Supply Trucks

[canuckgamer]

Can someone clarify the benefit of using supply trucks. In 8.1 it indicates that an HQ increases the supply level of all friendly hexes within 5. It says that supply trucks will supply all units within a one hex of the HQ. I assume this means that the supply truck will increase the supply level of the hexes adjacent to the HQ?

[Harrybanana]

No that is not it. Expending supply trucks on a unit has two effects. The first is that it increases its effectiveness by 6%. This may not seem like much, but it is essential for sustained operations. Assume you have an armour unit engaged attacking France in 1940. It starts with 100% effectiveness. Over 5 turns it loses an average of 15% effectiveness a turn attacking and is down to 25% effectiveness. But if you had expended 3 supply trucks (since a tank corps has 30 strength it will use up 3 supply trucks) each turn for those 5 turns than you would have gained back 30% (5 X 6%) effectiveness so your final effectiveness will be 55%; or more than double what it would have been if you had not expended any supply trucks. The 15 supply trucks you expended on that armour unit over those 5 turns will have cost you 45 production. But as your effectiveness each turn was higher it means your armour will also have inflicted more casualties on the enemy while taking fewer itself. Even better is if before even attacking France you expended supply trucks on the armour to increase its effectiveness to 106% (the maximum is 110%).

The 2nd effect of expending a supply truck on a unit is to increase its supply from 3 to 4. This means that if the unit is ever out of supply it will last an extra turn.

There are two ways to expend supply trucks on a unit. The first is to click on the icon on the unit itself. This will only add supply to that unit. The second is to use the icon on an HQ (what you are talking about in your post). This will expend supply trucks on all units adjacent to the HQ. I suppose this is useful as a shortcut to expend supply trucks on a number of units all at once. But I never do this as I am always very selective as to which units I want to receive this extra supply.

Dose the "Canuck" in your name simply mean that you are Canadian, or ar you from BC as well?

[canuckgamer]

Thanks for the detailed reply. I've just gotten back to playing around with War Plan. Don't game as much during the golf season. It certainly is a lot different than SC WIE.

Yep, I'm in Calgary.

[sveint]

One of my biggest mistakes is not using enough supply trucks.