Attacking a national supply source

[Mehring]

It's mid December 1943. The three hexes of Moscow have been isolated for about three months now. At great cost the LW bombed out Moscow main's railyard. Attacking the Moscow hex city fort, however, is impossible. Both attempts, supported by siege guns, pioneers and all the kings horses and men at 100 combat prep, at overall manpower odds of about 2 1/2 or 3:1 result in literally zero damage to Moscow's level 4 fort, 20 000+ losses and hundreds of guns including the irreplaceable super heavy arty and the 12 attacking divisions becoming depleted with zero combat power. What, exactly, have you got to do?

[Gunnulf]

Build a large wooden rabbit, wheel it up to the gates. Then once its wheeled inside, after nightfall Von Lancelot, Von Galahad and yourself need to leap out of the rabbit and take the Reds by surprise.

[Mehring]

I've been looking, but I just don't see wooden rabbits in my OOB. Are they support units?

[Gunnulf]

Yes, but maybe different beta patch? Are you on 1.01.999?

Otherwise, I haven't taken Moscow by conventional means but it sounds like you are doing the right things of course. How big is the garrison?

[Mehring]

I'm on patch 1.01.10. Garrison is around 76k and lost 4k in the last assault. I think the toughening up of urban defenses is great but It looks to me like without a special rule to remove the supply source status of isolated hexes, this could go on for longer than any hoarding of munitions and food would realistically permit.

[James80]

Hmm,

it should work like you say, Mehring:

25.2.3
To function as a NSS a centre must also be
able to trace a rail link to another NSS. A depot will totally cease to function as a NSS if it cannot
trace a rail link to another on map NSS. Under these circumstances it will not prevent unit and hex isolation,
although the depot may continue to store freight, after having the freight present reduced to 50,000

[GibsonPete]

Sounds to me if your intent was to eliminate Moscow as a national supply source you are beating a dead rabbit. Isolating it from another source did the job.

[loki100]

The NSS bit sounds plausible, 50k of freight is a lot when its only being used for ammo and supply.

In my last AI game I isolated Leningrad and it took about 5 months for the stored freight to run down significantly (& it must have had less than 50k).

A trick that worked in WiTW is run GA missions over the hex. You don't have to commit too much its a case of making AA happen, that in turn runs down the stored freight just that bit quicker.

In the same game as above Rostov held out under siege for about 3 months and 4 failed (v costly) assualts (& it was def isolated)

edit: point is an isolated hex causes some problems for the defender but being in decent supply can mitigate this (I doubt the AI really concentrates on using air transport to partially remove isolation). So yes, its not functioning as a NSS, but there is still a lof of freight there

[Mehring]

ORIGINAL: James80

Hmm,

it should work like you say, Mehring:

25.2.3
To function as a NSS a centre must also be
able to trace a rail link to another NSS. A depot will totally cease to function as a NSS if it cannot
trace a rail link to another on map NSS. Under these circumstances it will not prevent unit and hex isolation,
although the depot may continue to store freight, after having the freight present reduced to 50,000

Nice find, thanks. The encircled units have a red border like they're isolated. Maybe its a case of waiting for them to eat through all those frozen sandwiches, but three months?

[loki100]

in this respect, remember that there are two reductions to a NSS. if you are adjacent it sheds excess freight storage but still retains the status. If you've cut it off per 25.2.3 then it never regains that status.

going forward, that is a huge hit on the Soviets, they will be relying on the Volga NSS as they move west and that means serious supply problems around the 1941 borders

[Mehring]

ORIGINAL: loki100

The NSS bit sounds plausible, 50k of freight is a lot when its only being used for ammo and supply.

In my last AI game I isolated Leningrad and it took about 5 months for the stored freight to run down significantly (& it must have had less than 50k).

A trick that worked in WiTW is run GA missions over the hex. You don't have to commit too much its a case of making AA happen, that in turn runs down the stored freight just that bit quicker.

In the same game as above Rostov held out under siege for about 3 months and 4 failed (v costly) assualts (& it was def isolated)

edit: point is an isolated hex causes some problems for the defender but being in decent supply can mitigate this (I doubt the AI really concentrates on using air transport to partially remove isolation). So yes, its not functioning as a NSS, but there is still a lof of freight there

Freight stocks sounds plausible but the zero damage to the fort twice was strange. Never seen that before with so much arty and engineers.

[Mehring]

ORIGINAL: loki100

in this respect, remember that there are two reductions to a NSS. if you are adjacent it sheds excess freight storage but still retains the status. If you've cut it off per 25.2.3 then it never regains that status.

going forward, that is a huge hit on the Soviets, they will be relying on the Volga NSS as they move west and that means serious supply problems around the 1941 borders

They're not coming back. From 42 onwards I found the AI formed loads of corps but left gaps in the front line that invited encirclement. I spent 42-43 chewing chunks of Red Army until Germans passed manpower parity. A few weeks back Axis walked into Saratov unopposed. It's an AI flaw for another post.