Knocking Out French Railways

[Firebomber47]

I've looked through the tutorials and read the manual thoroughly, but can't find any details on knocking out rail transit by the Germans in Northern Europe. I have directed air attacks from all of my available air units in Britain and Italy against cities across France that have rail centers (selecting F4, with railyards as the only target) and have done tremendous damage to them across the map, yet once Allied forces cross the demarcation line into Northern Europe (above row 214), the German forces along the West Wall are deployed to block the entry into Germany within one turn, presumably having been rail transported all that way. If I switch sides to play that same turn as the German, I can indeed redeploy virtually every unit along the West Wall by rail to block the Allied advance on Germany. In the actual campaign, the Germans were reduced to driving along roads because the Allies had thoroughly wrecked the rail system across the region between April and June, 1944, prior to D-Day. Is there any way to simulate that in this game? Thanks.

[Devonport]

I suspect that you will not stop movement altogether, but in addition to attacking railyards you should target the rails themselves. Any reduction in capacity should at least mean that there is competition between unit transfer and supply delivery.

[Firebomber47]

Nope, no improvement. Panzers are still able to move across France unimpeded to block my way. Even if I take over the German side for a couple of turns and drive them across country instead of letting the AI move them by rail it wouldn't truly reflect the fact that many road bridges were also dropped by Allied air power, further impeding movement.

I guess this is like an earlier problem I flagged where units embarked in the UK are dumped on the shores of North Africa rather than remaining on transports once they reach the Mediterranean.

I once had a German stack completely surrounded in a town in Northern Italy, with every hex occupied by an Allied unit, yet the stack magically materialized several hexes away the next turn. They had to release a patch to fix that one.

I hope they are working on patches for keeping units arriving from the UK on transports when entering the Med, and another for this pesky rail problem.

[Joel Billings]

Aside from destroying railyards, you can use interdiction to make it very painful to move through specific areas. Moving via rail or normal movement through interdicted areas is very painful. Interdiction also adds usage to rail lines which makes it cost a lot more SMPs to move through the hexes. There's no good way to permanently knock down the rail system over the entire country.

[Firebomber47]

Thanks Joel. The problem is that I can't interdict every hex along the line of advance in order to simulate the highly effective Allied bombing campaign in April-June 1944. I tried interdicting the hex a panzer division occupied while doing a ground and railyard attack on its hex, but it did nothing to either damage the unit nor slow its movement when it was the German's turn. As this link shows, in the actual campaign, the Allies made it impossible for the Germans to move freely, which was, of course, the debate between Rommel and von Rundstedt over the folly of grouping the panzers around Paris. They could never get to the invasion beaches in a timely manner due to Allied domination of the air making daytime road movement suicidal and rail movement impossible. Any possibility of a patch to simulate this in the offing? Thanks.

[LiquidSky]

The Germans could still move freely...they did so at night

[Firebomber47]

Yep, they could move by night, as I pointed out in a previous response, but not by rail and many of the road bridges had been dropped by Allied planes as well, further slowing German movement even at night.

In the game, many of the units that redeployed across France to block Allied forces coming up from the south were infantry formations from the coast. There is no way they could have marched that far, they had to have been taken by train, which is not realistic if the aerial campaign mirrored the one by the Allies in the run-up to Overlord.

Even after I'd been pounding railyards for about six months, till almost every railyard in France was red, Axis rail movement seemed unimpeded, so I tried a different tactic. Re-reading the manual, I thought the problem was that I needed to knock out the large railyards in Paris, Lille, and other northern cities in Holland and Belgium to take out the available rolling stock. But even after concentrating on them, Axis rail transit seemed largely unaffected.

If I switch to the German side and try to move units by rail after the Allied aerial onslaught, I can still redeploy every mobile unit (infantry and armor) from the French coast over to the German border. It seems I could have used my aircraft more profitably against factories or direct ground attack against units with which I am in contact.

[EddyBear81]

1- Try to bomb the railyards AND the railways : doing this really makes the transport of units by rail both difficult (at some point every railway is "red") and costly (one of my opponents told me that up to 2/3 of one Panzer unit was destroyed while it was moving via rail). And yes, you have to bomb extensively, not just the terminal end (i.e railyards close to coast/battle), Paris is definitely one key target, as are other big hubs.

2- Don't forget to cover the invasion area with intensive "Interdiction" missions, as this will make road transport also difficult and costly. Additionally, targeting areas where the reinforcement are coming "from" (eg Pas de Calais) is an effective strategy : the objective is to force the enemy to either move through interdiction or around it.
And by interdiction, I mean not a blanket of 1-2 all over France, but key chokepoints and battle areas with AT LEAST 4-5 (if you cannot achieve it, adjust AD parameters and reduce the size of targeted areas)

...and then you realize that Allied Air Force are not this big after all !

[Joel Billings]

Those are all good ideas.

There's no easy way to simulate the bridge bombing. One big problem the Germans had was the lack of motor vehicles for their motorized formations. We've tried to simulate this as well. IIRC in the D-day scenario several units start low on vehicles and will have reduced MPs because of it (in the campaign they should be short by 1944). There were a lot of things that went into the Germans problems in France. We think with the right mix of interdiction and rail bombing you can put the hurt on the German forces and make reinforcing the beaches very difficult. If anything, we're seeing in our test games that the Germans are having a hard time holding out to May 45.

[HMSWarspite]

Before you invade, make sure every railyard in France (certainly the north and east) are red, and then interdict at least 3 hexes deep from the front line (or beaches) to 9 interdiction. I personally dont attack rail so much - I rely on the general interdiction, but if there is one critical rail line, attack a few hexes of it. You dont need the entire line maxed out on usage, just a few hexes. You wont stop the panzers moving, but they wont be in good condition when they arrive... this is the most you can hope for. Oh, and unit attacks on the divs themselves can be good for a laugh too...

[jacktimes2]

I go even further and shoot for 5 hexes deep, but the above is sound advice. The units, such as they are, may reach the beachhead, but they'll be paper Tigers [:D] when they arrive.

[Firebomber47]

One of the biggest problems with bombing is the limit on the number of attacks per air HQ (6, typically). Anyone tried boosting the number of attacks smaller groups of heavy bombers could make on railyards and tracks by assigning heavy bombers to, say, RAF Coastal Command, Fighter Command, etc, which typically don't have any, then use these HQs to join in on attacks by Bomber Command, 8th Air Force, etc? By doing this, even by including distant HQs like Malta Command, the Allies could get significantly more airstrikes per turn versus the limitation of six strikes each for the three heavy bomber HQs (Bomber Command, 8th and 15th AF).

[Helpless]

versus the limitation of six strikes

There is not limit for the number of strikes per HQ. Limit is for the number of air directive, which limits the flexibility, but not the amount of sorties. There is no limit for the sorties per air directive.

[HMSWarspite]

ORIGINAL: Firebomber47

One of the biggest problems with bombing is the limit on the number of attacks per air HQ (6, typically). Anyone tried boosting the number of attacks smaller groups of heavy bombers could make on railyards and tracks by assigning heavy bombers to, say, RAF Coastal Command, Fighter Command, etc, which typically don't have any, then use these HQs to join in on attacks by Bomber Command, 8th Air Force, etc? By doing this, even by including distant HQs like Malta Command, the Allies could get significantly more airstrikes per turn versus the limitation of six strikes each for the three heavy bomber HQs (Bomber Command, 8th and 15th AF).

You don't consider that an action like that would pretty much be the definition of gamey?