SUPPLY INTERDICTION NOT RIGHT

[dazkaz15]

ORIGINAL: Arjuna

In actual fact supplies are already dropped a short distance behind the unit - it is assumed that the unit sends personnel or their own vehicles to pick it up and carry it forward.

I thought I read somewhere, but was not sure. Thanks for the confirmation.
That's the problem with abstracted supply though, your left guessing as to what is going on most of the time.

I have been playing for an hour tonight, and taking a lot more notice of the supplies, not just ones that don't make it but also the ones that do, and what route the supply must have taken to get there.

Not had any that have not gotten through yet even with enemy on the most direct route to the unit, so I am beginning to wonder if all the 100% losses if mostly from being faced by a superior force just as phoenix suggests, and not from interdiction from bad route choice as I suspected.

Will keep you posted. Very much enjoying the game at the moment.

[Phoenix100]

This seems harsh....

[dazkaz15]

This is the first of many I expect.
Although I have a cunning plan to try to reduce the amount destroyed.
Will have to wait and see how it pans out.

[dazkaz15]

Where are your bases for the Arnhem end mate?
I am going to try and bring mine into the bridge head with me as that whole open area to the South of the bridge there is incredibly exposed.
It is overlooked by the high ground to the North of the bend, and is within range of heavy weapons, and especially tanks.
Put your TLOS on some of them units near the bridge there during the day.
I think you will be surprised.
In fact the whole of the North of the DZ area is not a good place to be during daylight, if you have to move.
You are ok when deployed as they can't see you in the polder, but as soon as you move, they can target you with arty or long range infantry guns, tanks, assault guns, and tank destroyers that are on the high ground there.

I think there are a lot of factors going into the attrition of the vehicles here.
Some of it bad pathing by the AI, some bad decisions by the drivers, the very good visibility, the long daylight hours, the flat overlooked DZ and main road are a few that spring to mind.

I plan to shorten the supply run as much as possible, and keep the route in cover, well in the city to be exact.
My worry is that the work Dave did to prevent a depot getting near the enemy may stop me from moving it in.
Will wait and see.

[Phoenix100]

I have tried that before, Daz, keeping the bases just behind the flot, but not in this version with - as you rightly point out - that whole area of flat unexposed land sth of the bridgehead. I will try again, maybe, but I think that won't help - I don't think the interdiction happens anywhere near the bases. The pic below shows an area los snap for one of my bases, the worst hit, in fact. They're all placed there. It's almost 8pm, but not dark yet. Might be a greater los by day.

But I have exactly the same issue with the Nijmegan units close to their bridge, and they're on the sth bank in good cover. It's day 4 evening now, and for the last 36 hours it's just been solid 100% interdict messages for the Arnhem bridge force. I pulled them back over the bridge and it made no difference. I'm down to 80 jeeps now between my 5 bases there and two of the bases - even though they have a small number of jeeps - don't seem to put columns out anymore. Not sure why. They've given up maybe.....which is what I feel like doing, to be honest, because I'm convinced this model is perhaps operating as intended (it's not a bug, it's not broke) but that the model is wrong. Jeeps shouldn't be being lost like this and some supplies should be getting through. For a game that offers so many options to control things realistically it becomes absurd that you can have the battle lost because you have no control whatsoever over this crucial aspect.

[Phoenix100]

The big pic - day 4, coming up to 8pm

[Phoenix100]

All these Axis units nth of the Nijmegan bridge have been cut off for a while. Interestingly, the supply status indicator says they're not cut-off. Once we 'mop them up' (which may take a day more, I think) then it's a clear route to the Brits. I'm not sure they will be able to hold the armour from the sth bank of Arnhem by then though. All this set up in my favour and I still might not make it because of the way supply has worked!

[Phoenix100]

A fairly typical supply issue. The units in black circle are out of ammo and have had several 100% interdiction messages. I have a fairly strong mass of units over the bridges, a little to their rear. Yet the AI decides I can't get supplies over to them. The red arrows are my guess as to where supply could be cut. I don't think this should happen like this. The route back included a village and some woods, only one of the units is in the open and I have a good weight of suppressive fire ranged overlooking it and the enemy. There have been huge barrages on the enemy to either side of the gap though which supply must go. But all that said - even if you think it reasonable that supply cannot get through, then it should not have happened 3 times!!!! The AI tried 3 times with nothing changed. That was 9 jeeps burning. We really seriously need some control over this, I think.

[Phoenix100]

The area los from the flak tower:

[Phoenix100]

And from the other side:



Should that have resulted in 3 100% interdiction messages?

[Phoenix100]

As to your example above, Daz, I very definitely think that you should not have lost 100% of supply by passing that single unit, even on the crappy avoidance route (which doesn't avoid the unit completely, though there were plenty of other options for an 'avoidance' route that would have achieved that). That's one surrounded and outnumbered enemy unit that has hit your supply. How on earth is the calculation made that that unit can interdict your route? I had assumed the calculation was made by comparing weight of firepower at places where the route was in los - but surely that can't be happening here? And even if we allow that Axis unit some influence - surely not 100% (even if that did only involve sniping at one jeep and hitting it). Sniping a jeep moving carefully through a dense urban environment. With all those Allied forces surrounding and outnumbering the enemy. I think this would need changing, myself.

