Blocking of supplies to the capital (to England, for instance)

[unmerged(15485)]

Hi!

I'm wondering what peoples thoughts are on the supplies system and capitals. I would love to see a system where England can't stockpile some essentials in London (food/civial supplies) and can actually be starved to submission through blocking them off from the world. If not starved, then at least let the industry be more dependant on the outside world then they are in HoI, where London usually has 50 years of supplies stacked up and no action of the Kriegsmarine is going to block England from anything.

It should be paramount for England to keep its waters and trading going, or else face severe penalites (unhappy population, reduced industry output, etc). After all the British navy, even if huge compared to the Kriegsmarine, had large problems keeping the subs off their vital supplies. I know we will have a better supplysystem for the front (per the dev diary), but will we also have a better one for the capitals?

And what happens this time around if a capital is surrounded? (this might have been answered in the dev diary thread, but I couldn't find an answer there)

 

[juv95hrn]

I think the game design makes implementing this realism highly unlikely. I'm only hoping for pre-planned supply caches for surviving sieges a bit longer than was possible in HOI2, which also would be highly realistic but the all-supply-stacked-in-the-capital mechanic made impossible in HOI2.

 

[Neomann]

I hope that will be able to make what U-boote made in 1940-1942', when they terrorised England, cut out the supplies, isolate England from the World.... Churchill had to sell Sergio Garcia (indian ocean base) to United Stades in 1940's to get 50 old Destroyers to combat the Wolfpacks thread....

 

[unmerged(131221)]

Another thing that I posted in oder thread:
Supplies at sea should travel in the same or similiar way like that on land. Not all the way in 1 day. Maybe 1 sea zone per say? Its much larger than land provinces so it should do IMO. I cant imagine situation in which I capture Gibraltar and UK troops in Egypt are still in supply due to miraculous supply transport around the Africa in 1 day.

The same goes for trade deals - why it is that all deals are efficient and arrive on the next day? Maybe its to much with resources but at least supplies should flow over time.

 

[Synch]

If supply convoys were to travel at slower rates like you suggest, then it would be important to also implement juv95hrn's idea of having larger supply stockpiles in overseas territories. Given how often convoys are targets of attack by enemies, it would be an unthinkable oversight to not have at least a few day's worth of extra supplies for your soldiers. Simply put, the longer it takes for supplies to reach an army, the larger their cushion of surplus supplies should be.

Another consideration would be local supply production. It seems reasonable that some nations with territories not connected to their capital could produce supplies there instead of at their capital. Manchuria, for example, was heavily industrialized by Japan and would certainly be able to. The problem with this is that, for it to be fair to the player, they would have to be able to control not only how much IC is used for supplies but where those supplies are coming from. Not worth the effort, IMO.

 

[unmerged(41649)]

If supply convoys were to travel at slower rates like you suggest, then it would be important to also implement juv95hrn's idea of having larger supply stockpiles in overseas territories. Given how often convoys are targets of attack by enemies, it would be an unthinkable oversight to not have at least a few day's worth of extra supplies for your soldiers. Simply put, the longer it takes for supplies to reach an army, the larger their cushion of surplus supplies should be.

Another consideration would be local supply production. It seems reasonable that some nations with territories not connected to their capital could produce supplies there instead of at their capital. Manchuria, for example, was heavily industrialized by Japan and would certainly be able to. The problem with this is that, for it to be fair to the player, they would have to be able to control not only how much IC is used for supplies but where those supplies are coming from. Not worth the effort, IMO.

Slow supply ships would be a pain in the ass because if you rebase a hurt fleet to any island it will spend a week out of supplies as a new supply train catches up.

 

[unmerged(131221)]

There must be some solution - you cant send your convoys in 1 day around the Africa is ridiculous. The land supply system is a good start to rebuild the naval (skip the resources - let them be as they are).
I just cant agree with the possibility of USA sending supplies to Italian theater directly from Washington in 1 day.
The whole logistic idea falls IMO.
You want your troops at Leningrad have supplies? Why do we have to worry about land routes? Send them in a 1 day by sea! Or the same for troops at Kaukazus... NO - it cant be this way - its an incredible exploit that destroyes the whole logistics concept.

