Matrix Games Forums

Posted: **Wed Jul 25, 2001 10:10 am**

Originally posted by Don Shafer:
I'm not sure who's doing the arguing here. I still say that if a player wants to devote the resources to air supply a SL0 unit to make a drive for the oilfields, what's the problem? We keep getting back to replacing destroyed equipment which I am against.

Its not just replacing lost tanks, its about getting all those cargo planes to a unit behind enemy lines without too many of them getting shot down. When they get there where do they land? Your unit is in a constant state of movement. You could only use your small sturdy planes on grass/dirt runways, your bigger planes can't be used. When using so many small planes, there is only so many flights that can be made in a given period of time. And a mechanized division could have 3,000 to 4,000 vehicles needing fuel. 2 panzer divisions and a motorized division can add up to 9,000 vehicles or more, and since your unit is moving, all these vehicles are using fuel.

But if the unit is not engaged in combat and readiness can be kept up to prevent equipment losses, I still don't think it's a bug.

I think it is. This is something that is so easy to do in the games its impossible, to me, that the tactic wouldn't have been tried in real life. There are always military people interested in this subject of supporting large units indefinitely by air supply alone. I came across a website of an Army officer talking about this tactic 2 days ago.

Without hard data its not likely we can ever agree about this. So lets just agree to disagree right now.

Posted: **Wed Jul 25, 2001 11:15 am**

Originally posted by JustAGame:

I'm not sure how an example of something being accomplished that had never been before and was largely thought to have been impossible doesn't relate to this discussion.

You were implying more than that when you got into the details of the carrying capacity for specific aircraft, suggesting an attempt at a comparison despite all the points I made about these events being very different from one another.

Considering it has been a repeated arguement that Lorenzo's tactic couldn't have been done because noone ever did it

That was only one point I made, not the entirety of our argument.

and the best arguements against Lorenzo's tactic have been based on nothing more than the feeling than it is impossible.

Sometimes a feeling is all you need. I don't have access to the knowledge base you and others (besides the net, which hasn't helped me so far in this) have to provide more than "feelings", but your own calculations (good work, that) in the last post make it appear unlikely that this could be done.

2,200 tons per week plus a small lake of fuel. They could only average about 120 tons per day into the Stalingrad pocket, but that isn't a fair comparison either, as with the Berlin Airlift.

The huge difficulty is in the realization that this unit is moving, which means it can only rely on airfields for a day, maybe two depending on how fast the unit is moving, before they advance too far away to use that airfield. The time is probably less, since it will be only a short time before the airfield is in range of enemy artillery, as the unit continues to move away, so an efficient operation is not likely given what the enemy can do to disrupt things with air and artillery, but it is at this time, when the unit is moving, that it consumes the most supplies and needs a heavy stream coming in to continue moving.

In fact, a corps may not be able to hold a large enough pocket to keep enemy artillery out of range of the airfields at all. And the enemy air forces can likely interrupt the flow of traffic to and from these temporary airfields. With inferior planes, the Soviets, despite robust efforts by the still powerful Luftwaffe, still managed to shoot down 200-300 transports at Stalingrad. This is relevent because our scenario all along has been a German unit protected and supported by the Luftwaffe behind Soviet front lines.

If this unit remained stationary, *maybe* it could be air supplied to 100%, but a moving and fighting unit with upwards of 9,000 vehicles, no way. Of course "no way" is a feeling to, so please disregard that as well.

[ July 25, 2001: Message edited by: Ed Cogburn ]

Posted: **Wed Jul 25, 2001 6:50 pm**

I thought I had read from a previous post that someone had mentioned that it cut supply to the Caucasus. I didn't think it would, but if it did than we have a bigger problem.

Originally posted by Josan:
Personally, I would question why the Soviet player would leave the Caucasus undefended or maybe even a better question would be, if the railline from Stalingrad is cut (which in reality it was), why would this cause units to the south to be out of supply? I would consider Baku to be a supply point since it could be supplied across the Caspian Sea or even overland from Iran since it was a major point for Lend-Lease supplies.

