I Looked about for ideas for introducing rail movement in a game.
I’m looking to be a little more realistic in terms of capability (but not procedural rules)
I am wondering if there is actually data out there that shows what each major nation had for rail capacity, and what they realistically could rail from one hot spot to another.
What could each nation rebase in terms of planes.
What each nation could rebase in terms of navy.
Like to start a discussion around this. I was looking at Rise and Decline of the Third Reich as inspiration. But they have no limits to rebasing air units or navy units.
I’m not sure I understand your post correctly, and I don’t grasp what you mean by “rebase” (I’ve never heard the term), but here are a couple of thoughts:
When nations want to send airplanes or ships – by which I mean fully assembled and operational airplanes and ships – from one place to another, they don’t usually do so by rail. The airplanes travel from Point A to Point by air (by flying there on their own), and the ships travel from Point X to Point Y by sea (by steaming there on their own).
That being said, unassembled airplane and ship components do sometimes travel by other means (such as by rail and by ship), but that’s not the same thing as sending a combat-ready plane or ship from one hot spot to another.
Land equipment certainly does travel by rail (and by ship and by plane in various circumstances), and this includes transporting land vehicles. Tanks can’t travel far on their own without running into maintenance problems, and can’t travel very fast (especially cross-country), so rail is the method of choice for moving tanks overland quickly and for great distances.
I don’t know specifically where you could find actual WWII numbers, but basically what you’re talking about is railway shipping capacity, which a function of two things: how much track a country has and how much rolling stock (locomotives and freight cars) a country has. Railway enthiusiasts (I’m not one of them) might know off the top of their heads where such figures can be found.
I am not actually refering to Axis & Allies, but other games where an air unit has to be based on a space and it conducts operations from there but always flies back to that space. So by rebasing, I would mean not just the air unit, but the ground crews, fuel, spare parts etc … everything an air unit needs to operate.
Same with a naval unit. All ships have a home port. Rebasing to a new port means more than just moving the ship.
And even ground units are pulled from combat and shuttled to other parts of a front.
I suppose all this would be ‘redeployment’ rather than railing.
But I am not content with let’s say Germany having its entire airforce move from one side of europe to another. Is that even doable? Or UK’s entire fleet rebasing to Malta. Is that doable? What is more realistic?
Again, not Axis & Allies. Think more Rise and Decline of the Third Reich.
You might want to take a look at Total World War which does show using rail within more of the axis & allies type system: https://triplea-game.org/map/total-world-war/
If you want something deeper then I’d recommend War in the East: https://store.steampowered.com/app/370540/Gary_Grigsbys_War_in_the_East/
