Matrix Games Forums

ORIGINAL: RangerJoe
But the most important item for any unit to have is its Class VI supplies:

ORIGINAL: Yaab

The LIGHT manual says , page 123:

A minimum amount of supply, equivalent to three days consumption,
is required to be loaded with each unit. This is added to the equipment
cost of the unit during allocation so that space will be reserved for
it.

ENDQUOTE

I lost my game saves, but I remember that I loaded the Indp Company in Darwin on an Amphibious TF, chose "load troops only" option, and instead of three days supply being loaded, the code loaded the equivalent of three weeks supply. The LCU screen prior to loading said the Indp Company needs i.e 100 supplies and exactly 100 supplies was loaded. There was no reduction of supplies loaded. Can anyone confirm this?

ORIGINAL: jdsrae

Interesting, I noticed last night that a Transport TF with unit in Strat move mode loaded 0 supplies. That’s what I use when sending LCU out of Japan.
I send them to the Area Fleet HQ location and change them to combat mode there, then they either walk or move via amphib TF to their destination.

You may have found a use for all those surplus xAK that start, eg: to keep supply use down a bit load up LCU in them like prison hulks and let the soldiers eat their belts!

ORIGINAL: jdsrae

Ok, the fun and frivolity of prison hulks aside, the example unit needs 12 supplies / month just to feed itself.
The amphibious TF has loaded 33 supplies, which is the equivalent of nearly 3 months worth of supplies if it was just food.

It would make sense that the amphib load is an estimate of 3 days worth of supplies required for combat ops, or hard fighting for 3 days after landing on a contested beach. This means the supply points represent a lot more than just food.

If that’s the case, the load of 33 points suggests that 1 day of combat, assuming Shock attack as the worst case, may consume up to 11 supply points or for this unit close to the equivalent of a month worth of food. I ran a small test on supply use in combat a few weeks ago but can’t remember if this aligns with the numbers I saw then or not. It may be a coincidence, but 11 points = the number of combat squads plus half the number of non combat squads.

I’m going to keep an eye on supply used during combat for the next battle I see on an island (so no supply flowing in) to see if supply used is roughly equivalent to the amphib TF “load troops only” supply load divided by 3. Plus I’ll make sure I have a follow up supply TF ready to unload within 3 days!

ORIGINAL: jdsrae

Here's an example of a slightly larger unit loaded on an amphib TF with "load troops only".
Each individual ship loaded exactly 3 x [number of devices] - 3 points of supply for the troops on board.
That's the same as the Aussie Ind Coy which loaded 3 x 12 - 3 = 33 points of supply on the ship.

Four from four ships isn't a large enough "n" to convince the statisticians on the forum, but it looks like a consistent pattern worth checking against a few more examples.

The most interesting bit for me, assuming that the manual is telling us the truth and that (3 x #ofdevices - 3) is an estimate for supply used by both of these units in three days of combat, that suggests to me that each of the devices in an Aussie Ind Coy and IJN Guard unit uses 1 supply point per day when in combat.

What I still don't know is whether that is 1 supply point per day or 1 supply point each time those devices fire, such as whether 1 supply point is used during defensive fire plus another 1 during offensive fire on the same day?
I also note that the devices are generally "small arms" in these two examples. There is no armour, artillery or AA guns in either of these two units. It wouldn't surprise me if larger calibre weapons and tanks consume more than 1 supply point each, something based on the load cost of those larger devices.
One thing is for sure, the next time I load an AA, Arty or Tank unit in amphib mode I'm going to do it in "load troops only" mode and write down the number of supplies loaded, then compare it against the number and size of devices on the ship.