If the rail-line Stalingrad-Baku is cut dont leave the Caucasus out of supply. Baku is a supply source with level 5.

I dont want to make more fire about the airlifts but we are speaking about a panzer korps and also is the question if an infantry korps can fight behind enemy lines.
For anyway interested here are the datas for an infantry division prior to 1943 :

- HQ (administrative,police,medical...etc) : 253 motor vehicles; 245 horse-drawn vehicles.
- Reconnaissance Batalion :30 M; 3 H.
- Signal Battalion :103 M; 7 H.
- Artillery Regiment : 105 M; 229 H.
- Anti-Tank Battalion : 114 M; 0 H.
- Engineer Battalion : 87 M; 19 H.
- Three infantry regiments (3250 men each,and each with 683 horses, 6 small infantry guns, 2 large inf guns, 12 AT guns): 73 M (x3); 210 H (x3).

Total: 17000 men, 911 motor vehicles, 1133 horse-drawn vehicles and 5375 horses.

A division of this size needs daily : 53 tons of hay, 54 of food, 20 of fuel, 1 of lubricants, 10 of ordnance stores and 12 tons of other stores,excluding baggage and ammunition.

Josan.[/QB][/QUOTE]

Posted: **Wed Jul 25, 2001 7:35 pm**

But Ed you forget, that people constantly do things that "them" or "they" say can't be done. Man will never fly or walk on the moon or see the bottom of the oceans.
I will agree to disagree with you on this topic, but I still think that you are missing the true point, which is, WIR is a game. If we remove every aspect of the game solely on the premise that it was not done historically, then what will be the purpose of playing it? Some of the things that have been eliminated were because they were big bugs or loopholes (ie. an infantry army changed to a panzer army so that it gains the ability to plot 5). Everyone knows that the Luftwaffe was not effective in it's airlift capabilities in real life. But I just don't understand why we should limit a player from doing so if they want to. I've said it before and I'll say it again, if I'm the German player and I know that I will only be allowed to march to the gates of Moscow and the Volga River, then get my butt kicked back to Germany because of a rigid ruleset dictated by history, then why bother playing the game? There are dozens of other games out there that I would rather play than one where I know I have no possible way of winning.
This whole strategy to me seems risky at best on the German Player's part, but knowing that it's a possibility, as the Russian player, I need to be aware of it and try to find a counter for it. It would be no different than if the German player in Campaign 41 decided to leave Leningrad alone and divert all possible units to the destruction of Moscow, or leave the north and use everything in the attempt to take the Caucasus during the summer of 41.

Originally posted by Ed Cogburn:

I think it is. This is something that is so easy to do in the games its impossible, to me, that the tactic wouldn't have been tried in real life. There are always military people interested in this subject of supporting large units indefinitely by air supply alone. I came across a website of an Army officer talking about this tactic 2 days ago.

Without hard data its not likely we can ever agree about this. So lets just agree to disagree right now.

Posted: **Thu Jul 26, 2001 1:59 pm**

Originally posted by Don Shafer:
But Ed you forget, that people constantly do things that "them" or "they" say can't be done. Man will never fly or walk on the moon or see the bottom of the oceans.
I will agree to disagree with you on this topic, but I still think that you are missing the true point, which is, WIR is a game. If we remove every aspect of the game solely on the premise that it was not done historically, then what will be the purpose of playing it?

Did you read my last post? Players can try different strategies, they can shift forces around, they can use a different priority list, they can change leaders, they can chose between a risky strategy of deep penetration, or a conservative strategy of using panzers to destroy the Red Army piecemeal. These things lead to very different games. There is nothing wrong with these actions, we all agree implicitly that these things could have happened historically. A panzer korps spending most of its time behind Soviet lines, is not something we agree could have happened historically.

But I just don't understand why we should limit a player from doing so if they want to. I've said it before and I'll say it again, if I'm the German player and I know that I will only be allowed to march to the gates of Moscow and the Volga River, then get my butt kicked back to Germany because of a rigid ruleset dictated by history, then why bother playing the game?

