Units with too much support

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morvael
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Units with too much support

Post by morvael »

My Heavy Gun Regiments stay at 66% TOE, because they send "over the top" support squads elsewhere. My questions:
1) Is it wise thing for the game to do so, as the unit "readiness" status is in danger, and it can be made unready by a loss of few guns?
2) Where do those support squads end up? How to track them?
3) Does it generate constant need for replacement support squads, as the unit is way below TOE, creating false need and inflating Support Squad numbers (wasting ARM and Manpower)?
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Joel Billings
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RE: Units with too much support

Post by Joel Billings »

1) Maybe not always wise, but there is something that will try to keep support squads from being sent back if the unit is otherwise at a high level of TOE. Once the overall unit TOE drops below 90% (I think that's the rule, and it was only added within the past few months IIRC), then support squads will go back if they are deemed unneeded.

2) AFAIK, they go back to the manpower pool and equipment pool. Not sure if it reports this info in the log file.

3) It will only try to refit up to the level of need the unit has. So when the other elements are lost, the support may be sent back until replacements come into the unit and cause the unit to need more. I don't know the timing on this, but don't think there are any losses that result because of the movement back and forth.
All understanding comes after the fact.
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morvael
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RE: Units with too much support

Post by morvael »

It would be great if the support squad flow would be detailed in unit supply status window (so one could know where are those bonus support squads coming from and where do they went to in case of HQ).

I have analyzed one of my units and the situation was as follows:

1st Tank Army: 700/0, 700/0, 776/0
19th Tank Corps: 208/479, 202/5, 402/459
20th Tank Corps: 208/479, 203/5, 409/468
1st Mechanized Corps: 405/879, 400/5, 718/808
294th Flame Tank Bn: 21/21, 20/1, 20/19
359th Guard Heavy Tank Rgt: 5/21, 4/0, 4/4
135th Motorcycle Rgt: 20/41, 20/0, 33/37
357th Heavy Gun Rgt: 115/72, 69/1, 69/69
416th Heavy Gun Rgt: 115/72, 72/1, 72/72
418th AT Artillery Rgt: 15/22, 15/0, 19/21
299th AA Battalion: 5/18, 5/0, 15/18
393rd AA Rgt: 7/15, 7/0, 12/14
417th Mortar Regiment: 32/43, 31/1, 39/42
237th Sapper Regt: 8/48, 7/1, 48/48
236th Sapper Regt: 8/48, 8/0, 48/48
235th Sapper Regt: 8/48, 8/0, 46/46

The numbers are for:
1) Support squads as proscribed by TOE/Support need for unit at 100% TOE
2) Ready support squads/damaged support squads
3) Support had/support need

Heavy Gun Regiments are the only unit (not counting the HQ) that has more support squads (ss) than it needs (43 ss over the need). All other units are ss suckers, requiring 1212 ss more at 100% TOE (2306 total need). At present strength they require 1103 ss more (2173 total need). At the same time they recieve from the HQ (?) 883 additional ss. HQ itself is able to provide only 700 ss, however it shows "support had" at 776. Where do the additional 183 (or 107 if counting those additional 76 ss in HQ) come from? The rules say they could be provided by a HQ from the command chain, in this case STAVKA. Maybe it is so. One other observation is that support units assigned to Stavka recieve no ss help from their parent. Is it because all ss from STAVKA are first drained by fronts?
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morvael
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RE: Units with too much support

Post by morvael »

Also, support units attached to combat units (the three Sapper Regts at the end of the list) recieved 100% ss help, which was not the case for SU attached to the army HQ. Perhaps they drain from their parent CU.

All in all, some transparency in this algorithm (either as a detail window in game, log message or just explanation in the rules or in the forum) would be great. What I'm trying to achieve is to mitigate the huge losses Soviet units get from high attrition caused by low numbers of built-in ss (whereas German units are usually around 90-100% of need).
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