Supply Superhighways, or SS.

[Shadow Master]

I must say I had a grim foreboding when I read the last DD and realised that PI was going to impose a much more realistic supply and logistics system.

Not that the new system isn't a great improvement, because I believe it is.
Not that it isn't realistic, because it definitely is.

So why the foreboding?

Because I fear that, why straining to achieve a better level of realism, the development team may forget to include for the players a possible solution to the new supply problems. This can be found in the inclusion of Engineer Divisions & Transportation Divisions, or be conspicuous in their absence. To make the game more realistic in one aspect, while denying the opposite, is not an improvement. The Nazi leadership didn't have large, well trained and well equipped Engineer Divisions (and paid the price in north Africa & the USSR as a result), not because it was impossible to have such forces, but because they didn't foresee the need for them. I like to think that, with hindsight, I could do a better job than that.

I had a post a few months back about a "strategic rail" system, that I will amend to describe as a "supply superhighway", which would include paved primary roadways (no stopping, because there are no intersections, just on and off ramps), parallel rail lines for simultaneous movement in both directions, and underground pipelines for the liquid portions of supply (water, lubricants, & Fuel).

I envision these SS (Supply Superhighways) able to be built normally (Like Infrastructure), but faster as there is just the one road to build, not hundreds in the case of a 10% improvement in an entire provinces network, and these SS would travel through a discrete series of provinces, and the ends of a SS would serve to link a capitol with a forward supply depot. Each level of a SS would allow a fixed amount of supply throughput per hour, and this would be reflected by showing the amount of supplies arriving (just like an overseas supply depot) at the destination depot. In the event of a branching of a SS, the lowest throughput would be the limiting factor, and the total supplies would be divided up between the different branches as the player decides.

The amount of supplies that could be shipped could always be reduced by attacks, but I would suppose that their rate of recovery would be faster than that of mere infrastructure, as these SS represent a vital service, and as such would take priority in repairs (this is an area that others would need to voice their input on, as I cannot figure out just how much faster these repairs should be made)

Normally, supply is going to be decided by need, and there will be a time lag for the supplies to be increased. A SS, on the other hand, simply moves the maximum (if the player so chooses) amount it can carry to the forward supply depot. I'm not sure whether a gigantic SS could/should/would be capable of supplying the entire eastern front (it would have to be a REALLY big one for that:rofl, but it should easily be able to serve as an offensive supply stockpile buildup.

I should probably point out, the SS's would serve as an independent, separate and additional means of moving supplies from the other methods, so low infra in a province (which would effect the flow of supplies along it's network) would have absolutely no effect on the flow of supplies along the SS running through that province, as the two are completely separate.

You know, I think that this may just deserve something more than just it's own thread...

 

[Alex_brunius]

Your supply superhighways never existed in the era. What did exist however was Railroads, and they achived results pretty close to this effect.

A well maintained railroad could transport supplies from one end of Soviet to the other fast, efficiently and with very little cost in supplies or manpower, only a small energy cost for the coal perhaps.
Using roads would still consume huge fuel costs. And pipelines would never be efficient or flexible enough to be worth the construction cost.

Thats why I think railroads should be separated from normal infrastructure. The resolution of the new map certainly is large enough to allow us to have little nice railroad connetion between major cities.

The Railroad network or lack thereof was make or break for most offensives. A railroad should have close to zero supply tax compared to other means of infrastructure.

As to Engineering divisions I think this could be solved by allowing the presence of enginerring brigades to repair infrastructure and or possibly separated railroads faster.

 

[Shadow Master]

Your supply superhighways never existed in the era. What did exist however was Railroads, and they achieved results pretty close to this effect.

A well maintained railroad could transport supplies from one end of Soviet to the other fast, efficiently and with very little cost in supplies or manpower, only a small energy cost for the coal perhaps.
Using roads would still consume huge fuel costs. And pipelines would never be efficient or flexible enough to be worth the construction cost.

As to Engineering divisions I think this could be solved by allowing the presence of engineering brigades to repair infrastructure and or possibly separated railroads faster.

I realise there were no SS built, not because they couldn't have been built, but because no body saw the need till the difficulties were all to apparent, and by then it was to late, what with the wartime demands upon manpower, resources, and IC.

