Should the soviets really have oil problems in late game?

[gerones]

I´m referring to peterfrijate vs Morris AAR. I don´t know but may be the soviets should not have oil problems no matter the huge mechanized army they build. No historical data for having such lack of oil in late game.

[rkr1958]

Did the Soviets have any source of oil during WW2 not represented on the board (e.g., east of the Urals)? If not, then I guess they could run out by the losing their on-board oil fields. If so and this source is significant they shouldn't.

[Morris]

Did the Soviets have any source of oil during WW2 not represented on the board (e.g., east of the Urals)? If not, then I guess they could run out by the losing their on-board oil fields. If so and this source is significant they shouldn't.

After 1943's first fair day , they should not .

[Kragdob]

I´m referring to peterfrijate vs Morris AAR. I don´t know but may be the soviets should not have oil problems no matter the huge mechanized army they build. No historical data for having such lack of oil in late game.

I agree.

I think this comes from the fact that if Soviets are DOWed in 1942 they have with big mechanized army from the very start and this prevents them to stock some supplies. In 1941 they invest in INF mostly so for they gather oil for many turns which can be used later when Soviet army is grown.

I think Soviet oil supply should rise (maybe according to war effort %) from the very beginning of the game according to oil sources they have on the map.

[Peter Stauffenberg]

Neutral powers don't accumulate oil. So we could increase the Soviet initial oil from 100 to maybe 300. An alternative could be to increase the Soviet offmap oil, but then I would like to see which oil sources east of the Urals the Soviets had.

Remember that most of the resources east of the Urals were used to keep forces in the Pacific area and against China.

[Diplomaticus]

Looks like we need to do some research here. How dependent were the Soviets really on the oil wells we see on map? They did lose Maikop--what if they'd also lost Grozny? They could still use tankers to bring up oil from Baku, but I'd imagine losing the northern Caucasus would have impacted the Red Army.

[Morris]

.

Remember that most of the resources east of the Urals were used to keep forces in the Pacific area and against China.

I think they should against Japan who conquered Northeast of China .

[PionUrpo]

Soviets didn't have problems regarding amounts of oil/fuel per se. They did however have limited production of higher grade oil products like high-octane aviation fuels. AFAIK those were mostly brought from the US via Pacific LL route.

Looks like we need to do some research here. How dependent were the Soviets really on the oil wells we see on map? They did lose Maikop--what if they'd also lost Grozny? They could still use tankers to bring up oil from Baku, but I'd imagine losing the northern Caucasus would have impacted the Red Army.

Grozny had little production compared to Baku so it's loss wouldn't matter much. Don't know how blocking the western route to Baku would affect them though...

Also, most of Soviet problems late-war were due to streched-out logistics and manpower. In-game, running close to the bottom of their oil-pool could represent some of those logistical (supply level is better though) issues but they shouldn't outright run out of oil unless they are way over unit limits.

Increasing the Soviet starting oil with few hundred points sounds like a good idea. Perhaps add an oil resource near Omsk representing the Lend Lease oil from US?

[pk867]

I have never had a game where Russia ran out of oil. They get about 104 per turn right?

Maybe keep the at start where it is (100), but if not attacked by activation (Oct 41 ?) have the oil begin to be added to the stockpile.

[metolius]

I don't think the Russians were in danger of actually running out of crude, even if the supplies in the Caucasus were lost (either by losing the Caucasus or by losing Stalingrad and the transport up the Volga).

I think the refining processes could have been a bottleneck, and the delivery to the front lines would have been another.

As PionUrpo notes, higher octane fuels were harder to come by, and I think Soviet aircraft would have been using high-octane fuels. Their tanks all used diesel, so that would make things a little easier on the production side.

As an aside, the Germans, by contrast, actually ran most of their tanks on gasoline, oddly enough. And the UK required three different types of fuel for their tanks during the Africa campaign, due to some rather poor planning and design. (see Andrew Robert's Storm of War)

Even during the real war, the Russians ran into frontline supply problems –– after operation Bagration, for example, where Army Group Center was destroyed, they exceeded their supply lines about the same time they got to Warsaw, giving the Germans a window to conduct their notorious operation there.

So, in short, given the very simple (but generally effective!) oil production model that is built into the game, I think yes, the Soviets could and should be running a little short on oil if they build (and use) a lot of armor, air and mech.

[PionUrpo]

How much above the unit limit's were the Soviets in that peterjfrigate vs Morris game?

[Peter Stauffenberg]

This acticle is rather interesting:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_p ... rld_War_II

We see that the Soviet oil production wasn't so high and USA had much more oil production than USSR. With Baku in Axis hands then I think that the US would send transports to Russian Pacific ports with oil. But these transports could be sunk or bombed by Japanese forces before arriving in Russian ports.

The capacity of sending oil from the Pacific to Europe would probably have been limited.

Here are images of oilfields in the world today:
http://www.google.no/search?q=soviet+oi ... 18&bih=813

We see that Russia have most of their oilfields today east of the Urals, but I believe most of these fields were discovered after WW2. Today Russia is the biggest oil exporter in the world so they have discovered a lot of oil after WW2.

So maybe the above indicates that we don't need to do anything except maybe increase the Russia at start oil from 100 to 300.

[PionUrpo]

We see that the Soviet oil production wasn't so high and USA had much more oil production than USSR. With Baku in Axis hands then I think that the US would send transports to Russian Pacific ports with oil. But these transports could be sunk or bombed by Japanese forces before arriving in Russian ports.

