New S42 Campaign!

[Volcano Man]

Perhaps a better solution is to simply not have the Russian supply increase at all. The way it is currently, it just gets significantly higher as the campaign proceeds, which is probably contrary to what needs to occur. Having it remain the same throughout and with the use of VST means that their supplies will begin to suffer as their lines are stretched, and the Germans will have better supplies in the area of the Winter Storm counter attack simply because they are closer to their own SSs, and the Russians are very far away from their own. This seems logical to me.

That may work Ed, my concern would only be that if it is high enough for the first couple of days and stays at that level, then even without bumps to a higher level, the Soviets may have enough supply to continue attacking the pocket as soon as it forms, rather than having an operational pause as they struggled to push supply forward. I had run some tests I setup during a team game of the SS to the Rescue variant where the Soviet artillery seemed to be firing constantly. I found that with the map edge supply set to something like 110 or 120 (after 1-2 increases), the lowest supply level for the Soviet troops as I set them up in my test around a possible pocket was still up around 85, but most were in the high 90s on the north side of the pocket.

Now this is going back awhile, so I may be slightly off on parts but I do know that about half the hexes I tested were close to 100 for a supply level. So if you set the supply to start at 80 and leave it, the Soviets would still be close to maybe 60 in most areas, with the worst being at 40. This may work the way you want it, I would just like to see the supply levels at the pocket drop to more like a 20-40 range than 40-60, for awhile, then climb back up to the desired range, 40-60 or whatever that level might be.

I guess to summarize I don't think the VST drops quite fast enough along its route, so I suggest an enforced drop off for awhile, then return, rather than leaving it at a single level the entire time, allowing too much action for that week or however long. There could still be action, but historically there were only a few drives against the pocket at first, and none of them were major offensives, so it should be limited through supply problems for awhile.

Rick

Yeah, I think I will go that route and see what happens. It is probably not the best solution but it will keep (as you say) the soviets from getting > 100% supply from their map edge SSs around the pocket. One other idea might be to lower the Russian SS levels that are near the pocket map edge themselves, but keep the ones on the shoulders of the pocket high. This say, it won't place the supply levels at the pocket location in the 90s. Hmm... we might be onto something. ;)