Can you surround and cut off units?

[Phoenix100]

This may be a very silly question (and maybe I haven't read the manual very well) but in both COTA and BFTB there are a number of scenarios where I've tried very hard to let the enemy run towards the big objectives, then flank and surround him so as to cut off his supply. So, for example, I just played Greyhound Dash, let the axis take Soy, get bottled up against Hotton, then on days 5 and 6, came round behind him and took every available road that could supply him by taking choke points on the roads. I did the same in COTA for the Centaurs scenario (3 times, in fact, picking 3 different places to halt the Italian advance before coming around the back each time). In both games I monitored supply and supply lines etc and the axis units remained in supply right through to the end. Not a hint of them being in difficulty. Am I missing something? Anyone help?

[johndoesecond]

I'm not 100% sure, but it could have to do with the limited intel.

All the information you see about enemy units is not the real actual values, but just based on the best estimates your troops can make (based on visibility, LOS, contact, etc.).

So it is highly likely that the supply information you have about enemies are not correct.

On the other hand, if the force you encircled has their supply bases INSIDE the area you encircled, then all the units that draw supplies from that base would indeed continue to be supplied from that base.

However, if that base itself draws supplies from the outside, it would itself be out of supplies, and eventually wouldn't have enough stocks to supply the units it's suppose to supply, even if the internal supply routes are clear.

Cheers.

[Phoenix100]

Thanks for the reply. I would need to check exactly what the position of the axis bases was (and can't now - but will next try), though, as you point out, knowing whether they have their bases inside my circle is a matter of intelligence and often i haven't a clue until I get the AAR what exactly is ringed in. I suppose my question really is - do other players manage to outflank and cut off enemy units (in either game - COTA or BFTB), thereby greatly degrading the combat effectiveness of the encircled troops - in which case, of course, I must be missing something. Or have other players had a similar experience to mine when trying grand tactics, where you get them successfully bottled up but they just keep getting resupplied each day? So the ground and objectives I yielded to create the pocket were all lost without reason in the end.

[johndoesecond]

ORIGINAL: phoenix

Thanks for the reply. I would need to check exactly what the position of the axis bases was (and can't now - but will next try), though, as you point out, knowing whether they have their bases inside my circle is a matter of intelligence and often i haven't a clue until I get the AAR what exactly is ringed in. I suppose my question really is - do other players manage to outflank and cut off enemy units (in either game - COTA or BFTB), thereby greatly degrading the combat effectiveness of the encircled troops - in which case, of course, I must be missing something. Or have other players had a similar experience to mine when trying grand tactics, where you get them successfully bottled up but they just keep getting resupplied each day? So the ground and objectives I yielded to create the pocket were all lost without reason in the end.

My answer: yes, I managed to cut off enemy units.

One indicator of units being out of supplies is that, as they go low on basics, fuel and ammo, they become less aggressive, less mobile and firing less frequently. And after being cut off for few days, that's exactly the kind of behavour I observe.

Again, as I said, it pretty much boils down to whether the bases are within, whether those bases are supplied from higher echelon bases that are also within or outside, whether those high echelon bases are, on their turn, cut off the supply entry-spots or not, and how much stocks they already carry or need to receive from supply entry-spots.

[Lieste]

The easiest way to 'cut-off' the units is to have the converging ring of steel pass through his base units (and HQ if possible) - you need good quality troops and some numbers as the 1000 man units are much tougher than 5 companies of 200 men would be, despite the relative paucity of combat infantry - you always hit 'the entire unit' rather than roll up his position a bit at a time.

Still nothing says 'out of supply' more than not having any supply units left

[HercMighty]

You know you get messages that your supply lines have suffered losses, can we get messages that we caused supply line casualties?

[Lieste]

How would you know for sure? It is just a couple of trucks usually - a drop in the ocean of vehicles you might meet...

Much easier to know your column got shot up, as you know it's intended route/timing/strength/purpose.

If we do get supply kill notifications then it should only be for a subset of all those hit, not a notification for each column (too much information on enemy strength) or for the column strength lost.