I just don't understand you Don. Would anyone looking for a military simulation game be interested in one that lets you do things THAT COULD NOT BE DONE HISTORICALLY? I don't buy games, I buy military simulations. If the game allows impossible actions in a historical context, I don't buy that game, or it ends up in the trash. I threw out Clash of Steel because it was so weird and ahistorical. Wargames are more restrictive because they aren't "just a game", they are a historical military simulation, or they are supposed to be (or were advertised as such).

What about allowing Finns to coordinate with the Germans and attack Leningrad? This is an exploit too. Now that I know what the historical setting was, I do not use Finns in any cooridnated attacks with Germans. You would say, well give them this "option" by not fixing the bug, and I say if it couldn't have happened historically, then its a bug and should be removed. In this case, remember that WIR is not a grand strategic game where larger political issues are dealt with, its a simulation of a military campaign in WWII, thus the politics of Finland is beyond the scope of this game.

The difference between us is that the "historical military simulation" aspect is more important than the rest of the game for me. But this doesn't mean a game that plays identically every game, because as I point about above there are actions by the player that can result in a different game from history, and these actions *are* historically possible.

Posted: **Thu Jul 26, 2001 6:35 pm**

Yes Ed, I do read you're posts and I also went back and read Lorenzo's posts on his tactic. Somewhere down the thread this has gone from "small units supported by air supply" to full-blown panzer armies. I own several military-simulations and quite often end up with results other than what history says. As to what could be done historically, let's break this down.
1. Germany did build aircraft capable of airlifting supplies.
2. Germany did attempt to airlift supplies to units that were cut off.
3. Since Lorenzo did not specify what units were contained in his "small units", Germany did employ forces that were trained for mountain combat.
Now for the game system.
1. Airlifting supplies does not increase the supply level of the hex, only the readiness level of the unit being air supplied.
2. Units above a certain readiness level while in supply level 0 do not suffer attrition losses.
3. Rate of movement is also determined by readiness level of supply 0 units.
4. Players have the capability of changing production to produce equipment that were historically available and when they were available.
These are short lists, I know, but from what I am seeing, Lorenzo's tactic would appear to be historically feasible and does not appear to be an "exploit" (which to me would be caused by a bug in the program). He simply has found a different strategy within the framework of the changes that you, I, and the other members of the team agreed upon. I also don't agree with you're contention that allowing the Finns to coordinate with the Germans is a bug. German and Finnish troops were in the same army groups in Finland. Finland did choose not to press into Russia despite repeated attempts by Hitler. But they very well could have. So why would this be considered a bug? Part of a historical simulation is to be able to change the parameters of the situation. Do the Finnish units in the game have some sort of capability that I'm not aware of? Do they not suffer casualties at the same rate as other units? Those to me would be bugs. But to not allow something just because it didn't happen historically would be wrong. If you wish to not use the Finns in an assault on Leningrad, that's fine. If I choose to, that should be fine also. As long as they operate the same as other units in the game, what is the problem? I would contend that if are to eliminate the Finns from the ability to coordinate with the Germans and the ability to airlift to supply 0 units that are driving through the Caucasus, then by you're own logic, we should also prevent units from being transferred to areas of the map where they were not historically at. Does this mean we should put something into the game that forces the 2nd Panzer to the south to cut off Kiev? Or the Sixth Army must be the only unit involved directly in the assault on Stalingrad? Perhaps we should also change the game to not allow leaders to be assigned to units in which they did not have command? Eliminate all strategic bombing for the Soviets and the Germans? I know that these are extreme, but if eliminate one because it isn't historical that how can we justify leaving others in?

