ORIGINAL: el cid again
ORIGINAL: Nemo121
I've not gotten far enough into an RHS scenario to find out yet.
Hmm, I think this is the problem Shark7. I think you can assume that if Herwin or I or others are talking about severe issues with supply sinks it is because we have gotten that far and have found they don't just last " a bit longer " but a LOT longer and require a LOT more force than is historically reasonable.
Just to be clear... Are you suggesting that 4 divisions ( 1200 AV ) is sufficient to take either Singapore or Manilla against a player who has turtled up in there ( with over 1200 AV of defenders in most cases ) PLUS whatever bonuses they accrue through preparation points and defences ( x4 for urban hex in Manilla and a further bonus accruing for forts ).
Interesting, I'm not really familiar with many cases in-game where an inferior force was able to attack a dug-in defender who outnumbered them and was situated in an urban hex even if that defender was out of supply. Do you have a screen or CR of this as I'd love to see this.
At a location with a sink large compared to the assault force - you don't need odds. Even 0:1 will work. IF the enemy is foolish and does NOT put MILITARY units in the hex - the sink will take losses and collapse. A small example is Guam - where the composite unit is mostly sink - but also has a handful of Marines and a militia company. Or consider Christmas Island - with a tiny CD battery - but mainly a sink. Or Nauru Island - with a fairly large sink and no military elements. These places can be taken by small assault forces - one or two battalions - but not instantly. Lack of odds isn't a problem: the sink dies under assault. It dies faster if you hit it with bombers. The same thing holds for Kuala Lumpar - or Rangoon. If the static elements (which are not pure sinks - but have some military elements) are not supported by real combat brigades - the position is doomed - and will fall in less than a week. I assume that large sinks are the same - but I recommend shutting down supply production before you get there (by killing resource centers with strategic bombing) and then shutting down the rest by an advance party before true assault. I invest Manila for weeks before trying to attack it other than by bombardment. It does not matter if he has 5 units or 25 - ANY significant amount of combat force added to the sink will make it tought. IRL it was tought with ONE brigade defending. So I don't think that is very far from the mark. But just as that brigade was doomed - so is any amount of force. Lack of supplies combined with attrition from various forms of combat will do the job.
Yes, I've seen that. But if he does provide a decent garrison, the supply sink generates a lot of leverage, even if the supplies have been wiped out.
I don't think attrition combat ever did anything in WWII--to defeat someone you had to do something at some point. The fact that the game rewards attrition tactics over more active operations only reflects the problems with its erroneous conceptual approach to modelling ground combat operations. If you have a time mesh of a day, you need some way to get a space mesh of about a mile if you want ground combat to be realistic. With 60-mile hexes, you need to model the in-hex events to avoid problems with stiffness. The game uses changes to combat strength as a proxy for changes in the position, but that's like studying human sex by studying how owls capture their prey. Sure, both take place at night and both involve a chase and a consummation, but the outcome will still be less than realistic.
