[Mass Combat] Cutting supply lines

[condor]

Originally Posted by Michael Thayne

While Mass Combat mentions that land logistics troops require that "a clear supply line can be traced back to home base", it is a little unclear what this means.

Thoughts?

I think it is very hard to define precisely. Personally I read Logistic Force as the ability to get 'everything that is not war but it is important to war'. So anything that hinders it counts. Sometimes a force is 'cut' even if near home, like Gaius Flaminius' against Hannibal (Transimene). In other contexts, even if an army is deep into enemy territory, like Hannibal in Italy, or the Vikings in Northumbria, and there is not a 'line to their home base', they are not 'cut' if their logistic force can pillage, or make commerce.

And there are some events that could be modeled as an enemy 'cutting your supply lines' even if they did not cut them strictu sensu. For instance, let's say there is an army that has been pillaging his way up to a point. While the army is occupying a hill for a pitched battle, his enemy raids their camp and steals all the gold, running south. The army is still, able to get food from farms, or wood, but most likely, troops will feel as if they have 'been cut' and are likely to desert. That actually happened in the Battle of Tours(732), Charles Martel's forces managed to raid Abdul Rahman's camp. When the news that the gold they had pillaged before was being stolen, units started to flee during the battle.