Carburant et approvisionnements

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Qu'entend-on par "supply"?

Dans SEOW, le terme "supply" désigne tous les matériels, services et intendance nécessaires au maintien en état de combat des unités: carburant, munitions, matériel sanitaire, nourriture, télécommunications, cartes, équipements vestimentaires. Une unité en manque d'approvisionnement s'arrête et devient passive. Si elle reste dans cet état trop longtemps, elle peut même déserter ou se rendre à l'ennemi.

Par convention, l'unité d'approvisionnement est ramenée au litre de carburant. L'approvisionnement maximum d'une unité ne peut dépasser la capacité maximale de son réservoir de carburant. Par exemple, un véhicule blindé Ba-10 a une capacité de 60 litres, sa demande d'approvisionnement ne pourra pas dépassser cette quantité, tandis qu'une bicyclette a une capacité de 12 litres. La liste complète des capacités se trouve dans la table Object_Specifications de SEDB31. Les termes "supply" et "fuel" sont donc synonymes dans SEOW.

Quelles sont les unités consommatrices dans SEOW?

Toutes les unités à chaque instant consomment du carburant qu'elles soient immobiles, en déplacement ou en combat. Même les unités en cours de transport consomment du carburant. La quantité consommée varie bien entendu en fonction de l'activité de l'unité. SEOW calcule et gère jusqu'au dernier litre la consommation de chaque unité. Un bon approvisionnement, à la charge des commandants, est une condition essentielle au déplacement correct des troupes. Il sera donc nécessaire en permanence de transporter des approvisionnements par voie terrestre, maritime ou par air (largages). Faute de quoi, les unités arrêteront leur progression et perdront leurs capacités de combat!

DCSv3.1.0 Gestion du carburant

Le paramétrage de la gestion du carburant s'effectue dans la console DCS, onglet Supply:

Erreur lors de la création de la miniature : Impossible d'enregistrer la vignette sur la destination

Cliquez sur "Enable Fuel Supply Tracking" si vous souhaitez activer la gestion du carburant.

"Global fuel consumption rate" est un coefficient multiplicateur pour toutes les unités de la campagne. Le réglage normal est 1.

"Supply Conversion Factor" est un coefficient qui permet d'étalonner la base de calcul des approvisionnements exprimés en litres de carburant. Dans l'exemple présenté, un navire qui a une capacité de transport de 32 pourra transporter 32x10000 = 320000 litres de carburant.

"Morale": Deux réglages séparés du moral initial de chaque camp peuvent être choisis. Les valeurs possibles sont: Excellent, Good, Average, Poor, Desperate.

Ce paramètre "Morale" est lié au paramètre "Supply": Si une unité manque d'approvisionnement, son moral va chûter en conséquence d'un niveau à chaque mission. Si cette unité est réapprovisionnée, son moral remontera d'un niveau. La proximité d'autres unités possédant un pouvoir de consolidation de moral (DCA moyen et gros calibre, véhicules de commandement, environnement urbain....) influe sur le moral de l'unité.

Une unité qui atteint un niveau de moral "Desperate" a de fortes chances de déserter ou de se rendre suivant la présence d'unités ennemies aux alentours.

"Fuel Supply Initials": Ce réglage permet d'initialiser les approvisionnements de toutes les unités et infrastructures de la campagne, avec un réglage séparé pour chaque camp.

. For each side there is a "Fuel Reserves" slider which determines the initial volume of supply held offmap for each side. These reserves can be transported onto the map using freight transportation units (ships, vehicles, aircraft) according to their individual freight capacities. Players cannot "buy" more fuel reserves! Then there is a slider for Initial Unit Fuel Load, a percentage value which is applied to each unit's maximum fuel capacity to determine the initial fuel holding in litres for each unit. Template initialization can lead to industrial installations being controlled by either side, or left as neutral. Sliders are provided for determining the initial Infrastructure Fuel Load of fuel installations, based on the maximum capacity multiplied by the slider percentages. The same sliders are used to determine initial airbase fuel holdings according to initial national control.

OK, that is how you set up your campaign to use supply tracking. All these sliders and settings need to be configured BEFORE loading your campaign template.

For advanced campaign designers, there is a new table in the database called Sector_Movement_Cost. This table specifies individual movement costs for each sector and season (summer/winter) for sea and ground movement types. For example, winter sea movement in Murmansk is, by default, 2.5 times more demanding on fuel than summer sea movement. Campaign designers can edit the values in this table according to their scenarios, but there is no interface for adjusting these parameters inside the DCS - a database edit is required.