Originally posted by Ed Cogburn:

I just don't understand you Don. Would anyone looking for a military simulation game be interested in one that lets you do things THAT COULD NOT BE DONE HISTORICALLY? I don't buy games, I buy military simulations. If the game allows impossible actions in a historical context, I don't buy that game, or it ends up in the trash. I threw out Clash of Steel because it was so weird and ahistorical. Wargames are more restrictive because they aren't "just a game", they are a historical military simulation, or they are supposed to be (or were advertised as such).

What about allowing Finns to coordinate with the Germans and attack Leningrad? This is an exploit too. Now that I know what the historical setting was, I do not use Finns in any cooridnated attacks with Germans. You would say, well give them this "option" by not fixing the bug, and I say if it couldn't have happened historically, then its a bug and should be removed. In this case, remember that WIR is not a grand strategic game where larger political issues are dealt with, its a simulation of a military campaign in WWII, thus the politics of Finland is beyond the scope of this game.

The difference between us is that the "historical military simulation" aspect is more important than the rest of the game for me. But this doesn't mean a game that plays identically every game, because as I point about above there are actions by the player that can result in a different game from history, and these actions *are* historically possible.

And thank God, that political situations are not simulated in this game. I would hate to think that as the German player, I would be forced to not extract the Sixth from Stalingrad because Hitler would not allow it or not be able to use the Finns as I as the General would see fit. And really, aren't we talking about a tactic that within the parameters of the game can result in a result different from history given that a player would devote resources for it's implementation.

Posted: **Thu Jul 26, 2001 11:22 pm**

to correct on Lorenzo's tactics. His air supplied mountain divisions were used in the caucasus and I do not have a problem with that as it is historically feasible and was unsuccessfully tried.
His recurrent panzer breakthroughs are made with one panzer division, two infantry divisions plus possible supporting unit.
They are powerful enough to break through weak to moderate defence lines and press on behind it. In one game ten squares to Grozny surviving air and ground attacks every turn and winning him the game. That is what I have a problem with.

Posted: **Thu Jul 26, 2001 11:46 pm**

Thanks for the additional info. So basically, I still would like to see if airlift restored destroyed equipment before I jump on the "Let's squash this roach" bandwagon. Do either you or Lorenzo have a save file somewhere that we can get our hands on for testing?

Originally posted by Matthew Buttsworth:
to correct on Lorenzo's tactics. His air supplied mountain divisions were used in the caucasus and I do not have a problem with that as it is historically feasible and was unsuccessfully tried.
His recurrent panzer breakthroughs are made with one panzer division, two infantry divisions plus possible supporting unit.
They are powerful enough to break through weak to moderate defence lines and press on behind it. In one game ten squares to Grozny surviving air and ground attacks every turn and winning him the game. That is what I have a problem with.

Posted: **Fri Jul 27, 2001 1:17 am**

Originally posted by Don Shafer:
Thanks for the additional info. So basically, I still would like to see if airlift restored destroyed equipment before I jump on the "Let's squash this roach" bandwagon. Do either you or Lorenzo have a save file somewhere that we can get our hands on for testing?

How are these "small combat forces" being located by the Luftwaffe and how exactly are the supplies being delivered? (i assume air drop, correct?)

Posted: **Fri Jul 27, 2001 12:02 pm**

Originally posted by Don Shafer:
Yes Ed, I do read you're posts and I also went back and read Lorenzo's posts on his tactic. Somewhere down the thread this has gone from "small units supported by air supply" to full-blown panzer armies. I own several military-simulations and quite often end up with results other than what history says. As to what could be done historically, let's break this down.
1. Germany did build aircraft capable of airlifting supplies.
2. Germany did attempt to airlift supplies to units that were cut off.

And the units were stationary but they still failed, most of the time, to save those units in the end.

1. Airlifting supplies does not increase the supply level of the hex, only the readiness level of the unit being air supplied.
2. Units above a certain readiness level while in supply level 0 do not suffer attrition losses.
3. Rate of movement is also determined by readiness level of supply 0 units.
4. Players have the capability of changing production to produce equipment that were historically available and when they were available.
These are short lists, I know, but from what I am seeing, Lorenzo's tactic would appear to be historically feasible and does not appear to be an "exploit" (which to me would be caused by a bug in the program). He simply has found a different strategy within the framework of the changes that you, I, and the other members of the team agreed upon.

