ORIGINAL: JAMiAM
MechFO, your example is off, as the Stalingrad pocket was not being as actively reduced by the Soviets, as is generally the case in game for surrounded pockets. In the game, players are generally attacking the surrounded units, and the surrenders, if and when they occur, come when the units are forced to retreat.ORIGINAL: MechFO
ORIGINAL: bwheatley
I'm glad i'm not the only person who finds the cut off rules to be unrealistic and annoying.In my aar with my buddy we decided he shoudl cut off moscow.
Stavka and all the hq's were in the pocket a big pocket. The city of moscow had tens of thousands of tons of supplies yet people were surrendering enmasse. It's silly. They had plenty of supplies to be able to fight. In one of the updates HQ's were supposed to disperse supplies better to the units in a pocket with it but i don't think it worked. Maybe "morale" plays too big a part of it. The morale is actually not very good on the soviet side for showing how tenacious the soldier's who didn't surrender at the outbreak of the war were. Alas I doubt anything will come of it. It's a minor pain in my butt that only bugs me whenever i get something stuck in a big pocket and they instantly turn into wet noodles.
I agree, the Moscow case in your AAR showed that the mechanics are definitely out of whack. Coming back to Stalingrad as baseline, 20 divisions in a roughly 4x4 hex area lasted for 10 turns...with minimal air resupply and their on hand supply stocks couldn't have been too large either. In your Moscow case I think there's a real case of suffering no or only small adverse cut off effects if on hand stocks are large enough.
Also, to everyone, with respect to the airhead supply rules, I've used it to good effect to keep Soviet pockets resupplied. Units therein, if they have decent retreat routes (interior hexes out of ezoc) are much more likely to retreat instead of surrendering when attacked. This can double the life of a pocket, easily, given the commitment of airframes to carry sufficient supplies to the pocketed forces. Whether that commitment is worth the time gained, and the number of enemy troops that are thus tied down is, of course, situationally dependent.
I like the airhead supply stuff but in cases where you have a large pocket with cities that have a lot of supply you shouldn't need to fly in more supply.
