysis of German results or capabilities in the first six weeks, anybody is going to come to the conclusion that German supply has been nerfed. The reigning consensus now is that supply is reasonably accurate for most of the map, but may be a little too generous for the Germans in AGS. So I'm not sure a special mechanic is needed to alter what is already mostly tuned up.

I also believe there is some misunderstanding here on the relative ease of incorporating "found" supply in a place like a city while also keeping up the momentum of the early blitz. I'm sure the unlucky staff told to "take this detail of rear area troops, figure out what is in that warehouse, determine which of it we can actually use, catalog it, let higher know and wait for them to send you a distribution plan, then transload it from the soviet holdings to German trucks that will be showing up here, uh sometime, I'll try to get you a name for those guys...no, no sorry, the panzer division that raced through the city DIDN'T actually bother with any of that, and they're one hundred miles east of he I heard from a friend a day ago. I don't actually know if they even knew this warehouse existed...anyhow, just get it done, right?" would be groaning in despair.

[chuckfourth]

Hi GloriusRuse
Maybe so, But the city and its environs are full of food, most people know what a grain silo looks like. If it didn't arrive from the rear bread and meat and vegetables can easily be requisitioned from the city or its environs. My suspicion is that in game the German divisions supply needs are worked out as though everything has to be brought forward, but really that can be just ammunition and fuel and a few parts. Food and Fodder can be found locally if it doesn't come from the rear. I would be pretty sure Russian bakeries did a roaring trade supplying German troops.

Its very straight forward. If you capture an Enemy HQ you get a small supply bonus. But if you capture an ENTIRE CITY you get nothing. I don't want to be rude here, but that is patently ridiculous.

I imagine it would also be very simple and straight forward to automatically make city's supply dumps once captured.

[loki100]

ORIGINAL: chuckfourth

Hi GloriusRuse
Maybe so, But the city and its environs are full of food, most people know what a grain silo looks like. If it didn't arrive from the rear bread and meat and vegetables can easily be requisitioned from the city or its environs. My suspicion is that in game the German divisions supply needs are worked out as though everything has to be brought forward, but really that can be just ammunition and fuel and a few parts. Food and Fodder can be found locally if it doesn't come from the rear. I would be pretty sure Russian bakeries did a roaring trade supplying German troops.

Its very straight forward. If you capture an Enemy HQ you get a small supply bonus. But if you capture an ENTIRE CITY you get nothing. I don't want to be rude here, but that is patently ridiculous.

I imagine it would also be very simple and straight forward to automatically make city's supply dumps once captured.

I think you are taking an idea well beyond its residual value.

For a starter, even in June 1941 the Soviets planned their exits from cities with a view to long term population control. Don't forget the NKVD/Cheka had long experience of this, the value of terrorism as a tool for social control and how to retain political control even without military control. So no Soviet bakery was going to be producing special issue Syrniki so that German tank drivers left the city feeling well refreshed.

Then as Glorious Ruse points out, there is the real problem for an occupying army trying to work out just what it has captured. Fluent Russian speakers were a rare asset so were most likely doing something other than trying to work out which warehouse has that particular bit of equipment. You can treat low level requisition such as a chicken and vegetables for an evening meal as part of the default game design.

A city just captured is going to be in chaos. Even Paris when it was declared an open city in 1940 took weeks before the local infrastructure was reconstructed - really not till after the actual armistice as people fled, hid. Add on an occupation where part of the occupying force is engaged in mass murder, another part is trying to impose its own version of a regular administration and there is a constant stream of combat formations arriving and moving on, plus in places like Minsk, setting up military HQs.

Now one of the many things I do to make a living is work as a baker. So at the simplest, you want me to make bread for an occupying army, well you have to find me, you have to hope I'm not a specific target of a different part of your occupation forces, you need to find where the flour is stored, ideally you need to find where the yeast and salt is, we'll need a reasonably clean source of water, fuel for the ovens. That is a lot of organising, especially given that as a production unit in the 1940s USSR primarily I am used to being allocated the items I need (& have little control over the supply chain) - the reality here is rather different in that a lot of the Soviet economy ran on a barter system, but I still need to find the person I used to use to produce the wood I used (& there are actually more constraints around this than you might imagine). Any part of this chain is likely to have been broken, or is vulnerable to an NKVD element advising them not to collaborate.

Now 3-4 weeks into an occupation and most of this will be knitted back together in a rather Heath-Robinson manner, but on the day you march in? Not really convinced.

[loki100]

ORIGINAL: ranknfile

ORIGINAL: loki100

... Philip Kerr's Bernie Gunther books ....

My very favorite author and character. Read them all. Brilliant series. Phillip Kerr will be sorely missed.

yep, agree, I read the first 3 as 'Berlin Noir' and it was a fantastic read mixing a good degree of realism with an engaging plot. The way he used the 'legal' framework of Nazi Germany to create the logic to the plot was impressive.

[chuckfourth]

Hi Loki, You seem to be suggesting that all the Russians were anti German that is a myth. Have you read The German report series title The Soviet partisan movement 1941-44?
You will find that the partisan movement(including NKVD) wasn't particularly effective early in the war and operated primarily in the Forests, not the cities and not in open country. You will also find that the various oppressed minorities in Russia, Ukranians, Cossacks etc etc etc were very happy to cooperate with the Germans right up to the point of hunting partisans. You will find that many town Mayors were happy to cooperate. When the Soviets stole all the farmers land the farmers weren't happy about it, or happy to be working for the state. They saw the Germans occupation as an opportunity to get back their land and escape the soviet yoke. So assuming that some of Kiev's Ukrainians are willing to cooperate all the difficulties you mention melt away and on day one Germans passing through are eating tasty Russian bread. In any case the game runs in weeks not days so the Germans have a week not a day to start extracting value from the city.

As a practical matter you obviously don't need to speak Russian to identify salt or make bread you could easily just put a German in charge of the bakeries and granary.

But as I said before if you get a supply bonus for capturing a HQ but not for capturing Kiev that contains one million people (many of who are willing to cooperate with the Germans) and all the infrastructure to support them, that is a major oversite.

So its not just Bread and meat, there is fuel, there are Russian replacement horses, replacement carts, Horse Fodder, there are workshops for repair with sparkplugs, hoses tyres lubricants. The GAZ truck is a US ford after all. there is bicycles cars, trucks. But you are seriously telling me the Germans used exactly none of it????

[ranknfile]

ORIGINAL: loki100

ORIGINAL: ranknfile

ORIGINAL: loki100

... Philip Kerr's Bernie Gunther books ....

My very favorite author and character. Read them all. Brilliant series. Phillip Kerr will be sorely missed.

yep, agree, I read the first 3 as 'Berlin Noir' and it was a fantastic read mixing a good degree of realism with an engaging plot. The way he used the 'legal' framework of Nazi Germany to create the logic to the plot was impressive.

You may already be familiar with these, but also great WW2-related reads are Jacqueline Winspear's Maisy Dobbs series, and Alan Furst's books (which I am currently reading, so I am not sure all of his books are set in WW2)

[loki100]

agree, Alan Furst is excellent in writing about the messy early war period and the underground/partisan/secret wars. Night Soldiers I think caught the evolution of whole part of the 1930s radical left exceptionally well.

Not read Jacqueline Winspear so I'll stick her on the list (having a wee bit of a self-indulgent SF binge at the moment)