Lorenzo's tactis was originally with mountain divisions, which would be a different matter. I don't know when the conversation switched to a panzer corps, it may have been me. In any event, the argument reached a point where the possibility of a panzer corps "hanging out" indefinitely in the Soviet rear areas was being seriously considered. This is what I disagree with.

An exploit is any bug or design flaw that allows events which, by a majority of players at least, are found to be impossible in historical terms.

Let me make this clear Don, I NEVER accepted this exploit. I wasn't here when the first discussions or whatever happened about this out-of-supply/air-supply exploit, but I disagreed when it came up when I was here, and I tried to convince Arnaud to do something better, but to no avail. You'll find my suggestion for a new ruleset I had in mind in the issues list. Its been there ever since I started the issues list. Its very frustrating to realize that the worst flaw in this game is being ignored, and without access to the source, I can only standby and watch this flaw come up in conversations about once every 3 months or so on the forum. It is ugly as hell, but it looks like its going to be with us for a long while. [shrug shoulders]

I also don't agree with you're contention that allowing the Finns to coordinate with the Germans is a bug. German and Finnish troops were in the same army groups in Finland. Finland did choose not to press into Russia despite repeated attempts by Hitler. But they very well could have.

I agree. That is why I reminded you we weren't playing a grand strategy game, but an operational scale game devoted to one campaign of that war. In a grand strategy game like Third Reich, World in Flames, etc, rules for the politics are there alongside the rules for the combat. Here though we don't have that possibility. Gary never provided us with these options, he simply never finished the game. There should be code to handle all the minor allies but none was there until Arnaud at least added the check to cause the Balkan minors to surrender when their capitol is conquered, but the special code to handle Finland is still AWOL.

So why would this be considered a bug? Part of a historical simulation is to be able to change the parameters of the situation. Do the Finnish units in the game have some sort of capability that I'm not aware of? Do they not suffer casualties at the same rate as other units? Those to me would be bugs. But to not allow something just because it didn't happen historically would be wrong.

As I said above, this isn't a grand strategy game where the politics is part of the game's responsibilities. I can easily see in 3R or WiF an optional rule for Finland to give the players some what-if options, but we aren't playing a grand strategic game. All the politics leading up to 22/6/41 should be "hardwired" in WiR, otherwise you risk ruining a game meant to be operational in scope, by bolting things on that simply don't belong in an operational scale game, and WiR is NOT a grand strategic game.

then by you're own logic, we should also prevent units from being transferred to areas of the map where they were not historically at.

Go find a quote of me ever saying that, Don. I explicity said in the first paragraph of my last post the answer to this charge. Are you sure you're reading my posts? Perhaps you need a refresher:

Players can try different strategies, they can shift forces around, they can use a different priority list, they can change leaders, they can chose between a risky strategy of deep penetration, or a conservative strategy of using panzers to destroy the Red Army piecemeal. These things lead to very different games. There is nothing wrong with these actions, we all agree implicitly that these things could have happened historically. A panzer korps spending most of its time behind Soviet lines, is not something we agree could have happened historically."

Your assumed understanding of my logic is woefully inadequate. Your examples that follow are about events that ARE within the bounds of our operational scale game WiR. The fighting at Stalingrad is within the scope of WiR, unless you add panzer corps doing the boogie in the Soviet backfield.

And thank God, that political situations are not simulated in this game.

What does this mean? Finnish politics AT THE MOMENT OF THE WAR aren't there because they should be, but because Gary didn't finish the job. WiR is operational scale, thus politics should not be present, but by that I mean Finnish forces should be restricted in their actions because that was the politics that actually happened. The politics absent in our game is the politics that were in place on 22/6/41.

I don't see how it is so easy for you to say leave out the politics, when it is the politics that set the stage for what WiR is meant to be about: an operational scale military simulation of the East front of WWII.

