"Megablitz misunderstandings" Topic

I've had Megablitz on the shelf for a bit, like the idea but don't understand a few things.
1. A division has to be supplied. LOG stands supply them. Where do they get their resupply from? How can a supply dump supply things as they don't move? Do you have to form a supply chain? How can you do that with only one truck?
2. When you roll the dice to see if you've taken hits how do you know which units/stands suffer damage? Do you roll for stand vs stand, if so why so many dice?
Help please! Have you played? Is it any good?

"1. A division has to be supplied. LOG stands supply them. Where do they get their resupply from?"

Either from a supply dump or off-table.

"How can a supply dump supply things as they don't move? Do you have to form a supply chain?"

Yes you form a supply chain with trucks.

"How can you do that with only one truck?"

You can never have too many trucks!

"2. When you roll the dice to see if you've taken hits how do you know which units/stands suffer damage?"

Hits are evenly distributed around the stands involved.

"Do you roll for stand vs stand, if so why so many dice?"

No.

"Help please! Have you played? Is it any good?"

Yes, great game!

"You can never have too many trucks!"

My kind of guy!

Thanks Mike.
"You can never have too many trucks!"
According to the sample divisions you only get one or two per division. That's a short chain!

"According to the sample divisions you only get one or two per division. That's a short chain!"

Those are the trucks directly attached to the division. The supply train (i.e. lots of trucks) will come from your corps or army reserve.

Ok, I'm beginning to see how they work. Rather like the hex games like Stalingrad I used to play as a nipper. You had a chain of trucks with 8 hexes between. Would the trucks remain in place and be 'topped up' in overnight supply or physically drive back to their supply source using game movement rates?

"Would the trucks remain in place and be 'topped up' in overnight supply or physically drive back to their supply source using game movement rates?"

You physically load them up with your LOG markers and move them at game movement rates. Note that trucks, being Transport, must always be in Transit mode.

Brilliant, thanks Mike you've been a great help.

I do things a bit differently to Mike.

"1. A division has to be supplied. LOG stands supply them. Where do they get their resupply from? How can a supply dump supply things as they don't move? Do you have to form a supply chain? How can you do that with only one truck?"

To an extent this is a scenario specific thing. If you are only doing a couple of days combat, then the Divisional LOG has plenty of stuff to keep its subordinate units supplied, and you can do something simple like unit traces supply bacj to Div lOG, Div LOG traces supply back to friendly table edge via road. Or something.

You may wish to assign some sort of off table daily resupply rate, and possibly limit the road capacity to move such supplies. Personally don't like the 'trucks physically moving LOG' thing as it makes it far too easy to move huge amounts of stuff around, and prefer supply chains (beside, there is nothing for air to interdict if you can simply motor you supplies wherever you want).

In more complex situations, particularly where logistics is crucial to the engagement, then I do the supply chain thing. Use Corps logistics units on roads in T to keep moving supplies up (but only to divisional units already on a road) and let the divisional units operate in whatever mode they like. Bit hard to supply anyone offroad if you are in T… Divisional supply radius is double move distance from divisional LOG. Artillery units have their own LOG. If you have a look at some of my scenarios in the Megablitz yahoogroup, you'll see what mean more clearly.

"2. When you roll the dice to see if you've taken hits how do you know which units/stands suffer damage? Do you roll for stand vs stand, if so why so many dice?"

Resolve combat at the highest possible level, so all stands involved throw all the dice at once. This normally ends up being at roughly brigade level (plus supports) although I have seen entire divisional engagements resolved with one big dice throw.

Losses are allocated evenly in participating units, and artillery units will suffer losses if they are within counter-battery range. This means that attacking fortified positions on a broad front is a really, really bad idea as you are never going to get a high enough force ratio to break through. Attack in a narrow front in great depth with as much support as you can throw in

"Help please! Have you played? Is it any good?"

Yep. Just back from playing Arnhem once again. The Allies won this time, despite a few sticky moments. Hurrah.

Thanks Martin. It seems to be a case of best fit rather than hard anf fast rule. I prefer that, just trying to see how other people treat logistics.
I fully understand casualties now, many thanks.

"It seems to be a case of best fit rather than hard anf fast rule."

Yes, it varies so much with the situations you are looking at. Obviously if someone manages to get all their LOG overrun then it is time to start leafig through the rulebook!

I usually do a 'logistics' section in the scenario briefing for each game so people understand how it is going to work, but generally you can get away with just divisional LOG and some sort of resupply from the rear. One thing which isn't so obvious in the rules is that you need to assess the supply state of each element every turn, if it is in supply range, no problem, if it is out of range or isolated, bad things happen and then really bad things happen if they don't get resupplied overnight. We had a lengthy discussion about this recently on the MB yahoogroup.

Hope you enjoy the game and have fun, best way to learn it is to play it, but I'd start small at first, a division per player. The Operation BattleAxe scenario is quite a good historical starter game, not too huge but with lots of room to manouvre and some interesting logistic and operational challenges. To just try the game out, the Dot-Sur-La-Mappe one from the rules works fine and can be ported to other theatres.

One other thing we discovered today, is that it isn't obvious in the rules that the unit strength points are hidden from the enemy. Today game organiser had done them all visible, which works, but removes a lot of the fog-of-war aspects. We usually use inverted SP markers on he bases, but you could use a roster.

Martin is correct. In a short battle (one or two days) keeping track of LOG and POL for single divisions isn't that necessary.

In a longer battle you will need bases for the Corps LOG and POL and points on the table edge where Corps can draw supply from. In such games the lack (or abundance) of LOG and POL will significantly affect your tactical decisions.

And Martin's 30 Corps was just lucky on Saturday!

"And Martin's 30 Corps was just lucky on Saturday!"

Yes, lucky I'd attached bridging units to the leading Guards Armoured brigade group:-)

The real heroes of the day were 82nd Airborne who held off half the German Army on their own. I enjoyed IInd SS Panzer building their ferry onto the Island though.