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HEELLPPPppp. The RAIL UNITS do nothing - 12/5/2021 8:46:51 AM

OberstVonWitz

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Joined: 11/26/2021
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Hi,

I have just been experimenting with the game to get a "feel" for the mechanics.. One BIG problem is RAIL units. The one's you see on the map often DO NOT move (i.e. cannot) so why are they there?

After 13 turns of 1941 CG I'm not sure anything got fixed. That is to the middle of Aug.. I'm sure

something should have happened.....

Post #: 1

RE: HEELLPPPppp. The RAIL UNITS do nothing - 12/5/2021 9:37:14 AM

loki100

Posts: 10920
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From: Utlima Thule
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: OberstVonWitz

Hi,

I have just been experimenting with the game to get a "feel" for the mechanics.. One BIG problem is RAIL units. The one's you see on the map often DO NOT move (i.e. cannot) so why are they there?

After 13 turns of 1941 CG I'm not sure anything got fixed. That is to the middle of Aug.. I'm sure

something should have happened.....

No real idea what you are saying. The AI controlled units come onto the map, repair and move automatically. The manually controlled ones move ... well as you move them?

See the manual 4.10.8 for a quick discussion and 22.6 for more detail

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RE: HEELLPPPppp. The RAIL UNITS do nothing - 12/6/2021 11:37:35 AM

Stephan61

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Joined: 3/3/2021
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I think he must be talking about the RAD Labour Units, rather than the FBD's.

RAD Labour Units, are controlled via the HQ they are assigned to.

There are 4 FBD's to start with on the Axis Side, these fall under the Army Group HQ (North, Centre and South) these are the only Rail Units the player can move.

(in reply to loki100)

Post #: 3

RE: HEELLPPPppp. The RAIL UNITS do nothing - 12/9/2021 10:33:47 AM

OberstVonWitz

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Gooden Tag,

Let's just move to the crux of the matter concerning LACK of green rail (connected).

Doesn't matter who, 2 main HQ plus units are 10 hexes in front of ANY green rail:

How can they refit?) i.e. gain CV)

HOW can they gain CV that they had at the start of the game?

PRESUME that they do not move nor fight. BUT have no means of supply (other than air which will be limited).

Look forward to the answer for that...

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Post #: 4

RE: HEELLPPPppp. The RAIL UNITS do nothing - 12/9/2021 10:49:54 AM

loki100

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From: Utlima Thule
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quote:

ORIGINAL: OberstVonWitz

...

Look forward to the answer for that...

again, I really struggle to understand what you are saying. My best advice is to read the manual for the relevant sections and then ask more structured questions

refit and 'gain cv' are different concepts, they can be related or they can have nothing to do with each other

rail hexes don't matter as such - its about where your depots are

if your rail hexes are green then you haven't set up your rail network properly

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RE: HEELLPPPppp. The RAIL UNITS do nothing - 12/9/2021 10:58:07 AM

Denniss

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Units have a hard time to refit/recover if working rails/depots ar far away.
You have to have a plan for using FBDs (and the rumanian unit) to get the dual-track rails repaired eastwards as fast as possible

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Post #: 6

RE: HEELLPPPppp. The RAIL UNITS do nothing - 12/15/2021 10:20:51 PM

potski

Posts: 50
Joined: 7/12/2021
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quote:

ORIGINAL: OberstVonWitz

Hi,

I have just been experimenting with the game to get a "feel" for the mechanics.. One BIG problem is RAIL units. The one's you see on the map often DO NOT move (i.e. cannot) so why are they there?

After 13 turns of 1941 CG I'm not sure anything got fixed. That is to the middle of Aug.. I'm sure

something should have happened.....

Did you enable Rail mode? Use hotkey r. You should see hexes with rail icons in:

- Red: damaged and need repair
- Green: functioning normally
- Yellow: don't need repair, and are able to function if they are connected to the rest of the network by repairing some Red hexes

Move the Rail Repair units under your control to the Red hexes, and then press the r key. r has a dual use, if a Rail Repair unit is selected it tries to repair the hex. If there is no Repair unit selected, or the unit cannot repair the hex, then r will toggle off/on the Rail mode.

It's useful to have a Repair unit selected and be in Rail mode, except then you can't see the standard movement path icons. Nevertheless, as long as the Rail Repair unit has MP left, then it can be moved in Rail mode. You can do it without Rail mode enabled, because when you have a Repair unit selected the hexes needing repair have a pale red background.

If you check the Rail mode with hotkey r, you should see that the network expands even without you moving any of the Rail Repair units and hitting r to repair. There are several AI controlled repair units that you cannot move, nor get them to repair. When the turn starts they will be shown as 0 MP, but the next turn you will find the AI has moved then and has repaired some hexes. These are annoying to "control", and I won't go into this.

