Moving Units from Poland to France... death march?

Moving Units from Poland to France... death march? (Full Version)

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gravyface_ -> Moving Units from Poland to France... death march? (2/22/2017 4:01:11 PM)
I've been basically force marching units to France after the fall of Poland, with the laggard HQs following far behind, no doubt enjoying the company of the buxom Polish country ladies and their potent homemade vodka. Seems like a drag though, my units are just in place, and it's already April 1940, and Morale/Readiness is ~70-80%. I could operational move them, but it's so damn expensive. How's everyone else moving their Poland units to France's borders?

sPzAbt653 -> RE: Moving Units from Poland to France... death march? (2/22/2017 4:09:03 PM)
By foot, hoof and wheel ! I never use Operate or even Forced March. Often they are all not quite in place by the break in the weather in 1940, so I have to decide if it is worth it to wait one or two more turns. That's part of the fun of the game [for me].

Ironclad -> RE: Moving Units from Poland to France... death march? (2/22/2017 4:51:15 PM)
I always use forced march. Can't see how you can get them there in time with normal movement and operate is far too expensive except for the HQs which can't use force march.

Christolos -> RE: Moving Units from Poland to France... death march? (2/22/2017 4:58:30 PM)
I always use 'forced march' too but I also always follow the roads as much as possible and avoid difficult terrain to maximize the distance that can be travelled. C

Patrat -> RE: Moving Units from Poland to France... death march? (2/22/2017 5:22:47 PM)
I use forced march. I get there soon enough for the units to recover readiness before the attack into France, so there's no reason not to use force march. As far as HQS go, I start them heading back a turn earlier than the combat units.

Patrat -> RE: Moving Units from Poland to France... death march? (2/22/2017 5:28:15 PM)
If you're at 70, 80 percent readiness at the beginning of april without HQs your not doing bad. Once you attach HQS the readiness will go way up.

gravyface_ -> RE: Moving Units from Poland to France... death march? (2/22/2017 6:14:50 PM)
Ok, so most of you force march then. Seems kind of silly though, what with rail being readily available and all. I kind of wish the Operational movement took that into effect, the accessibility of railheads, rail gauges, etc. Would be a useful trait for Engineer units to repair rail gauges/railheads to improve movement (or reduce Operational movement costs).

Bylandt11 -> RE: Moving Units from Poland to France... death march? (2/22/2017 6:17:31 PM)
I mix force march with regular march. Enough to get everybody ready for a spring attack on the lowlands.

sPzAbt653 -> RE: Moving Units from Poland to France... death march? (2/22/2017 9:05:25 PM)
quote: I get there soon enough for the units to recover readiness before the attack into France, so there's no reason not to use force march. That's a good point. I'm using Forced March from now on !

Patrat -> RE: Moving Units from Poland to France... death march? (2/22/2017 10:59:40 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: gravyface_ Ok, so most of you force march then. Seems kind of silly though, what with rail being readily available and all. I kind of wish the Operational movement took that into effect, the accessibility of railheads, rail gauges, etc. Would be a useful trait for Engineer units to repair rail gauges/railheads to improve movement (or reduce Operational movement costs). IRL, especially in wartime, rail capacity was almost always stretched just by industry. If you're pulling a lot of rail capacity away from industry and diverting to troop movement, theres going to be a price paid one way or another.

Meyer1 -> RE: Moving Units from Poland to France... death march? (2/22/2017 11:14:53 PM)
Aiming to historical invasion date (10 may), no problem for most units using forced march to be ready for the attack. Küchler HQ it´s a special case, being in East Prussia, but if you start to moving it to the west just in the first turn, it would reach the front in time.

Meyer1 -> RE: Moving Units from Poland to France... death march? (2/22/2017 11:20:25 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Meyer1 Aiming to historical invasion date (10 may), no problem for most units using forced march to be ready for the attack. Küchler HQ it´s a special case, being in East Prussia, but if you start to moving it to the west just in the first turn, it would reach the front in time. Of course, you have to defeat Poland in two turns.

demyansk -> RE: Moving Units from Poland to France... death march? (2/22/2017 11:45:50 PM)
Good post, I always used the operation order, I guess that's not the way to do it.

vonik -> RE: Moving Units from Poland to France... death march? (2/24/2017 9:17:48 AM)
The key is to beat Poland in 2 turns . As it is the Panzers who will take Warsaw, I start the march to France (infantery&HQ) already at the beginning of the second turn . Prussian troops start the march to France right in september because I don't need them for Poland . By using the shortest road the most important units (Panzers - both new production and those from Poland- the motorized armies and the 2 paratroopers) are at place latest april 1940 even without forced march . HQs have traffic priority - they must use full movement at every turn . Those who lag a bit have largely time to arrive because in the first 2 turns of the assault on France you have a traffic jam in the Ardennes anyway . Also don't forget that as soon as a unit can reach the Siegried line, the one occupying it can move to the Ardenne gap what speeds up considerably the progress . So start the attack of France in April 40 even if there are still some units on the road - the time won in France will pay up double when you attack UK or URSS .

gravyface_ -> RE: Moving Units from Poland to France... death march? (2/24/2017 3:13:50 PM)
I admire everyone's ability to make due within the limitations of the game, but historically, there's no way those troops marched from Poland to the borders of France. Hitler wanted to invade in early November, and the brass said no because the armies hadn't recovered yet from the Polish campaign, so they're not going to put another 1000 KM on the panzers, horses, and boots. They would've used rail, for sure. In fact, I would think all the way up to the end of the war rail was the primary means of moving men and materiel enmasse.