Now let us see how this translates on the map once the campaign is initialized. In the following discussion, and for the sake of discussion, I will show unit icon morale and supply states that have been adjusted to what would have been generated by the settings in Part 2.

Modified Unit Icons in Supply Tracking Mode

Here is a close up view of Russian units at Prokhorovka.

Reading from left to right, we see an armoured train, a SU-76 SP Gun platoon, a T-70 tank platoon, a T-34 tank platoon, two transport columns and an engineers platoon. Most of the icons have coloured borders. These borders signify attributes of the platoons, as follows:

No Border: A normal unit with fuel state better than 30% of its full capacity. Orange Border: A unit with less than 30% of its fuel capacity. White Border: A unit completely out of supply. Green Border: A morale-influencing unit, capable of boosting the morale of other friendly units within the normal control radius.

The orange border grows in thickness as the supply level of the unit declines. Here is the unit tooltip for the SU-76 platoon (orange border):

Erreur lors de la création de la miniature : Impossible d'enregistrer la vignette sur la destination

With Supply Tracking enabled, we now see the unit's full supply state, its endurance with the current movement cost settings and its morale state.

Compare this with the tooltip for the T-70 platoon (white border):

Erreur lors de la création de la miniature : Impossible d'enregistrer la vignette sur la destination

Clearly this platoon is out of fuel, is immobilized and will need 4x480 = 1920 litres to completely resupply the platoon. Thankfully, its morale is still Average, so it will be at least 2 more missions before the T-70 platoon has a chance of deserting.

Finally, let's look at the first supply column's tooltip:

Erreur lors de la création de la miniature : Impossible d'enregistrer la vignette sur la destination

We can see that it has a Morale Influence rating of +1, which means that it adds +1 to every nearby friendly unit's morale at the end of each mission. It is also carrying 70% of its own supply needs. As a transportation unit it can carry up to 8 transportation points or up to 80000 litres of fuel supply. Presently it is transporting no freight at all.

This is the basic set of unit status information introduced to the MP as part of the Supply Tracking feature, and it applies to all ground and sea objects. Aircraft do not display the supply borders etc, since they are deemed to exhaust their allocated fuel loads at the end of each mission. Aircraft fuel loads are drawn from their Airbases automatically - it is up to flight commanders to ensure that Airbases are refueled to maintain active flight capacity.

Transporter et décharger des approvisionnements "Freight"

Commander will necessarily become proficient at moving supplies around their maps. The alternative is unthinkable. Let's look at air freight of supplies first. Use the Logistics:Freight Tool (see below). Select your air transport flight, e.g. a Ju-52. Select the local airbase fuel supply and hit "Load Selected Freight". Choose the amount of fuel you want to load and then hit OK.

Erreur lors de la création de la miniature : Impossible d'enregistrer la vignette sur la destination

When your map is refreshed, your fuel load will be reflected in your air transport flight tooltip. You can now task your air transport to either fly the supplies to another airbase, where it can be unloaded to the new airbase fuel reserves, or you can order the transport flight to perform a Supply Drop anywhere on the map. This is done similarly to issuing a GATTACK waypoint - instead of selecting "G" as the waypoint directive, use "S" (available only for freight aircraft). If the air transport makes it to the supply drop location, the drop is assumed to be successful and a Supply Drop icon will appear on the map, as shown below:

Erreur lors de la création de la miniature : Impossible d'enregistrer la vignette sur la destination

Once discovered, Supply Drops can be targeted and destroyed by enemy units, but either side can use the supplies inside them. Basically any unit that is within the normal control radius can make use of the supplies, including scavenging enemy and friendly units at the same time. Freight units on both sides can pick up supplies from Supply Drops and transport them elsewhere.

Of course, ground and sea freight transport units can pick up supplies and move them around, and unload them too. Ground transporters can pick up supplies from fuel tanks, airbases and Supply Drops. Ship transporters can pick up fuel from fuel tanks. Normal ground units will automatically take supplies from nearby airbases, fuel tanks, Supply Drops and resupply points. Ships will take supplies from ship supply points, fuel tanks and freight tankers carrying supply.

