Matrix Games Forums

Playing through the Breakout and Pursuit scenario and noted an oddity with supply flow at my Mulberry.
Because I was preserving save files to make an AAR later I was able to go back and reconstruct the supply flow and something is wrong.
Scenario starts you with Cherbourg (damaged), 4 temp ports, and 1 Mulberry.
I kept those as priority 4 through turn 7, where I turned all the French ports west of Le Harve to priority 3 except the Mulberry which I left at priority 4. It still doesn't seem to get supplies like it should. I'm at the beginning of turn 8 now.

save files from the end of turn 1-3

save files from the end of turn 4-6

save file from end of turn 7

Has it been damaged from weather?

ORIGINAL: Fallschirmjager

Has it been damaged from weather?

My thought too. Had it go to 100% damage when the weather turned bad.

I had my Mullberry 2 go to 25% after one turn of light rain and then the other go to 70% after heavy rain.
I put both on priority repair but their cargo received was seriously reduced.
Luckily I had Le Harve at 0% damage and it has been my main port and now Cherbourg is helping reduce the load.
Soon after I also had cleared Calias and it began helping as well. Once you are into Germany you really have to get Antwerp and Bruges cleared and repaired ASAP to shorten the distance cargo travels.
If you are ambitious you can try for Rotterdam and Amsterdam but in my game they did not fall until January of 45 and will to be repaired until probably April.

I have not played the Axis yet. But IMO it is very worth sacrificing units to make fortresses out of every port. You can seriously delay the Allies by making each and every port hard to take. The Mulberry's alone can support an invasion but once you roll south and link up with Southern France they are simply not enough.

My PBEM opponent besides the fortress Brigade in each port left two infantry divisions even in lvl 1 ports. He stripped them of trucks.
he has lost a lot of men when they surrendered but I had to use two entire Corps to clear them which ties down almost 300,000 men and once you do take the port it takes many turns to repair it.


I constantly had to delay my advance because my northern flank was delayed in clearing the channel coast. And it was not until December that I finally cleared the Atlantic coast.
I think it makes sense for the Axis player to sacrifice these units to do so. The Allies have to take them and even if they chose to just siege them by divisions broken down into regiments it ties up a lot of men to do so.

ORIGINAL: Fallschirmjager
I had my Mullberry 2 go to 25% after one turn of light rain and then the other go to 70% after heavy rain.
I put both on priority repair but their cargo received was seriously reduced.

That was the issue. It starts the scenario at 25% damage (I haven't ever 'made' a Mulberry, do they start damaged?), and there was light rain on turn 2 that took it to 96% damage. I didn't think to look for that, but I'm glad I learned that in this scenario instead of a bigger game.
BTW, ports automatically get priority repairs, so you don't have to spend AP.

I have not played the Axis yet. But IMO it is very worth sacrificing units to make fortresses out of every port. You can seriously delay the Allies by making each and every port hard to take. The Mulberry's alone can support an invasion but once you roll south and link up with Southern France they are simply not enough.
My PBEM opponent besides the fortress Brigade in each port left two infantry divisions even in lvl 1 ports. He stripped them of trucks.
he has lost a lot of men when they surrendered but I had to use two entire Corps to clear them which ties down almost 300,000 men and once you do take the port it takes many turns to repair it.

I cleared Brest with 1 corps of infantry in two weeks. Probably could have taken it the first week if I'd thought to bring engineers...
Bring the floating artillery parks and you should bag lots of Germans in short order if he is going to leave so many behind.

Just looked back through a few of the saves. It had repaired back to the 70s by turn 5, repaired some more on turn 6 with good weather (72%), but for some reason only took in 390 tons of freight that week.
I don't understand that.

ORIGINAL: Seminole

ORIGINAL: Fallschirmjager
I had my Mullberry 2 go to 25% after one turn of light rain and then the other go to 70% after heavy rain.
I put both on priority repair but their cargo received was seriously reduced.

That was the issue. It starts the scenario at 25% damage (I haven't ever 'made' a Mulberry, do they start damaged?), and there was light rain on turn 2 that took it to 96% damage. I didn't think to look for that, but I'm glad I learned that in this scenario instead of a bigger game.
BTW, ports automatically get priority repairs, so you don't have to spend AP.

I have not played the Axis yet. But IMO it is very worth sacrificing units to make fortresses out of every port. You can seriously delay the Allies by making each and every port hard to take. The Mulberry's alone can support an invasion but once you roll south and link up with Southern France they are simply not enough.
My PBEM opponent besides the fortress Brigade in each port left two infantry divisions even in lvl 1 ports. He stripped them of trucks.
he has lost a lot of men when they surrendered but I had to use two entire Corps to clear them which ties down almost 300,000 men and once you do take the port it takes many turns to repair it.

I cleared Brest with 1 corps of infantry in two weeks. Probably could have taken it the first week if I'd thought to bring engineers...
Bring the floating artillery parks and you should bag lots of Germans in short order if he is going to leave so many behind.

I do think they start out 'damaged' to simulate them being built. It takes a few turns to ramp them up to full capacity.

I have never had that level of success with clearing ports even if I use six naval TFs in support. My opponent was able to get lvl 4 and 5 forts in every port. I also faced 2.5 divisions at every port. My attacks were probably not optimal. But it was extremely difficult to clear away the coasts.

I do think they start out 'damaged' to simulate them being built. It takes a few turns to ramp them up to full capacity.

Makes sense, I just noticed some other things like 100% damaged railyards in England that made me wonder (haven't played a WA campaign yet to make one myself).

I have never had that level of success with clearing ports even if I use six naval TFs in support. My opponent was able to get lvl 4 and 5 forts in every port. I also faced 2.5 divisions at every port. My attacks were probably not optimal. But it was extremely difficult to clear away the coasts.

I'm definitely going to have a 'fort buster' infantry corps next time I go into France. Engineers, lots of tubes, and ditch the tank battalions. Artillery and engineers can knock out the fort levels, and with the disruption of naval guns they shouldn't last long.