But the Axis player must find the four German FBD's and one Romanian unit and advance them along the most important rail lines, repairing as they go. So, for instance I would expect to advance one FBD through Brest-Litovsk towards Minsk. And once you have got a complete set of Green hexes to Minsk then you will find supplies flow along the rail line to Minsk, and your combat units will then start to draw supply from Minsk.

The other useful information on the map is to use hotkey n, which displays the depots and the first bar along the top shows how much is being Received by the depot. If the depot is not yet connected, this bar will be zero.

And, finally, hotkey 8 will show red lines from combat units to the depot that is supplying them, so you will see that units start to have red lines to Minsk. If Minsk is not connected, then they could be going all the way back to depots in Western Poland, and not much supply will be reaching them because of the distance involved.

You should be able to hookup Minsk within 3-4 turns, and that will then give a good basis for supplies for a further offensive towards Smolensk. Because it can take a couple of turns to get the Rail Repair unit all the way to Minsk, I would first create a depot in Brest-Litovsk, then one in Baranovichi. So the most forward depots move forward each turn and try to keep up with the advance. In June 1941, turn 1-2 there is going to be a delay keeping up, but later as Soviet units slow down the advance, you should be able to keep up reasonably well.

I don't bother to try to repair every rail hex in the summer of 1941. Supplies will flow up the main lines, especially the double lines. The AI controlled units will go back and fill in minor rail lines even if you don't want them to, so I would concentrate the five units you control are really focussed on getting the supplies to the main advances, especially to the Panzer Groups. And don't forget that supplies can flow by sea, so that Army Group North can even get most of its supplies without ever hooking up the rail say from Memel to Riga. Capture Riga and make it an import port, and then aim to connect Riga to Pskov, though I tend to use the AGN FBD to connect north through Vilnius to Daugavpils, then Pskov. Because that route will also feed plenty of supplies to 18th Army and even 9th Army. I will connect Daugavpils along the Dvina to Vitebsk.

By about ten turns you should have a good functioning supply network, and none of your front line units should be drawing supplies from the original bases. You can start to reduce the priority of depots once you see that nothing is drawing supplies from them, no red line connected to the depot when using hotkey 8.

Attachment (1)

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RE: HEELLPPPppp. The RAIL UNITS do nothing - 12/27/2021 8:49:42 AM

OberstVonWitz

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Joined: 11/26/2021
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Hi,

Thanks for the info. I will send some pics if you can tell me how to add these to this forum. For the present just think a mass of red train line hexes that stretch EAST with
repair about 3 months behind scheduler.

As to yellow. I am pretty sure they all show 0 use in hex pop up.

It is the manually movable rail units ( X-10) that just " don't work". None of the yellow seems to turn to green which the rules state should happen the turn after it was
semi repaired. That is why this is so "wrong". It doesn't even follow the rules...

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RE: HEELLPPPppp. The RAIL UNITS do nothing - 12/27/2021 9:01:57 AM

loki100

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From: Utlima Thule
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Hi Pelton

the rules do state when a repaired hex remains yellow

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RE: HEELLPPPppp. The RAIL UNITS do nothing - 12/27/2021 4:30:23 PM

Alsadius

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Are the hexes turning from red to orange? Because they aren't usable the turn you fix them (especially since the logistics phase has already happened before you can move units), but orange hexes will be green as of the next turn's logistics phase.

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Post #: 10

RE: HEELLPPPppp. The RAIL UNITS do nothing - 12/28/2021 7:41:43 AM

OberstVonWitz

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Joined: 11/26/2021
Status: offline

Hi,

I have been further experimenting with rail units. For further purposes I am not commenting on the "auto" units that follow HQ. These seem far too slow for the effort that is needed to get anything approaching historical accuracy.

I QUOTE:
On 3 July 1941, it ran to Baranocwicze with an unloading point there, and it was drivable on Union gauge with a further unloading point at Minsk. By 31 July 1941, unloading was happening at Orscha, with a second Union gauge track from the border through Lida as far as an unloading point at Polozk, while on 28 August a Standard gauge track was unloading at Smolensk with the second Union line from Lida unloading at Vitebsk. General des Eisenbahnpioniere Otto Willi reported on 8 August 1941 that 16,148 km of track had its gauge converted, of which 4,414 km was in the Heerengruppe Mitte area.

I have never seen anything approaching IN RAIL this in WitE 2... Soo ...

Moving on..

The units that are under human control have the following issues:

1) Often cannot move at all.
2) None of the movement I do is in the air phase so ,anything relating to that is NA
3) Often the units have "movement capability" RRc but no "repair capability" RRv

I am pretty sure if these units move through a hex they auto take RRV till it drops to zero. See 3.. Units quite often have movement but no repair.
wonder if that has top do with supply which will be steadily reducing.

