"moving" but no going anywhere

[Fox]

I've come upon a situation in one of my games where the task for some of my units says "moving" but they don't go anywhere for hours on end. I have saves if needed.

Specifically I was playing on the "we fight here we die here" map, and gave an order for the 26th ss pzgren reg (1 bat of motorized inf + 1 panzer bat and some engineers + arty) to move to the town of Weimes with attacks allowed. The regiment decided to lead with the motor inf bat + engineers (fair enough since it was pre-dawn at the time, all was going well and then we ran into some resistance from the towns to the north of the roads the formation was taking. The 26th pzgren directed some of the motorized inf to do some attacks (repulsed with very heavy casualties) but otherwise nothing much else has happened. The tanks which were at the rear of the column haven't moved up in hours (one has been stationary so long it is now dug in), they aren't under fire, have enough fuel and are not tired, but despite this are not moving even though they have a task telling them to.

I'm not sure what could be the problem here?

 

[Daz]

It's hard to tell exactly, just from the images you posted, but I suspect the move has stalled, because of the failed attack by the II Bn 26 SS Pz Gren Infantry to clear the route.
You don't have the Bypass box checked, so the Formation is committed to the route it is taking, but it thinks the resistance is to strong to continue.
Not sure if you have the Base attached as well, but there is code to stop the Regimental HQ, and especially the base, from moving to close to enemy units.
The AI probably thought at the time, going on the available intel picture, that the enemy was weaker than it is, so put in the attack with II Bn 26 SS Pz Gren thinking it would be enough.
Now the II Bn has taken very serious casualties, with the 7.26 in route recovery, it will probably report that the move has stalled soon.
I see from the messages it is already slipping time.
I expect the AI thinks it needs a Regimental size attack to dislodge the defenders, (which it does) and will have to wait for the II Bn to regain cohesion and recover from the beating it has just received.
Its nearly dark now.
If I was you, I would take control at Bn level now and move the I Bn 12 SS Pz Regt up for a dawn attack on Weimes, after they have had some rest.

 

[Fox]

It's hard to tell exactly, just from the images you posted, but I suspect the move has stalled, because of the failed attack by the II Bn 26 SS Pz Gren Infantry to clear the route.
You don't have the Bypass box checked, so the Formation is committed to the route it is taking, but it thinks the resistance is to strong to continue.
Not sure if you have the Base attached as well, but there is code to stop the Regimental HQ, and especially the base, from moving to close to enemy units.
The AI probably thought at the time, going on the available intel picture, that the enemy was weaker than it is, so put in the attack with II Bn 26 SS Pz Gren thinking it would be enough.
Now the II Bn has taken very serious casualties, with the 7.26 in route recovery, it will probably report that the move has stalled soon.
I see from the messages it is already slipping time.
I expect the AI thinks it needs a Regimental size attack to dislodge the defenders, (which it does) and will have to wait for the II Bn to regain cohesion and recover from the beating it has just received.
Its nearly dark now.
If I was you, I would take control at Bn level now and move the I Bn 12 SS Pz Regt up for a dawn attack on Weimes, after they have had some rest.

Yeah that's probably the approach I'll end up taking. For clarification basing is ticked in the order so the supply base is safe in one of the towns on the eastern edge of the map.

I still not quite sure on the details of why 1 Bn 12 SS has failed to move though.

If you look at the new image with this post which shows one of the relevant tank companies and it's task, it was given a move task that started at 13:30 and it's now 16:30 and it has moved not at all (dug in in road column lol). If the regimental hq decided that it was going to make the rest of the column wait until II Bn had cleared the route wouldn't it give the rest of the column a defend order or something?

To my mind I though the only way the higher HQ could control it's subordinate units was by giving them a task? The thing I don't get is that the 1 Bn 12 SS seems to have halted despite having a current task that is telling it to move, and no mitigating factors (like enemy fire or supply/fatigue issues) that could be causing it to halt.

