Now that I've caught up on more of the released videos: hm.
Well, on one hand I can't complain, I suppose, that the HindClawForce didn't get their supply chain from Munich snapped even though it should have been flowing from there, with a VERY iffy chance of other supplies coming in from the main artery (from Passau to Straubing. As an aside, we were never told we had another supply source at Deggendorf but I can't see how that would have ever practically mattered anyway.)
On the other hand, if the HindClawForce had been told by Jim, "Hey, by the way, y'all aren't getting any more supplies through Munich..." -- even if no other information came along with that -- they might have realized someone snuck a unit between them somewhere back to Munich to sit on it.
I thought we had been holding both victory locations for two or three game days. It turns out, we held both of them for maybe half a day? (Hard to tell, the videos are currently scrambled out of order mostly, and obviously there are some significant time skips.)
So that's a big reason (not the only one, but a big one) why we didn't win -- Munich was taken behind us. But apparently we were never told that Munich was taken behind us, to do something about that. But on the other hand, neither did taking Munich seem to affect supply to the HindClawForce.
Relatedly, am I upset about the Reserve Corps pushing so far north as to let a small French force sneak through and take our victory location behind our back? Not really. Technically it was an operational error, sure, but they weren't disobeying orders or deviating from the plan: we knew they'd be out of comms for practically the whole game, and would have to operate and make decisions on their own recognizance, and as
the compiled operational strategy thread for us Austrians shows, the HindClawForce had a ton of leeway about prosecuting contacts and creating advanced defense lines to stall any forces coming down to Munich. Plus they were getting messages from the LowerJawForce at Landshut, calling out trouble, so with Munich apparently secured and supplies still flowing through it
it made some sense for them to go up the road and see if they could lend help. Plus from a gameplay standpoint, sitting around on defense building up entrenchments would have been boring. So I understand it, and can't really complain.
In real life, their part of the plan would have been to DEFINITELY sit on Munich and fortify that sucker (especially with Charles' preference for epic defensive sitzkriegs and then counterattacks). Would that have made enough difference to win by ref judgment?
Unsure. I'd like to hear from Jim's opinion on that. The main difference would be that practically all of the very exhausted French forces would have arrived on both sides of the Isar to besiege them -- definitely snapping supplies, although given the simplified supply rules we were using I don't know how much that affects city sieges, which they would have been stockpiling for.
The French would have worn them down and through, but the Austrian elite corps would have been well rested, ammo'd up, and ready to fight, so my guess is that it would have taken several game-days beyond where the game ended, to rotate rested French troops onto and out of the line and back in again (with whole days of rest in between). Nappy's presence would have helped, but enough to get it done in less than (let's say) five more game days? Unclear. (No artillery city following him around this time to blast out the HindClawForce either.)
By then, Hohenzollern would have flanked Vandamme's blocking force, allowing him and Hiller to overrun his defenses (and notice from the post-game test battles how his much smaller and weaker force compared to the HindClaws, entrenching fewer days, outside a city, still gave Hiller's assault a very problematic time without Hohen's help). I would have been farther up the valley, possibly still able to come to their aid, but it wouldn't have been necessary so I would have continued on, as would Bellegarde in any case.
Even with crappy Austrian marching speeds, I think we would have arrived in time to extend the game even farther; though our two corps would have been hit with severe fatigue penalties, but probably not bad morale all things considered. Whereupon we would have been sitting on the French supply lines, and by the time we arrived Hohen would have been approaching the Ingolstadt supply source, cutting it off already or very soon, with Hiller providing support from the south side of the Danube (since we didn't know what Nappy would try to do with his forces once arriving in the theater).
Rotating troops in and out again, with Munich still enveloped, but lots of the French also enveloped and out of supply,, and with tired but high-morale and low-casualty corps of Hiller and Bellegarde on the way arriving a few more days after our arrival.... even if keeping Munich all that time hadn't won us the game much sooner (thanks to the French scoring points for whomping out most of the LowerJawForce), I think we would have had a shot.
Sending a French autobot cav division to find our supply source at Passau, and then splitting into a second brigade to work up the road to search for any other source coming onto the map, would have screwed us over, too, of course. No way for us to stop that either, but we knew that going in: if all the players were to
play, then we had to try to win fast enough (with our glacially slow mighty grinding going almost nowhere!) to keep the speedy French from nuking our rear areas.