The manual says that once RED hexes are repaired ( once) the next turn they will be completely repaired. No further intervention is needed.

So far I have never seen an AAR that has even 25% the historical account of GREEN functioning track.

Lastly, due the above I presume TRUCKS will take up the slack which SEVERELY again reduces the FUNCTIONING aspect of supply that is stated in the
article above.

Thank you

Far more accurate would be a Grosstransportum of "points" that the Germnan could allocate and/or all major lines that the German control become green after 1week. This would be
about right for historical accuracy.

How does one add pics as I can show this..

(in reply to Alsadius)

Post #: 11

RE: HEELLPPPppp. The RAIL UNITS do nothing - 12/28/2021 8:23:07 AM

loki100

Posts: 10920
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From: Utlima Thule
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quote:

ORIGINAL: OberstVonWitz

... These seem far too slow for the effort that is needed to get anything approaching historical accuracy.

...

I have never seen anything approaching IN RAIL this in WitE 2... Soo ...

Moving on..

The units that are under human control have the following issues:

1) Often cannot move at all.
2) None of the movement I do is in the air phase so ,anything relating to that is NA
3) Often the units have "movement capability" RRc but no "repair capability" RRv
...

How does one add pics as I can show this..

Hi Pelton

in reverse order - you know exactly how to upload images

3) makes no sense
2) yep they are ground units so move in the ground phase
1) makes no sense - unless you choose not to move them

here's T10 of a MP game, oddly it matches pretty closely to what you claim actually happened:

Attachment (1)

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RE: HEELLPPPppp. The RAIL UNITS do nothing - 12/28/2021 12:23:03 PM

Zovs

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Its very simple. You select an on map Rail Repair HQ unit (in this case the FBD 3 unit and also signified by the unit being outlined in magenta). On the unit info box on the right you'll see this unit has a RRC of - because the hex is already repaired and a total RRV value of 7 to repair. You can also clearly see on the map all the hexes this unit can potentially move to and repair the double rail lines.

Now you simply move the unit to the rail hex that needs repair. In this case the hex I want to repair is Dzerzhinsk, I now move there and Rail Repair HQ unit now has a new button activated (the RRC 1) and my RRV is now 6.

I can now hit that button (or use the shortcut key 'r') to repair that rail. When I have done so the hex in question now turns yellow and the RRC becomes inactive (since its now repaired).

Now when I toggle on the rail damage ({r}) you can see where the previous turns rail is repaired (green with a rail road symbol) and not repaired (red circle) and just repaired rail (orange with a 1 in the circle).

Turning off the rail damage I can now continue on to the next hex I wish to repair.

As you can see the RRC button is again activated and I can also repair this rail line.

Continuing on I move this Rail Repair HQ forward and repair a total of 8 more rail hexes in just this turn. Next turn (turn 5) all those repair rail hexes will show green extending my rail repair line further east.

Very easy to repair and re-gauge rail lines eastwards.

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RE: HEELLPPPppp. The RAIL UNITS do nothing - 12/29/2021 7:12:54 AM

OberstVonWitz

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Wow , that's called an answer :)

I am starting to figure this out now.

The manual is so long winded that by the time you get to the end of the rule the "thread" has long been forgotten. For goodness sake Matric Games
please instead of writing rule 4.x.y - 4. 10 x.y just do this.

Explaining rail repair:

Example: Town A1 to Town B1. All red.

1) Units that can repair (2 types)
2) Example Type 1
3) Example Type 2
4) NEW repair action ( example reallocate RR to new HQ) Type 1 repair

OR

Provide a common situation and just " profile it".. Not cross reference to 10 different section of the rulezzz.

There are a few AAR's that manage to do close to this but then move on ,the outstanding article on Air providing this tutorial like approach has probably
improved understanding time wise by 200%. Addressing information via the various shortcut "keys" was also an informative and solid idea.

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RE: HEELLPPPppp. The RAIL UNITS do nothing - 12/29/2021 7:21:37 AM

OberstVonWitz

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Just a note on the first map.

There is almost a demarcation N- S of green to the W and RED to the E. It is THIS that is literally " a historical". In summary there should be at least 2 lines fully green to the "head" of 2 main fronts.

This then would I presume greatly improve the truck situation. Needless to say if so, improve the logistics/supply profile.

It would also be interesting to note when any of the yellow hexes turn green ( if ever).

Thank you

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RE: HEELLPPPppp. The RAIL UNITS do nothing - 12/29/2021 7:56:50 AM

loki100

Posts: 10920
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From: Utlima Thule
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quote:

ORIGINAL: OberstVonWitz

Just a note on the first map.

