I'd replied to some of the comments along the way, so here's responses to the rest (other than some in-thread conversations which serve as their own dialogue):
Very right about the air reach problem - as you will soon see in the February update.
The marine landing was really just a test run to see if the fleet would be attacked (by air or sea) while the landings went on and to speed up the advance (strait crossings being fairly slow and not knowing if the AI would persist with it). And yes, I did know it was empty by the time they were in position to land.
Thanks! The only thing I'll really go hands-on is for amphibious and related/support ops, until the lodgement can be established and handed back over to AI command. Trying to get air bases where I can (and the AI cooperates)! Or building them - as in Nikolayevsk na Amure - when I need something in a hurry.Missed this AAR as well! Thanks for the new episode. On the tech front, much exciting progress is just at our doorstep!
Difficult to resist the temptation of hands-on operations, isn't it
it seems we need to prioritize taking the airbase provinces first if that's possible
facepalm
Yes, the Soviet maritime arm is mostly a basket case. At this stage, only the subs (when the new ones start coming through) will be anything close to functional. And just wait to see what the Allies get up to in the next episode!The Red Banner Pacific Fleet is a motley collection of wrecks isn't it? Still it gets the job done which is the main thing, though I have no doubt the crews are all desperately hoping they never meet an enemy fleet!
The Kaganovich is storied ship, in OTL it got renamed twice. First time because the original namesake was purged, the second time because the person it was renamed after also got purged. Nothing to do with the story, just makes me chuckle.
Good to see the Allies making progress despite the AIs best efforts. SE Asia will be liberated, even if it is mostly by accident.
Hmmm, if I only went 5% over at the moment, I'd completely run out in about 5-10 days. Supply tech are all up to date and are being kept going, while infra has been built regularly, including towards the front when I can manage it, but there is of course a lag from building to completion. Basically, I'm trying to go at all angles of the problem, without denuding the front of forces.You should not use 45% on supply production, instead upgrade the infra in the provinces furthest from the supply source that has hatched supply. Only go 5% over required.
The supply deficit at the central front is nearly certain supplies being redirected north and vanishing in bad supply throughput provinces. Also research everything that lessen supply throughput cost.
See, this is a failure of the game logistics system. I can not think of a single loggo worth his salt who ever "Returned to Sender" supply. For damn sure, even in Iraq in 2010 when nothing really offensive was going on, I still had a pile of MREs, more ammo, etc than I could ever foresee needing, but there really wasn't any urge to give it back to Big Army.
Paradox made the system simple in allowing it to move just one hex a day. The issue is that supply didn't move like that. Where some hexes are just 20-40km apart, no one is going to say "Yep, that's far enough!" They're going to move as long as they have daylight and even longer if they can safely move at night. Thinking of the Red Ball Express, they moved as much as possible around the clock, even at a significant fuel penalty, which, to be fair, only the Americans could really afford at the time. Maybe super close to the front line they couldn't always get reliable supply, but by and large, as long as supply trains weren't under stress, the rear areas could get it.
Thanks guys - weather affecting supply makes sense, and if it's muddy in the East then I think it's fair enough that a similar effect should apply there or anywhere else such conditions apply (and I think it would probably have been too difficult for them to apply the mud factor too narrowly).Firstly I must agree with my associate Wraith's points above, the main issue is the HOI3 supply system is bobbins. However I can answer your supply question (which I forgot to last time)
Certain weather does affect supply distribution. In the Defines.lua file (where Paradox hides many settings) you will find this line -
MUDDYNESSSUPPLYTAXMODIFIER = 0.25,
Which, as it suggests, increases the 'supply tax' by 25% in muddy conditions. This was done to reflect the problems on the Eastern Front during mud season and then Paradox blindly copied it to the rest of the world. Base supply tax is pretty bad (to move 1 unit of supply, 1 province, costs 0.1 supply) so a 25% hike in the tax can eat up a lot of supplies.
I've never run such a mission myself and don't have too many transport aircraft, but would be happy to try if it was thought to be worthwhile.If the Japanese navy is hunting convoys thus we cannot ship supplies directly from Leningrad to the Pacific coast, we can at least use transport planes to at least patch up problematic points and do supply airlifts? What do the supply experts say?