IIRC, there was something about the D-day invasion, where an underground pipeline was built, and this was a critical factor in making allied divisions able to advance faster than expected. The same lack, is what cost Rommel most of his fuel, right? I cannot see a pipeline as costing more than a RR, quite the opposite I would think, especially if they were to be built side by side at the same time.

Trains are undoubtedly the most cost efficient means for transporting ones' supplies (other than pipelines for the liquids), but have the drawback of only being able to go where the rails are. If roads are built alongside the rails, then trucks can meet up with the trains at any point, load up on supplies, and then just drive to wherever their divisions happens to be at the moment.

I agree with you that a separate rail system needs to be able to be constructed expressly for the transporting of supplies in an efficient manner, and that the level of infrastructure in a province should have no impact on the use of this railway for transporting supplies to the front.

I have an idea.....
drop me a PM if interested in participating in a project.

 

[Battlecry]

As I've asked before, how far would you like to go with the "they could have built it, so we should be able to build it" argument?

Everything needed to build a B-52 bomber existed in 1948, so should we be able to build them?
Everything needed to launch orbital satellites existed in 1948, so should we be able to launch them?
Everything needed to build logistical superhighways (your 'SSs') existed in 1948, or even earlier, so should we be able to build them?
I think the answer to all of these is a resounding NO.

There are thousands of other examples of things that could have been built in the game period but weren't - so where does one draw the line?

I personally think the next evolution of the things produced during the war is as far as it should go. For instance had the war continued things would probably have been developed earlier, like the Soviet T-54 tank, or the US F-86 fighter - so we might see these ingame. Entire concepts that were not developed during the war, such as superhighways, should be left out, otherwise the list of potential concepts to be introduced would be prohibitively immense.

And, btw, pipelines cost substantially more per unit of distance than rails. The amount of material is of course larger, the engineering is (at the time) relatively new, and the monitoring/maintenance systems which are necessary for oil pipelines a) did not exist yet and b) raise the cost even higher.
It's the operating costs, per weight of oil transported, that are lower.

 

[Evans]

I also think railways would cover this really, and it'd be nice to see them in game... Major highways and railways could be rather simply modeled by upping inf, e.g. a major reason US Highways were actually devised were for a military purpose, likewise the Autobahn. But these were not somehow 'super' routes of communication, just a darned site better than say, the general state of Russian roads. If railways were modeled separately partisans would also be able to take on their historical role of cutting them, after all the success of the USSR's battle for Belarus owes a lot to the partisans who messed with the German rear area. Also, I'd love to see the rasputitsa implemented properly with this new system - i.e. dirt roads turn to rivers of mud.

This would seriously hamper non-rail logistics in Russia, and allow a more accurate model the military situation, rather than having some weird 'General Winter strikes again!' event that magically makes the Red Army capable of fighting overnight. Which is wrong for two reasons - first, their capacity to fight wasn't simply their capacity to use the weather as cover, the winter affected both sides. If winter = Russian much better, then why the debacle of the Winter War in Finland? Whilst generally the Finns are lauded for their intelligent use of the environment, the Soviets are accused of needed to be somehow saved by the winter - seems pretty hypocritical. Would be nice to see the USSR able to win Barbarossa as they really did - which means they'll need to be effective at mobilising new combat units. Whilst their 'operational' logistics were appalling (and a major reason they got so mauled, since they were so damned ungainly) they're 'strategic' ones were much, much better - after all it's a big task to mobilise millions of men, arm them, and get them to roughly where they need to be.

 

[Shadow Master]

Everything needed to build logistical superhighways (your 'SSs') existed in 1948, or even earlier, so should we be able to build them?

Entire concepts that were not developed during the war, such as superhighways, should be left out, otherwise the list of potential concepts to be introduced would be prohibitively immense.

Autobahns, which pre-dated the start of WWII, right?

And, btw, pipelines cost substantially more per unit of distance than rails. The amount of material is of course larger, the engineering is (at the time) relatively new, and the monitoring/maintenance systems which are necessary for oil pipelines a) did not exist yet and b) raise the cost even higher.
It's the operating costs, per weight of oil transported, that are lower.

Do you ever get a chance to watch a show called modern marvels? It is a most excellent show dealing with many things, mostly engineering, and blows me away!