 

[Daz]

I see the move task was set to start at 13:32 as well.
Does the unit log say anything about refuelling?
It could be a problem with the code and has got stuck in some kind of loop I guess.
Send the save to Dave, so he can take a look at it.
I expect he will need one as close to the time you gave the order and the current save.
If you have the auto save turned on in the options the old one should still be there.
The game auto saves 20 times before they start to get overwritten.

support@panthergames.com

 

[Fox]

No nothing about refueling, last entry in the log is a resupply at 19:13 on day 2, which is before the move order was issued, as can be seen from the soft factor the unit still has a decent amount of fuel at 16:30 day 3.

Didn't have auto save on but sent my closest 2 saves (one at 04:12 just before the order was issued and the current save).

 

[Daz]

Can you try out a couple of different scenarios with the formation, I would be very interested to see what happens?

1. Let the game run to the end of the scenario without adjusting any orders to see what happens.
2. Reload and click on the Bypass option, then run the game to the end of the scenario.
3. Reload and change the Aggro to Min, then run the game to the end of the scenario.

 

[Daz]

I loaded up the save you gave me for Day 3 16:30, Fox.
I just let the game run without any interference and this is the result a few days later.
They had a hell of a fight to dislodge a US Bn from Weimes that lasted all of Day 4 and resulted in a lot of tanks being lost.
It was a bit of a pyrrhic victory to be honest.

If you look in the log for the 26 SS Pz Gren Regt HQ (top right of image) you can see that they started changing formation at D3, 13:20 probably because of the enemy on the route and this would have been the attack that was put in by the II Bn HQ 26 SS Pz Gren Regt HQ, that got repulsed with heavy casualties.
The halting from then until the change of Firebase at D3 18:42 is probably the period where the formation is pinned down on the road and the HQ is trying to decide what best to do.
The command delay for the Regimental HQ is 90 min (an hour and a half) so it takes quite a while for new orders to filter back down the line.

I don't think there is a bug at play here, but for best results its usually best to take more control, and play at a lower level than Regt, especially in a scenario that the Germans were not able to win historically.

 

[Daz]

This is an image of your scenario at D3, 16:30 as per the save you sent me.
In the top right of the screen is the tab for the on map boss command info.
As you can see he has a capacity to command units/formations up to a value of 42.
You are only using 7 of that value.

For a better balanced and more fun experience, you should keep the number of formations/units, under your direct control, around about the command capacity of the on map boss.
In my games I quite often go over this and work through the resulting penalties that are incurred as a result of doing so.
I find the games far more absorbing playing like this, than just giving a few orders to higher level HQ's and watching the AI's fight each other.

Of course its up to you how you play, but this is what I use as a good guide to how much interference I should be doing, for a properly balanced scenario.

 

[Fox]

I loaded up the save you gave me for Day 3 16:30, Fox.
I just let the game run without any interference and this is the result a few days later.
They had a hell of a fight to dislodge a US Bn from Weimes that lasted all of Day 4 and resulted in a lot of tanks being lost.
It was a bit of a pyrrhic victory to be honest.

If you look in the log for the 26 SS Pz Gren Regt HQ (top right of image) you can see that they started changing formation at D3, 13:20 probably because of the enemy on the route and this would have been the attack that was put in by the II Bn HQ 26 SS Pz Gren Regt HQ, that got repulsed with heavy casualties.
The halting from then until the change of Firebase at D3 18:42 is probably the period where the formation is pinned down on the road and the HQ is trying to decide what best to do.
The command delay for the Regimental HQ is 90 min (an hour and a half) so it takes quite a while for new orders to filter back down the line.

I don't think there is a bug at play here, but for best results its usually best to take more control, and play at a lower level than Regt, especially in a scenario that the Germans were not able to win historically.

View attachment 4545

Yeah I think I had a bit of a misunderstanding on how the control of sub- units worked, I thought that tasks were the only way to control subordinate units but I forgot that the units need to keep formation aswell. Since the the tank battalion was the rear guard of the formation it wasn't going to move up until resistance in front had been cleared or the HQ came up with a new plan, even though it had a move task active.

 

[Daz]

This is quite a tough scenario playing as Axis, with the historical settings.
You inspired me to play it again which was great.
Last time I played it was well over a year ago, and my latest result was much better than last time, so I must be getting better