Flaviusx -> RE: Moving Units from Poland to France... death march? (2/24/2017 3:29:00 PM)
Basic problem here is that operational movement is very expensive. Too expensive. IMO the game needs something like a rail cap to move units for free, with operational expenses kicking in only when you exceed that. Not sure what to do about air units, but again, the expense here seems very high to me. The game conflates economics with transport and this is dubious. MPPs as a universal currency don't really work well here. (This is also apparent in the diplomacy system, which again conflates production with diplomatic pressure, which is very weird.) MPPs should be restricted to the purpose of, well, production, and other subsystems put into place to deal with issues like diplomacy and transport. You might have to tweak this some to deal with the broad/narrow gauge issue with regards to Soviet versus Western rail nets. This also would apply to sea transport, which, again, is linked directly (and oddly) to production and shouldn't be, at least within certain limits. Although I am okay with spending MPPs with amphibious assault. Not so much for transport, that capacity should be there.

Patrat -> RE: Moving Units from Poland to France... death march? (2/24/2017 7:00:51 PM)
Yes the transport capacity is there. But it's doing other things. Trains and ships dont just sit around if there's no troops to be moved. They are engaged in economic tasks that will suffer if the transport they rely on is diverted to troop movement. That being said. I agree that operational movement costs do seem high. The Germans should be able to rail transport everyone from Poland without taking such a huge economic hit. I like your idea about a Rail Cap to move units for free. I'm sure there was some excess capacity, so that as long as you only move a few units a turn there is no economic impact. This would alow the German player to move units to the west by rail, spread over several weeks, which is probably how the Germans did it in real life. This Rail Cap could be variable depending on the year. You could even have an Event later in the War where German Rail Cap is reduced due to Hitlers diversion of trains for the Final Solution. As far as Mpps go for diplomacy, think of the demands Franco made on Hitler. There was also a similar situation regarding Britain offering equipment and other aid to Turkey.

Flaviusx -> RE: Moving Units from Poland to France... death march? (2/24/2017 8:10:32 PM)
Franco? I keep thinking about the games where the UK and France are dumping tons of MPPs into the USA and the Soviet Union. This is pretty silly. It makes no sense whatever. It works only because the game considers diplomacy and military production a unity, which simply isn't true.

Patrat -> RE: Moving Units from Poland to France... death march? (2/24/2017 8:26:30 PM)
Didn't the UK make or offer various economic concessions to the US in the prior to their entry? I know that England spent a not small amount in their effort to get the US to join. As far as the Soviet Union goes. I think of it as the UK giving military and economic aid and other concessions in an effort to get them to join, much as they gave planes and equipment to Turkey. The fact that they did not do so in real life doesn't change the fact that they could of. Honestly I agree that the MPP diplomacy model doesn't work well for major powers and IMO should be restricted to minors.

gravyface_ -> RE: Moving Units from Poland to France... death march? (2/24/2017 9:40:55 PM)
I agree on the railhead principle. I feel like there's been a strategic level game in the last few years that's done this. EDIT: Commander: Europe at War had it. From the manual: RAILROAD MOVES Rail movement allows you to strategically redeploy units around the map. To use rail movement, the unit must not be adjacent to an enemy unit and must have medium supply level or higher. You may only move to a city, or fortress with an unbroken connection of friendly hexes. I recall this being sane and problem-free, with no costs associated with it. I also liked how Oil and Manpower were separate currencies, both of which made exploring options like driving deep into Iran for more oil worthwhile strategically.

macroeconomics -> RE: Moving Units from Poland to France... death march? (2/25/2017 2:59:29 AM)
Historically the Germans used rail extensively to move units between fronts. For the mech/motorized units even much shorter distances were covered on rail to reduce wear and tear on the machines. It's really only in the summer of '44 with the collapse of the rail system in France that German motorized units had to drive to the front. So realism wise, yes, rail movement should be dramatically cheaper and more commonly used. However as a practical game balance matter, in SC normal land movement is so slow that strategic movement is overly powerful and needs to be restricted. This is particularly true in the winter months where it might take up to 3 months to respond to an enemy deployment. For example - if strat/rail movement is readily available, how can the Germans possibly respond to a massive redeployment of Soviet forces to the Finnish front? One turn to move units off the front and to a rail line. One turn to move by rail to a Baltic port. One turn to sail to a Finnish port. One turn to rail to front line. One turn to deploy. So five turns to get maybe 2-3 German units to Finland? It'd be over. Finland would be dead. Even worse would be if the German player decided to move say 10-15 units to Finland by using Norwegian and/or Swedish ports. Again 5 turns to move them to position and the turn after the get there, the Soviet rails his attack force back to Rostov and launches an offensive there. Again, it will take the German player months to respond by fetching his forces back from Finland. Ultimately IMO, the alternative forms of movement(land, see and air) need to get improved. Without improvements in those forms of movement, allowing free or even cheap rail movement is potentially game breaking. Even though realism wise, rail movement should be cheaper.

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