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How effective is rail yard and port bombing on German supply delivery?

I ask because I recall reading in the Forum a few months ago that someone was having difficulty making any headway in Italy against strongly fortified German units. The advice he received was to bomb the Rail yards and Ports North of the German positions and watch the CVs of German front line units dwindle from lack of supply. I find myself in a similar position in Italy. For the last several turns I have bombed all German rail yards within 15 hexes of the Front lines into dust (or at least so says my recon). But the German units are still looking about as strong as before the bombing and most of them display as having pretty good levels of supply. This even though I continue to bomb certain units every turn as well.

I am not saying it should be any different. I am just curious as to the experience of others and also as to whether or not other players think it would be better to bomb the German units, bomb the rail yards, or do a combination of both. This is not just relevant to Italy; but also to NW Europe. It is now April 44 in my game and I have been bombing the rail yards in France and the Low Countries since March. This, of course, is at the expense of the Strategic Air War. The rail yards are getting wrecked, but is it worth it? Does it do any real good?

QBall, if you are reading this, I don't want you to give your opinion until the end of our game. Then I will expect a full report.

Haven't faced much of it from the Axis side, but in playing the BGI scenario against the AI it seemed effective.

A recent patch jacked the efficacy up significantly because there is now a chance equal to the rail yard damage level that supply delivery (to the depot) is divided by TEN.
Also, the range that rail yards will reach for rail capacity was reduced from 50 hexes to 30 hexes.
Still will take time to drive down the existing supplies to get them eating hand to mouth and I think only regular ground interdiction is going to effect the trucks from depot to unit. I assume the organic transport the Germans enjoy (3 hexes from depots) is also susceptible to these attacks.
36% of Allied bombs went after the transport network (roughly the same share as industrial targets). I'm not seeing that from my Allied opponents.

P.S. Something I noticed in my most recent game when moving basically two armies by rail as the Axis is that some units were unloaded the next turn when I'm certain I didn't do it myself. I surmised the rail capacity check is rerun (at no SMP loading cost) to get them back on rail cars each turn and if they can't pull the required capacity they start the turn unloaded. Something for folks who like to park corps or armies on rail cars to keep an eye on with the changes to ensure they don't inadvertently starve their supply network of rail capacity.

Double post

Most of my (German) army is on low supply. I prioritize the panzer army and it can maintain around 50%-75% supply. I have little to no trucks left for the movement of supply. All this while being only a few hexes from Germany itself, and the major supply depots at Essen and um...the one farther south [&:]

DiceT has been methodical from day -1 from the invasion, bombing my rail lines, my railyards....even kids playgrounds are not immune if they have a toy train, it gets bombed.

Now...its not a magic bullet. While supply can only trickle into some of my units, I am not being attacked everywhere, so they still gain supply. It's more of an equalizer, since the allies themselves are having supply issues, it makes us more or less even.

My main depots are full. My front line depots are mostly empty...except for the ports which filled up before the invasion and take a while to empty. So the bombing has prevented supply from moving forward (and replacements for that matter)

Thank you for the posts. So I guess I will continue with the rail yard bombings on both Fronts and see what happens.

ORIGINAL: LiquidSky


DiceT has been methodical from day -1 from the invasion, bombing my rail lines, my railyards....even kids playgrounds are not immune if they have a toy train, it gets bombed.

From D-Day -1? Do you mean DiceT didn't start bombing the rail yards until the turn before the NW Europe invasion? I started bombing them in March, a good 2 to 3 months prior to invasion. I am bombing every rail yard and Port within about 10 to 15 hexes of the beaches from Brittany to the German border. For this same period of time I have not done any strategic bombing with either Bomber Command or 8th AF. As a consequence it is now early April and the rail yards I have targeted appear to be largely destroyed; but I am only getting 5 Strategic bombing VPs per turn and losing 3 VPs per turn to V Wpns. So would you consider this over kill, or well worth the effort?

Also, did DiceT use and continue to use the strategic Air Forces to bomb your rail yards and , if so, how much of it? Or is he just using the tactical AF? So many questions.

I meant that he started bombing before he invaded...I couldn't tell you exactly when he started because to be honest, I never really noticed. I was paying much more attention to the bombing of HI Man etc...

He did continue afterwards, and often..but we are in bad weather which puts a damper on the rain of bombs.


They will fix over time so you do have to keep hitting them once in a while.