Toss us a bone

[Michael T]

I do the same thing with HQ's Herr Pelton but one can never have enough fuel. There are not enough AP's or HQ's to keep the whole army gased up. Having a couple of Pz Divisions gased up for a mad dash at a city or two won't win the war for you against a good player. You need entire Pz Armies fueled up to deliver big punches and that's a little more difficult to achieve when your 25+ hexes (not MP) from your railhead.

[Q-Ball]

What do you guys do with HQs? Alternate HQs "fighting" and "accumulating supplies" by swapping units back and forth?

Do tell.

[Peltonx]

The 1st Panzer army is full and then some in the south. Its has been full if need be from turn 1 to turn 7.

The tanks in north only need 1 hq build up on turn 3 and the center is withen normal HQ build-ups after turn 5.

So keeping 1st panzer army fully fueled is doable vs a good or bad player. TDV is a good player if you follow the AAR. Hes got the same look at the game as I do. Hes looking at the big picture for the hole war an not just 41.

[Peltonx]

I can't tell, Hitler will shot me if I do [X(]

[Michael T]

Well what I do when 300+ miles from a railhead or port is get a a Pz HQ with no units attached back within range and HQBU it. It will have around 1000 fuel dumps and enough trucks to move them up to the front next turn. Then assign it some units that need gas, it is usually good for keeping 3 Divisions fueled for 2 turns. The HQ it replaced moves back to the rear and so the cycle continues. Expensive in AP's but far fewer trucks lost. Think of your HQ's as mobile fuel dumps. That process with Luft-Fuel-Waffe can keep the Panzers rolling.

[Mynok]

ORIGINAL: Q-Ball

ORIGINAL: Mynok

I think 1943-45 is inevitably going to involve mostly turns of WWI trench warfare. If it was all mobile, the Reds would be in Berlin way too fast.

It won't because the Germans can't hold up once the Soviets get to a certain level of strength no matter how many forts they build. Big Anorak and I experienced this very clearly.

To be fair, that was a 1943 game, rather than finishing a campaign game. Maybe that makes a difference or maybe not, but I haven't seen anyone finish a full GC game.

We know the 43 scenario had starting problems. However, it still accurately demonstrates that when the Soviets get to a certain strength level, the Germans cannot hold up, no matter what their forts. The issues will still arise in a GC when the Soviets reach the same levels. That was the whole of my point. The Soviets can simply cause far more casualties than the Germans can withstand. I don't have an answer nor claim to.

[BletchleyGeek]

ORIGINAL: ComradeP

It's not just Soviet logistics, the Wehrmacht can also keep going on minimal amounts of supply.

However, it seems that even with the above historical rail repair rate, fuel supplies run out sooner than they did historically. Try fighting the war without supplying your mobile units by air every turn and you'll end up with minimal MP's as early as turn 3.

A long long time ago I proposed a way to tie supply and fuel level to combat capability:

fb.asp?m=2743124

ORIGINAL: ComradeP
Pavel is currently working on adding more details to the combat screen, so it's easier to see what's happening. Joel's AFK until next Tuesday/Wednesday.

Some mysteries have been solved, like why small units take so few losses: when a unit is entirely disrupted, it stops taking losses. However, that may not actually be causing the entire issue. As pure speculation on my part, it could be that most of the combat elements are disrupted initially and the few non-disrupted ones then take the losses. However, until Pavel's more detailed combat reports are available, nobody knows exactly what's going on with small units/why it's happening.

The screenshot Pavel provided is awesome. If 1.04 was a great version, 1.05 will be incredible.

[Tarhunnas]

ORIGINAL: Michael T

Well what I do when 300+ miles from a railhead or port is get a a Pz HQ with no units attached back within range and HQBU it. It will have around 1000 fuel dumps and enough trucks to move them up to the front next turn. Then assign it some units that need gas, it is usually good for keeping 3 Divisions fueled for 2 turns. The HQ it replaced moves back to the rear and so the cycle continues. Expensive in AP's but far fewer trucks lost. Think of your HQ's as mobile fuel dumps. That process with Luft-Fuel-Waffe can keep the Panzers rolling.

