heliodorus04
Posts: 1647
Joined: 11/1/2008
From: Nashville TN
Status: offline
|
For purposes of air supply, here are a couple of must/never
An airbase must be within 5 movement points from railhead to be eligible to fly supply (fuel, because there is no reason to fly anything but fuel to the panzer corps(/armies).
An air unit must have not flown more than X percentage of its allotments this turn (usually this means that for bombers specifically, they only fly fuel for their first mission of the turn). In practice, you definitely want to fly fuel immediately at the start of your turn. Doing so at the beginning also means that your panzer HQs haven't moved yet. This also requires you to pay attention to the Shift-click method (which is how you ensure you are specifically flying fuel, by toggling the button on the lower right between 'supply' and 'fuel' - again, there is almost never a reason to fly supply. Fly fuel. To panzer HQs, almost always corps.
Note that motorized divisions need far less fuel than panzer divisions to achieve high MPs for the turn through air refuel. Sometimes you may be advantaged by flying fuel directly to a division (especially for penetrating unopposed terrain).
If you're finding yourself having weird problems using shift-click to launch air missions, sometimes you want to click around on different airfields before selecting your target hex for refuel. Doing so will give you an idea what CAN fly, so you can make educated decisions (for example, not flying army group center's Ju-52 fleet 45 hexes to refuel army group north's panzer corps - pay attention to distances).
Bottom line, though, you are GOING to run low on fuel at various points. In time you get a better idea how to handle those moments. I personally don't play human opponents and if you do then you're going to have much harder times mustering supply than I do.
There is definitely an optimal railroad line for both army group north and army group center that help minimize the railhead distances. There's probably a searchable thread somewhere. THe trick is to take advantage of the baltic rail zone for army group center such that the railroad path arrives to vitebsk from the west, not southwest.
In terms of the system's supply distance optimizations, if I recall correctly, these are where 'bonus fuel amounts' arrive to an HQ during the standard resupply segment:
If the HQ is within 10 HEXES of the railhead, it receives a bonus (don't ask me the amount on these bonuses, they are probably minimal) AND that bonus increases for each hex less than 10 in distance to railhead.
If the HQ is within 25 MPs of railhead, it receives a bonus (scaled up as ranges decrease, as above).
If the HQ does not move, it receives a bonus (a disappointingly low one)
If the attached units to the HQ did not move last turn, they also receive a bonus.
Once you are beyond both 10 hexes and 25 mps of railhead, you are leveraging trucks for every hex beyond.
Probably a lot of other important factors I'm forgetting, but sometimes you're just going to be out of fuel for a turn in places. Turn 5 around Pskov. It's worst in the south, too.
In the south, two tricks: Perfrom the Lvov opening, to free open territory for rail build. Deploy FBD5 (from 11.Army) not straight east, but first north out of northeastern romania, immediately east over the river and rough hexes, then north to some city whose name I forget. This saves you a little time too.
Pay attention to your airbase Support need. A few airfields (particularly those with HE111s) start out with too many big aircraft (that fly big fuel amounts) on one base, limiting your potential yield. Sort it out over the first few turns.
Anyway, that's a start.
< Message edited by heliodorus04 -- 4/1/2014 10:50:08 AM >
_____________________________
Fall 2021-Playing: Stalingrad'42 (GMT); Advanced Squad Leader,
Reading: Masters of the Air (GREAT BOOK!)
Rulebooks: ASL (always ASL), Middle-Earth Strategy Battle Game
Painting: WHFB Lizardmen leaders
|
Printable Version
Newbie problem: Logistics - 
New Messages
No New Messages
Hot Topic w/ New Messages
Hot Topic w/o New Messages
Locked w/ New Messages
Locked w/o New Messages
Post New Thread