They had one particular show, about a highway built at/near the start of WWII, that I would consider a close cousin to the SS, and that was a highway built to connect Alaska to the lower 48. If I can get a copy of that program, I'll post the stats so we can compare.

I could see an 'Alaskan oil pipeline' type thing having more materials than a railroad, but don't know about the costs (for either the rail or pipelines) so cannot comment on that, as I am not an Engineer yet (Just finishing my first year). Railroads need sand and gravel and wood, though, in pretty huge amounts I would imagine, whereas the pipeline just gets set in a trench and gets covered over by the dirt dug out of it to start with.

Are you, by any chance, an Engineer by profession?

 

[Battlecry]

Autobahns, which pre-dated the start of WWII, right?

The autobahns were originally envisioned as a strategic highway system inside Germany, yes, but you're talking about being able to build these everywhere - a monolithic task. I really don't think the concept belongs in HOI3.
At most perhaps the last (90-100%) stage of infrastructure development, which might encompass superhighways etc, might provide more of a bonus than the stages before it. For instance a 100% infrastructure province might receive an additional bonus that lower levels don't.

Do you ever get a chance to watch a show called modern marvels? It is a most excellent show dealing with many things, mostly engineering, and blows me away!

They had one particular show, about a highway built at/near the start of WWII, that I would consider a close cousin to the SS, and that was a highway built to connect Alaska to the lower 48. If I can get a copy of that program, I'll post the stats so we can compare.

I could see an 'Alaskan oil pipeline' type thing having more materials than a railroad, but don't know about the costs (for either the rail or pipelines) so cannot comment on that, as I am not an Engineer yet (Just finishing my first year). Railroads need sand and gravel and wood, though, in pretty huge amounts I would imagine, whereas the pipeline just gets set in a trench and gets covered over by the dirt dug out of it to start with.

Are you, by any chance, an Engineer by profession?

I'm not an engineer, but I do live in Alberta and hence know quite a few associated with the pipelines etc. The fact that there is an entire category of companies related to pipeline maintenance and monitoring (which is quite the high-tech field today), while railroads generally are owned & maintained by just one company (with far fewer employees) suggests a level of maintenance required that goes far beyond the "dig a trench and put a pipe in it" origins. I suppose if you're not worried about the pipeline leaking/bursting and horribly damaging the ecosystem (or forcing mass evacuations of humans etc etc.) then it might be very cheap.

 

[Alex_brunius]

I suppose if you're not worried about the pipeline leaking/bursting and horribly damaging the ecosystem (or forcing mass evacuations of humans etc etc.) then it might be very cheap.

Nah I don't think loosing huge amounts of refined fuel to spills each hour can be considered cheap in any way even ignoring the enviroment. Especially if you didn't spend resources on manned control stations along the way so the entire pipeline in both directions will be emptied even if you turn off the tap via radio the same second the leak appears (not so likely if you bury them). Pipelines also have to be specially treated not to rust and there are needed separate lines for each fluid (water/fuel/lubricants).

 

[Garmorn]

Why not change the way infrastructure is built.

ESE is gone. Provinces now can have two open ended ratings. The first would govern how many supplies it can handle and the second how fast it can handle them. With one or both of these rating you don't need any thing else. Germany's or other major nations core industrial provinces can have ratings that top 200 or even 2000 while some places would have 10 or even 0 ratings.

This would mean that you could build one central supply line but watch out if it is cut or captured.

 

[unmerged(45464)]

I can see it now. The new version of the Panzer IV which not only is a tank, but everywhere it goes it magically constructs a super highway. Seriously, you think it's easy to build such a thing? They would maybe get to Eastern Poland by the time the war had turned the other way and they would have to blow up the road to prevent the Soviets from using it Constructing it fast enough to be of any use to the advancing tanks would be impossible, even if your entire engineer corps consisted of miracle workers like Scotty from Star Trek ^^

 

[Shadow Master]

I also think railways would cover this really, and it'd be nice to see them in game... Major highways and railways could be rather simply modeled by upping inf, e.g. a major reason US Highways were actually devised were for a military purpose, likewise the Autobahn.

Sorry, I missed your post earlier. What I would want, is a separate system, that just serves to make transporting through a province as quick and efficient as possible. If you use, in any portion, an infrastructure that was built to serve other needs (movement within the province), you will inevitably end up reducing your capacity for moving supplies.

