Should Food be in the Campaign?

[Teemu1986]

The best agricultural lands in the Soviet Union were concentrated in the western regions. When there's no food in the game, this creates problems with balance. Soviet factories in interior parts were dependent on food supply to continue to produce. Otherwise workers will suffer malnourishment, workforce has to be diverted to agriculture and so on.

The USSR had a terrible hunger crisis in 1942. People subsisted on caloric deficits which were not sustainable in the long run. The factories in the interior parts could not have produced what they historically did, if the Soviets were unsuccessful in their counteroffensives. In general the game understates the economic impact of the lost territory and population on the USSR, IMHO.

[AlbertN]

URSS lacked food once the more fertile zones were occupied.
They got food via the Lend Lease pretty much.
Exactly as trucks, railroads, steam engines and rolling stock, boots and a ton of things that made up for the industrial shortages that the Soviet economy had.

Thus ultimately it is not something really relevant for the scope and purpose of the game.

[Teemu1986]

ORIGINAL: AlbertN
URSS lacked food once the more fertile zones were occupied.
They got food via the Lend Lease pretty much.
Exactly as trucks, railroads, steam engines and rolling stock, boots and a ton of things that made up for the industrial shortages that the Soviet economy had.

Thus ultimately it is not something really relevant for the scope and purpose of the game.

Lend&Lease food was a small percentage of the total food requirements. Lend&Lease in this game is a standard amount of equipment.

In my opinion it is relevant because the game simulates how capturing industry and resources damages the USSR. But as industry could be evacuated, the damage to agricultural output was greater. Food supply was historically the weak link of the USSR.
Discussion and data here:
https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic ... a9bbb6a140

[xhoel]

It is out of the scope of this game. The system is set up without it and I dont really see an issue with that.

[Zebtucker12]

At most represented by more VPs being located in Ukraine.

[ImperatorAugustus]

It is within the scope when it had a huge impact on combat performance and industrial capacity. It had a great effect on Soviet command.

Sorry we currently live in fantasy land where the Soviet have 0 supply issues of any sort for basically 3 years of the game (the part that really gets played).

[Stamb]

Maybe food is out of the scope but Soviets logistic system performance is way over tuned. I can understand that maybe it is done so in order to help them get to a Berlin later in the war. But it would make much more sense to have dynamic system performance (like national morale), for example:
first year - 60%
second year - 70%
third - 80%
Or any other percentages that makes sense

[Stamb]

Are there any sources saying that there was no problems with supplies for the Soviets at all? I saw completely opposite articles.

[IDGBIA]

I imagine the soviet drop in morale in September is to reflect food shortages and other factors like officer quality and radios, if you want soviets to suffer even more supply issues that's a separate issue I think.

[Feltan]

Q: Other than the siege of Leningrad, was there widespread starvation beyond the normal Soviet incompetence with feeding their people?

If you are going to model "lack of food," the model needs to have results for excess food and deficient food supplies. Outside of some specific cases, I am simply unaware of food being that big of an issue.

Now that is easy to say, especially when you're writing in an era where food is not in short supply and many of us are too fat. However, my mother was in London during the blitz & her and my aunts and uncles often talked about food shortages, rationing and being hungry during the war. Given that, British morale and military effectivity was not unduly hampered by such shortages -- in fact it probably made their upper lip a bit stiffer.

Was the Soviet Union, as a nation, impacted to the point that it had military impact? I'm open to being convinced, but it seems a bit of a stretch outside of a few noted circumstances.

Regards,
Feltan

[AlbertN]

I already expressed my own opinion on food but I do agree with Stamb that Soviet logistics are pure fantasy in this game. But this is not the topic for that.

[Sardaukar]

USA sent 4.5 million tons of food to Soviet Union as Lend Lease. That was quite an amount, about 23 kg per person (prewar 195.4 million population, of course lot of people were in areas controlled by Germany and allies).

Considering it was concentrated for military and factory workers, it did have lot of impact.

[Zovs]

No

[Teemu1986]

ORIGINAL: Feltan
Q: Other than the siege of Leningrad, was there widespread starvation beyond the normal Soviet incompetence with feeding their people?

If you are going to model "lack of food," the model needs to have results for excess food and deficient food supplies. Outside of some specific cases, I am simply unaware of food being that big of an issue.

Now that is easy to say, especially when you're writing in an era where food is not in short supply and many of us are too fat. However, my mother was in London during the blitz & her and my aunts and uncles often talked about food shortages, rationing and being hungry during the war. Given that, British morale and military effectivity was not unduly hampered by such shortages -- in fact it probably made their upper lip a bit stiffer.

Was the Soviet Union, as a nation, impacted to the point that it had military impact? I'm open to being convinced, but it seems a bit of a stretch outside of a few noted circumstances.

Britain's agricultural workforce was under one million in the WWII though the number of agricultural workers increased during the war. The USSR had only on collective farms 47,0 million workers in 1940 but only 22,7 million left in 1942. (Mark Harrison, Accounting for War, App. I)

The USSR needed huge numbers of people to feed the country and these enormous human reserves were not available to the industry and military!

[ToxicThug11]

Would be cool, but probably would interact strangely with the other elements of the game

[Sardaukar]

Fuel, supply and ammunition is enough. Supply contains food too.

