Russian Supply Problems

[Denniss]

200+ attacks per turn sounds like the whole red army is in action, even in reality this wasn't possible without running in serious logistic trouble. Let some units rest, merge some depleted units, re-attach them to Stavka if they are starving.
If you don't plan to use the U-2VS (ground attack version) just move one point of each factory to the Urals - saves not a lot but it's a start (keep the recon and transport version).

[Oshawott]

Thanks for the advice. I have already implemented most of these suggestions but there is a limit to what I am willing to do. I moved IL-4, LaGG3 and U2-VS production because I already have enough of them in the pool. I could do the same with IL-2 and T34 and other equipment but I would rather like to see how the supply problems play out over time. I also put the long range bomber fleet, some tactical bombers and the entire MiG-3 fleet into reserve.

There are enough supplies in general but they are not reaching certain armies. The following screenshots (sorry for the mess) show that 48th Army is linked to Kirishi which has no supplies. Bugodoshch is only 3 hexes away and is linked to 55th Army which only draws 500+ supplies from the city. I guess the only way to make certain that every army gets supplies is to have enough supplies for every city on the map. There are many cities with lots of supplies that are not linked to any army/front.

[morvael]

Could you provide the saves (for two consecutive turns)? Is this a PBEM game?

[Oshawott]

morvael, this is a server game. Sorry about that.

There is something else I noted. The soft factor indicators don't always work as intended. As you can see from the screenshot the unit has 6% supplies but the triangle is dark green. I am mentioning this because this happens to units in armies that don't receive any supplies. Or is ammunition counted?

[morvael]

Ammo is included as it didn't have it's own soft factor.

Are you sure your opponent is playing on the same version as you are? What version is that? Perhaps you play without the hotfix?

[Oshawott]

Are you sure your opponent is playing on the same version as you are? What version is that? Perhaps you play without the hotfix?

The admin report displays version 1.07.13. So I think my opponent is playing with the correct version.

My game menu displays this. I hope this is correct.

[morvael]

What is shown in the logistics report at the end?

[Oshawott]

What is shown in the logistics report at the end?

1.07.13. File attached

[karonagames]

I am playing with the .13 exe.

[gingerbread]

@Oshawott: Did you by any chance relocate a lot of HI to the same location?

I once placed a lot of HI in Zlatoust (180,43) and there was a lot of supply accumulated there.

[morvael]

You should have enough supplies, in my game I had 80k production on turn 51. What is the size of your army? Men, guns, afv, aircraft, number of units, airgroups, number of cavalry units?

[morvael]

Joel pulled last two saves. Perhaps I will be able to examine them tomorrow (in 24 hours from now).

[Oshawott]

You should have enough supplies, in my game I had 80k production on turn 51. What is the size of your army? Men, guns, afv, aircraft, number of units, airgroups, number of cavalry units?

Army is huge and very unhistorical. However, I don't think that is the problem. On turn 54 I have 65th Army 10 hexes west of Moscow. All the little towns have supplies in them. However, 65th Army does not link to any supply source. It only links to a fuel source.

[Oshawott]

Did you by any chance relocate a lot of HI to the same location?

I mostly ignored HI in 41 but I did move Leningrad and some other HI if I remember correct. But not all to one city. The two cities with most HI are Ufa and Molotov but they don't have an unusual amount of supplies (5000 and 9000).

[Oshawott]

I don't want to go off topic but is the Light Tank situation in the following screenshot normal? I don't have a single unit for T70? I have plenty of brigades and 11 tank corps. Do they need to upgrade their TOE and when does that happen?





Edit: I got the first 3 units available for T70. Interestingly, they are Cav Corps. I guess it is just a matter of time to make the switch from T60 to T70.

[morvael]

I have examined the saves and I see that the problem comes from requests from HQs to cities being too aggressive (too big) when compared what the HQs actually ask for later in the supply phase. It looks like the armies like to have 2-3 times the number of supplies that they really want. The problem is it's hard to nail the correct value, because city resupply is done before upgrades and replacements. Which means there has to be some extra included in case some units will get massive replacements (mostly due to TOE upgrade - especially a newly converted corps from brigades). That's why you start hitting such problem when the global supply stock is about 200-300% of the need (this % is calculated after the cities have been stocked). I think I can safely reduce this value from the 2x-3x range to 1.5x range and the supply system will continue to work with lower overall supply percentages. Of course the city supply system should be fixed to deal with shortages, but for now reducing the multiplier will help, unless someone will be really scraping the bottom of the barrel.

Anyway, I have noticed that you have some tank brigades (converted from Tank Divisions) that are attached to STAVKA but kept far away from it, who are thus unable to return extra stocks they have (besides they have low chances to pass any leader rolls: morale 50%, initiative 53.3%, admin 53.3%, mech 43.7% with a nominally 8/8/7/7 leader), so it's better to attach them to some other HQ or keep them closer to STAVKA.

Keep an eye on supply levels, as out of 108k total supply production 47k is used by factories, 14k by fort building and 41k is eaten by units (where some units do not eat at all). This means you are close to living from hand to mouth or worse, eating your remaining stocks.

[morvael]

Don't worry about the T-70 not being used, at least you have enough T-60s to fill units. The problem of the current system is that when the TOE asks for T-60 and there are a lot of T-60 it will never consider upgrading to T-70. Once your tank units upgrade their TOEs starting with turn 55, that has T-70 in the TOE, the tanks will be slowly replaced. This system leads to problems when the TOE doesn't ask for a new type and there is not enough of the old type to fill units - then the units go understrength and this will not be fixed until my next big patch.

[morvael]

Example:

8th Army wanted in Nelidovo:
a) 1.5*125% of unit needs + 1 per unit (current code): 2749 tons of generic supplies (including those for ammo conversion) and 63 tons of fuel
b) 125% of unit needs +1 per hq: 1822 and 31
c) 115% of unit needs +1 per hq: 1423 and 22
d) 110% of unit needs +1 per hq: 1223 and 18

8th Army really wanted 896 and 5.

One can clearly see that version a) was too much on the "safe side", some may say it was an overkill (200% margin in supplies, 1160% margin in fuel). I think version d) is the best, it resulted in some 35% margin in supplies and that looks ok. This still leaves room for units increasing in strength (usually there is more than one unit under a HQ, so the "stable" rest will compensate for some that will grow). With such reduced needs no city that was used by one or more HQs for resupply was at 0 stocks and 0 recieved.

I will send the code to Pavel and Joel so they could offer another hotfix for the players (there will be no features from the new patch, just this fix).

[morvael]

I have also noticed you have some construction units attached to forts. It seems current supply code is not ready to deal with such units (forts are not HQs, so those units have to be resupplied like they would be standalone), and they get nothing. I will have to fix that as well, but this is more complicated issue so it must wait.

[morvael]

Patch sent to Joel and Pavel. I hope they will be able to post a hotfix exe soon.