D-Day to the Ruhr

[sPzAbt653]

Another little milestone is reached as Rail Transport Capacity is moved up to 8000 [see Rail Lines in the Briefing Doc]. This allows new arrivals to move by rail from a Major Port [Minor Ports do not have rail connections].
Currently I have Brest, Cherbourg and Caen connected by rail, with the furthest east railhead about halfway from Brest to Paris. As stated in an earlier post, now that all of the rear area Germans have been cleared out, I have one Rail Repair unit concentrating on completing a line to Paris, and from there down to the Marseilles railhead. When the railhead reaches Paris I may change my mind, as it might seem more important to repair a line towards Antwerp to support the drive to that area. I can't decide right now, the situation is that 70% of the Supply Level is coming from Brest, and if Marseilles is linked in to the rest of the net that will raise to 80%, and every bit counts. But it's more important to get to Antwerp first even with 10% less supply. But maybe not, once more units are brought in that 10% might be important.

[sPzAbt653]

Devers 6th AG has been happy for the last month and a half just holding the line, but with the improvement in supply and the arrival of two more of their divisions, the French on the left flank begin moving north to link with Patton.
This area is far from the Ruhr and was not even in Ike's plans, which is why many of you probably never heard of General Devers [pronounced similar to devil, not evil]. With all the publicity that Remagen gets, in reality Devers' troops were the first to cross the Rhine.

[sapper32]

What version is this I've downloaded of the link but it seems like my allied units are half the strength of yours ?

[Szilard]

Have you noticed that in TOAW IV the AI is a real scaredy-cat when it comes to amphibious assault? The thing I tinker with was fine under TOAW 3.x as far as I can recall, but under IV, the AI seems like it won't invade an enemy-occupied location, no matter how weak.

I checked out the "(G)" version of this scenario to see if you'd gotten it to do better, but it looks like the same prob. If the pre-invasion bombardment doesn't clear a beach objective hex, then the AI won't invade it. So the US 4th Div remains in port if Utah remains occupied etc etc. Based on a couple of runs.

EDIT: Sorry, this was meant for sPzAbt653, of course.

[sPzAbt653]

ORIGINAL: sapper32
What version is this I've downloaded of the link but it seems like my allied units are half the strength of yours ?

First thing this makes me think of is I use different Counter Values than the stock game. Pictured below is what I use, maybe this is why you see different numbers. If that's not it, maybe I can think of something else.

[sPzAbt653]

@Szilard - I can't remember the last time I tried it, I'll have to try again when I get a chance, thanks.

[lubecknj]

Regarding the Mulberry situation the point of the Mulberry harbors was to provide a way for deep water freighters to be able to directly unload their cargo at the invasion beaches instead of unloading it in England, then having those supplies transferred to LSTs for unloading on the beach. The Mulberry harbor closer to the US would I'd think have a greater supply than the others, as the sailing distance from the US is shorter. That's what I was getting at.

[sPzAbt653]

I didn't know that was your point, but I might still guess that most tonnage came from England, especially in the earlier phases. Once Antwerp is opened it doesn't matter. I do know that every division except the US 26th came from England. But regardless this debate, there has to be an overall penalty the further the initial beaches are from England.

[sPzAbt653]

With the improved supply level in Devers area, some offensive operations can begin. In this shot we see that a swift move by the French 1re Blindee Div has cut off the German 11th Pz Div and two Inf Div's. At the top middle you can partially see one regiment that Elmer sent from nowhere to try and help, but that was of little help. A word about Elmer here - some folks talk poorly of the 'AI', but I will defend it, because generally it is competent, and scenario designers have a lot of ways to influence it if they spend the time. However, this is one case where we really can't do anything to prevent it. Warning - Technical stuff coming - Firstly, Elmer does recognize that units are flanking his units, he's not daft. But, remember what some players called the 'pee pee dance' ? This was where Elmer would move units to and fro during his turn, to no end other than reducing the effectiveness of his units. Well, a code adjustment was made that tends to keep Elmer from doing that and it works very well, but an offset is that now when Elmer sees this happening, his desire to counter it is overridden by his greater desire to not suffer a disengagement attack. So the actual problem here is that Elmer doesn't keep reserves available to counter enemy moves. He did have one regiment that might have moved [Black Circle, and Inset], so I'll chastise him for that.
And of course, this is just one incident, it doesn't happen all the time. The end result of this situation is that most likely these German units will get eliminated, while out of supply, before Elmer can bring any units to the rescue.