Consommation des avions

As mentioned earlier, aircraft will take fuel from airbase reserves (or off map reserves if the flights are based off map) according to the fuel load specified by the flight commander. If Enforce_Aircraft_Loadouts is OFF, human pilots may choose their own fuel load at hosting time. SEOW will capture the fuel load actually used by pilots and decrement the airbase reserves accordingly. Droptank loads are also detected. If your airbase runs out of fuel, the airbase tooltip header will turn white, and ALL flights at that base will be grounded until new supplies arrive, either by air or ground. Here is a picture of an airbase out of supply:

Erreur lors de la création de la miniature : Impossible d'enregistrer la vignette sur la destination

You will see that the ground units carry their own supplies, so they are still active, but the aircraft are completely empty at the end of each mission. The status "ready" means they are ready for tasking but are yet to be "bombed up" for the next sortie.

The point of this SEOW feature is to make a realistic wartime environment. Now, all vehicles, ships and aircraft have critical roles to play. Ambulances, radio trucks and staff cars influence morale. Trucks and steamships carry supplies, Dakotas and Ju-52s can drop supplies to forward units or even to partisans behind the lines. A single light machine gun can destroy a supply platoon, thereby rendering an airbase inoperative or halting an armoured advance. I wish you all many hours of engrossing fun as you battle the enemy and the tyranny of long supply routes!

Deux modes de consommation: Unités mobiles ou stationnaires

Disregarding aircraft, all other units are either mobile or stationary. Mobile units use their supplies faster than stationary units. First we look at stationary units.

Consommation des unités stationnaires

SEOW determines the amount of supply used per mission according to the class of unit, using the following hard-coded table:

Unit Class:	Percentage of Supply Capacity Used per Mission
Artillery:	10%
Engineer:	10%
Aircraft:	5%
Ship:	3%
Armour:	15%
Vehicle/Mechanized:	10%
Other:	3%

For example, consider a single PzIIG tank. This has supply capacity of 320 litres, so if it was idle during a mission it would be deemed to consume 0.15*320 = 48 litres during that mission. That might seem a little high, but remember the supply quantity includes ammunition, food, fuel, medicines etc. SEOW cannot know whether the tank is engaged or not during a mission (unless it actually destroys something or is destroyed). It is possible the tank could be shooting at several targets without hitting anything. So the above idle usage rate is meant to average out over all platoons throughout the battle to give commanders a real need to resupply their units.

The actual rate of consumption can also be modulated using the "Global Fuel Consumption Rate" setting discussed in the first post of this thread. If you want to halve the above idle usage rates across the board, then set the "Global Fuel Consumption Rate" to 0.5.

Consommation des unités mobiles

The other mode is where the unit is actually moving. In this case, SEOW determines how far the unit moves in the mission, expresses this as a fraction of the maximum endurance range of the unit. This fraction then gives us the proportion of the supply capacity of the unit that is consumed during the mission.

Let's use a M8 Greyhound as an example. The Greyhound has a fuel capacity of 150 litres and a maximum range of 200 km. Assume that in a mission, the Greyhound starts with a full fuel tank and then moves 20 km before stopping. That 20 km is 10% of its maximum endurance range, so we say that the Greyhound has used 10% of its supplies in moving that far, i.e. 15 litres. So at the end of the mission, SEOW analyzes the movement and sets the Greyhound fuel state to 150-15=135 litres (90%).The value of "Global Fuel Consumption Rate" is also applied to these fuel estimates: if "Global Fuel Consumption Rate" = 1.0, then the values above are exact. But other values for "Global Fuel Consumption Rate" cause the above calculations to change. If "Global Fuel Consumption Rate"=2.0, e.g., then the Greyhound will use twice as much fuel making the 20 km trip.

Réglages avancés des consommations

OK, that all makes sense, but it really is a simple case. SEOW allows a lot more flexibility in determining how hard it is to move in combat sectors. Campaign designers have the ability to specify movement costs for each sector. Movement costs varying between summer and winter, and between sea and ground movement, as set by in the Sector_Movement_Cost table of the database. These cost factors are used in the same way as "Global Fuel Consumption Rate", i.e. to multiply the net fuel usage for each trip. E.g., this allows campaign admins to specify that sea movement in near Murmansk is 5 times more costly in winter than in summer, or that ground movement in Cyrenaica is the same cost all year round. Furthermore, the movement costs are nation-specific, so it is perfectly possible to specify that for a winter Stalingrad campaign, the Axis forces expend twice as much fuel per kilometre as the Allied forces.

Aspects pratiques / Gestion des industries et des approvisionnements

This article has covered the theory of fuel/supply tracking in SEOW. If you want to learn more about the practical aspects, have a look at How to resupply your forces.