Road to Minsk and rails - newb question

[danielprates]

Hi veterans, mind answering a newbie doubt here?

So I have tried the road to minsk tutorial. Great stuff. Now... I am a bit lost as to some info about rail logistics.

The thing is, both my mobile armies advanced in pincer movements and I tried to make them reach minsk alongside the rails. But in the 'damaged rail' map mode, the rails I captured all appear wit the red dots (fully damaged?), and in the logsitics map mode, that colored overlay (green, yellow flow color) that is supposed to show density of supply traffic just doesnst show, it is black along the captured rails. To sum things up, all my captured rail shows as 'red' in the damage map, and 'black' in the logistics map, which makes me think it is dead and not being used.

My units didnt run out of supply, but it being a two turn scenario, that may just be beacuse they didnt have the time to starve out of supplies.

So it makes me wonder:

1 - the captured rails are inoperative?
2 - I absolutelly have to repair them, to orange status at least?
3 - Repairing happens on its own eventually or I have necessarily to use the rail repair unit? Cause it seems like an overwhealming task

[El Nino]

I'm relatively new compared to a lot of others here, but I'll attempt to answer. Anyone else please feel free to correct or add to this!

So a bit of historical trivia is that the Soviet railways were slightly wider than the German railways, and so the gap had to be fixed in order to allow German trains to use them. This is shown in the game, and its denoted by a red circle in the Rail view (red also means damaged/inoperable, yellow means it is next to an enemy unit and cannot be used due to hit and run attacks, and orange means its under repair).

Basically any railway you capture in Russia will need to be "repaired" by construction companies/battalions. You should have 1 that you can move yourself in the Minsk scenario, while HQs will have their own smaller repair units that only they can control. You can move around support units to different HQs, but ultimately they decide where to use them.

Also you don't necessarily need to keep your units on the railway, as truck can be used to get supplies from your depots to your units. The Road to Minsk is a relatively short scenario, so there's not much time to see the effects of proper or poor logistics. I think Road to Leningrad is a good scenario up that will give you the time and scale to experiment better with logistics. Best of luck!

[loki1006]

1 - yes, your analysis is sound, sections 6.6 and 6.9 of the manual give you some information but crudely red dot (rail mode) not repaired, black line (freght mode) no rail movement
2 - a fully repaired and connected rail hex will show as green, repaired but not connected yellow, repaired this turn orange (ie will then be ready in the next turn). You'll particulary see yellow in the Baltic region as here you sometimes capture rails intact (11.4)
3 - ok things get complex, so again I'll send you to the manual. You have 2 assets. One is a form of Support Unit that is allocated by the computer to repair rail hexes (they will do one a turn). There is a bit of feng shui to their precise management but for now ignroe these and they will sort out secondary links for you (22.6.1).

You then have a number of manually controilled rail repair HQs (22.6.2 and 22.6.3, 6.5.9 contains some bits). You move these to an unrepaired hex, tell it to repair, move it to the next, as in those sections after a while its used up its capacity.
One of those game conventions that becomes second nature but is a bit fiddly at first

Controlling these and then setting depots as you move forward is at the heart of the wider supply system.

Now in 'Minsk' this is really just to practice as the German units come over the border full of supply and ammo. Depending this will last for 2-4 turns and then you need to worry about resupply.

At first you can let the computer handle depot placement etc but you do need to control the key part of the rail repair system

Roger

[danielprates]

Allright thanks, I think I am less lost now. Yes @el nino I know I don't have to move units on rails, I meant, my advance follows the path of railways

Well... I tried 'road to leningrad' to see how all of this works in more detail, 'minsk' is too small to properly show the effects of lack of supply.

A few things immediatelly became obvious:

1 - The autonomous, HG-attached repair units seems to cover more track than the unit I control directly, am I right? However I have to take care not to move the HQ too far or they get separated from the HQ, is that correct?

2 - It is not real colossal problem to have tracks repair slowly as units draw supply from depots up to 30 hexes away. But damn.... that feels a bit too far doesn't it? In map terms that is what, 100kms or so?

[loki1006]

You should get about 4-5 hexes per turn with the rail repair you control. Given that you will also capture a lot of intact rail hexes in the opening turns, reckon on getting your rail head to the Dauga by T3, T4 at the latest

The others are allocated in the range set by their HQ, so a corps is 5 hexesm an Army Grp this is 30. So there is a trade off between relative focus and just letting them fill in the gaps. They work on a hex till its repaired so you can move the controlling HQ in the meantime

in the operning turns where you have good weather and relatively clear terrain a long supply trace is acceptable - shorter is better but till you get the rails repaired you are a bit stuck. once the weather turns and you get into that awful terrain N of Pskov a 30 hex trace will cripple you

At core resupply uses the motorised movement costs so poor weather + heavy woods and poor roads = a lot of MP/hex.

As the MP cost of the supply trace goes up, trying to keep in supply costs more and more trucks. These trucks are then not available for combat operations (lower combat value for your units) or unit mobility (so lower MP in your units) and, even worse, the damn things break down.

While RtL has the benefit of being low density, it does give you quite a challenge in terms of the supply system. SW Front is a bit easier in this regard as you have better weather and also mostly clear terrain

[HB]

Originally posted by danielprates:

2 - It is not real colossal problem to have tracks repair slowly as units draw supply from depots up to 30 hexes away. But damn.... that feels a bit too far doesn't it? In map terms that is what, 100kms or so?

30 hexes is 600 miles, 965 klms, round trip in a week.

Did you access the unit and click on its supply info tab?, it will tell you where it gets supplies from etc.

https://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/Germany/HB/index.html
c. MARCH DISTANCES. The infantry division normally can march about 20 miles in a day; under adverse weather or road conditions the rate of march may fall to 10 miles a day. The motorized division can maintain an average daily march of between 90 and 150 miles; the armored division from 60 to 90 miles a day. In the near vicinity of the combat zone, road movements without motor transport average 10 to 15 miles a day, while movements by motor transport approximate 30 miles a day.

[danielprates]

Allright thanks @HB; @loki1006 and @elnino, I was away in vacation and couldn't answer before. Your tips greatly helped me get started, thanks a lot again.