It's my belief, looking at the Referee's info detailing the aftermath, that the Americans opened up on the combat units of the 124th. It seems extremely unlikely that the 124th would have been advancing with their supply vehicles enmeshed in their combat units.
Also, the combat units represent the greatest threat to the Americans and therefore would attract the bulk of the fire. This would possibly allow any supply vehicles amongst the combat units to flee.
Shattered doesn't necessarily mean destroyed either. It could be applied equally well to disbursed to the four winds, fleeing in panic as far as they could go. These units may have been picked up by other Soviet units in the region and absorbed rather than sent back to the 124th - who in T2K would send a truck full of diesel away when they can run their own vehicles on it for a while?
Looking at the capabilities of the various vehicle types, we can see that onroad a T-72M running on diesel can go approximately 540 km on one load of fuel. In other words, they've probably refueled just once since setting out from the Ukraine, and still have a hundred kilometres or so of range left in their fuel tanks.
With say 20 T-72s that's ony about 32,000 litres - three truckloads. Add in softskins, APCs and the like and it's probably only about 6 trucks used - no need for a stockpile.
Of course they need fuel for their intended mission, so I suppose quadruple that to about 25 trucks for the division, or approximately 250,000 litres - still not enough to warrant supply dumps and the necessary security protecting them would require.
The 3-70 had nothing but fumes in their fuel tanks. There reserves were totally gone. If somebody had squirrelled away a few jerry cans, then would have been the time to use them rather than fight and be destroyed in place as they were.
Yes, multifuel engines such as the M1's don't take a lot of time to convert, but don't forget the multitude of other vehicles within the formation. Each and every one of them according to the rules needs 8 hours work by a competant mechanic to convert. That's one hell of a lot of manhours when the enemy could come down hard at any minute.
Also, we know that the pact frontline units had a difficult time and suffered plenty of casualties against the Americans, however what about their artillery? We know that the US were short of a lot of things by the last day and had virtually no way to get additional ammo from the supply units to those who needed them. Therefore counterbattery fire would be limited at best and the mechanics in constant danger.
Once the combat elements of the 124th were destroyed, and the Americans essentially exhausted, they'd still have to face the Pact artillery. I for one wouldn't like hanging around syphoning fuel tanks while 122mm HE was raining around my ears, and as already indicated, it's very unlikely they'd be any 10,000 tanker trucks sitting about the battlefield.
__________________
If it moves, shoot it, if not push it, if it still doesn't move, use explosives.
Nothing happens in isolation - it's called "the butterfly effect"
Mors ante pudorem
|