The autobahns were originally envisioned as a strategic highway system inside Germany, yes, but you're talking about being able to build these everywhere - a monolithic task.

I'm not an engineer, but I do live in Alberta and hence know quite a few associated with the pipelines etc. The fact that there is an entire category of companies related to pipeline maintenance and monitoring (which is quite the high-tech field today), while railroads generally are owned & maintained by just one company (with far fewer employees) suggests a level of maintenance required that goes far beyond the "dig a trench and put a pipe in it" origins. I suppose if you're not worried about the pipeline leaking/bursting and horribly damaging the ecosystem (or forcing mass evacuations of humans etc etc.) then it might be very cheap.

Aha! I thought so! We are not picturing the same thing at all.:rofl:

When I said underground pipeline, the image of the "Alaskan Oil Pipeline" flashed into your mind. I don't mean to build something on such a scale (their wouldn't be the need, nor probably the capability, to do so in the 1930's to 1940's). Think more along the lines of a 6" diameter pipe, not something that should be considered a 'wonder of the world'.

The 'concept' of the autobahns originated in Germany, before the war, and would seem to make sense to extend them as you move into enemy territory, to avoid the very things the new supply and logistics system are going to inflict.

I am an avid "what if" player, and for me, most of the fun comes from figuring a way to do what others say cannot be done. History is full of times when someone did what others didn't believe they could, so having a game made to force me to suffer the same lack of supply transport capacity as the incompetent Nazi's did, isn't a way to get me interested.

 

[Alex_brunius]

The 'concept' of the autobahns originated in Germany, before the war, and would seem to make sense to extend them as you move into enemy territory, to avoid the very things the new supply and logistics system are going to inflict.

I think supply autobahns would be a bad investment since they are more expensive to build per km, more expensive to use per km (in both terms of men and cost), and more expensive to maintain, when compared to ordinary railways.

Add to this the fact that Germany had no raw oil production but huge ammounts of coal and the investment turns out even worse from a pure realism standpoint.

Im still not convinced anything except more railroads would need to be expanded. Especially considering the flexibility of them, Rails could and did transport all of the things you mention in huge amounts.

 

[Shadow Master]

Why not change the way infrastructure is built.

Because infrastructure is all about movement within the province (all over the province), and not about movement across a province. For example;

Branch county, Michigan, contains roughly 14 congressional townships (a block of land 6X6 miles sq), or a total land area of apx 500 sq mi. Building 10% better infrastructure in such an area, would be like having to build a complete road network to service a 50 sq mi area. Now compare that with a single road built across the county (a distance of apx 24 miles). One road, 24 miles long, or scores of roads, going all over the county.

Branch county is one of the smallest counties of Michigan's 83 counties, and Michigan in HoI2 is just 4 provinces! That means that in the above example, multiply the area by at least 20. So I think that it should now be clear that there is no correlation between infrastructure and a through-way.

I can see it now. The new version of the Panzer IV which not only is a tank, but everywhere it goes it magically constructs a super highway. Seriously, you think it's easy to build such a thing? They would maybe get to Eastern Poland by the time the war had turned the other way and they would have to blow up the road to prevent the Soviets from using it Constructing it fast enough to be of any use to the advancing tanks would be impossible, even if your entire engineer corps consisted of miracle workers like Scotty from Star Trek ^^

Read my above post for my thoughts on doing the "impossible", lol.:rofl:

 

[Shadow Master]

I think supply autobahns would be a bad investment since they are more expensive to build per km, more expensive to use per km (in both terms of men and cost), and more expensive to maintain, when compared to ordinary railways.

Add to this the fact that Germany had no raw oil production but huge amounts of coal and the investment turns out even worse from a pure realism standpoint.

I'm still not convinced anything except more railroads would need to be expanded. Especially considering the flexibility of them, Rails could and did transport all of the things you mention in huge amounts.

I agree with you to a point, but rail is good only to a fixed destination. I don't envision massive truck convoys running parallel to the train tracks, as that would be as bad as you point out (in fact, I think this is where we disagree. I think you are visualising such a duplication of effort).

Supplying a city, rail is great. Supplying a division, that moves from day to day, and my be nearer of further from the train day by day, trucks are needed to take the supplies the rest of the way, and as the front itself moves, you need a roadway along the tracks to ensure the trucks have access to the train just about anywhere along it's tracks.