[Phoenix100]

Well, we don't need the messages, we just need to know how to do it, no? How do you cut off a unit? What I would really like an answer to is the question - if I seal off every road that could possibly supply a unit will the supply train still try to get through by going over rough/clear etc? Because I'm afraid that's how it looks to me. Like even though I cut the roads the supply still gets through. Looking at the manual I don't think it can be a question of whether I've encircled bases as well. In one scenario I had a massive force (probably with a supply base as well) cut off for nearly four whole days and each and every day all the supply indicators returned to normal. There were, of course, comments about this aspect not working in COTA (I recall Simovitch, even, thinking that it was unusual that units rarely ran out of fuel of basic supplies even when surrounded and cut off) and there was talk that this would be changed in BFTB. But was it?

[Lieste]

You need to block motorised movement (by physical presence and by effective fire ranges). If the ground is clear enough for motorised troops to move, then it is possible to get a delayed column through - IIRC it is a modified 'avoidance' routeing.

The Germans have a tougher time here, as there are data errors, giving the Allied trucks the ability to climb a <60 slope (presumably this was originally gradient %) and the German ones a <30 slope (which fits with described gradients as degrees and with the behaviour of (more modern) trucks of similar power). I think this is a genuine error, but although it has been reported from COTA, it is still in the BFTB estab (or at least those in the demo).

Bearing in mind the reduction in firing range at night and in bad weather, and that dead-ground can allow penetration right 'under the guns' - it is safest to assume you need a solid line of troops to ensure blocking this supply movement altogether....

OTOH, if it takes his trucks the best part of a day to complete a supply run, then it still limits the amount of supply that can be delivered, there will probably be some supply attrition and emergency supply requests may be too little too late.

By using a solid blocking terrain (heavy woods, deep water) and a solid line of troops across any remaining LOC, then you should be able to shut down supply with only modest forces... much easier if you can get a ring of steel around the receiving base, or the supply entry point than trying to interdict the supplies mid-map.

Of course, depending on what is cut off, you could still see a force fighting for several days without trouble... A single division, trapped with divisional, corps and army depots could hold for the best part of a week if not pressed very hard. Several divisions trapped without any base units will fall apart much quicker - but if some forces aren't engaged heavily they can still fight back after being cut off for a long time... even if everyone else is spent.

I still think over-running the bases is the best way - it offers a lot of kills for minimal risk (once you get it to break the first time anyway - damn tough to move that first time) - it also loses all dumped supplies, and some of the organic supply capacity... plus it can't fulfil supply requests while moving or during the recovery...&nbsp;[:D]

Whenever I can I kill Supply, HQ and Artillery in roughly that order...

[Arjuna]

Lieste,

Thanks for pointing out the error with the max gradiant for some of the Allied vehicles. We'll get that fixed.

[Deathtreader]

All good stuff but I do not believe you can cut off a supply entry point. I've tried and as far as I can tell even shoulder to shoulder wouldn't work. It will always get thru to the highest level base. From there of course it's a different story..........

Rob.

[johndoesecond]

ORIGINAL: Deathtreader


All good stuff but I do not believe you can cut off a supply entry point. I've tried and as far as I can tell even shoulder to shoulder wouldn't work. It will always get thru to the highest level base. From there of course it's a different story..........

Rob.

Deathreader,

Are you sure about that?

That would have a big impact on how I play this game, as it would make totally unnecessary to take care the highest level bases are not cut off from the supply entry points.

[Lieste]

Is that that it doesn't work, or that the supplies held by Corps/Army HQ are sufficient for long enough that immediate effects are minimal and not widespread.
By the time the first echelon has burnt out and supplies are all gone from the bases - there may still be effective reserve forces to give an unpleasant surprise

[Deathtreader]

ORIGINAL: johndoesecond

ORIGINAL: Deathtreader


All good stuff but I do not believe you can cut off a supply entry point. I've tried and as far as I can tell even shoulder to shoulder wouldn't work. It will always get thru to the highest level base. From there of course it's a different story..........

Rob.

Deathreader,

Are you sure about that?

That would have a big impact on how I play this game, as it would make totally unnecessary to take care the highest level bases are not cut off from the supply entry points.

Hi guys,

I queried this back in COTA days.

Here's the link:

Conquest of the Aegean >> Just to be sure....2 more about supply


Well it doesn't seem to take as a link but here's the name and title. make sure your message settings are older than 365 days or it won't show.

Rob.

[Lieste]

Well, I take that to mean that the SEP cannot be isolated from the map edge. But doesn't the supply still have to route from the SEP to the base?

