Turn 81: 20-26 January 1945
Snowfall ... very pretty and all that but I would prefer clear skies:
I've been mentioning the importance of managing supply. Here are two essentially identical units
Note that 2 Canadian has almost all the ammo it needs while 1 Canadian has about 60%.
1 Canadian was in a different corps (one with low supply priority) and you can see the impact on both supply and ammunition levels, and thus on the effective combat value.
The rule book states:
"a unit loses 1 percent for each 1 percent they are short of their ammunition needs. Next motorized units lose 2 percent for each 1 percent they are short of 50 percent of their fuel needs."
So I Canadian has lost about 40% of its notional combat power. Both have enough fuel so that part of the malus doesn't apply. But this is not enough to explain the full reasons for the variation in effective combat value.
Supply shortages also hit indirectly and has an impact on combat efficiency. 1 Canadian has more missing parts to its TOE as its been on a lower supply priority, so has weakened in that respect as well, note that it is much weaker in key parts such as rifle squads.
The wider gain for letting some units run down is I am mostly keeping my armour at near full strength. Do need to pull divisions out of the line to recover and tend to have the equivalent of at least one corps not committed at any stage. The result is being able to exert continuous pressure, even on turns when I don't gain very much.
On the ground, some small scale attacks on the Dutch-Belgian border and a frustrating set of attacks to the north of Aachen. I really mismanaged this as I could have forced the Germans to retreat away from that empty hex.
It then took 3 attacks to dislodge it due to reserve reactions (my idea of starting with an infantry attack on the original target was to use up the German reserves)
Anyway, with the gap finally made, created a large hole in the German defences.
In turn, then made more gains to the south of Aachen.
To try and disrupt the German defences, landed a couple of paratroop regiments well behind the front, I'm hoping this will force a general retreat around Bitburg.
I'm not sure that was such a good idea, but the potential losses are very limited.
