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Could someone explain why the max speed for forces with the wheeled movement type is only 30 kph? Was it impractical to travel at greater speeds? If so, how come? I'm specifically wondering if this changed post WWII.

I don't think that is universal within the Estab ~ from memory the maximum for any formation was 40kph, with normal at 30kph ~ the majority of the (slower) formations were listed at 30kph and 20kph respectively ~ these included most tracked formations, those with heavy towed payloads etc.

Ultimately this is about what real-world formations manage ~ while their individual components may be capable of much more this is largely a control and march discipline issue ~ a moderate speed allows vehicles to close any gap that opens, to move as a formed body despite restrictions caused by road design (or absence thereof) and is consistent with the movement pace of the slowest vehicles in a column.

Movements at higher speed could be seen, but these would usually be smaller formations or single vehicles, and usually over relatively short distances.


I think that march calculations still used these modest rates in the 1980s, judging by small unit leader handbooks from the early 80s. (This still ignores planned rest-halts, and maintenance stops, which further suppress movement distance made good in a given time period...)

Okay, that makes sense. I had a suspicion it was due to control reasons, but I wanted to be certain. I was also wondering if possible improvements in control methods or things like the invention of the transistor radio might have upped that number, but I guess if they were still using similar speeds in the 80s that probably wasn't the case.

You are absolutely right: for a short period I was involved in convoy duties whilst I was in the Army.

If you were the first truck you could maintain, traffic situations permitting, a steady 40 mph along clear roads.

If you were the rearmost truck you were either stationary or doing 60 mph!

I understand that there is some scientific theory involved which is now used to reduce bunching on motorways (expressways).

Yes it's very scientific. [;)]

ORIGINAL: Bazza042

You are absolutely right: for a short period I was involved in convoy duties whilst I was in the Army.

If you were the first truck you could maintain, traffic situations permitting, a steady 40 mph along clear roads.

If you were the rearmost truck you were either stationary or doing 60 mph!

I understand that there is some scientific theory involved which is now used to reduce bunching on motorways (expressways).

Traffic engineers use a variant on fluid flow theories to support their efforts to improve traffic movement along roads.

There jargon uses "controlling turbulence" to describe how to mitigate the effects on traffic flow caused by stop lights, traffic merging lanes, intersections, changes in speed limits, or a reduction of the number of traffic lanes.

Okay, I have it all figured out now (actually I figured it out a while ago, as a result of poking around the estabs and with some help from Arjuna, but I haven't got around to posting it.

It seems like all units are given a typical upper move speed limit based on their characteristics:
These are all upper limits on speed that I think are probably based on the traffic control issues discussed above. In the estab editor these values are set in the Force Editing window for each force.

However the movement speed of a unit is further limited by the actual maximum speed of any vehicles it has. Since the vehicles have both a road speed and a cross country speed, their actual movement speed may vary depending on the terrain. Basically if any vehicle in a unit can't keep up the whole unit moves as fast as the slowest vehicle.

However since the movement type to be used (foot, mot, tracked, horse, bicycle, etc) is specified by the force, not by the vehicle, I'm guessing that any modifiers to speed based on that are applied to the force speed limits, not the vehicle speed limits.