Yes it is really silly (to put it midly), huge factor of german loss on the east front was due to lack of oil/supplies (mainly because of horrible infrastructure/mud/partisans), yet that will play no role in HoI 4 ?
Of course it will play a role. It works like this:
- You create 1800 Panzer IVs for your armored corp. This costs oil.
- Every time those panzers fight, they take some attrition in the form of losses
- every time those panzers are in bad weather they take attrition (more when fighting/moving, i believe)
- every time those panzers move through rough terrain, they take attrition
- Even if you have the correct amount of oil and are producing lots of replacements, if the supply situation is poor (low infrrastructure on the eastern front due to partisans/mud), the replacements can't reach the divisions on the front, and they will suffer combat penalties for not having full equipment *and* for being low on supplies.
If you do not have panzers rolling off the assembly line (costing you oil) to function as replacements for the attrition, then that unit will have penalties to it's combat capability. Therefore: Panzers moving/fighting/being in bad weather/terrain when you have no/little oil means they will progressively get worse over time, because you are not able to replace them fast enough.
Mechanically it's the same thing, even if it's not exactly modeled as fuel was. No oil = your panzers to worse over time. Plenty of oil = you have plenty of replacements = no major penalty.
For ships though, it does breakdown somewhat. However, I expect with the outcry that has so far been seen, we will likely see something done about this in an expansion.