[sPzAbt653]

Overview. Red Dots are German units along the West Wall position and Rhine defenses, Blue Dots are all of the WAllies units. In the far south, Devers has eliminated the resistance in front of his 6th Army Group and is closing up on the Belfort Gap and Vosgues Mountains. The concentration in the center is where a few German units took a stand just east of Paris. In the north the Br/Can troops have been inching towards Antwerp [Gold Dot]. The joining of the rail line from south and west is taking forever and the rail heads are still far apart [Green Dots]. Mr. lubecknj may be slightly glad to hear that some of the unnecessary rail hexes will be removed for the next version, because they take away from the effectiveness of the auto-repair feature.
The poor weather period in Oct-Nov has passed and I now have a wealth of supplies [62]. Once Devers has finished closing up on the German line in the south over the next three to four turns, more divisions will be brought over from England. This will trigger the Critical Supply State and Devers and Montgomery's Army Groups will be immobilized. This will allow a two week period for the USA forces in the center to eliminate resistance in front of them and then to close up parallel with Devers line in the south, and to allow Montgomery's 21st Army Group to rest and gather some supplies. After that first two week period where only Bradley's 12th Army Group is able to conduct operations, we will switch to allowing 21st AG to proceed with its attack towards Antwerp.

[sPzAbt653]

Critical Supply Point [CSP] has finally been reached! I say 'finally' because this game it took longer then I remember it taking in the past. It is set to be variable anytime after the first News Warning is seen, and usually happens 2-3 divisions later. This time I was able to bring in ten divisions before it triggered.
The first time CSP is triggered, only the US 12th Army Group will be available, while the Br 21st AG and US/Fr 6th AG will go into Garrison Mode. So it is worth mentioning that if you are close to triggering it, try not to bring in any units other than those belonging to the 12th AG, otherwise they may go into Garrison before they reach the continent. This is the case with the 1st Polish Arm Div seen below. I was well aware this would happen but temporarily forget and made this mistake. It's no big deal, just that I rather should have brought in another US division that I could use now, instead of tying up the Pol Div in England for two weeks.

[sPzAbt653]

As you can see, the 21st AG is now in Garrison Mode.

[sPzAbt653]

As is the 6th AG.

[sPzAbt653]

And the 12th AG is available for orders. You should also make sure to set your AG's that are going into Garrison in decent defensive positions, because the Germans may still attack you and if this happens it can get a little scary if all of your nearby units are in Garrison and can't help out in any way. During playtesting one of the playtesters overcame this by intermixing units from all three AG's with each other. There is no rule against that but it obviously defeats the whole purpose of designing events that simulate how to supply one AG at a time, and I don't see why anyone who would play such a scenario would want to do such a thing. But some folks do such stuff.

To recap the situation, the 12th AG is available for orders for the next two weeks. At that point a Theater Option will become available that will allow the player to switch Supply Priority to another AG or to keep it the same. Over these two weeks the 12th AG will close up on the West Wall, while the rail line from the south to the north will hopefully be completed because I need to get a rail line further north in order to supply the 21st AG drive on Antwerp. Currently the furthest point north a rail line is repaired is at Paris.

[sPzAbt653]

Only capturing Antwerp won't get the port operational. All of the Coast Battery's also have to be cleared, so the Breskens area must be cleared and Walcheren Island must be cleared. After that, it will take the Royal Engineers twenty days to clear all the mines from the Schelde River. At that point Antwerp begins operations and its effectiveness will increase over time.
So some rough calculations - it is now Nov 28th, plus two weeks until 21st AG can start its offensive, plus however long it takes to clear the Coast Battery's , plus twenty days mine clearing. That looks like the end of January before things start looking real good, depending on what Elmer might do to throw me off. I think I can live with that.

[sPzAbt653]

Enough units have been brought in to reduce the Supply Level from 60 to 41. That's still pretty high, 30 is probably reasonable, 25 would be the lowest I would possibly go, but I'll stop bringing in units for now. Until a rail line is established into the Br/Can zone it should stay as high as is reasonable.

[sPzAbt653]

The rail line from Marseilles is finally linked with the rest of the rail net. Concentrating on this line might not have been the best idea because while it does give a 10% boost to supply delivery, overall it delayed the capture of Antwerp. In hindsight, it probably would have been better to concentrate on a line from Brest to Antwerp first.
Now the railhead at Paris can start its move to the north to enable a decent drive on Antwerp.

[sPzAbt653]

Interesting, some possible trouble brewing. Looks like some Pz Div's are moving towards my no supply and immobile British line. About 4-5 days before the 21st AG can be switched out of Garrison Mode.

[sPzAbt653]

Yep, Elmer has something going on, in two areas he has piled up some units against my lines. Seen below is the strong and scary one, elements of four SS Pz Div's. That British unit in the red surely can't hold against another turn of this.

[sPzAbt653]

However, it is time to focus supplies, and while I would rather wait another two weeks to release 21st AG because the railhead is still far enough away that supply is in the 0-5 range for most of its front, and the situation dictates that 21st AG gets priority now in order to battle this German attack.
Seen below are the TO's you get every two weeks, pick one and that AG will be available for orders while the other two go into Garrison Mode. If you pick more than one, two of them will still go into Garrison but you won't know which two [;)]