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How do you estimate how much general supply an enemy force uses per turn?
For example, from a recent battle I know that the Army of North Virginia has approxiamately 11 full divisions, and 24 supply elements. If I cut off his supply lines, how long will that last? I know the lights at the bottom of the marker provide an idea what the current supply status is, but I'm trying to figure out how long he can last without new supplies.
Also I know what most of the symbols on the city display mean, but I can't find anywhere what the little covered wagon means.

KCDennis wrote: Also I know what most of the symbols on the city display mean, but I can't find anywhere what the little covered wagon means.

IIRC its just a cosmetic icon to indicate that the city in question does not have a harbour.

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As a general rule you can count on an average division consuming about 35 general supply per turn. I would hesitate to try and calculate a turn for enemy supply outages as supplies sometimes turn up unexpectedly (down rivers, drawn from small cities, when a river transport shows up adjacent with 120 supply, etc). Instead look for the telltale signs (in a human game) when units are hightailing it for supply sources or power numbers from intelligence tooltip reports are dropping. Also units will share supply amongst themselves while (usually) keeping enough for their next turn needs.

I once had Polk's division vaporize in a game when he got caught on the wrong side of the Mississippi out of supply. a good opponent move but very demoralizing for me!

Here is my rough supply usage for the CSA:

for each element
can carry use/turn
sharpshooter 3/1
light inf 3/1
bushwhacker 4/1
Tx Rangers 4/1
mounted Indian 6/1
cavalry 4/2
mounted partisan 4/2
militia 4/2
infantry 4/2
marine 4/2

artillery 4/2
siege 6/2
coastal 6/2

HQ (including art) 24/3
supply wagon 80/4 (4 elements)
hospital 20/1
signal 20/1
both engineers 20/1
balloon 20/1

River transport 100/0 (4 elements)
gunboat 10/2 (2 elements)
ironclad 5/1 (1 element)

Navy transport 100/0 (2 elements)
brig 32/2 (2 elements)
frigate 32/2 (e elements)
steam frigate 16/1 (1 element)

I don't keep track of ammo carrying as don't normally run out.
I don't know exact USA elements but I would guess they would be nearly the same.

BI

ps I had it all straight but all the spaces disappeared!

ps I had it all straight but all the spaces disappeared!

Yea, for some reason vBulletin (the forum software) is stupid about that. It strips out "extra" spaces and ignores tabs.

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More typing?
That took me two hours already!
My typing finger will get blisters!

This thread makes me remenber when i played strategic boargames with some mathematician teachers. They always calculate the probabilities of any action before playing, where is the fun here ?

KCDennis wrote:How do you estimate how much general supply an enemy force uses per turn?
For example, from a recent battle I know that the Army of North Virginia has approxiamately 11 full divisions, and 24 supply elements. If I cut off his supply lines, how long will that last? I know the lights at the bottom of the marker provide an idea what the current supply status is, but I'm trying to figure out how long he can last without new supplies.
Also I know what most of the symbols on the city display mean, but I can't find anywhere what the little covered wagon means.

If I had to figure this out, I would use these numbers.

24supply elements = 6 (4elements ea.)full units @ 80supply when full = 480supply at most.
11 full divisions = 30-40 supply usage/turn. Lets use 35 and arrive at 385 usage/turn.
The units themselves have their base supply of each unit which is 2 turns worth. So around 770 (385x2turns) for what the Army is carrying with them and not what the supply wagons are holding if fully supplied prior to being cut-off.
Factor how much supply reside in the towns in the area that their Army can draw supply from. Some towns like Richmond or Nashville produce significant supply each turn. This should be the towns, harbours and depots the enemy are in control of or adjacent to. Check the regions towns to see if their supply is showing any surplus or not.

A basic review of these factors will give us this picture.
If the Army had full supply prior to being cutoff:
480 (supply wagons, if full) + 770 (carried by Army, if full) = 1250 supply total
Add to this what supply the Army has available in towns/harbours/depots they control and what the towns themselves will produce per turn.

The Army will consume around 385/turn based on its 11full divisions estimate. So without much existing supply or production of supply in the towns, they will be nearing depletion in 3 turns, and likely taking hits by the 4th turn.
Hope this helps.

Big Ideas, "Code"-tags are your friends in fixed width-formatting

(Takes a little tweaking to get the space right, but this can be done if you edit in a fixed-width editor, then paste into the posting textbox)

Proof of concept:

Thanks everyone for the information and opinions