Some Analysis
The Minister set is now changed for the following (some mentioned earlier):
Resigned Generalissimo: +10% supplies, +15% TC
Silent Workhorse, Admin Genius, Industrial Specialist: +20% IC
Prince of Terror, +15% foreign IC
Guns and Butter: -15% supply use
Manoeuvre: +10% speed
This is worth a bit of discussion about the focus being applied. The main target here is more TC and movement. The underlying objective is to maximise movement capability and the whole lot are really aimed at this single target. More IC means more TC and less supply usage is equivalent to more TC and so on. It is worth perhaps looking at some other choices.
If I had an Armoured Spearhead HoA then I would get a +5% offensive modifier on all my armoured divisions (including the attached SPA brigade, although I don’t see how brigades are treated separately). The build cost reduction is pretty irrelevant. It is interesting to consider whether this is worth more than –15% supplies over the whole army. The armoured divisions probably represent about 30% of the effective combat days for the forthcoming campaign and therefore this is something like a 1.5% increase in total army strength.
Whilst operating (rather than idle) my armed forces consume about 800 oil per day and 560 supplies (after current adjustments for leaders and ministers). This is a TC load of 1360 which gives me fully loaded TC. I will be using offensive supply on top, which will account for an additional 260 oil and 160 supplies. (By the way I am finally using the new supply pie charts from the statistics screens to get this data). The 15% reduction in supply use from the Guns and Butter HoA is saving me 127 supplies per day (a significant IC saving if nothing else), which is about 6.8% saving in TC. This actually translates to a 1.7% increase in army combat capability along with a speed increase. So this nicely shows this as a better choice.
The Manoeuvre chief of staff is a bit daring as the loss of manpower income may be significant (-20% against current manpower). Given my current precarious manpower position this is exceedingly daring.
The industrial figures that count for anything are the following:
IC = 618/463
TC = 1279, partisans –53.2, occupation –20
Manpower 44 with +1.29 per day
As you can see the manpower position is insanely precarious but I don’t plan to take heavy casualties and I intend to minimise the casualty rate. With the reduced manpower cost of replacements (80% of face value) and the return rate of wounded soldiers this amounts to manpower for replacing about 100 manpower of losses per month with one months worth in hand. This of course assumes I am building nothing. As it is builds are slackening of to very little. When it comes down to it I have several Austrian divisions with zero experience that are ripe for disbandment and that is what will happen. I have the ICs to replace them with 20 experience divisions so that would be sensible anyway. In fact it is reasonable to assume that is what my build policy has already amounted to. This can return me 275 manpower but will kind of denude Western Europe of defensive forces. Still, I don’t need to do this yet and there is no immense harm in letting some units run a few percent below strength.
Do you find that doctrines tend to be the first thing stolen by spies? It certainly seems that way in my games.
