rail useage

[trooperrob]

I am trying to understand Rail useage. Russia starting at Stalingrad scenario.
On the Caspian sea, starting at Derbent. The rail line going to nasosnoya
1 hex from Derbent and going south, the rail useage is 5416 on most hex.

314,197 useage is 10833.
316,197 useage is 10833.
the hex between has 5416.

This has a railway with no spurs, and no units, airbases between the two.

How can some hexes between two towns have a different rail useage amount with nothing in between to use supplies.

This is turn 8.
Presumably if I had moved a unit by rail from there, it would be high all the way forward. I don't think that has happened in the last turn or two.

Presumably repairing fuel and rail lines to fuel / refineries is important, or are fuel shortages at this point (dec/jan) more likely to be from weather and offensive operations.

[loki1006]

few bits to bear in mind

a) what you see is the residual usage not the actual usage
b) sticking to a dual rail line, if usage is 30k or less that is divided by 6, any usage > 30k is divided by 4
c) usage is freight moves + unit transfers
d) there is a random element at play, which can sometimes dump usage into a given hex
e) scenario designers can put in differential starting usages in the set up - this then interacts with (b) and can leave lumpy patterns quite a few turns later

fuel transport is a bit different - described in the manual as it keys off the assumed existence of pipelines for city-city transfers

[trooperrob]

thanks, I understand that there may be some diverted, etc, what I didn't understand was the different useage along a single railway line between 2 cities with no airbases / unit between the towns. Surely what you put down a line has to come out the other side? Unless there is a spur, or a unit entrained on that line.

What I was seeing was something like town - 5k, 5k, 10k, 5k, 10k, 10k 5k - town.

I was having a problem with resources not getting to grozny and 2 other towns. I suspect this is damage to oil facilities / rr / too many units in that area taking supplies, but was trying to trace rail useage.

Surely if a hex had used supply, it might be a town getting repaired, the rail would be town 10k 10k town 7k 7k 7k town.
random useage, would that have to be a hex with something in it? a town, manpower centre, unit etc?

edit, - or would this be certain hexes had failed their recovery roll, therefore hadn't cleared the congestion. so in effect it is not tonnage down the line it is jammed points in a couple of hexes causing disruption.

Thanks Loki for your replies

[loki1006]

If I recall, the random element is just that, its a block of usage dumped into the hex. So it could be a train accident, partisans taking out something really critical or random incompetence.

Grozny is hard to get much too for a few reasons for the Soviet side. Very little will come by rail from the north via Astrakhan as that is a lot of single track running from the Saratov NSS. There is another NSS on the other side of the Caspian and in a recent game that pushed about 7k tons of freight across the sea (so the cap is naval assets). My opponent said he had about 4 armies defending that sector and this just got used up on arrival (so no storage).

Oddly its easier to set up an effective German supply network there if you force tailor and really commit the transport assets.

So no clear answer, but I'd suggest if residual usage is 5 or 10K that isn't the real problem. Its just the Soviets have relatively little freight available around there.

As I say my current game just had an epic tussle for that sector, the Soviets ended up losing Grozny but holding the ports, but my opponent really only had the freight to defend and replace losses, not to push me back.