 

[humancalculator]

With the whole "engineer divisions" thing, I think that engineer brigades are large enough since if you had full engineer divisions, they would be ungainly and would have bad attack values. ( I don't picture civil engineers in hardhats charging tanks.)

 

[Shadow Master]

With the whole "engineer divisions" thing, I think that engineer brigades are large enough since if you had full engineer divisions, they would be ungainly and would have bad attack values. ( I don't picture civil engineers in hardhats charging tanks.)

If your engineers are engaging in combat, you have already lost, lol.

I remember my first HoI2 games, and building infra and wondering why is was going to take years to build a road through a province. Then I realized there was no option to build a road through a province.

That is when I realized that the game had a flaw, and that to correct this flaw, I needed a way to directly build division sized units to be able to accomplish the tasks on a timely basis. If the game abstracts the civilian contractors who are employed improving a provinces infra by 10% needing a year to complete the task, then how do we model the effect of 10,000 men, fully trained and equipped with the latest earth-moving equipment, demolitions supplies, and dump-trucks on the construction time? And what if more than one division were used?

For the sake of argument, lets take a look at the 10% increase in a province's infra. IIRC, this takes 1 IC/year (or 360 IC days). If we say that an engineer division could speed up this task, by say 10% for a type I ENG division, that would cut the costs down to 294 days (I personally think that this would not be enough of the discount, but lets go with it for now). If a second ENG div were to be assigned, lets grant another 10% reduction (29.4 IC days), so the project will only take 264.6 IC days now.

The same general idea could and would apply to every type of provincial building project, whether it's an air or naval base, a fortress, AAA, whatever.

Perhaps the initial bonus would need to be 50% (that seems more like it), and then each additional having a diminishing return.

 

[unmerged(7537)]

Why not change the way infrastructure is built.

ESE is gone. Provinces now can have two open ended ratings. The first would govern how many supplies it can handle and the second how fast it can handle them. With one or both of these rating you don't need any thing else. Germany's or other major nations core industrial provinces can have ratings that top 200 or even 2000 while some places would have 10 or even 0 ratings.

This would mean that you could build one central supply line but watch out if it is cut or captured.

This sounds like a sensible approach, and I hope Paradox is implementing a system something along those lines.

 

[unmerged(45464)]

Read my above post for my thoughts on doing the "impossible", lol.:rofl:

Oh I'm sure pretty much anything is possible given enough time and money. We have the technology today to build a vacuum tunnel between London and New York that allows trains to travel so fast it would only take 30 minutes to travel between the cities. Problem is it would be ready around 2050 and cost billions and billions of dollars.

I think the railroad idea is good though. I'd like that.

 

[daemonbone]

If anyone has ever played the GDW Europa games, especially Drang nach Osten, the importance of supply and railroads in WWII becomes dramatically clear.
For the Soviets, the narrow gauge railroad was the secret defense. Without railroads running right behind the German army columns, the Germans simply had no way to reach as far as Moscow without focusing every effort on expanding the rail gauge on the line running from Warsaw through Minsk to Moscow. The Germans employed 19 numbered Railroad Engineer Regiments (numbered 1st through 19th) just to re-gauge the soviet narrow gauge railroad. Reaching Stalingrad in 1941, which I can do with ease in HOI2, was impossible in reality. The Germans simply did not have the capability to re-gauge the rail lines fast enough to support an advance that far into the Soviet Union.
Drang nach Osten was a fun game, with the entire Barbarossa campaign at battalion and regimental level and 10 mile Hex scale, the map required three 4'x8' plywood tables to setup and play. Inevitably my cat ended our games by sleeping on the map, but we had tons of fun with that game until El Gato brought Armageddon to the map.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europa_(wargame)

 

[peo]

With the whole "engineer divisions" thing, I think that engineer brigades are large enough since if you had full engineer divisions, they would be ungainly and would have bad attack values. ( I don't picture civil engineers in hardhats charging tanks.)

I think you are misunderstanding what an "engineer division" are.
It is more like the US army corps of engineers which has nothing to do with the engineers in combat units.
An engineering "division" would be real engineers building things like railways while an engineer brigade is basically normal infantry with equipment for fording rivers, clearing mines, preparing extensive mined areas or defensive positions (building bunkers and trenches and whatnot).