The role of ammo?

[verstaubtgesicht]

I am deep into the vanilla campaign and I cannot find a situation where the amount of ammo was relevant in any way. It was rather important in PzC 1, but in PzC with automatic replenishment at the end of the turn, I just don't see the point? Maybe if you steamroll a bunch of units, but that's almost never the case.

[Stormchaser]

There are 2 times ammo has been relevant for me.

1. When encircled, your ammo doesn't resupply every turn, and eventually you run out and can't attack.

2. Limited Ammo helps keep Overrun chaining in check.

[verstaubtgesicht]

There are 2 times ammo has been relevant for me.

1. When encircled, your ammo doesn't resupply every turn, and eventually you run out and can't attack.

2. Limited Ammo helps keep Overrun chaining in check.

when encircled you are screwed on suppression anyways, so ammo is just beating a dead horse. As I said, it's hard to find scenarios where you would run out of ammo on steamrolling.

[panzeh]

There are 2 times ammo has been relevant for me.

1. When encircled, your ammo doesn't resupply every turn, and eventually you run out and can't attack.

2. Limited Ammo helps keep Overrun chaining in check.

when encircled you are screwed on suppression anyways, so ammo is just beating a dead horse. As I said, it's hard to find scenarios where you would run out of ammo on steamrolling.

With leaders you can create hyper-overrun units and ammo is basically the thing that keeps them from pinballing across the map.

[Stormchaser]

I also forgot, there is a bit of a defensive element to ammo count as well.
Since it refills at the start of your turn, of you have a unit with no or little ammo on the front line and the enemy starts attacking it, it won't be able to defend itself.
This is probably more relevant for things with low ammo count like Artillery which you normally have behind your front line anyway, but it's still a factor.

Frankly, I think they struck a good balance with the supply system in this game. The fact that it doesn't become a problem unless you are actively making it one or making mistakes is a lot better, in my opinion of course, than the much harsher supply mechanics in OoB.

[Scrapulous]

If you're never limited by ammo, you're not playing aggressively enough!

I'm only half kidding. I see ammo constraints a lot, but I frequently get encircled my big enemy counterattacks (which I see as a strength of Kerensky's scenario design: in some games I can blitz everywhere with no real consequences, but these scenarios tend to push back if I get too bold): the Bzura River was a great example. I stormed the river crossings and encircled the first wave of reinforcements only to be counter-encircled by the second wave. Big encirclements are particularly significant because often killing just one unit isn't enough to get out of the supply hole. I have often seen what Stormchaser describes: enemies taking free shots at my Somuas because I ran out of ammo on my turn.

It's fun, too. Nothing makes your stomach sink in this game like seeing a badly encircled, depleted elite unit getting attacked over and over again. The AI target picking is not flawless, but it's good at trying to capitalize on situations like this.

[Edmon]

I generally didn't find ammo to be a problem except for:

1) Artillery with counter battery hero. You can chew through your ammo fast when your artillery (15cm, anything with 3 ammo and Gustav especially) is firing at soft, hard and artillery.
2) Flame tanks, they only have 3 ammo and can become defenceless easily.
3) Inefficient supply / Chaotic fire quirk(s).
4) Caught in an encirclement (but it is rare players are subject to this).

[Tassadar]

I run into ammo issues more often than I thought. With my tendency to set up grand overruns where possible (unless it's more profitable to start forcing surrenders) my tanks use up their ammo really fast. At 1-2 ammo left AI often tries to aggressively target such units - making them use up remaining bullets and then storm in with some more troops. The only saving grace then is that it is terrible at picking the right order in which to attack.

[WalterTFD]

I've only once had ammo be a problem (I had a Mars with a hero giving it artillery support, so it shot when an enemy arty shot, when a sort attack happened, and a when a hard attack happened), but I don't play with the ammo-limiting general trait.

[Kerensky]

I find ammo to never be a problem when things are going well. Which is as it should be.

But it really kicks in when the going gets tough. Too much overrun can leave a valuable tank exposed and defenseless during the enemy turn.
Getting caught in an encirclement and not resupplying is devastating, both against the player and against the AI when you are up against an extremely tough unit with a low ammo supply, like a lot of Soviet heavy SPATs.
Mobile rocket artillery has crazy low ammo counts, only enough for 1 shot and 1 support, which makes their management require a bit of extra planning.

So I absolutely feel the effect of ammo, especially in the DLC Axis Operation content.