Thanks for confirming re mud and supply.Looks like winter is still a thing in 1946... and yes, transportation of supplies costs more over mud.
The Red Army is clearly suffering from it's own success, as it's advanced beyond the reach of it's larger Air Bases. Those losses to Japanese bombs are substantial, but they can definitely be absorbed by the Soviet manpower pool.
I also wonder why the Marines performed an amphibious landing on Okha from a vulnerable fleet. They would have been just as effective crossing the Strait of Tartary from Nikolaevsk na Amure. I think the risk of the IJN disrupting the landings and sinking part of your fleet wasn't worth a slight benefit you get from attacking from 2 sides. Of course, if you knew the province was empty, I do think it was land the Marines from the fleet than to drop them in Nikolaevsk and have them cross the strait.
Anyhow, the last big point are significant advances in Submarine design. This is great news. Maybe, in 10-15 years, the Soviet Union will be able to launch missiles from nuclear-powered submarines? Maybe we'll even beat the Americans to it?
Very right about the air reach problem - as you will soon see in the February update.
The marine landing was really just a test run to see if the fleet would be attacked (by air or sea) while the landings went on and to speed up the advance (strait crossings being fairly slow and not knowing if the AI would persist with it). And yes, I did know it was empty by the time they were in position to land.
On weather and supply: so is it only mud that has that effect, or is it the severe winter weather as well? I haven’t checked in detail recently, but things would still be too frozen for mud to be a problem, I imagine.
So, I'm not sure then whether the end of winter will improve or even worsen the supply situation if muddy conditions prevail. Not a great deal I can do about it now, really, other than blunder on.Fairly certain it is only mud. There is a Cold Movement Modifier separate from the Mud Movement modifier, so they are separate things from that perspective. Certainly there is no explicit cold/frozen supply modifier in the settings.
Yet another over-simplification in the supply system for @Wraith11B to sigh about.
All I can do is shrug and raise one eyebrow a bit, and note as long as all sides are affected by the same settings, then c'est la vie!You know, I really do understand that there's just some point in time when a developer has to say, "Are we getting to the point of the pasta rule?"
That said, if something affects movement, it better affect all movement...
Many thanks for commenting - always valued. And there is always a fair time between updates these days, so your comments are still right on time.I'm a bit behind once again, but here I come heroically playing catch-up, comrades!
A surprisingly busy month for the dead of winter, at least along some fronts. The Red war machine grinds ever onwards!
Indeed.I suspect that this will become an ongoing theme this month...and in the following.
Well, to be fair on the civil engineers, the initial base had only just been built from scratch. It's a slow process though when troops at the front are dying by the bushel due to a lack of in-range and repaired fighter cover.Truly a marvel of Soviet engineering, that.
Huzzah!Vur h--erm, I mean, Da, komrade!
Per above - mainly an experiment to test enemy response and to 'blood' the marines. How well this ends up working out will be seen in the next chapter.I admit, I'm not really sure why this move makes any strategic sense. It looked like on the map a division was already crossing the strait, and I don't see a Japanese navy preventing that crossing. I suppose getting the Marines into the action is a reason, but why expose the navy to do so?
I'm mainly doing it in the hope that it will assist air operations if/when it comes to a hot war with the West (for detection and the air combat bonus).Not entirely sure why we're making this investment? I get the in-universe explanation of intel, but personally I've always thought of radars as a bit useless for land wars, since knowing where the AI's troops are hardly is needed to beat the AI handily.
Too right! Here's cheers, Big Ears!I'll drink to that, mate!
That's basically what I've been doing, per other comments above. Hopefully it will be far less of an issue when we're running rampant through the decadent capitalists in Central and Western Europe.This is broadly true, although one need not upgrade the very end of the bad supply but rather start upgrading near one's rear lines, so to speak. The supply system is supposed to be designed to supply the farthest units first, which means that if not enough total supply makes its way to the troops the rear areas will tend to be hit harder, all else being equal (which it usually isn't).
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OK, thanks everyone for following, the next chapter should be up fairly shortly.- 2