loki100
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Joined: 10/20/2012
From: Utlima Thule
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Allied Logistics
Since the pace of updates is going to slow over the next week or so, this might be a good time to have a digression around logistics for the Allies.
First, I'm assuming you have printed out Red Lancer's one page guide. I'm not going to look at the demand side in any great detail but if you want to get into the real details all you need is there.
Italy
In Italy, all this is fairly straightforward. Given the way the campaign develops, this is all about port capacity and open sea-lanes. By the time you have Taranto and Bari you can land all you need. Ports further north ease this process. Another substantial advantage in Italy is that the most likely early ports also have a large rail depot. You have 11 pts of this in Bari-Brindisi-Taranto alone. The advantage of this, as we'll discuss below, is that you gain a lot of trains and can thus move a lot of freight without crippling your truck fleet.
Here's S Italy in our current game, I'm showing my depots and the rail capacity of the key hexes.
In combination all that sums up to around 300 units of rail capacity – or in other words I have the trains to move 300,000 tons of freight/units. There is a secondary issue which is that as rails become more congested the volume/train drops (which is why interdiction matters) but the trade off between capacity and likely demand means I don't need to worry too much.
But the key here, is once the Allies are established south of the Bifano, supply is a non-issue. You have sufficient ports, sufficient trains and are close enough to your depots that your trucks can readily cope.
Each railyard can use its capacity over 50 hexes (freight) or 30 (unit moves). So as you move north, some of those southern rail depots drop out the system but as of now I have plenty around Rome and Tuscany to supply my armies.
In reverse, what is painless for the Allies is a pain for the Axis. The Allied player cannot commit too much effort to bombing out the Italian rail net.
So Italy is usually no issue, you can play as the Allies with only minimal attention to the logistics game – the problem is getting supplies into a contested beach head, such as the fighting around the Crati river, Bari and Civitavecchia in this game.
As I have done, you can motorise some units permanently and use temporary motorisation to exploit an opportunity with little fear that you are messing with your logistics.
France
So here's the current rail/port map for France and we can start to see where problems are going to arise.
There's a few spoilers in there as its the current turn.
I basically have 28 port pts (almost 1,700,000 freight), this will rise to 39 by the time I have the Normandy and Brittany ports. After that the only real gains are Antwerp and the Netherlands. Not all this is available for supply, moving in replacements and fresh units costs a fair bit of the capacity.
So as in Italy, bringing freight to France is not really the concern. I have about 35 divisions in France and these would need around 70 'port pts' (if they were all at 0 and went to 100). So on the assumption that I never run out, then I have plenty of capacity both for resupply and to stock for future operations.
You can get a rough idea of how well I am doing from the logistics log. I rarely glance at this in WiTW up to this stage as its of little importance.
[1]
This is going to change.
If we count in some smaller rail depots, I'll have around 30 rail capacity to push supply up to the Belgian border – once the damaged depots repair. Useable capacity will be much lower as this will be moving over a few repaired lines (so greater cost to deliver). As my army expands, and I need to move air units to France (not to mention artillery usage), this 30 is not enough for simple replacement never mind sustained fighting, building up depot stocks or bringing in replacement manpower – and moving fresh units to the front.
So what happens is my units need trucks to gain supply.
And I have plenty of trucks?
Well no, at a rough glance I had 200 unused trucks in France last turn. This is mainly as trucks are associated with depot capacity so till I have more depots (and repaired railyards), I can't draw on that stock of trucks in my reserve pool.
As I move east (I'm assuming I will be moving east), a number of stresses start to appear. First, yes I may have some depots close to the front but:
i) they need to repair, if the railyard is damaged (and it will be) then depot capacity is lowered;
ii) they are at the end of a poorly repaired rail network with insufficient trains (the rail cap and rail usage problems).
So I'll be using those depots in Picardy for some time. This will mean my units start using their organic trucks to get the supply they want. And trucks missing from the unit have an impact on both mobility and combat power. So in particular, recovery from heavy combat takes longer.
It also means my armoured divisions will have MP around the mid-30s, so they will struggle to exploit, especially in poor terrain, ZoCs or major rivers.
The only real solution is to start setting most HQ to supply priority #1 or #2. This may sound unintuitive as it means they will never get more than 50% or 70% of their needs (in the best case).
The other solution is to be prepared to send particularly heavily used units well back to where they can more easily regain the supply/replacements they need.
But if I push supply collection to 100% then they lose more power/mobility as their trucks are away getting that supply – and the supply probably is in France so they will try, just its sat in the Picardy/Normandy ports. The other advantage to suppressing unit demand is means that some of the supply actually goes into storage at the depots, so it is there when you need to call on it.
At this stage, you need to play things by instinct really. Some corps can be at #3 or #4 as there will be enough trucks in France to sustain them, but not many. And that takes us directly to the strategic decision the Allies dodged in late 1944 – broad vs narrow front offensives.
And given all this, a picture of what this is all about:
And all this is really about fighting in Belgium and the Rhineland, its far far worse down towards Strasbourg – for that, all of a sudden, Marseilles becomes critical.
Or to repeat the comment above - what is painless for the Axis (resupply at the edge of Germany) is a pain for the Allies.
[1] The flow of replacement manpower is indicative of which Armies are most in action, last turn (& that would have been the t57/8 switch), I deliberately rested most of 1 US and 2 Br to give them a chance to draw in replacements (& repair damaged elements).
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T48 - moving along the Seine - 
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