Two questions about supply

[StormKoala]

Hello!

I am aggressively new to this game and, after reading Chapter 4 and playing through the intro scenario, had a great time playing the first year as the Soviets. I learned a lot, but two specific questions about supply came up that I really don't know how to find an answer to.

The first was Leningrad. I turned it into a City Fort with 9 of the Militia Rifle Divisions and the Leningrad Front. It got surrounded but was doing great until November, then it abruptly dropped to receiving no supply and fell shortly therafter. Why would Leningrad have suddenly lost all supply? Do boats not reach there? Do you have to protect a rail line into the city in order for it to hold out, or is the port enough? What mechanics are at play here? (I was fully relying on the AI to handle both air and supply, because, like I said, aggressively new).

Second, there were several occasions when the AI would leave a city (specifically Smolensk) or supply depot undefended for reasons that are very unclear to me. Is it worth risking a destroyed or routed unit to retake a supply depot for one turn? How much does that actually disrupt enemy supply? I recognize that this is a somewhat nebulous question, and that taking a city the AI leaves undefended might be cheesy or is maybe not actually useful. I really just don't know.

Anyway, thank you, and I'm excited to continue digging deeper into this game.

[loki100]

Leningrad is hard to supply once the main rail line is cut.

What you need is at least one (pref more) of the ports on the east of Ladoga at pri 1 or 2 (and set to export). #1 is safe as the wider freight allocation routine prioritises allocation to export ports over other locations but 2 is better. Then set Osinovets (ie the port just east of Leningrad) to #3, that will then pull supply over the lake. Put the depot in Lenigrad at #4 to pull supply from Osinovets.

There are lots of weak links in this chain.

1) the rail from Moscow to Ladoga is single track and with no decent railyards, and of course also has to supply your formations on the Volkhov
2) when not frozen, there is very limited shipping for the transit of Ladoga
3) there is little rail capacity at Leningrad so the Osinovets-Leningrad step can be limited (but not so important).

There is some local supply production from Leningrad but not much.

Things to watch. Once cut off move out any supply intensive formations, incl the VVS assets. Watch out for weak units that need to refit, it may be better to merge them to make fewer, stronger units. In general you want max combat power for min supply demand, so I'd have got those militia divisions swapped for something better.

You can't spare the resources to attack from Leningrad and its actually hard to sustain much of an offensive on the Volkhov.

But if you can keep the chain open, should avoid a complete collapse. Allocating air transport assets may also help just a little.

Realise this describes manual control but compare that to what the AI is doing to see if its creating a workable structure (it usually does).

2) not really but its situational. If they had to fight to take the hex, odds on the railyard (which is what drives the depot) is already destroyed, so retaking doesn't add much more damage. So the question is whether its worth chucking away a couple of divisions to make them fight for the hex again or are you better accepting defeat and retreating to the next defensive line?

[StormKoala]

Thank you so much! This is very helpful.