Matrix Games Forums

Hello,

My Soviet troops are advancing rapidly. But behind the lines the conversion of railways is going very very slowly which will soon almost stop the advance.

What can I do, or what units must I create, to speed up Soviet rail conversion?

Thanks

Matthew Buttsworth

You need to stock the Army and Front HQs with construction and RR construction units.

Thanks

Can I create them?

Matthew

They can be created.  But you get a large number of RR construction bde anyway.  They should be in the 20, 21, and 22 army HQs if my memory is correct.  Go to the commanders report set the filter to Engineering units and see where they are currently if that is wrong.  You want to remove them from these armies and distribute them to your front HQ/STAVKA.  You can make either new RR Const Bde or Const Bn like any other support unit.

I try to get at least 1 Const Bn in each army to aid in digging efforts.

As I have mentioned elsewhere just be advised that: 1. the HQs will not prioritize the use of the RR Bde's, so if there are Const Bn and RR Const Bde in a HQ don't expect to see the Bde often used, and 2.  They float up the chain of command after being used in rail repairs from what I can tell, so they leave the Army HQ and end up in the Front HQ.  I have yet to see any Const Bn on the map doing a rail repair whose listed HQ was not a front.

Point 2 mainly says to expect to have to expend some AP's re-organizing your construction battalions after the rail repair is done.  Point 1 slows down the repairs unfortunately but it isn't that annoying.

I´ve got an idiot question as well: Do I really need to personally care about the railroad workers? They appear automatically, so does that mean they will repair the railroads automatically as well?

If you have RR Const Bde or Const Bn in Army/Front/STAVKA HQs they will do their best to automatically repair rail.  You don't need to worry about it at all.

Only thing you have to do is not fill the hex with the damaged rail with 3 units or there is no space for the construction workers to work.  They are limited by the stacking rules.

And you can't start repair on a hex that has an enemy unit adjacent to it, though if the repair starts it will finish if an enemy unit moves adjacent (assuming you have a combat unit in that hex to prevent the auto return to HQ of the construction unit).

ORIGINAL: rolypoly

I´ve got an idiot question as well: Do I really need to personally care about the railroad workers? They appear automatically, so does that mean they will repair the railroads automatically as well?

YES! I thought the same thing BUT ther are 2 different types of guys that can fix RR for axis

First the FBD guys. You get 5 of them in 1941 -45 scenario. Those are the ones you need to repair with. You can repair upto 5 or 6 rail hexes with a single one in just 1 turn! Usualy its around 3. (depends on the cost to repair, which is either 1 or 3).

The guys that the HQ's sh*t out , those guys you dont worry about. They have the same icon but they are NOT fbd and they repair automatically (albeit much slower than fbd).

So to find FBD guys I use commanders report. They are usualy right up top near the army groups (unless you filtered it).

Then I go to look at their MP's in the same report. I can see easily which ones have moved and which ones have not.

Then I click on the location, and wallah ti takes me right there.

Another way to find FBD/NKPS is to press Control 9

This highlights them on the map

It's on my end of turn mental checklist

Note it dont work if you have show isolated units toggled

for FBD unit a fast way to find them is showing your railyard
at this time your FBD will be lightened yellow

I am now organizing my engineering units.

My railway brigades are mainly in the north near leningrad doing little as little territory has been captured. They are attached to Stavka and some are not even on railways at all.

When I filter my engineering units I get my sapper units.
They are all over the place and not in the right HQs. There are a lot of them.

How should I organize them?

Are there any engineering/railway repair units I have not found?

All advice welcome.

Matthew Buttsworth

When you say engineering units do you mean RR engineers, or sappers?  By the manual sappers do not help with rails.

To find units you can use the 'c' key; use the filter buttons so the list is just construction and engineer units.

Also be aware that HQs like to have a minimum amount of construction and engineer units; sometimes they'll steal them from each other.