Isolated units and supply

[countrboy]

I have isolated some Japanese units in Northern China. They have been cut off from their forces for many months, however they seem to retain an excessive amount of supply?

The Special Forces unit has 7 supply, the army unit has 5 and the HQ has 3(8).

As they have been cut off from their own lines for many months, should they have such good supply?

[otumfuo2]

Aren't they getting their supply from the town, Guazhou?

[vonRocko]

Yeah, they are getting it from the town, with the HQ providing them with 7 supply.
What you need to do is have 2 or more ground troops next to the city. This will drop the city supply by one per turn.
From what you say the city must be 3. With the HQ making it 8. So in three turns they will be out of supply and easy kills.
If there are any strategic bombers around, they can speed up the process.
I hope this helps.

[countrboy]

Ok thanks, it's much harder than I thought.

[countrboy]

Just to follow up on this, in an Axis game I'm playing I managed to pocket nearly 10 Russian units. However, as there was quite a few city/town hexes, plus a few HQ units, it didn't seem to achieve much, as the units kept good supply and were continuously reinforced. Should there be a greater penalty when you can't trace a supply line to a primary supply source? It was simply impossible for me to put two units next to each city hex, as some were deep in the pocket. It felt like I was getting little reward for the risks in pushing ahead to create a pocket. As a result I think the games pushes you to a strategy of simply grinding down the Russian units?

[otumfuo2]

I agree with you. Because of that aspect of supply, big encirclements don't accomplish very much; there's too much risk and too little reward for them. So, as you say, you end up just grinding down the Russians by frontal assault.

[countrboy]

So, as you say, you end up just grinding down the Russians by frontal assault.

Maybe this is something the devs could look at. It feels more WWI than WWII at the moment and it's only summer 1942.

It also means that there is no sense of a 'front' - the AI in particular just sits on city/town hexes, knowing that you can't progress without taking every such hex. The fact there might a 200 mile wide gap between units is no problem, as the enemy simply can't bypass them without losing supply. It seems very unrealistic.

[otumfuo2]

I just looked up the Battle of Kiev, the giant encirclement in the Fall of 1941. It only took 10 days from the time the encirclement was complete until the Soviet forces surrendered, almost half a million strong. Perhaps food stores could be drawn from an isolated city for a time, but I think that for fuel and ammunition you really need a road or rail line back to a major industrial center far from the front lines.

[vonRocko]

Unfortunately large encirclements are a waste. In fact it just disperses your forces. it's better to just mass attack them.
The game is what it is, and I enjoy it very much, but sometimes I feel a simpler supply system would be better. Something like Advanced Third Reich, just trace to the capital, if surrounded your out of supply, period.

[countrboy]

Oh don't get me wrong, I enjoy the game tremendously, however this does have a large impact on gameplay, particularly on the Russian front.

[Xenocide]

Encirclements work but you have to focus your strong units on reducing (either through air or siege) or taking the supply points inside of them. In addition an encirclement usually means you have more hexsides to attack into compared to a battle line.

[Hubert Cater]

Generally speaking, if the contained cities or towns in an encircled area are not of a Primary or Secondary supply source, then supply should be reduced quite a bit. Essentially these towns and cities are considered cutoff and the supply reduction reflects this and should make it easier to deal with entrapped units. However the supply reduction will not be recalculated until the next turn as supply recalculations are after every turn.

Beyond that, Xenocide is correct that a further reduction of supply points inside an encircled area is critical as HQs can provide additional supply which will aid the entrapped units and so on.

Hope this helps,
Hubert

[otumfuo2]

Thanks, Hubert for the detailed reply. It's clear enough how supply works in encirclements. Still, I think they are less effective in the game than in real life. Even apart from the difficulty of providing fuel and ammunition from an isolated city, there just seems to have been a major morale impact at Kiev, Stalingrad, or Falaise. Maybe there could be a steep morale penalty for not having a line of communication back to a major city or capital.

[Hubert Cater]

The tricky part here is that the game covers more than just a single theater such as the East Front. For example it would be easy enough to suggest that in the examples above an encircled set of units should suffer a significant and automatic morale drop, however, then Italian units in Libya would also suffer such a morale drop as technically they are also cut off from their own Capital or Primary supply source. Same goes for units on islands, or even Allied D-Day units and so on.

Essentially we have to be careful to balance out rules that apply in one area to ensure they also apply in another section, while also not over complicating the rule set. It is often a careful balance to get things just right, with pros and cons to every setup, change or rule etc.

[BillRunacre]

In addition to the above, my advice in this instance would be to attack any HQs in the pocket as damaged HQs provide less supply to units and this will make destroying the pocket significantly quicker, while providing your forces with some cheap combat experience too.

[countrboy]

I like the idea of a rapid drop in morale for isolated units - that's probably what happened in real life too.

In regard to your point, Bill, about the difficulty when dealing with issues such as the Italians in North Africa, couldn't you allow for the fact that they have a seaborne link to a primary supply point? Which thus avoids them being deemed as encircled and isolated? It makes sense that if you have unbroken access to a port, then you can get supply (unless it gets blockaded?), but if you can't trace a land or sea route to a primary supply point, then you are effectively isolated and a serious drop in morale is fair? Something like a 50% decrease in morale every turn seems good.

[Mithrilotter]

I would suggest also using a strategic bomber to reduce the supply of any town or city in the pocket.

[countrboy]

ORIGINAL: Mithrilotter

I would suggest also using a strategic bomber to reduce the supply of any town or city in the pocket.

That is certainly true, however I think the point is that there is little benefit in encirclements, versus the risks, based on how the rules are currently laid out. Units that are encircled, but have access to one or more city/town hexes, are just too strong to make encirclement a viable strategy.

[Mithrilotter]

At least against the Axis AI, I have found the easiest way for the Soviets to destroy Axis units is to encircle them. That eliminates their HQ bonus and dramatically reduces their supply. For example, a German Heavy Tank Corps in a town could be nearly bulletproof against many Soviet units, but surround it with six adjacent Soviet units and it will soon be easy to destroy. Most cut off cities/towns will immediately drop to only supply 3 or 5. Supply in the surrounded city/town will drop one additional point per turn. Really low supply (supply 0-2) units take bonus damage.

[countrboy]

ORIGINAL: Mithrilotter

At least against the Axis AI, I have found the easiest way for the Soviets to destroy Axis units is to encircle them. That eliminates their HQ bonus and dramatically reduces their supply. For example, a German Heavy Tank Corps in a town could be nearly bulletproof against many Soviet units, but surround it with six adjacent Soviet units and it will soon be easy to destroy. Most cut off cities/towns will immediately drop to only supply 3 or 5. Supply in the surrounded city/town will drop one additional point per turn. Really low supply (supply 0-2) units take bonus damage.

Definitely, however I was more thinking of large scale encirclements, where you might have 5 or 6 Corps or Armies, one of two HQ and some air units. If there is a couple of city hexes in there then the trapped units continue to have high supply and high morale, which to a large extent undermines the purpose of attempting such an encirclement.

I'm just reading Beevor's World War 2 book and he just described a pocket in 1942 near Bryansk that held around 800,000 Russian soldiers. To do that in the game is very very hard.