New player with some questions after Velikiye Luki

[Crashingtree]

Hey everyone,

New player here with very limited experience in wargaming...I am enjoying the learning curve and am determined to figure out the game!

Having just played/won the Velikiye Luki scenario from both sides, I would really appreciate input on a few questions that I have. Any feedback would be appreciated:

1. In seeking to really understand the logistics side of the game, I tried an experiment: I put all my Soviet divisions except one (21st Guards) under 3rd Shock Army, and then reduced the supply priority of 3rd shock Army to 1. I made the supply priority of the Kalinin Front 4 though, which I thought would mean my chosen division would get the top priority of any supply. Just to tip the scale further, I also placed the 21st Guards division on the HQ and on a depot. After a few turns, the results surprised me. While supply % was very high (112%), Fuel percentage (63%) and ammo percentage (82%) were still a bit low. How could that be the case? Does the entire scenario not have enough fuel/ammo to fill ONE division's needs? Or am I missing something? Screenshot here: https://imgur.com/a/tpcHrD3


2. A few questions about chain of command:

2.A: I understand leadership benefits stack on top of each other (i.e. a division reporting to a corps gets advantages from the corps leadership but also from the army leadership, to a lesser degree). As such, why would you ever have a division reporting directly to the Army level? Shouldn't you always want to stack it under the corps so you get their leader benefits too?

2.B: I read somewhere that divisions reporting to separate HQs should never participate in the same battle, or else a debuff is applied. Is that right? That seems to create some weird outcomes. If I have 3 infantry divisions (reporting to one HQ) and 1 tank division (reporting to another) and I want them to attack the same hex, should I not do so? Should I re-assign the tank division for just that one turn? What is the leader of the infantry divisions has really poor motorized management qualities? How do you usually manage this?

Thank you for any help with these! Any advice at all would be greatly appreciated.

[DekeFentle]

2.B: I read somewhere that divisions reporting to separate HQs should never participate in the same battle, or else a debuff is applied. Is that right? That seems to create some weird outcomes. If I have 3 infantry divisions (reporting to one HQ) and 1 tank division (reporting to another) and I want them to attack the same hex, should I not do so? Should I re-assign the tank division for just that one turn? What is the leader of the infantry divisions has really poor motorized management qualities? How do you usually manage this?

Take a look at;
23.8.6. Command Chain CV Modifications

In the case above the CV modifier depends on which division has the highest CV value. If it's the tank div the three infantry may suffer 10% or more CV loss. This gets compounded (not sure how much) depending on which army the HQ's are a member of.

[Wiedrock]

2.A: I understand leadership benefits stack on top of each other (i.e. a division reporting to a corps gets advantages from the corps leadership but also from the army leadership, to a lesser degree). As such, why would you ever have a division reporting directly to the Army level? Shouldn't you always want to stack it under the corps so you get their leader benefits too?

Yes, in general you want always a full Chain of Command. Some of the rolls the leaders do are done by every leader in the chain, so more leaders means more chances to roll successfull.
The reason to have "weird" attachments is mostly because each HQ has limited Command Capacity ....or Command Points

Command Capacity (21.11.3)
A numerical rating, expressed in command points, which delineates the number of combat units that can be
attached to a headquarters unit without affecting its performance. If this normal capacity is exceeded, the
leader of the headquarters unit will suffer penalties when conducting leader checks.

Surpassing this Command Capacity in the context of Assault HQs is especially bad.

2.B: I read somewhere that divisions reporting to separate HQs should never participate in the same battle, or else a debuff is applied. Is that right? That seems to create some weird outcomes. If I have 3 infantry divisions (reporting to one HQ) and 1 tank division (reporting to another) and I want them to attack the same hex, should I not do so? Should I re-assign the tank division for just that one turn? What is the leader of the infantry divisions has really poor motorized management qualities? How do you usually manage this?

no warranty for correctness

Command Battle Modifiers.png (235.89 KiB) Viewed 716 times

The big issue of this game for understanding it seriously, that we do not know how the Leader-Rolls are being handled, when they are rolled and what outcome they have. So this negative values you sometimes see in this "unaligned HQs in one battle"-thing may ...

• only apply to the initial CV
• or also to the participation of Ground Elements in Battle (so less have the chance to engage)
• or also to the performance of Ground Elements in Battle (Accuracy, RoF and so on ...just a guess)

I welcome you to help us figuring that out.

1. In seeking to really understand the logistics side of the game, I tried an experiment: I put all my Soviet divisions except one (21st Guards) under 3rd Shock Army, and then reduced the supply priority of 3rd shock Army to 1. I made the supply priority of the Kalinin Front 4 though, which I thought would mean my chosen division would get the top priority of any supply. Just to tip the scale further, I also placed the 21st Guards division on the HQ and on a depot. After a few turns, the results surprised me. While supply % was very high (112%), Fuel percentage (63%) and ammo percentage (82%) were still a bit low. How could that be the case? Does the entire scenario not have enough fuel/ammo to fill ONE division's needs? Or am I missing something?

First, all you need to note down what percentages - or better, actual values in Supply/Fuel/Ammo you started from, since when the TOE - so the Elements of the Division get increased/lowered/exchanged, the percentages will vary due to reinforcements. Reinforcements will increase the "need" of your Division in the turn they arrive, but the game will only try to fullfill this additional "need" in your next logistics phase.

Second, I completely understand your logic, but this game is different in many ways when it comes to applying ones own logic. The most important one is the Priority that's applied to the Division, so if it's 4, it's 4. I don't know in how far the Priorities further up would make a difference (others may correct/add to that). That's what the manual says:

SUP prio.png (350.99 KiB) Viewed 716 times

Third, even if everything is perfectly arranged, the leaders still have to make the "rolls/checks" in your logistics phase, if they fail, they fail.

Fourth, the supply system is pretty generous when it comes to stored amounts/production, so especially early in the game you will not run out of anything, so you don't need to bother with the production of all that goods for now, I'd say.

[Crashingtree]

First, all you need to note down what percentages - or better, actual values in Supply/Fuel/Ammo you started from, since when the TOE - so the Elements of the Division get increased/lowered/exchanged, the percentages will vary due to reinforcements. Reinforcements will increase the "need" of your Division in the turn they arrive, but the game will only try to fullfill this additional "need" in your next logistics phase.

Thank you DekeFentle and Wiedrock for the help with this! Those are very helpful insights. And you are certainly right, I keep noticing that the game's logic often incorporates a few more layers of realism than I imagine

On your point above, that's useful to understand. Here is how the % totals for each category changed when I ran the test:
Supplies: 67%---->112% great
Fuel: 62%------>63% no real improvement
Ammo: 99% ------->82% actually got worse!

I don't unfortunately have the true values to compare against, but your idea about additional reinforcements requiring more supplies sounds like it could be a reasonable explanation.

[Stamb]

Ammo can get worse if you get a lot of reinforcements (they arrive with 0 ammo). Fuel for non motorized units is irrelevant, ignore.

[Crashingtree]

Thanks! That's good to know about ammo and explains it