[dazkaz15]

I totally agree that they should stop throwing away the transports like this if the route is too dangerous.
I would much rather no supply got through, and I had to send a relieving force through, or pull back to the depot, to get back in supply, than what happens now, which is for them to run out of Jeeps, and in short order the entire 1st Para Corps becomes useless for the rest of the scenario.

The Depots won't even get a resupply of Jeeps, or help with distributing supplies when 30 Corps reaches them, which makes this extremely un realistic.
Also no supply is distributed by hand even if its drawing units are surrounding their organic depot in close proximity.

[dazkaz15]

This is what I was trying to explain to you about being overlooked, especially near the bridge on the main road.
Note the enemy range rings, and visibility.
I was not referring to them being able to hit your depot, but the supply convoys moving on the road.

ORIGINAL: phoenix

Should that have resulted in 3 100% interdiction messages?

Unfortunately we have no idea of the route that it took to get there, at the time it left so its hard to say.

Some of these situations are like driving right through your own guys, that are heavily engaged , in a Jeep, towards the enemy and expecting to make it.
Then the next one doing exactly the same thing, Then the next, and so on.

Others are doing the same thing even when there is a clear alternate route.

You have to remember that during the day the enemy that can interdict the route, may be along way off mind. See the screen shot as an example.

This is why I am going to try to move the depot into the bridgehead during the night.
If we had more control over supplies I would leave it outside, and specify resupply only at night.

[Phoenix100]

I see what you mean. Look forward to seeing if having it right behind the flot makes any difference.

But surely this issue is across the board (even if you haven't noticed it yet) - ie in all the other scenarios, in BFTB and Greece, too?

[Phoenix100]

An historic moment.....Lead elements of 1 AL make contact with lead elements of XXX Corps. Almost midnight, day 4.

[Phoenix100]

There may be trouble ahead. We're breaking through at Nijmegan, but this is what awaits at Arnhem......

[dazkaz15]

Good stuff mate.
That was a fast link up, will give you plenty of time to whittle away some of that lot in Arnhem.
I'll be mighty impressed if you can get over the bridge and through that lot mind.

If I lose my bridgehead at Arnhem, I intend to put in a diversionary attack over the railway bridge to draw some away.
I think you blew the railway bridge in your game though if I remember right. Are you goinig to re-build it?
You have five days to get it up.
You can have a max of 1200 engineers assisting you on a heavy bridge re-build I think, and it will take about 40 hours.

[dazkaz15]

ORIGINAL: phoenix

I see what you mean. Look forward to seeing if having it right behind the flot makes any difference.

But surely this issue is across the board (even if you haven't noticed it yet) - ie in all the other scenarios, in BFTB and Greece, too?

I have hardly touched the Greek scenario pack yet. Only had a quick browse of it actually.

Most of my time is still in BFTB, where the terrain in undulating with good cover, its dark half of the time, and foggy the rest.
The bases have plenty of transports in BFTB so its not really been an issue.
Also the Allies don't have a lot of long range fire power either as I mostly find myself facing infantry, and often in a forest, especially in Elsenborn Ridge.

I think the main issue with this scenario, and to make it work, is we need to give the drivers more self preservation awareness.
If they would just stop destroying the Jeeps, we could be resupplied a night, or rotate units back or something.

If Dave's quick fix idea don't work I think he should look into changing all the 100% losses messages into supply could not get through, make the delivered quantity of supplies for it zero, and stop the Jeeps being deleted from the depots equipment.

I know nothing about the computer programming side of it however so if its a stupid suggestion, just ignore me lol

[Phoenix100]

This is the answer. I agree: I think he should look into changing all the 100% losses messages into supply could not get through, make the delivered quantity of supplies for it zero, and stop the Jeeps being deleted from the depots equipment.


because then, yes, you could do this: If they would just stop destroying the Jeeps, we could be resupplied a night, or rotate units back or something.

Agreed. I wonder if Dave - when he's next able - could quickly change that...

[Phoenix100]

That was a fast link up, (Daz wrote).

Yes, because the AI enemy seemed to suffer the same supply issues, I think. All those Axis units nth of the Nijmegan Highway bridge were cut off for about 6 hours and almost constantly engaged/bombarded before they started to surrender. That's all it took - 6 hours. And to think - way back when - I used to complain that it was impossible to cut-off units in this game! Things seem to have changed....

As a workaround, Daz, in an amended version of the scenario I've tampered with the 'Summary/%of estab' figure for all the 1 AB bases - upping it to 200%. That gives them about 150 jeeps instead of 25. Not sure if it works because not sure if the AI will just put more jeeps in each column and take the same percentage of them as they get hit. Hope not, since I have a feeling it will be a while before Dave is able to look at this.