That was an interesting trick, thanks for sharing! Though I must say it has a whiff of abusing the system.

[Harovan]

ORIGINAL: Tarhunnas

ORIGINAL: Michael T
Well what I do when 300+ miles from a railhead or port is get a a Pz HQ with no units attached back within range and HQBU it. It will have around 1000 fuel dumps and enough trucks to move them up to the front next turn. Then assign it some units that need gas, it is usually good for keeping 3 Divisions fueled for 2 turns. The HQ it replaced moves back to the rear and so the cycle continues. Expensive in AP's but far fewer trucks lost. Think of your HQ's as mobile fuel dumps. That process with Luft-Fuel-Waffe can keep the Panzers rolling.

That was an interesting trick, thanks for sharing! Though I must say it has a whiff of abusing the system.

True, and it wouldn't surprise me at all if it was nerfed pretty quick.

[Commanderski]

Getting back to the topic at hand..Thanks for the update Pavel!

[ComradeP]

Pelton, the necessity of air supply and your abuse of the supply system are both extremes that show that there's a serious problem. Contrary to what you seem to think/how you like to play, what you're doing is a fantasy on the same level as the odds modifier.

I'll also repeat again that the basic foundation of your pet peeve is false, namely that the odds modifier itself causes casualties. It doesn't. With more balanced casualties, it would be much less of a problem. The problem isn't that the Soviets win the battle, the problem is that you lose a big chunk of a division in the process for each of those attacks and that there's no way the Wehrmacht can replace any kinds of serious losses.

[Flaviusx]

Pieter, the two things do interact, insofar as the odds modifier allows the Soviet to engage in many low odds attacks that otherwise wouldn't cause retreats.

This isn't a big deal post 43 because mostly Soviet attacks will exceed 1-1 in odds. But it does matter in 42 when the Red Army isn't really capable of strong attacks across the front. Especially if the front is static and the situation lends itself towards attritional attacks.

Because retreat losses are so significant, it pays to grind the German even with marginal attacks, provided the replacement situation can cover the losses on the Soviet side; in a static front, the Soviet can contrive to keep his own attrition under control.

[ComradeP]

Yes, they interact, but if the attacks would cause 200-400 instead of 2000-4000 losses, they would not break the Wehrmacht's spine like they can do currently. There is also no difference between a "natural" 2:1 attack and a 1:1>2:1 attack in terms of the losses they cause, as the losses depend on how well the elements perform in battle and on leader rolls.

The odds modifier doesn't make attritional attacks effective, the high Axis losses for somewhat reasonable attacks make them effective. As long as you don't attack at really poor odds and get 1/4 to 1/2 of a division zapped whilst killing maybe 100 men, it's worth attacking currently as you know that if you can bump the Axis out of their hex, their losses will be ugly by default without anything the Axis can do about it.

Like the supply system, the combat system is currently too focussed on extremes: on one hand you have the Soviets getting massacred if an attack fails, on the other hand you have attacks "automagically" achieving 1:1 or 2:1 losses if they succeed, even against the same defender that would butcher the Soviets if an attack failed and even if the attack fails by just 1 CV point. That's why some changes Pavel proposed like linking the casualties to the retreat odds was a good idea, but as it turned out Soviets losses were even lower than they are now when they retreat which means the system would require further tweaking.

Currently, it's fairly common that a successful Soviet attack causes me more losses than I could cause to a similar sized Soviet force, even though my men have better leaders and a 20 to 50 point edge in experience. Yes, a fair number of Axis casualties are just damaged elements, but due to the transition system it might be a while before you see them again, not to mention that attrition remains the real killer for your OOB strength over time.

For some reason, Axis artillery is also rather underwhelming. If you'd remove the extra losses that the Soviets take, their 50 morale/experience units might actually take fewer losses from my 70-90 experience mortars and artillery than my men take from their 50 experience mortars and artillery.