There is almost a demarcation N- S of green to the W and RED to the E. It is THIS that is literally " a historical". In summary there should be at least 2 lines fully green to the "head" of 2 main fronts.

...

It would also be interesting to note when any of the yellow hexes turn green ( if ever).

Thank you

1) player choice

2) when the intervening hexes are connected:

Attachment (1)

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RE: HEELLPPPppp. The RAIL UNITS do nothing - 12/29/2021 12:27:16 PM

OberstVonWitz

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What date was that ??

Is there a key for showing (just) rail repair units ? or something useful...

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RE: HEELLPPPppp. The RAIL UNITS do nothing - 12/29/2021 3:19:05 PM

loki100

Posts: 10920
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From: Utlima Thule
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quote:

ORIGINAL: OberstVonWitz

What date was that ??

Is there a key for showing (just) rail repair units ? or something useful...

after I had repaired all the gaps.

see my initial image and Zov's post, in the rail mode the rail repair units are outlined in yellow

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RE: HEELLPPPppp. The RAIL UNITS do nothing - 1/11/2022 3:04:08 PM

PeteJC

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I have very similar results on repaired rail thru T10. I am further along past Smolensk but I do not have the line repaired to Velikie Luki.

Loki I am curious - you don't seem to have depots on all railyards. I thought that was important so as to maximize overall capacity or is it just level 2 railyards that matter??

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RE: HEELLPPPppp. The RAIL UNITS do nothing - 1/11/2022 3:47:15 PM

loki100

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From: Utlima Thule
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quote:

ORIGINAL: PeteJC

I have very similar results on repaired rail thru T10. I am further along past Smolensk but I do not have the line repaired to Velikie Luki.

Loki I am curious - you don't seem to have depots on all railyards. I thought that was important so as to maximize overall capacity or is it just level 2 railyards that matter??

thats a bit misleading in that the image is around t100. By late 1942 I had every important rail line repaired so amused myself repairing everything else - it'll come in useful as we play out 1943 and get into 1944, so I've not been overly fussed at filling in the depot gaps in those sectors till the front is pushed west.

Useful to bear in mind when railyards of capacity 2 are really important - this is one of the areas where I've really changed my mind since the game was released.

when freight moves depot-depot it grabs a 'train' from railyards (2+) up to 30 hexes from its start point, so if a given depot is not going to be doing much depot-depot transfer then the local railyards aren#t important (for freight), they do matter for depot size of course. But if it role is going to be depot-unit, hooking in all the nearby railyards (2+) isn't really that important.

This in turn fits with the trick of having a line of pri 4 depots well back from the front, you can see some of them in that image. These are doing one of two things, some are actually feeding FZ digging my fall back lines, so I want them to grab and retain a lot of freight so my fortifications don't stall due to lack of supply. Others are on large railyards and I drop them from pri 4 to 2 or 3 every now and then and push that freight up to the front when my front line depots are running short (sometimes if I am attacking on a sector, other times just a shortage builds up over time)

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RE: HEELLPPPppp. The RAIL UNITS do nothing - 1/11/2022 4:55:00 PM

PeteJC

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Sorry I was talking about the first image that shows your T10. I think I replied off the wrong image.

I have been following everything you have said (and some other folks) about the use of level 4 depots in the back (although the use for the FZ fall back line is new to me and a very nice tip). However, I think I have misunderstood the importance of level 1 railyards. I thought it was important to put a depot on all level 1 railyards but if I am understanding you correctly, they are only really important near the front where you want to have a larger depot at priority 4 that then takes the freight to the actual front-line units. Further back level 1 depots don't seem to do much as they are not part of the depot-to-depot process (only level2 or higher are). Unless of course the line retreats back to them.

I am finally starting to get it....I think

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RE: HEELLPPPppp. The RAIL UNITS do nothing - 1/11/2022 7:59:16 PM

loki100

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ah, had forgotten about that one

in the end, yes put a depot on every railyard but a couple of short term issues. First some locations in 1941 are too far back by the time they are repaired to be worth it, also a few commander changes can make a huge gap in your admin pts. So I do tend to a more linear layout than the model I adopt once the advance starts to stall.

as to FZ, from testing I now think that lack of supply is far more important in getting forts to 2+ than notional construction values of the units

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RE: HEELLPPPppp. The RAIL UNITS do nothing - 1/11/2022 10:00:17 PM

PeteJC

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Excellent point on the issue of out pacing your railyard 1 depots in '41. I have too many depots on teh line from Gomel to Bryansk and too many east and NE of Smolensk. At least for now - T10. I wasted probably 7-8 AP with unnecessary builds.

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