ORIGINAL: Harrybanana
Rasmus, I just read your guide. Should have read it earlier as it would have saved me a little bit of rail cap, but overall not much. But unless I missed something you haven't yet written section 2 on evacing the Arm, Hi and Veh. In this game I didn't evac anything on T1 (which of course is impossible) or T2 (as the limited rail on T2 was needed to move units). On T3 I prioritized factory evac over railing units, which in part is what led to the encirclement of my units in the South. From T3 to T10 I evaced 129 Arm and Veh combined which works out to an average over the 8 turns of 96,000 rail capacity per turn (not including the equipment factories). Of course, I was spending a lot more on the earlier turns than the last few turns.
The problem is that Saper is so damn good and quick that if I had used more rail cap on evac rather than railing units to the trouble spots he would be even further East than he is and more of my units would have been encircled and destroyed. This turn I have a very tough choice about how much, if any, of my rail capacity to use to move my units out of the Leningrad area and how much to move my threatened factories. I agree it is good to have an evac plan but even the best plans don't survive contact with the enemy (who said that?). If you read Saper's comments on M60As AAR you will see that he believes that M60A used too much of his rail capacity on moving factories and not enough on moving units. It is important to have the right balance. Not saying I have the right balance mind you.
Its nice and easy to sit here say what have and shouldnt have been done. No i havent walked in ur shoes. First off no i never got around to wirtting chapter 2. it would be far less extensive than chapter 1 tho and most ppl seems to get the gist of whats importand about those so i deemed it less necesarry. Mostly to do with cut offs, why in some cases railing 4 is 60% better than railing out 3 and stuff like that.
Still say on average 96k isnt alot. The turns around turn 3-6 u should have even with sapers rapid advance have 140kish. It starts to drop off at some point. Prolly earlier in ur case than most. 40-50k is IMO alot of railing units around with in consecutive turns. Ofc if its needed its needed and not saying never should.
Turn 1-2 is IMO the turn used on whole sale unit shipping, turn 1 is a no brainer as u cant evac facts and well u limited in turn 2 too in ur RR cap, any how. That not to say u cant or shouldnt move stuff at later dates, just to point there is a "golden" oppertunity on those turns too think ahead and rail what needs to be railed.
I run a tight ship when it comes to using RR cap. For example, u recieve a number of 1-1,5 CV tank/mot divs in the Ural each costing up too 3k each to rail and u need 2 turns to get em forward. I would never rail such forward. Losing 6K RR cap or an arm for each 1 CV div simply isnt worth it IMO. Other tips includes. SHC receive alot of shells, If u spend its first turn railing it forward and making sure its off the before rails next turn it only costs around 100 RR cap to move it. Then it just has to haul ass the rest of the way which usually isnt terribly long. Where as if u put it on refit and leave it in RR mode the next turn it then costs around 800ish depending on how much replacements has reached the unit. Now i dunno how u run the during turn, its one of those things u rarely get a glimsh of in AARs so i dont know if u alrdy stuff like that.
As it is atm i can only agree with Gingerbread. Even Moscow doesnt look particular safe. I would 1 evac all those importand factories(as per guide) alrdy now. Better to get 1 out that will eventually regenerate that losing them all together.
Kind regards,
Rasmus
