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How many times have you seen a supply truck get wiped out because it tried to get to a unit in the heat of combat? I've seen companies that were in such danger that even other companies from the same battalion have halted and are even suppressed to some degree?

A good example is the tutorial. The fighting for St. Vith can involve five or more units per side, all within less than a quarter kilometer of each other. In the real world, I just don't see a supply truck trying to get to a unit when enemy forces are 200-300 (or less) meters away. (Military folks feel free to correct me.)

They almost always always get blasted, 100% damage.

Any thoughts?

What are you doing fighting in St Vith - unless you mean holding it against the arrival of I/48 VG?

You should be crushing Peiper on the ridges to the south while he is strung out along the road... A minimal guard at St Vith (Bn mortars and CCA HQ works well, with CCA, and CCB rolling over Peiper once the artillery and CCR have pinned and reduced him a bit...

If he has anything left at all at the end then things went wrong somewhere [:D]



(Obviously this ^^ isn't serious, though everything suggested is possible, nay... repeatable)


You do raise a problem that has been reduced a bit in the recent patches. The best way to deal with it is to ensure that Regiment frontages are as tight and regular as possible, with the supply unit to their rear - attempting to feed supply across the face of the FLOT usually results in higher losses. This is worse when you have elements from the same Regt on both flanks of an ENY strongpoint - the supply sometimes goes up the road via the middle - which seldom works out well. Better to use a pinning force on one flank and an assault from the other, with the supply offset to this side, or to attack with two Regt formations from either flank.

Using low ROF can help with reducing requirement for supply, but you will need more artillery and or units to make up for reduced 'oomph'. Using short bursts of high ROF work, with longer periods of slow can give all the benefit with less cost.

Halt the attack once it becomes bogged down and ammunition is getting low. Supply seems to reach 'quiescent' fronts more reliably than active - probably related to how visible an assaulting unit is compared to a defending one.

If a Regt Base is sending supply runs and you'd rather it didn't for a while, displace it. This can be useful anyway to reduce vulnerability or to realign supply routes during any sort of action, and to keep supply distances/times down in advances.

You can increase supply priority before the attack to make sure everyone is topped up. Then set maximum supply priority to reserves and artillery while the assault goes in with minimums. Once you get to around 17:00 or so, consider swapping this to feed the front line with the night supply runs.

Some of the AI behaviour with Supply is dumb-as-rocks, but you can do a lot to make it more successful.

Probably the most important one:

Manage the supply location. The AI will often setup 5-6 hours behind the lines, and in the wrong sector to support it's line units.
Bring the supply for Regiment and Division Forwards. Division should be fairly near the artillery gun line, so that the resupply is as quick as possible. Regt should be out of sight, but as close to the FLOT as is practical for the tactical situation, on the correct sector and positioned so the fastest route to the supported troops is also direct and safe... this can mean setting up in a 'bad*' location temporarily. But location can be changed and a destroyed supply chain cannot.

* Low connectivity to rear-area supply, slow going for motorised vehicles. (Avoid deploying in the open and in sight of any 'modern' 'heavy' force, as supply is a priority air and artillery target, plus an easy/obvious target for armour to over-run).

ORIGINAL: rfrizz

In the real world, I just don't see a supply truck trying to get to a unit when enemy forces are 200-300 (or less) meters away. (Military folks feel free to correct me.)

I'll take the liberty of correcting you there...

There are quite some accounts from German veterans describing resupply operations within distances of 500 meters and even down to 200 or 150 meters, during the Ardennes offensive, for example. Similar emergency re-supply procedures were carried out in Russia, especially in urban areas.

For example, I've read an account of a group of tanks (6-7 tanks, ~4 Panther, 2 or 3 PzIV, IIRC) that entered a village (I don't recall the name) in the Ardennes, where the leading unit did not detect any enemy troops. Additionally, the left side/flank was protected by a long row of houses.

When the spearheading vehicle entered the village's main crossroads, it received AT gun fire from the left side right away, somewhere from an uphill position, so the gun must have been placed in the woods right next to the outskirts of the village (means a couple of houses up the road). The distance to that gun was ~500 meters. The AT gun turned out to be a US M1 57mm AT gun. It started to fire round after round immediately after the tank had entered the crossroads, not one round penetrated, though. The tank tried to turn and returned fire, but could still not locate the gun, and then a 2nd 57mm joined in and scored a hit either with the first or the 2nd round (that one probably had a few APDS rounds), which knocked out the tank immediately. While the crew bailed right before the tank caught fire (they had seconds only), the second tank pulled forward and got knocked out too. The 3rd tank pulled forward just enough to provide some cover for the bailed/wounded crew members, but got damaged in the process, as there were AT rounds flying all over the place, barely missing some of the crews, which led the tank crews to think that there may have been a 3rd gun.

The CO of the group gave order to pull out, leaving the tank crews behind (they ran/walked back to German lines, but had to hang in for a while, as the guns started to plaster the area with HE, supported by MG fire). The damaged tank limped back to German lines IIRC, but the remaining tanks just pulled away from the crossroads, back to the outskirts where they had entered the village to guard the entrance and ordered a resupply truck, since some tanks of the group had been low on ammo before they had entered the village, already.
The truck appeared and resupplied at a position less than 350 meters away from the AT guns (straight-line distance), but since truck and tanks were covered by houses, the position was not accessible to the guns. The tanks then got order to pull out and regroup, as they had lost at least 1 Panther in the process, if I am not mistaken.

Similar "close" fuel supplies were delivered in order to resupply tank units here and there, too, and that's quite understandable, if you take into account that fuel was delivered in canisters on trucks, while the HQs/depots used to hold the barrels - the German Army didn't use tank trucks. Such trucks were only used by the Luftwaffe, and were usually residing on the airfields, exclusively, or they were used to "plunder" German gas stations, in order to collect idle fuel, prior to the Ardennes offensive.

A funny example for supply vehicles getting close to the shyte would be the account of a quartermaster bringing out some beer to a German tank unit in North Africa (I think early 1942), which got stuck for a couple hours due to lack of fuel (a common event during the North African campaign, some Coys or platoons had to wait 12 hrs, or even more) within range of British arty spotters. The guy kept passing beer bottles through the top turret hatch, even after arty fire kicked in on the unit's position. He really wanted to jolly the crews along, while they were waiting for the fuel, I guess. [:)]

OK, that's just not fair bringing up a beer run. Ammo? Fuel? Food? Medical supplies? those are NOTHING when compared to brewskies. Since BftB does not model beer, if just doesn't apply.

ATTN, BftB Gods ( [&o] ): when will beer be accounted for in supply runs? Until you get this in there, you just don't have an accurate sim.

It's already there - basics = beer, and they throw a bit of water and food there as an afterthought... [:D]

[:D]

OK. Fine. I concede the point. But what about girlie magazines?

ORIGINAL: Lieste

It's already there - basics = beer, and they throw a bit of water and food there as an afterthought... [:D]

Do NOT water down the German beer ! That'd be blasphemy! [:D][:-][;)]