Posted: **Fri Jul 27, 2001 12:11 pm**

Originally posted by Don Shafer:
Thanks for the additional info. So basically, I still would like to see if airlift restored destroyed equipment.

No, it doesn't, but it doesn't have to anymore. As long as it keeps the units above a certain low readiness value, equipment losses never happen even when in level zero supply status. And when they do happen, they are only something like 1/4 or 1/3 of the total per turn. Do you know how long it takes a full sized panzer corps to waste away to nothing without supply? 7 months. *SEVEN* *MONTHS*. Now you tell me how badly the out-of-supply ruleset in WiR is.

Posted: **Fri Jul 27, 2001 12:55 pm**

Don, my attempt to send you the new buglist Arnaud asked for was bounced from your ISP:

The original message was received at Thu, 26 Jul 2001 05:57:37 -0500 (CDT)
from martha.xtn.net [206.30.163.12]

----- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors -----
<lshafer2@pionet.net>

----- Transcript of session follows -----
binmail: cannot append to /usr/spool/mail/lshafer2
Mail saved in dead.letter
554 <lshafer2@pionet.net>... Service unavailable

If everything is ok now, tell me and I'll resend.

Posted: **Fri Jul 27, 2001 2:29 pm**

Dear Don,
I think Lorenzo may have been annoyed at my objection. I am not sure. But anyway I can send you the moves he sent me and my replies, (if I can find them) so you can see what happened. In short I killed four panzer division raids, but the fifth on the verge of winter driving on and on to Grozny nailed me.
If I had known this tactic was possible I could have responded better with airpower etc (other units were not available to fight on the stretched defence line), but I never imagined that a panzerunit could go on and on without supply and thought I had cut it off and could then kill it at leasiure.
How wrong I was.

Posted: **Fri Jul 27, 2001 5:48 pm**

Try sending it again Ed, we were having e-mail problems at home yesterday. Our ISP has been trying to do some kind of upgrade. Computer guys can't seem to leave anything alone.

Originally posted by Ed Cogburn:
Don, my attempt to send you the new buglist Arnaud asked for was bounced from your ISP:

The original message was received at Thu, 26 Jul 2001 05:57:37 -0500 (CDT)
from martha.xtn.net [206.30.163.12]

----- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors -----
<lshafer2@pionet.net>

----- Transcript of session follows -----
binmail: cannot append to /usr/spool/mail/lshafer2
Mail saved in dead.letter
554 <lshafer2@pionet.net>... Service unavailable

If everything is ok now, tell me and I'll resend.

Posted: **Fri Jul 27, 2001 6:09 pm**

I agree Ed, 7 months out of supply for a panzer army is extreme. So how do you propose to fix this problem without effecting units that are cut off for a short period of time? Plus we will have to take into account the type of unit it is, since it would be far easier to keep an infantry unit air supplied than a panzer unit. Let's not turn this into a flame war, and I am reading you're posts, I just don't agree with you're conclusion that anything that was not done historically should not be allowed when it comes to tactics and strategy. I don't think we should shoestring the players into doing what was actually done in history strategy wise. You feel the Finns should not be allowed to coordinate with the Germans, then let's remove the Finn army and Finland from the map and be done with them, since they will no longer serve any purpose. I suppose we could do the same thing with the West and Italian Fronts also and use their slots for something else since they have no impact on the Russian operations.

Originally posted by Ed Cogburn:

No, it doesn't, but it doesn't have to anymore. As long as it keeps the units above a certain low readiness value, equipment losses never happen even when in level zero supply status. And when they do happen, they are only something like 1/4 or 1/3 of the total per turn. Do you know how long it takes a full sized panzer corps to waste away to nothing without supply? 7 months. *SEVEN* *MONTHS*. Now you tell me how badly the out-of-supply ruleset in WiR is.

