War in the East Q&A

[gingerbread]

Fine, I can accept that isolation is an is/is not determination - not worth the work to go into load capacity of coastal freighters etc. Someone else will have to bring up the issue of the Stalingrad air bridge...

That still leaves my original issue unattended:

What is the current treatment of supply functions for cities w/wo industrial capacity that gets cut of?
Can/should the player be able to order increased stores and if so at what cost?

/g

[Joel Billings]

Players cannot order stockpiling of supplies in cities. However, cities will often have supplies stored there due to the various production rules and movement of supplies between citites. Units that get cut off in cities can access some of these supplies. I don't remember the specifics, but it's not anything I'd want to count on. Bottom line is you don't want to get isolated.

As for Leningrad, there are rules that cover what happens to the city population when just getting supplies over the lake. Basically the population will take damage and be able to provide less and eventually no manpower for the army. Depending on the situation (regarding ports available, ice condition on the lake), the combat units may find it hard to get fully resupplied, but they won't be treated as "isolated" unless they don't have a way to get supplies over the lake.

[Zemke]

What is the opinion of the testers in regards to team play. I think the scale and size of this game would lend itself well to a team game, say 4 German and 4 Soviet.

[karonagames]

Take this for what it is worth, as we do not have full pbem functionality at the moment, and I don't know if an anti-cheat function will be put in, but at the moment you can make a save part way through a turn, so you could create an ad-hoc team game if everyone agreed which units they could and could not move and which areas of operation they would have. The last person to make moves would press the "end turn" button and send the resulting file to the other team.

[PyleDriver]

Hell I would love just to have an air commander. I'm a ground commander and I tend to overlook alot when it comes to that area...

[ComradeP]

A team game sounds like a good idea, but it's often difficult in practice, especially when someone has to quit.

Jon: having one person play as the air commander and another as the ground commander sounds interesting, but it's probably difficult to pull off as the air commander also has to arrange which aircraft support your ground missions and you can't really pre-plan all battles in a turn.

[Captain B]

As you can't in real life...that is the reason why the air commander and the ground commander get together to figure out what % of missions need to be strategic bombing, pre-planned tactical, on-call tactical, intercept enemy air missions etc., fighter escort, etc. It's called the air-land battle for a reason and the reason most ground units have a tac air officer assigned.

The air ground is a interesting split, but I think as an air commander, I would get bored really early and might just have to drop some bombs on my ground commanders HQ to keep things interesting....which brings up another point:

How is friendly fire accounted for in casualty generation. Way too many units were hit with friendly fire on both sides.

[Kharkov]

Lets say I'm planning a 'Citadel' type operation for my spring offensive. Since I know the units taking part will be involved in heavy fighting for a number of turns can I stockpile supply prior to the operation and earmark it for those units taking part in my offensive operation?

[karonagames]

There have been some changes recently, so with the usual proviso, subject to testing etc., but yes your HQs hold local stockpiles that units can draw from. If the HQ moves, the stockpile is reduced and your truck pool is reduced. If your truck pool is reduced - all units are impacted. so the longer your HQ stays stationary the bigger its stockpile will get - (I don't know what the min/maxs are), and the more trucks will be available to help the overall movement of supply. Once mobile warfare commences, the truck pool, like the AP pool will need very careful management.

As mentioned in another thread, the positioning of your HQs in relation to your supply infrastructure will have significant effect on your overall Combat ability.

[Zorch]

Speaking of stockpiling supplies for an offensive, the Soviets carried gasoline drums and other supplies on their tanks!

[wmcalpine]

Question about supply sources:

In PDs AAR, Moscow is surrounded. I was wondering what the USSR supply sources are in game. Are they the Eastern map edge rail hexes, or are their on map sources as well?

Bill

[wmcalpine]

Question about Moscow isolation effects:

Are there any effects due to the isolation of Moscow (or for that matter, isolation of any critical urban/supply/resource centers) in PDs AAR?