 

[Neomann]

There must be some solution - you cant send your convoys in 1 day around the Africa is ridiculous. The land supply system is a good start to rebuild the naval (skip the resources - let them be as they are).
I just cant agree with the possibility of USA sending supplies to Italian theater directly from Washington in 1 day.
The whole logistic idea falls IMO.
You want your troops at Leningrad have supplies? Why do we have to worry about land routes? Send them in a 1 day by sea! Or the same for troops at Kaukazus... NO - it cant be this way - its an incredible exploit that destroyes the whole logistics concept.

I agree with that, well, maybe tranfer the time of movement that was for the combats fleets to suppllies transport.... That way it will be more accurate time to deliver supplies from a point to another

 

[Synch]

There must be some solution - you cant send your convoys in 1 day around the Africa is ridiculous. The land supply system is a good start to rebuild the naval (skip the resources - let them be as they are).
I just cant agree with the possibility of USA sending supplies to Italian theater directly from Washington in 1 day.
The whole logistic idea falls IMO.
You want your troops at Leningrad have supplies? Why do we have to worry about land routes? Send them in a 1 day by sea! Or the same for troops at Kaukazus... NO - it cant be this way - its an incredible exploit that destroyes the whole logistics concept.

I sympathize, but it's not an easy problem to fix. Realism can't always be total when you're dealing with this level of strategy where many elements of warfare are abstracted to avoid micromanagement.

My problem is that HoI2 is already pretty hard on unsupplied armies. They start losing org and drop to minimum movement speed the second their supply lines are cut off. Adding extra days to the wait before they can recover would make things very hard indeed. It seems to me that an encircled army would have at least a small amount of supplies with them to keep them going if their lines were cut. Perhaps it should be modeled that unsupplied armies have a marginally reduced combat effectiveness (due to the rationing of supplies) and org gain for a time before they completely run out of supplies and start losing org rapidly. Coupled with a longer delay in supply convoys (proportional to distance, of course), it would be like diffusing the effect of being unsupplied. Rather than one day of critical impairment before receiving supplies by sea, it would be a few days of partial impairment. This would give the attacker a chance to organize themselves before attempting to dislodge the undersupplied defenders, while at the same time giving the defenders a fighting chance to break out if the enemy is unprepared.

There is also the consideration that not all armies were as susceptible to supply shortages as others. Someone mentioned in an earlier post that the Soviet army was very good at procuring food supplies for themselves (i.e. "living off the land") and were not as concerned about deficiencies in supplies. Perhaps the supply system should be expanded a little (probably governed mostly by doctrinal techs) beyond the full supply/no supply dichotomy.

 

[unmerged(56754)]

Churchill had to sell Sergio Garcia (indian ocean base) to United Stades in 1940's to get 50 old Destroyers to combat the Wolfpacks thread....

Erm, what?

I assume your talking about the destroyers for bases agreement? (Deigo Garcia was never sold, it was, and still is a British colony, the US military built a base on it in the 1970s.)

However, Britian never sold any of its possesions to get 50 old destroyers.

It was very different from that, the agreement was simply a way of the US helping Britain legally, Britain wasn't so desperate for destroyers it sold territory, it was in a difficult time and the US was rather keen on helping them, but due to the USAs' politics, it couldn't. So it was a trade, more then a desperate plea for help. The US legally helped Britain, got 99year leases on some rather pointless military bases, Britain got some (Rather aged, but not useless) destroyers.

On topic, yes, I do think it should be possible, but it should be very hard, and if you did deceide to do so, it should have a serious affect on production of land forces. Its not fair if in 90% of games Germany totally subdues Britain, and still has enough land forces to destroy the USSR.

