Gas in the panzers ...actually a lack thereof

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Gas in the panzers ...actually a lack thereof

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All Forums >> [New Releases from Matrix Games] >> Gary Grigsby's War in the East Series >> Gas in the panzers ...actually a lack thereof

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Gas in the panzers ...actually a lack thereof - 12/1/2018 9:40:25 PM

Swayin

Posts: 317
Joined: 1/27/2007
From: Bellingham, WA
Status: offline

Hi folks,

I bought this game when it first came out years ago, and decided to reinstall and give it a go again. What a great game! I've hit the mud in year 1 as the Axis, and am at thew gates of Moscow when the rains came ... mostly because when i really needed them, my tanks had literally been sitting 20 hexes back for a month, collecting dust with no fuel. Out of the five or six major kampfgruppes, there were weeks and weeks when none were working. I thankfully got some gas for Army Group North somehow, as without them there was no way I would have taken Leningrad. They are literally sitting net to their corps HQ, athwart a rail line, some of them for literally months.

I though the key to keep them in gas was to have their HQ near a rail line, and within 5 hexes? I guess if it's a damaged rail line that doesn't matter? My little worker bots are back in the rear, slowly building rail, but they aren't speedy.

Any tips or thoughts? This has prolly been asked a million times, so I apologize in advance.

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RE: Gas in the panzers ...actually a lack thereof - 12/2/2018 12:50:49 AM

Aufklaerungs

Posts: 243
Joined: 6/4/2009
From: Chicago
Status: offline

Have you remembered to convert rail hex gauge each turn?

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RE: Gas in the panzers ...actually a lack thereof - 12/2/2018 12:54:13 AM

Swayin

Posts: 317
Joined: 1/27/2007
From: Bellingham, WA
Status: offline

My construction bots are working there, yes .... is that what you mean?

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RE: Gas in the panzers ...actually a lack thereof - 12/2/2018 1:11:21 AM

Arstavidios

Posts: 780
Joined: 11/19/2004
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As the German you have FDB units to repair rail lines manually. Rails must be repaired if you want to get some gas for your tanks.
Construction batallions will repair rail if there are some damaged rail hexes in range of the higher level HQ they are assigned to. The HQ must be sitting on a repaired rail hex. So position your HQs on strategic rail juctions and move the construction units that are in corps HQs, those are for supplying and supporting combat units not repairing rails, to higher level HQs, armies army groups okh - don't forget rumanians, Finns, and security group HQs - in the rear. They will then be sent on the map automatically and repair one hex per turn. You have a lot of HQs with a lot of construction units. If you put them on repaired junctions they can repair plenty of hexes every turn.

Use the rail display mode to see the status of your rail network to know where to position your HQs to make best use of your construction batallions. The can make a huge difference in your network after a few turns.

FDBs are for moving your railheads east and keeping the panzers and other units supplied. Construction units in higher HQs repair the lines in the rear.

Advanced german players know how to use and abusethe supply rules and are able to do some black magic optimising the use of HQs air supply and HQ build up that allow faster rates of advance than normal players.

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RE: Gas in the panzers ...actually a lack thereof - 12/2/2018 7:16:28 PM

Swayin

Posts: 317
Joined: 1/27/2007
From: Bellingham, WA
Status: offline

Thank you! One last question: my FDB did some repair near Vilnius and then the next turn it wouldn't let me build there any more, and those hexes that I had doen the turn before, in the rail repair mode, were green but had 3 little dots in the green dot ... do you know what that means?

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RE: Gas in the panzers ...actually a lack thereof - 12/2/2018 7:21:46 PM

A21

Posts: 54
Joined: 4/18/2017
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That probably means they are repaired - but that section of rail is not connected to the main network. Beware, and especially around Vilnius, there are bends in the rail line. Even if two rail hexes are next to each other if the rail lines goes through another hex to connect them then you will get that green with dots meaning repaired but not connected to the main network.

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RE: Gas in the panzers ...actually a lack thereof - 12/2/2018 11:02:04 PM

Aufklaerungs

Posts: 243
Joined: 6/4/2009
From: Chicago
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White Dots in green mean they were converted on previous turn.

Program will not let you/FDB convert any rail hex that is not adjacent to one you've already converted, and connected to an unbroken sequence of green rail hexes that reach Axis home territory - Poland, Romania, Hungary or Finland.

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RE: Gas in the panzers ...actually a lack thereof - 12/3/2018 8:45:01 AM

Chris21wen

Posts: 6249
Joined: 1/17/2002
From: Cottesmore, Rutland
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Don't forget there are two steps involved in manual rail repair. Move a repair unit to a connected damaged hex, use the the units RRV to repair it, it turns orange. Move to next damaged use any RRV left to repair it and keep repeating until the unit has no RRV left. Orange rail hex repair automatically next logistics phase.

Section 14.2.2.2 new manual.

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RE: Gas in the panzers ...actually a lack thereof - 12/3/2018 1:23:05 PM

Denniss

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Joined: 1/10/2002
From: Germany, Hannover (region)
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dotted green = repaired/converted but not connected to a working railhead (broken connection somewhere)
FBD/NKPS repair all rail damage in a hex except the last point which will be auto-repaired during next logistics phase.

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RE: Gas in the panzers ...actually a lack thereof - 12/6/2018 1:36:43 PM

Swayin

Posts: 317
Joined: 1/27/2007
From: Bellingham, WA
Status: offline

Thanks all!

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RE: Gas in the panzers ...actually a lack thereof - 12/6/2018 5:21:40 PM

nukkxx5058

Posts: 2932
Joined: 2/3/2005
From: France
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Just in case you haven't noticed (it personally took me lot of time and 19 nervous breakdowns

) the shape of the railtrack near Vilnius is very particular and in fact, if you come from Kaisiadoris (see pic below) and are going eastward, you need 3 hexes to be fixed otherwise you will have the white dots ... so don't forget the hex southwest of Vilnius.
Look at the picture. Hope it's self explenatory. :-)

Attachment (1)

< Message edited by nukkxx -- 12/6/2018 5:28:43 PM >

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RE: Gas in the panzers ...actually a lack thereof - 12/8/2018 4:53:48 PM

Russell Osterlund

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Joined: 8/30/2016
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There is a note about "advanced German players" optimizing the rate of supplies. What are the number of MP's that qualify as advanced and maximized? (So far, I normally have seen ranges between 15 and 35 MP's in the later stages of a campaign for the German mechanized units.)

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RE: Gas in the panzers ...actually a lack thereof - 12/8/2018 6:49:13 PM

thedoctorking

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There are a variety of techniques that can improve German supply delivery. One noteworthy one is the Odessa gambit - capture Odessa rapidly and you can get it operational quickly as a port and then begin to build your southern rail network from there instead of all the way back at the Romanian border. This means you can repair rail across the Dnepr before mud and have a reasonable chance of capturing the Donbass cities and Kharkov. Another thing is to send two FBD units along one rail line - typically up the Dvina and then east towards Moscow - to somewhat accelerate supply delivery to the Moscow region in the last turns before mud. Shorter supply paths means more likelihood of higher movement point numbers, though there are a bunch of variables. Also it means less drain on the vehicle pool, which is a more long-term issue. There are a lot of variables in how the movement points are determined (leader rolls, vehicle stockpiles etc. - see EvK's posts on this), but if you have an armored unit that moved its full movement allowance in one turn and then starts the next with over 30 MP, it is because it is pretty close to a rail line.

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Post #: 13