The things to keep an eye out for on this screen are the manpower pools and the lower part of the right side of the screen. We note that the Supplies/Ammo/Fuel in units are in good shape. While the supplies in units are short (88,548 in units but 93,521 to meet need) this is AFTER the Logistics Phase and the expenditure of supplies to meet unit needs. So supplies in the units at this time will help lessen what they will need to get next Logistics Phase. Another is tracking the Vehicles - the units are short some trucks (a constant) with 10.5K in the pool and 8.4K in repairs.
This is looking good overall as the total Supplies Need is less than half the Supplies Received. It is early in the war yet but it is nice to see it this strong.
This is another good screen to track. We can see that the freight used is greater than the freight received with 32K freight going to Units and 22.3K trucks used. It is a good summary to track and reflects depot to depot freight movement. We also note that 34K unit trucks were used in grabbing supplies for their units which will reduce the MPs available for those units. Another nice note is the 1069 Soviet Trucks captured. It is always fun to use enemy equipment to help us.
Time to change the Ground Attack doctrines from the airfield oriented first turn's settings to settings for the rest of the war. I change the altitude to 9000, the schedule to D1/D4/D7, set the Escort AC Pct back to 100, lower the Airfield priority to Ignore and raise the Unit priority to High. This last is a personal preference over Interdict but playing against the AI bombing the units is preferable to bombing hexes.
I delete all of the Ground Attack directives from turn 1 as I am holding most of those locations already and do not wish to bomb them again.
T02 Air Phase:
I now go through and designate RECON directives for each Recon AOG. This gives me good coverage and the ability to make sure everywhere I wish is covered. Each AOG will have an area of 4 and defaults (from the Ground Attack Air Doctrine) to search for units. The turn sees 26 aircraft lost to flak and ops.
You can see that Brest Litovsk is already supplying a large portion of 2nd PG and other advanced units. The rest of the new rail net is not doing as well in supplying the frontline troops as of yet. It will improve over the next few turns. Brest Litovsk benefits as a Level 2 Railyard and being just one hex beyond the pre-war rail lines.
Everything here is pre-war supply net. You can see several supply lines in the far rear such as Rumania and Hungary supplying garrison forces. These are using trucks to send supply to frozen units. I will have to take some time in the future to fix this and relieve the pressure on my truck pool.
4th PG advances across the front approaching Pskov. One corps from 18th Army is across the Dauga River while the rest of AGN concentrates on eliminating the pockets. The 4th PG FBD is working on the double rail from Vilnius north.
4th and 9th Army concentrate on eliminating the large Bialystok Pocket. 3rd PG captures Polotsk and reaches the outskirts of Vitebsk. 2nd PG crosses the Dnepr in several spots while almost pocketing Mogilev. 2nd PG FBD is continuing on the double rail towards Minsk while the 3rd PG FBD is working on the double rail to Minsk from Vilnius.
1st PG and the Rumanians ALMOST form a large pocket falling only a single hex short. This should trap most of the Soviets to the west of this line and they will be pocketed next turn. 1st PG FBD reaches L'vov along the double rail. The Rumanian FBD is working on the single line east towards Odessa although very slowly.
I move the three reinforcing infantry divisions from the Berlin area towards the front. Select a division with the 'n' key enabled to show rail line usage. I then manually select a route that ignores the direct rail lines to the front (usually a fairly solid yellow line) and try to use lines that are still in the green. This will minimize the impact on the flow of freight not only for next turn but two or three turns. I manage the Reserves. I then have some work to do in moving the LW forward to support the front lines. I advance as many of the Recon Kolufts that I can and also advance some of the fighter groups. I then fly supplies forward to L'vov and Riga.
T02 Ground Losses:
A nice haul this turn as 351K Soviets are captured. If only this could be every turn.
It's time to start explaining my take on Axis logistics. The supply engine in WitE2 is a further evolution of the supply engine introduced in WitW. I stumbled upon a simple system in WitW. I repaired as much rail as fast as I could and placed depots in every town or city on the rail. The depots defaulted to priority 4 and I just left them that way. And it worked. Of course, you had to worry about ports and a few other things, but trucks are abundant for the Western Allies and Allied air units are placed at just about every airbase so having a strong supply net with lots of demand from all over the map from combat units, engineering units, and airbases works best.
Things do change when we move to the Eastern Front. First trucks are not overly abundant, in fact they tend to be scarce all of the time. Second the air forces are much smaller so less supply will be needed away from the active airbases. Third is the scarcity of quality road and even just rail lines. These factors more than offset the advantage of having direct land connections to the National Supply Sources (NSS).
The supply system is a 'pull' system. Units pull supply from depots. Depots pull supplies from other depots of lesser priority and NSS. Supplies will trace routes along the easiest and cheapest rail routes so the more paths from the NSS to the depot the better it is. Supply demand is initialized from units of all types including air and engineering units. Depots also generate supply demand which helps pull more freight from the NSS towards the front lines. We want to generate as much supply demand as possible that is supported by our rail net to get the supply to where we need it.
A simple set of rules to follow are:
1. Build a depot in every city you have rail through.
2. Any depot that has a supply trace from it to a frontline unit should be set to 4.
3. Any depot that has a supply trace from it to an active airbase should be at least 3.
4. Major rail lines should then have depots set to 2.
5. Any other depot should be set to 1.
Those are general rules that will have exceptions depending on specific cases and your future plans. If you are planning an offensive in an area, then depots further back from the front should be set to 4 to max out the depots ahead of the offensive. This will give a good buildup of supply in the area close to where you will need it.