[veji1]

We are playing with words here.. It is to an extent because the 1/1 rule leads to a 2/1 and a retreat that the losses are so high, given the current engine. 2 courses of action
- Either you tweak the engine so that the losses can be minimised for a German retreat that isn't a military rout. I am not talking here about the ingame mechanism of a unit routing, I am talking about the fact that the game would recognise that the German troops retreated in good order, inflicting losses while minimizing theirs... Might be doable, but requires quite a bit of reworking of the battle engine and testing to make sure it isn't exploited.. And what would it mean for the rest of the game ? Basically you would make a sort of German retreat losses grid where they are minimal between 1/1 and 2/1, modest between 2/1 and 3/1 and then get more severe beyond that... hard to know how to put that in place, but why not. This would allow the Russian to keep advancing fairly easily as they could still get the 1/1 to 2/1 conversion, but protect the German force from being hollowed out. It could lead to a steady bu painful advance for the Soviets.
- You don't change much of the engine but modify the 1/1 to 2/1 rule. This would strongly curtail the offensive capabilities of the Soviets in 42 and beginning of 43. The Soviets would have to mass troops for selected offensives, rather than grind down the Germans on frontwide WWI style offensives. But it might only lead to a delay in the German collapse as soon as the Soviet get regularly enough good odds, the infernal cycle of retreat losses/Hollowing out/further retreat losses would eat the German army again. But actually if this were to happen quite late, say 44, it would be pretty realistic as the German army starts to really suffer then...

Two different approaches, one easier than the other I think.

[ComradeP]

The Soviets can make good attacks in 1941 as well and if the odds modifier goes, the extra Soviet casualties also go, so Soviet losses when attacking will be (much) lower than they are now. Axis casualties, however, would remain fairly high, which is why at this point I'd be in favour of balancing losses instead of removing a rather arbitrary rule without really removing the problem it can cause.

[Ketza]

Thanks for the bone and good conversation.

[Farfarer61]

How about a Generic playtest scenario we can D/L test that starts May 42 non historic, but a WAG average of the AARs vice the historical non-interesting scenario?

[Michael T]

True, and it wouldn't surprise me at all if it was nerfed pretty quick.

You must be joking right? What is abusive about a commander of the eastern front creating a supply dump, pulling a bunch of trucks and then moving said dump to the area of the front where it is needed? Any operational game with a decent supply system has supply dumps and method (trucks) to transport it forward. OCS is precisely like this. There is nothing abusive about it. Its realistic and perfectly feasible. Really the game should have this kind of feature in a more stream lined mechanism, perhaps a switch for supply priority rather like the refit button.

[JAMiAM]

ORIGINAL: Michael T

True, and it wouldn't surprise me at all if it was nerfed pretty quick.

You must be joking right? What is abusive about a commander of the eastern front creating a supply dump, pulling a bunch of trucks and then moving said dump to the area of the front where it is needed? Any operational game with a decent supply system has supply dumps and method (trucks) to transport it forward. OCS is precisely like this. There is nothing abusive about it. Its realistic and perfectly feasible. Really the game should have this kind of feature in a more stream lined mechanism, perhaps a switch for supply priority rather like the refit button.

Agreed.

[Harovan]

ORIGINAL: Michael T
You must be joking right?

Absolutely not.

ORIGINAL: Michael T
What is abusive about a commander of the eastern front creating a supply dump, pulling a bunch of trucks and then moving said dump to the area of the front where it is needed? Any operational game with a decent supply system has supply dumps and method (trucks) to transport it forward. OCS is precisely like this. There is nothing abusive about it. Its realistic and perfectly feasible. Really the game should have this kind of feature in a more stream lined mechanism, perhaps a switch for supply priority rather like the refit button.

There is nothing wrong with supplying troops. Dropping units from a corps HQ, moving it back, building it up and moving it forth again however is undermining the 20 MP rule that was just introduced, and for a reason too, by the way.