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morvael -> RE: Supply distribution in 1.08 (12/19/2014 12:21:10 PM)
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I made an analysis of the files I got from loki100 and here are my findings:
A 42b Rifle Division at full strength requires 102 tons of supply, and will consume 61-62 tons per turn. It also requires 253 tons of ammunition, and we can assume a rough estimate of an average of 20% being expended per turn (I admit this is based on a cursory glance at a few units, not a full analysis). This will result in a requirement of 50 tons of ammo (taken from generic supply stores) per turn. This does not include a potential loss of 50% of ammo that is actually added, which also increases the burden on supply source. This adds up to about ~110 tons of supplies used by a single rifle division per week. This is just 15 tons per day, and that's not much compared with some estimates I saw (they were for German divisions, but they were not 4-5 times larger than Soviet ones, more like 1.5-2 times larger).
You have 11 rifle corps (I count them as 2.5 divisions at this time), 405 rifle divisions (may include mountain and airborne, counted as 1 rifle each, though they are bigger), and 56 brigades (I count them as 0.5 divisions). There are also 14 cavalry corps and 2 cavalry divisions. A full strength corps requires 301 tons of supply and 293 tons of ammo. This gives usage of ~240 tons of supply per week, so each corps counts as 2.20 rifle divisions (and a cavalry division as 0.75). This gives an equivalent of 11*2.5+405+56*0.5+14*2.2+2*0.75=27.5+405+28+30.8+1.5=~493 "rifle divisions" and a consumption of 54230 tons per week. Just from infantry and cavalry, discounting all your HQs, airbases, air groups, armored forces and artillery...
Now let's look at incomes and expenditures: 80500 tons are produced per week and 3000 come from lend lease, meanwhile ~43000 are spent on production, ~9000 on fort building, some ~12000 are converted to ammo, and some ~19000 consumed. This all adds up nicely to 83000. So you are spending about 31000 tons of supplies to support your armed forces, whereas just infantry and cavalry units would require 54000 tons of supplies! No wonder units starve and their morale suffers (even with imperfect distribution to create equal shortages for all parts of the system). You can't afford army of this size with heavy industry that you have.
Obviously there are issues that weren't your fault like following correct 1.7.15 strategy of abandoning most of HI, which damages you now on 1.08. There are also some things that the game could do better, that is: to convert scrapped vehicles to supplies, not armaments (to let them being recycled to the system at a lower level and help in case of shortages); to let the player decide how much to dial down supplies spend by production and fort building (this is now impossible, but maybe I could add a switch for 1.08.02 that would allow it, without having to move factories to damage them in order to slow down production - bear in mind it would be a global switch so all factories and all fort building would be affected this way) in order to give more to the units; to let the players decide how much to dial down the supplies reserved for population, ports, railyards and airbases with level bombers and transports; to let the units access what is actually present in their supply city rather than following global shortage modifiers. Some of these things I could change for 1.08.02. But it doesn't change the fact that you have now too big army for your industry to support.
Why did it turn for worse on 1.08.01?
- due to taking away the 60% limit for rifle units at the frontlines your army has grown considerably (you mentioned 200 000 in one turn) and this increased your shortage significantly (men in the pool do not eat)
- horses eat their whole allotment of fodder per week whether you move or not, this increased consumption for units that do not move by up to half
- units consume at steady rate of 60% needs, whereas with good leaders the average might be previously closer to 50% (it was either 50% or 75%, but chances placed the average probably below 60%).
You must really consider using the MAX TOE function now to reduce most of your army in quiet sectors (do you have those?) to 50-60%. You have to attack less in order not to consume ammunition (includes bombing), which comes from supplies. Consider sending back transports and level bombers to reserve. Do not resupply the partisans. Move some of your less required ground or aircraft factories to damage them and block production for some time to reduce supply use. Do not build new units. Disband some support units. Consolidate armies to use CP to the max, disbanding some extra commands. That should help you survive until 1943, when new multiplier kicks (and no more ammo is lost), which will reduce your problems and let you increase your army size again, without lowering the quality. I actually think the result is pretty accurate now, Soviet army in 1942 still had many of their men starved (they focused on delivering ammo more than food) and the quality was not that good.
This is a combination of 1.7 tactics together with "reckless" 95 morale and logistics setting that is now hurting you, but I don't think it's a fault of the patch. It works correctly (but could be working better and should be more adjustable by the player). I guess most games started under 1.08 will go with 100 morale/logistics and the HI will be properly evacuated leading to no problems at all. And we will have the same situation of large, strong Soviet Juggernaut in 1942 again. For now you can bask in the light of your achievement that was creating a Red Army with shortages (wich isn't easy in WitE as it was in real life). [:)]
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