AFAIK the Japanese didn't intercept Pacific LL due to the Jap-Sov non-aggression pact and LL ships were flagged as Soviet so no problem there.

If Baku fell, US could no doubt take at least part of the slack, how much... no idea. From a gaming point of view, Baku falling presumably shouldn't be an instawin button. Somekind of midway that allows for a smaller Soviet mobile force to be used? Then again, I don't think I've seen Baku fall yet...

[Diplomaticus]

We see that the Soviet oil production wasn't so high and USA had much more oil production than USSR. With Baku in Axis hands then I think that the US would send transports to Russian Pacific ports with oil. But these transports could be sunk or bombed by Japanese forces before arriving in Russian ports.

AFAIK the Japanese didn't intercept Pacific LL due to the Jap-Sov non-aggression pact and LL ships were flagged as Soviet so no problem there.

If Baku fell, US could no doubt take at least part of the slack, how much... no idea. From a gaming point of view, Baku falling presumably shouldn't be an instawin button. Somekind of midway that allows for a smaller Soviet mobile force to be used? Then again, I don't think I've seen Baku fall yet...

I'm actually in the final phases of a game in which Baku fell, and it definitely isn't a case of "instawin." In fact, the Allies look to have the inside track. In order to take Baku, the Axis made some sacrifices on other fronts, and it's now putting them in a situation where holding out til June '45 will be tough.

Does anyone else have experience with Baku falling to add to our data set?

[peterjfrigate]

How much above the unit limit's were the Soviets in that peterjfrigate vs Morris game?

There's some discussion coinciding with much of what Pionurpo and Metolius have said here: http://sultanov.azeriland.com/ussr_eng/ ... _10_e.html
Baku was clearly the major source for the Soviets, e.g. Grozny and Maikop could be shut down with production falling from 400K tons to 2 tons but it didn't matter.

There were supply problems when it came to getting fuel to the front, but isn't this already modeled by the supply-level drop as units range further their home territories? As for aviation fuel it doesn't sound like there were the same problems getting fuel to the planes as to units on the front lines.

[peterjfrigate]

How much above the unit limit's were the Soviets in that peterjfrigate vs Morris game?

Whoops...in answer to your question. My Mech and TAC were "blue" (so only overbuilt by 1 unit each) and everything else was normal, (though maxed out build wise). For the past several turns I've had to restrict movement of MECH and ARM units in order to spare enough fuel to continue a maximum TAC bombardment.

Also, I was forced to refrain from the final TECH upgrades for Air and Armor that would have raised oil consumption to the maxim.

[peterjfrigate]

We see that the Soviet oil production wasn't so high and USA had much more oil production than USSR. With Baku in Axis hands then I think that the US would send transports to Russian Pacific ports with oil. But these transports could be sunk or bombed by Japanese forces before arriving in Russian ports.

The capacity of sending oil from the Pacific to Europe would probably have been limited.

The Pacific Route for lend-lease wasn't interrupted by Japan because they maintained strict neutrality with the USSR, though under a 1940 treaty transport was restricted to Soviet-flagged ships, and although vessels were only allowed to carry non-military goods, this included raw materials, trucks, trains, and even high-octane aviation fuel -- see _The Russian Far East: The last frontier__ p.18. Also, a huge proportion of lend-lease materials reached the USSR via sea transport to Valdivostok; according to wiki about 50% of lend-lease materials took the Pacific Route -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lend-Lease ... es_to_USSR.

[Blathergut]

I have never had a game where Russia ran out of oil. They get about 104 per turn right?

Maybe keep the at start where it is (100), but if not attacked by activation (Oct 41 ?) have the oil begin to be added to the stockpile.

I like this because it gives another consequence for the Axis not invading earlier rather than later.

As well, should the oil situation be looked at more from gameplay than historical sources/supplies? Is it specific gameplay on the part of the Russians that is causing the shortage in some games? Should this gameplay be aided by giving more oil or hampered by keeping it as is? Has this always been a concern or just recently? Does the unit max. numbers cause it?

[PionUrpo]

We see that the Soviet oil production wasn't so high and USA had much more oil production than USSR. With Baku in Axis hands then I think that the US would send transports to Russian Pacific ports with oil. But these transports could be sunk or bombed by Japanese forces before arriving in Russian ports.

AFAIK the Japanese didn't intercept Pacific LL due to the Jap-Sov non-aggression pact and LL ships were flagged as Soviet so no problem there.

If Baku fell, US could no doubt take at least part of the slack, how much... no idea. From a gaming point of view, Baku falling presumably shouldn't be an instawin button. Somekind of midway that allows for a smaller Soviet mobile force to be used? Then again, I don't think I've seen Baku fall yet...

I'm actually in the final phases of a game in which Baku fell, and it definitely isn't a case of "instawin." In fact, the Allies look to have the inside track. In order to take Baku, the Axis made some sacrifices on other fronts, and it's now putting them in a situation where holding out til June '45 will be tough.

Does anyone else have experience with Baku falling to add to our data set?

Ah, good to know it can fall. When did you manage to take it? I was thinking of a succesful Fall Blau where it falls late '42 and how oil situation could go from there. But if things look ok in your game, maybe there's nothing to change.

[zechi]

In my game with Morris I also have some oil issues with the Soviets. I was nearly depleted in the summer offensive 1943, but some muddy weather turns gave my forces enough oil to continue in winter 1944. Nevertheless, the oil will become a problem in 1944.

I'm not sure this is realistic.