Several Moscow 42 Questions

[Volcano Man]

As far as isolation, please note every large objective (1,000 points) has a 30 point supply source. This is to allow units to hedgehog (as in Hitler's stand fast orders or Stalin's not one step back). Was there an objective inside the area you had encircled?

BTW, when I said it wasn't a good idea to "hold to the last man" that was in regards to holding a solitary isolated bunker to the last man in general; because of that, my post was probably irrelevant to the conversation. Certainly if the region has its own supply source present then that would influence that decision even more, since it would be practical to get isolated and fight on (similar to the fortress complexes in France '14). Adding these lower supply sources to help encourage holding to the last man in specific places is a great idea.

[Nitram Draw]

Regarding bunkers, my experience seems to be sort of the opposite of what some of you are saying thus far, and the more I play, the more worried I become regarding the Axis losses.

Whenever I concentrate about a Rifle regiment+artillery against a single Axis battalion, I can destroy the defender in about a day, sometimes less. From a mathematical perspective (losses suffered compared with amount of turns) making a stand seems fairly suicidal for the Axis. This worries me. Even units in bunkers can take similar losses than those in other hexes, because many bunkers are not actually in a good terrain hex near Kalinin and thus only seem to give a +20 bonus, which is peanuts when facing an entire Rifle regiment. With the alternate assault rules, on the other hand, you can't really scratch bunkers. There doesn't seem to be much of a middle ground.

From a mathematical perspective, Axis losses don't seem to be sustainable. Even assuming you can't assault a unit, you can generally hit them with a number of artillery units each turn (provided you plan things right) so they'll still take 10-15 losses per turn, which means they still die in 2-3 days (depending on whether you can assault them). It's like in the tutorial, but all along the front: you can't advance far on day 1, but you destroy numerous battalions. In the tutorial, I can't move more than a couple of kilometres into the German line, but I destroy 3-4 German battalions in 1 day.

Although losses from single attacks often still feel like they're on the low side, daily losses can be quite high.

In this game not many infantry unit can even fire at units in a bunker so artillery is really the only choice to try and get a disruption and most of them have lousy Hard Attack numbers.

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I have seen units going to low ammo under isolation in Moscow '42, do you have any specific examples you can share? It's fatal for D morale Soviets.

Don't they automatically go Low Ammo if they fire while isolated?

[76mm]

Don't they automatically go Low Ammo if they fire while isolated?

That's the point--they are supposed to, but in my experience often they don't. Here is a screenie of two German units which have been isolated for 3-4 turns, and have fired, but are not on low ammo (see highlighted German unit):


And here is a shot of several German units which should be isolated, as far as I understand, but are not. They've been in a similar position for 3-4 turns:


Can anyone shed any light on what's going on?

[JDR Dragoon]

Yes.

With FOW on, you cannot see whether an enemy unit is on "Low Ammo/Fuel". You can guess though (is his fire causing a low number of casualties, am I killing a lot of his anks with each shot?).

With regard to the 2nd picture: remember that HQs do not exert a ZOC! That stack is likely drawing a supply path south of the lake, past your HQ at the two-hex lake.

[raizer]

that second pic has the highlighted stack NE of the lake, it can draw due S past your hq unit thru the woods for supply. HQs dont have zocs. So the arty and the stack with E at the top can draw the same way-they are not cut off. They getting food and booze and bullets thru the woods-look for a little girl and a red cape leading the supplys ;-)

Towed AT guns are the same as HQs-you got one of them in place with the HQ, those krauts are still in supply. You need a unit with a zoc

Now in your first pic, those guys, if fired should be low ammo-turn off FOW is the only way to see it

[Nitram Draw]

That's the point--they are supposed to, but in my experience often they don't. Here is a screenie of two German units which have been isolated for 3-4 turns, and have fired, but are not on low ammo (see highlighted German unit):


And here is a shot of several German units which should be isolated, as far as I understand, but are not. They've been in a similar position for 3-4 turns:


Can anyone shed any light on what's going on?

I don't get the first example. Seems like they should go Loww Ammo next turn.

For the bottom example maybe it has to do with the HQ being one of the blocking units. Do HQ's have a ZOC?

[raizer]

They are low ammo you just cannot see it on the unit portraits. The fog of war is on. You cannot see low ammo/low fuel in the unit windows with fog of war setting enabled, just as you cannot see exact troops #s. Trust me there is no problem with the example you provided...you have to realize that you are not entitled to see their ammo/fuel status because you have fog of war as a setting.

Again, HQs do not have a ZOC and those german units are not isolated because of it.

[76mm]

Thanks for all of the responses. But a few more questions about the mysteries of isolation!

First, I could have sworn that I have often seen enemy units with Low Ammo, even with FoW, but of course this turn can't find any! So have I been hallucinating all this time, or do you sometimes see Low Ammo even with FoW?

On the isolation example, I was going to give a wider screen shot which showed units outside of the picture which should have blocked supply, but realized that all of these shots are post-move anyway, so probably useless. Anyway, I had forgotten about HQs not having a ZoC.

However, here are two further examples. According to my weak grasp of the rules, the German unit in the first screen shot SHOULD NOT be isolated, but is, and the unit in the second SHOULD be isolated, but is not:

[Liebchen]

OK, so these shots were taken at the beginning of the Russian turn, right? If so, then this is my guess as to what happened:

a. The first example, the infantry, was isolated at the beginning of the German turn, but the German AI moved the other units adjacent to it, so that now it has restored the unit's supply line. But this restoration won't take effect until the beginning of the next German turn.

b. In the second example, the ATG must have had another unit (infantry?) next to it at the beginning of the German turn, allowing it to escape "isolated" status. But that other (infantry?) unit moved away during the course of the German turn, leaving the ATG there in it's initial status. At the start of the next German turn, that ATG will be isolated.

That's my guess. Perhaps due to the size of the scenario your playing, you had no continuity and these particular units' status escaped your notice. It might be easier to pick these details up, if you weren't playing what has to be one of the largest scenarios in one of the largest ever Panzer Campaigns titles.

I'll bet that cut off Russian infantry stack in the first example is marked "isolated," isn't it?

[76mm]

Yeah, these are from the beginning of my turn. And yes, those Russian units isolated. And yes, given the size of the scenario, it can get difficult to remember the specific situation of each of thousands of friendly and enemy units. I guess I thought that isolation would be determined at the beginning of every turn, not just the phasing player, but if you're right that would probably explain a lot.