Bill

[elmo3]

ORIGINAL: wmcalpine

Question about supply sources:

In PDs AAR, Moscow is surrounded. I was wondering what the USSR supply sources are in game. Are they the Eastern map edge rail hexes, or are their on map sources as well?

Bill

There are no "on map" sources. Soviets trace along a functioning rail line to the eastern edge, Axis to the western edge.

[elmo3]

ORIGINAL: wmcalpine

Question about Moscow isolation effects:

Are there any effects due to the isolation of Moscow (or for that matter, isolation of any critical urban/supply/resource centers) in PDs AAR?

Bill

If you mean any "political" effects then no. The isolated units suffer all kinds of bad effects.

[wmcalpine]

Elmo3,

Thank you. Does this mean that the units in Moscow from PDs AAR will start to suffer from being out of supply, for example?

Bill

[elmo3]

ORIGINAL: wmcalpine

Elmo3,

Thank you. Does this mean that the units in Moscow from PDs AAR will start to suffer from being out of supply, for example?

Bill

Yup. The Soviets can airlift supplies but that looks like a losing proposition given the number of isolated units.

[ComradeP]

The production screenshots posted in Jon's AAR show several pieces of equipment being produced, with no units using them. Some of those pieces of equipment have been built in a substantial quantity. As there are no units using them, what happened to them?

The production screen also shows something discussed earlier: more pieces of equipment being produced than can be used in a unit, which means that (for example) two heavy Panzer battalions worth of Tigers are sitting in the pool as well as several halftrack heavy weapons companies/battalions.

I guess that's one of the downsides of fixed production: careful resource management can possibly lead to lots of equipment sitting in the pool with no unit to equip.

[Smirfy]

ORIGINAL: ComradeP

The production screenshots posted in Jon's AAR show several pieces of equipment being produced, with no units using them. Some of those pieces of equipment have been built in a substantial quantity. As there are no units using them, what happened to them?

The production screen also shows something discussed earlier: more pieces of equipment being produced than can be used in a unit, which means that (for example) two heavy Panzer battalions worth of Tigers are sitting in the pool as well as several halftrack heavy weapons companies/battalions.

I guess that's one of the downsides of fixed production: careful resource management can possibly lead to lots of equipment sitting in the pool with no unit to equip.

I'm guessing that the production surplus gets absorbed by new units when they are created. Units not recieving equipment was a big heachache for the Werhmacht. When the Heavy bombers switched back to strategic bombing after Normandy for instance in three months over a quarter of IV's, Panthers and Tigers produced never made it to their units. One always has to be wary of German production figures equating to frontline strength. One thing that strikes me about the pool is the East-West allowance. I'm sure more than 30% of single engined fighters were allocated to theatres other than the Eastern Front

[PyleDriver]

Guys the entire production system is under construction. So really you can ignore alot of what you see. Pavel is on vacation and when he returns its top on his list...As far as my AAR Joel would like me to restart, however gave me the OK to play it for a couple more weeks...There has been alot of new rules added since this AAR started, so well see what happens next AAR...

[ComradeP]

I'm guessing that the production surplus gets absorbed by new units when they are created. Units not recieving equipment was a big heachache for the Werhmacht. When the Heavy bombers switched back to strategic bombing after Normandy for instance in three months over a quarter of IV's, Panthers and Tigers produced never made it to their units. One always has to be wary of German production figures equating to frontline strength.

That's why I'm surprised the opposite is now the case: plenty of equipment in the pool with nowhere to go, that's a very un-Axis situation.

One thing that strikes me about the pool is the East-West allowance. I'm sure more than 30% of single engined fighters were allocated to theatres other than the Eastern Front

It could be an overall figure. Many of the air units in Germany should technically be on the map, but the answers to some of my earlier questions indicated the Luftwaffe's allocation of forces has not been finalized and neither has the moving back and forth of air units to German air defence duties/later Luftflotte Reich.

What surprises me more is that only 20% of Italian production goes to on-map units, because Yugoslavia is also included. Of course, I'm not entirely sure, but I have my doubts Africa absorbed 80% of Italian production throughout 1941-1943.