I guess I'll have to try isolating the SEP on an island and seeing if the base gets supply elsewhere on the map...
If it doesn't then it shouldn't be capable of receiving supply when troops are between the SEP and the base.

TBH by the time I've had troops on the SEP, I've usually smashed the base units fairly heavily anyway so I might not have noticed the detail behaviour...

[Lieste]

I had some trouble setting up a mission that I could play from the cut-off side - the first try just crashed out played as German, but worked from the interdicting Allied side.

A second attempt and I was successful.

COTA- Antymminon
With SEP = Road, Highway, the German PzD Base was supplied each time, even though there was no intact bridge over the flanks, and the only land-bridge was occupied by an Allied Brigade. The German Starting position was in the north, the German SEP on the Highway exit to the south.
However if the SEP is set to Airlanding, Null, the German PzD Base would dispatch columns to obtain supplies. These are suspended while the SEP is cut-off.

I think Airlanding has a lower supply capacity than Road, so it might be better to use Road, Null.
If you want to 'push' supplies up to Div, rather than pull them using organic transport, then you could use a Corps/Army Base on the SEP, but again only use null road type.

I'm not sure this is WAD, but you can work-around the limitations of the stock scenarios.

Note that the PzD Base I was using had ammunition stocks of over 900 tonnes at scn start, and after 4 days of continuous fighting by one Inf Regt and the Div Artillery it still had 600 tonnes left despite still being cut off. Most of the ammunition weight was for the guns (170+ tonnes per Bn when static - about 100 tonnes when moving AFAICT). It was also a small size (40%) with the Regt Base at 30%.

[Phoenix100]

Interesting, Lieste. Thanks for the experiments. I think all that might confirm what I thought - that this kind of tactic isn't really worth it in COTA, at least, because units just don't run out of supply (or get resupplied) realistically enough. I imagine in real life it is of course very hard to seal a pocket utterly and completely, but, against the idea pointed out that in darkness trucks could sneak through right under the noses of the encircling forces, whilst I'm sure that might exceptionally happen in reality I cannot imagine it happens often enough to be the basis of how the behaviour should be modelled in the game. I can't imagine huge german supply trains sneaking through the allied lines to resupply the beleagered troops in the Falaise pocket, for example - though I'm sure there wasn't a complete ring of steel around that pocket and there will have been gaps, the idea that trucks would be able to find the gaps and sneak through by night to resupply to the extent that I see happening in BFTB and COTA isn't realistic. The units I surround go on fighting and moving and everything, with all their indicators showing a healthy state of supply, as I said, sometimes after four days of isolation. I'm almost sure that what is happening is that (in COTA and BFTB) they are being resupplied by routing across non road terrian. This isn't a glitch or an error, I assume - it's how the game is set up. Over in the war room - where this thread is also running (sorry) - Arjuna was kind enough to respond and I've asked him to confirm that this is happening (supply routing across non-road terrain). If it does happen then I think it makes it silly to try this tactic in either BFTB and COTA. Because it's virtually impossible to make a complete ring in these short scenarios. You can take and hold choke points to close down all the roads, but to cover all the gaps between is a different kettle of fish. The idea of instead going for the bases is interesting but a different tactic. Trying to outflank and encircle is a pretty standard manouever that I was hoping I could run in this game (you may recall that when Bradley was told about Wacht am Rhein his initial response was to 'let them run all the way to Paris this time' then cut them all off and starve the entire german offensive into submission).

[Lieste]

Well it is trivial to fix - just edit the scn file to only use null movement type SEP, and the on-map bases must trace supply.
If this makes supply too hard (eg for an infantry force at the end of a long road) then add a higher level motorised Supply unit on the SEP location but don't move it during play. (In fact this doesn't matter too much, as the trucks need to travel between the SEP and Base, and between the Base and original units in any case...)

This will give you motorised supply from 'off-map' to your infantry/wagon supply units and enforced supply lines.

Once you are not looking at the top-level unit-SEP link the rest is quite easy to interdict.

I personally prefer "starving forces" so reduce the Estab strength of the supply units to between 30-40% to reflect the proportion of the 'base' trucks that honestly belong to the supply companies... but YMMV, and this would ideally use a paired 'non-supply' vehicle holding unit which can be used to replace some of the supply column losses after a moderate delay and at a lower efficiency - (which isn't possible).