[ShaggyHiK]

Didn't the German economy experience such problems? The same problems with food and an order of magnitude more serious problems with fuel. Which seriously limited the tank forces of the Wehrmacht and their Luftwaffe. Does the German player experience similar problems during the game?

Shouldn't we, in this case, discuss this issue comprehensively, and not only from the side of the USSR?

Or again, you need to put sticks in the wheels of the military machine of the USSR and not touch the German machine?

Moreover, supply problems in the USSR arise during the game.
If for 41-42 the problem is not so acute, then in 43-44 the growing army begins to devour supply faster than it receives.

[Aurelian]

The German army was expected to live off the land. Keep in mind they expected the war to be over before winter.

[ImperatorAugustus]

The problem that Germany faced for most of the war was more of a general logistics issue, as well as fuel.

German domestic production goes down throughout the war gradually, until Speer is appointed and Germany begins to increase mobilization.

IIRC in the spring of 1942 the Germans calculated that they had at most until November of 42 to seize more reserves/production or the ability to conduct a maneuver war at large was over. Germany was still able to do so, but at a much more limited way.

Not that this mattered. The Red Army by this point was entirely capable of dealing with armored thrusts. Even as early as the Third Battle of Kharkov the Soviets were massively over extended and were slammed by the 1st SS Corp. Despite this something like 70% of the SS Corp was destroyed or rendered combat ineffective until shortly before Kursk. Even the greatest success with Citadel would of at best extended the war by a few months.

I would argue the fuel situation most affected the air war. It directly lead to loss in quantity of aircraft able to be used and the quality of the aircraft they had. In late 1943 the US issued 150 octane fuel to all fighters in Europe. Compared to the 90 ish octane the Germans had. This allowed the Mustang to out perform virtually every axis fighter by a wide margin at this time. The Germans got around this by creating substantially more complex tricks, thus their fighters were generally more expensive. German training hours plummeted. The Western Allies systematically destroyed the Luftwaffe in the West. In the East Germany was no longer to keep the "Artillery of the Sky" rolling as they had in every campaign previous. Its what allowed the German Panzers to breakthrough. Blitzkrieg was combined arms. By 1944 Germany was no longer able to provide substantial fighter cover and any counter offensive was brought down by air.

Germany was not in any way suited for the logistical task of the Soviet Union. Lack of trucks. Some 14,000 individual models of trucks were in use at the German army at the start of Barb. Lack of standardization in any form in other fields. Axis Allies were even worse than this. Soviet rail guage. Inability to capture Soviet Trains. Inability to outpace soviet sabotage and evacuation. German general inefficiency at logistics. Focus on a short war. Diversions of resources to looting and the Einzatsgruppen. Turning potential allies into enemies.

Germany in game faces several penalties. They straight up consume far more resources in domestic and combat units. Partisans. 1st Winter rules. Need for rapid rail conversion. Inability to forward deploy reserves. From my understanding the Axis feel about right.

I would like to see the armament, resources, and fuel pools to have a greater practical effect and something one has to worry about though.

The Soviet problem late war is that the rail network simply cant supply the insane late game ammo expenditure the soviets dish out.

The Summer of 42 is often disputed as the Soviets being on the verge of collapse. Supply issues were felt all around. Cats and dogs were going missing in Moscow. Leningrad was out of food again, rations at this point were something like 600 calories a day. The entirety of the Caucaus and Stalingrad front reported being critically low on food. Rations across the rest of the front were generally under maintenance amount. People were actively joining the front, since they were starving, seeking better food and later writing that the food was no better. More and more men of the Soviet agricultural base were being called up. Tanks were being sent to be used as tractors to try and drum up more production. This situation did not improve until well into 43, and directly influenced the dedicated push to secure Ukraine. Roosevelt and Molotov met in 42, Roosevelt said they would have to limit lend lease (The incredibly vital food and trucks) to open a main European front in 43 as Stalin had asked. Molotov was very clear that the Soviets desperately needed the lend lease, and would rather continue to face the full brunt of the Axis than lose out on vital supplies.

The current Soviet logistics in the early mid war are still fantasy. At the very least Soviet supply production should go way down in this time, or a change should be made so that Ukraine is a major part of Soviet supply production.

[Stamb]

ORIGINAL: ShaggyHiK

Didn't the German economy experience such problems? The same problems with food and an order of magnitude more serious problems with fuel. Which seriously limited the tank forces of the Wehrmacht and their Luftwaffe. Does the German player experience similar problems during the game?

Shouldn't we, in this case, discuss this issue comprehensively, and not only from the side of the USSR?

Or again, you need to put sticks in the wheels of the military machine of the USSR and not touch the German machine?
...

As always you are trying to defend your lovely Soviet union without reading other topics were players complain about Axis super powers like this:
https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=5107581
or
https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=5140498


You know that people will ignore other peoples that are fanboys because it is impossible to prove anything or to have a conversation with them? They only appear in a topics where their subject, lets say Soviet Union, is under "attack" and try to convince everybody that it is fine what we see right now. Even if it is clearly a game balance issues, like Soviet super logistics system that allow units to stay on priority 3-4 without a problems and other issues that I don't want to list again.