Slitherine

Guys,

As a general rule, when an attacker isolates ('pockets') an enemy zone, that zone is limited to whatever local supply source (usu a city) may be there, and the defender cannot rail move or build units within the isolated zone until he's able to re-connect it with the capital.

For example: During Barbarossa, the Axis do an armored pincer move and isolate Kiev and surrounding hexes from the rest of Russia--units in that area would get on ly supply '3' and be unable to rail; no new Russian units could be built in the isolated area.

There's a problem, though, with this in southern Russia. By taking the Rostov-Grozny line to the shores of the Caspian Sea, the Axis should be able to isolate Baku, etc. along the above lines. But because of the Allied supply '5' capitals in the Middle East, the Soviet player gets supply '4' in most of the isolated region, and what's more he can still rail and build within the isolated region.

I understand that originally the supply '5' capitals were established in Iraq in order to allow rail movement, but this is causing problems in southern Russia, as well as providing unrealistically high supply levels in the Allied-controlled Middle East. Is there no way to remedy this? Since it's now possible in the game to do rail movement in, for example, Finland, even when it's not connected with a major power capital, it seems that it should be possible to fix this--but then, I'm not a programmer.

Nobody has responded to this thread yet, and I'm concerned that we're going into the next edition without it being dealt with.

The ability of Russian units, as well as the other Allies, to draw supply from the Middle East as if it were a Major Capitol can seriously impact any Axis attempt to conquer the Caucasus oil. Is anybody working on this?

Please also note the more minor glitch that Axis units invading Persia from Baku are penalized under the Malta interdiction rule.

Thanks,

I agree.

And a further wrinkle should be Soviet oil supplies – does anybody know how the Soviets transported there oil from the Caucasus to the rest of Russia?

Did it go by train overland, or across the Caspian sea by barge?

If the land route is cut off by the Germans, the Russian oil supply should be affected.

Granted, the game's oil model might make this challenging, but it is worth looking at.

Here is a very interesting article:
http://karbuz.blogspot.com/2006/10/oil- ... wii-3.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum_ ... Azerbaijan

Russia started to use the Baku/Batumi pipeline in 1906 so the Russians could transport oil to the Black Sea and then out to the world. Many oil tankers sailed on the Caspian Sea to provide Russia with oil and petroleum.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baku%E2%80 ... i_pipeline

By reading here we see that this pipeline was dismantled in 1942 because the Germans threatened to capture it. Instead the pipes were used for the Astrakhan / Saratov pipeline. This indicates that the Baku oil was sent by ship to Astrakhan and further to Russia.

Here is a link with the modern pipelines from Baku:
http://www.country.az/_Economy/_OilStra ... s/btc.html

Here we see that Aktau and Krasnovodsk on the eastern bank of the Caspian sea were used. Both of these were out of range for the Germans.

http://www.country.az/_Economy/_OilStra ... _05_e.html

If a fix for the various problems in the Caucasus is to be done, here are the items that IMO need to be changed:

1) Middle Eastern capitals (Baghdad, etc.) should be changed to '3' supply.

2) If, for some reason, '1' above cannot be implemented, then Russian units in the Caucasus region (Baku & north) should only be able to draw '3' supply from Middle Eastern cities.
2a) This should mean that, if cut off from Moscow/Perm, Soviet units cannot be built in the isolated area and these units cannot use rail movement until re-connected with the rest of Russia.

3) Axis units south of the Severe Winter zone should be exempt from the SW Effectiveness loss. [My logic here is that if Axis units in Finland and the Baltic states don't get whacked with the penalty, why should units in the Crimea or south of Rostov freeze to death?]
3a) At the very least, units in the southernmost Russian hexes which are in the Mediterranean zone should be unaffected by SW morale loss.