It should happen, but it should be very hard, and it should be very much avoidable, for both me as Britain, or the AI.

 

[PIT_AMERO]

I hope that will be able to make what U-boote made in 1940-1942', when they terrorised England, cut out the supplies, isolate England from the World.... Churchill had to sell Sergio Garcia (indian ocean base) to United Stades in 1940's to get 50 old Destroyers to combat the Wolfpacks thread....

What? When were the subs able to do that?
IIRC they were able to close the gap between sunk and built ships only for a month or two. But if you want to "isolate a country from the World", then you have not just to close the gap but to start actually destroying the existing ships.

 

[Devout]

My understanding from previous DD's is that:
1. Transportation of supplies overseas is represented by convoys which are vulnerable to attack and take time to reach destination.
2. Transportation of supplies overland takes time to move supplies province to province depending infrastructure. Attacks need to "pause" to wait for supplies to catch up.
3. Inidividual units are not instantly out of supplies when cut off. They have some supplies to last them a short length of time. likewise, the cutoff "bubble" will have some supplies in the provinces and depend on how large the bubble is and how many supplies in each province.

----
I see just about every aspect of the above process to be modified by techs and doctrines. So it should be possible for research to create a scenario where Russian units have 1.0 supplies to last them when cutoff, while a German unit has 0.7 supplies (or something like that)

 

[unmerged(131221)]

My understanding from previous DD's is that:
1. Transportation of supplies overseas is represented by convoys which are vulnerable to attack and take time to reach destination.

Can you quote that please - I remember something similiar but arent sure what was told exactly.
Thats just what I wanted.

 

[fbaker4]

I'm kinda hoping for a 'supply web' so that just because DC is surrounded, that doesn't mean that all US units are unsupplied...DC's not much of a capital anyways - you'd have to cut off a lot of places before the US couldn't produce anything.

And it's so, so SO gamey! Encircle Berlin, Moscow, London...and play mop-up fairy? Oh, please. What about having multiple key supply sources? and/or Sources tied to the proportion of industry in a province vis-a-vis total national industry? Your capital has 10 IC, out of a total 100 IC? Well, then...it's 10% lost if surrounded!

Or something.

 

[Alexander Seil]

All Johan said is that it's taken care of somehow. No one knows how yet.

 

[Devout]

Sorry, i guess that is an assumption on my part. i re-read DD#9 and it shows the supply convoys. And there is references to convoys and sub warfare. But it does not explicetly say that it takes time. I just assume that for the submarine warfare process to work, the convoys must move sea zone to seas zone at a certain speed.


From DD#9
LAND SUPPLY
"With this philosophy in mind we have totally rewritten the logistics system, there is no longer TC. Instead supplies move from your capital out to your units. The amount of infrastructure in a province acts as a limit to the amount of supplies you can move. The supplies advance on a daily basis. In addition there is a supply tax, the further your unit is from its supply source the more supplies it consumes. After all, supplies don’t move themselves; you are going to need people to move them, who in turn also consume supplies. In addition each unit carriers a small amount of supplies with them, if they cannot draw supply they will start to consume these instead. Like Hearts of Iron 2 if a unit is abroad it will have a supply stockpile point that acts as a base for its supply. However there is one additional factor, when convoying supplies abroad the maximum amount of supplies you can send is limited by the size of port. The bigger the port the more supplies you can ship in. The control of ports is very important if you wish to wage campaigns overseas."

 

[fbaker4]

That whole port control thing is great - it'll make building big ports cirtical to the game, which is teriffic for the Pacific Theatre.

 

[zeekater]

Also, submarine warfare has an effect on the national unity of a country

 

[Alex_brunius]

Slow supply ships would be a pain in the ass because if you rebase a hurt fleet to any island it will spend a week out of supplies as a new supply train catches up.

In the latest 8 screenshots released we can clearly see that fleets have a buffer off supplies and fuel they carry with them just like landunits. So they will be able to keep themself in supply for the few days or weeks it takes until convoys arrive with more.