There is a method that can be used to 'pulse' supply through your supply net. Take a depot with a large railyard. Set it up to priority 4 until it is full then reduce the priority down to 2 or 3 and it will empty itself out as it sends the built-up supply down the pipe to front line depots. This is the same idea behind the above suggestions about supply build up. When the offensive starts, you dial those depots down to 3 and all of that supply is able to move to new depots behind your offensive. Unfortunately, the Axis did not do this very well at the start of the war!
Rail is fine and good for the long haul of supplies, but trucks are used to move supplies from the depots to the units. To keep truck wear and tear down you need the depots as close to the front line as possible. You also have the wagon rule that says any unit within three hexes of a depot does not use trucks. This is very important during the bad weather when trucks will breakdown all of the time. BUT many people forget that the offset to this is that units supplied by wagons will double their supply requirements. If you are having problems moving supplies to the front line making the amount you need double is not going to help you. This is an important fact to keep in mind.
Areas that you can afford and should use wagons are areas that have a good rail net and lots of built-up supplies. An excellent example is AGN. AGN gets their supplies through the Baltics with a good rail net coverage and almost entirely separate from the rail net required for AGC or AGS. With a well repaired rail net in the Baltics, you can reduce your truck requirements in the northernmost area of the front.
Areas that are a bad choice is most of AGS. There are few east-west rail lines that have to carry all of the supplies for the front. While the Crimea itself can use naval supply to supplement the rail lines almost no other part of the southern front is going to be able to keep the rail capacity up to what is needed for supply.
T03 Supply Thoughts:
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Rail is fine and good for the long haul of supplies, but trucks are used to move supplies from the depots to the units. To keep truck wear and tear down you need the depots as close to the front line as possible. You also have the wagon rule that says any unit within three hexes of a depot does not use trucks. This is very important during the bad weather when trucks will breakdown all of the time. BUT many people forget that the offset to this is that units supplied by wagons will double their supply requirements. If you are having problems moving supplies to the front line making the amount you need double is not going to help you. This is an important fact to keep in mind.
Wow. Super useful information [&o].
If the weather is ok and there is not enough freight in a depot in means that it is "better" (if you have some trucks in a depot) to keep units > 3 hexes from any depot which will basically double amount of freight that unit's receive in comparison if they stay < 3 hexes?
Stamb: Yes. It is best to keep the depots back in good weather unless you are in one of the cases were double supply requirements will not overload your supply net.
Carl, there have been some interesting discussions fairly recently on better managing replacements and supply by lowering Max TOE to 50% for German units except HQ and SUs, and/or setting a supply priority of 2 for infantry and 3 for motorized units (again German only). Any thoughts on this?
One of the problems with playing around with MAX TOE is that the unit will actively degrade to that point by sending elements back to the replacement pools. I really don't know if this consumes rail capacity or not. But a unit at 50% is more likely to rout, shatter, etc. if placed under stress by enemy attacks. I personally rarely modify MAX TOE (I do not tend to micromanage) but under some situations I would - a quiet sector (such as AGN) perhaps lower MAX TOE to 80% to free up replacements for more active sectors. Any reduction beyond 80% would have to be done in the late war for me. It's a personal decision and I really don't know how much that would really help overall.
Supply priority for units can vary also depending on whether this is an active sector or not. I typically keep infantry armies at 2 -> if the units do not need the supply they will not request it so no real problems there. I typically keep motorized units at supply priority of 4 during 41. I will reduce that to 3 when the weather starts to be bad but motorized MPs are very dependent on supply levels and that is too important to play with. Again this is my personal opinion. If you do lower supply priorities then you are also reducing the demand for supplies from the NSS and possibly reducing the flow of supplies to the front. My system has been to maximize (within reason) demand for supplies in the front line to try and maximize the flow to the east. These things are something that can be played with once the weather turns bad.
Thanks for the write up. This is perfect timing for me as I only recently picked up WitE2.
I then have some work to do in moving the LW forward to support the front lines. I advance as many of the Recon Kolufts that I can and also advance some of the fighter groups. I then fly supplies forward to L'vov and Riga.
How are you doing this at the end of a turn? How do I see the airbases to move foward?
One of the problems with playing around with MAX TOE is that the unit will actively degrade to that point by sending elements back to the replacement pools. I really don't know if this consumes rail capacity or not. But a unit at 50% is more likely to rout, shatter, etc. if placed under stress by enemy attacks. I personally rarely modify MAX TOE (I do not tend to micromanage) but under some situations I would - a quiet sector (such as AGN) perhaps lower MAX TOE to 80% to free up replacements for more active sectors. Any reduction beyond 80% would have to be done in the late war for me. It's a personal decision and I really don't know how much that would really help overall.
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yes, any elements shedded, either to adapt to TOE or be replaced (this happens with tanks most often) is an additional cost on your logistics system
from some digging, I think the system is the unit gets its freight allocations (& this will include replacements) and that is what you see on the full supply tab. Then the swaps/removals kick in and that will drop your available fuel/supply by a bit, this is usually minimal but its another usage at a time when you want to minimise this so as to increase the flow west-east
