Supply and Logistics

[Michael T]

Ok this aspect is an important one. Can any light be shed on the supply rules?

I assume that there is full supply for units on a railhead and then it drops off as range increases from the railhead.

I saw some numbers on a map screenie, were these supply values?

What about supply from beachheads and ports?

Thanks for any info on this.

[Michael T]

damage per attribute
readiness% X experience% X (attribute + advancement bonus) X strength X terrain modifier% X weather modifier% X resource modifier% X accuracy% X luck X (general comparison value) = damage

So this is the formula for combat. How does supply come in to play here. I guess it must modify readiness%?

Do isolated units with zero supply start to lose strength?
Will isolated units surrender after some time period?

[AlvaroSousa]

Yes rail hexes are 9 supply level. Going off of it the amount drops.
Players can use supply trucks (production points basically) to give the units effectively level 3 supply recovery.
Fleets can park outside of a land hex on the coast or a beach and supply all units within 1 hex as a supply truck.
Supply sources are unlimited supply stockpile.
Ports provide 20 supply stockpiles per port size 1-9. Each strength of a unit uses 1 supply stockpile. Air units are 20 strength, land units 10-36 strength.
Oil dependent units also cost 10% more supply stockpile.

The supply level recovers effectiveness.
Effectiveness represents moral, fatigue, damaged equipment, food, and water.
Each unit has their own supply level which is how many turns it can go before they start taking serious penalties on their strength.

All the player has to do is count the port supply stockpile and protect their ports.

The Axis in North Africa have to use supply trucks and are limited in how many units they can deploy based on ports and the distance they are from them.

Took me quite a while to develop this system but I think players will appreciate its simplicity. Far easier to do on a computer game than a board game.

[Michael T]

Ok thanks. But how about mass surrenders due to isolation (eg Soviet's in 1941, German 6th Army - Stalingrad).

[AlvaroSousa]

When a unit has a zero unit supply level bad stuff starts happening. The unit becomes very weak as they lose 10% effectiveness a turn, they lose 1/2 their movement. Eventually someone can just make an attack on them with 1 unit and they surrender.

So consider the forces at Stalingrad got surrounded in late November and surrendered in February. That is 7 turns in my game. In that time they lost their 3 unit supply levels got 1 supply level from an air transport leaving 3 turns with 0 supply dropping their effectiveness down 30%. Now put on that basically each turn they were attacked by Soviets. It's a pretty good simulation.

[Michael T]

Sounds ok for the Stalingrad example but I am not quite so sure about Soviets in 1941. The collapse of the pockets might take too long versus the historical precedents. I guess it depends on the quality you have given the 1941 Soviet Army.

[pzgndr]

ORIGINAL: fuzzypup
Players can use supply trucks (production points basically) to give the units effectively level 3 supply recovery.

This is a nice innovation for this scale game. Players have to buy trucks and then expend them for supply recovery. It's not going to sustain major offensives, but can help get OOS units back into supply. Unless surrounded of course.

[AlvaroSousa]

ORIGINAL: Michael T

Sounds ok for the Stalingrad example but I am not quite so sure about Soviets in 1941. The collapse of the pockets might take too long versus the historical precedents. I guess it depends on the quality you have given the 1941 Soviet Army.

As historically the Soviets have really low quality forces starting. Even their front line units are still European style corps which are have poor attributes. The A.I. will absolutely get historical forces. A human USSR will have a balanced set of forces since they will play better than the A.I.

There are bonuses for retreating units when the odds get higher than 3:1 so isolated units aren't as large of a pain as in some games.