Posted: **Fri Jul 27, 2001 6:27 pm**

Originally posted by Don Shafer:
anything that was not done historically should not be allowed when it comes to tactics and strategy

anything that COULD not be done historicaly, Don. Suppliying mobile and fighting panzer korps behind enemy lines COULD not be done historicaly(at least by the time of WWII). That's what Ed so desperately tries to explain. I wonder if here is anyone here who disagrees with that.

Posted: **Fri Jul 27, 2001 6:53 pm**

I'm not disagreeing with it either. But this thread has gone from air supplying a small force by air to whole panzer armies. I totally agree that airlift supplies to panzer army cut off to keep it in SL0 for an indefinite amount of time is impossible, but I also have not seen anyone suggest a viable change for it either. We know that airlifting only effects readiness and does not replace destroyed equipment. Also depending on the make up of the unit and the amount of tonnage airlifted, it seems to have an effect on the amount of readiness gain like special supply does. Can we based on the memory restrictions of the game, change airlift to only increase readiness for infantry? Or increase the rate that a unit loses armored vehicles so that an armored unit loses all of it's vehicles in a two to three week period? We talked about this before and at that time it was decided that a unit that was not moving and not engaged in combat should not lose vehicles since once supply caught up, these vehicles could be refueled and made ready again. I'm open to suggestions on this topic. I'm just not ready to say every single aspect of the game must be tied directly to what was done historically. I may be off base here, but what I'm hearing is since the Germans were largely unsuccessful in airlifting supplies, that if a player airlifts, then that's to be considered an exploit. Everyone that has been on the team for any amount of time will tell you that I've always been in favor of removing the loopholes and cheats, but I also think that we have to be careful that we do not tie this game down so tightly that the German player has absolutely no way to win the game.

Originally posted by Mist:

anything that COULD not be done historicaly, Don. Suppliying mobile and fighting panzer korps behind enemy lines COULD not be done historicaly(at least by the time of WWII). That's what Ed so desperately tries to explain. I wonder if here is anyone here who disagrees with that.

Posted: **Fri Jul 27, 2001 10:25 pm**

I think can be some agreement between PEBM players, who likes realism (as me, too):

A Pz corp with more of... (50 tanks?) without supply, can move or attack, but not advance. The move simulates the chaos of to have a Pz corp in the rearguard.
If Pz corp has not more or (50 tanks?), can advance in summer or falls, like old age armies (there is food in terrain, in towns and in supply depots). The ammo can be air supplied.
This way, the defender cańt allow a enemy unit in his rearguard (as real life), but he can destroy or stop it, if he concentrates enough forces.

Posted: **Fri Jul 27, 2001 10:44 pm**

Originally posted by Lorenzo from Spain:
I think can be some agreement between PEBM players, who likes realism (as me, too):

-=skip=-

If Pz corp has not more or (50 tanks?), can advance in summer or falls, like old age armies (there is food in terrain, in towns and in supply depots). The ammo can be air supplied.

Even if PzCorp managed to capture some storage with food and fuel recently after it's breakthru to enemy terrain, some(short) time later there will not be any more such possibilities 'cause enemy is not fool and even if there's no strong military units, local mitcia is still present on the land and as soon they will know that enemy comes they will destroy or try to evacuate most of the supplyes...

This way, the defender cańt allow a enemy unit in his rearguard (as real life), but he can destroy or stop it, if he concentrates enough forces.

Posted: **Sat Jul 28, 2001 4:03 am**

Have the supply rules via air transport been modified much?

I recall reading about air transport back when the game was new, and called "Second Front"

The impression i got examining the formula and rules explanation in the manuel was that a massive amount of air transport would be needed just to raise an corp a few % points in readiness.

It would seem that now one can do considerably more than this.

This leads to another question as well. People are saying "its possible" but if it were (and no, i still dont believe it is) it would require a very large commitment on the Luftwaffe's part. This would take away from their normal responsibilities of ground attack and support. How would they be able to acomplish both in real life? Bombers cant be in two places at once. Either they are supporting the main army or they are carrying supplies (continuously) to that pz corp operating in the enemy's rear.

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