Are the Russians Too Strong?

[Krasny]

In my last two games as the Axis, the Germans had to go on the defensive in mid 1942.

Any idea what I am doing wrong, or are the Russians too strong.

[Shawkhan]

...You didn't say WHY you went on the defensive. Did you run out of oil or personnel points? The Russians are supposed to be strong. Historically they did win. You have to do better than the Axis historically did to win. If you want to change this, don't play with the oil option and give the Axis an advantage.
...I personally have never won a game as the Axis in any gamestart after the 1942 scenario, despite having played this game dozens of times.

[Krasny]

Because attack was fruitless.

I thought I'd save IP by having the Russians attack me.

EDIT: Should they be such an inplacable force in mid 42?

[brianlala]

I finally took the Russian front for the first time in about ten games with oil on and a 1939 game start. The way I've done it is by doing the traditional western front attacks and taking France, Netherlands, Denmark, Belgium, and Norway by June-Augustish 1940 and then simultaniously going for Yugoslavia (using any allies that have joined up), taking Spain/Portugal/Gibralter (use some Italians with a german armor, two infantry, and two planes) and scooping up Sweden at the same time. By the time all this gets done (I don't do anything in Africa or the Middle) and Greece gets wrapped up it should be around March-June 1941. This is when you want to attack Russia.

The sooner you hit Russia in 1941 then the easier it will be for you. Oil shouldn't become a potential problem until middlish 1942 unless you've be wasteful with it in previous campaigns (like needless tank or plane moves, which use up 3 or 4 oil with each move). The number one thing doing me in on the Russian front was a lack of manpower and having to put new recruits in as replacements. This was pushing down my forces' quality so much and making unit ineffective sometimes. My second big problem was the strength of the Russian armor. Both of these issues pop up around late 1942-early 1943ish and combine that with annoying raids in France and potential oil problems and you have a sure recipe for failure.

The trick to avoid these problems is the aforementioned mid-1941 Russia attack strategy. Try to buy at least 3 research labs for armor (I've been using 4) and consider focusing your armor research on "tank destroyers" so that you can take out the Russian armor in 1943 when their quality catches up. Don't wait troops attacking through that big stretch of forest in Russia in the North from Moscow on west. Hold up in a good defensive position in the North with mostly infantry and a tank or mechanized for opportunistic unit smashing if the Russians get too feisty up there.

The bulk of your attack (use most of your armor for this)(i usually use some combination of 2-4 armor and 2-4 mechanized here with some air support) through Russia should come across the wide open plains of the south and keep going east until you hit Stalingrad (have a force be sure to go south and get that Azerbaijan oil). Once you get the oil and Stalingrad then you can drive North and Northeast from there and work against Moskau. If you havent burned up your manpower in the forests of the North then you should have enough manpower to start trading some heavy losses for land on the way to Moskau. Don't be afraid to use your infantry to start attacks for this drive north.

Casualties will be extremely heavy for this part of the operation and time is of the essence in surrounding Moskau because if you don't do it fast then the AI will ring the city with tons of tanks and infantry that will be unbeatable once the 43 winter hits. If you take Moskau then driving onto Perm (sp?) should be easy if you do it relatively fast.

-other tips:

1. conserve your U-boat force and don't waste it fighting the british. I usually build up to a 4-6 u-boat force and have them be sure to pick off any shipping heading to Murmansk. (this is one of the funnest parts of the game). Losses are usually heavy and I even often get the Italian battleships involved in this because the goal is to starve the Russians.

2, With the Italians I have all their research go to infantry and general (Usually split equally between the two). If you eventually get to 4-5 research labs working on improving the Italian infantry, they can become more powerful than the German infantry (especially if Germans are primarily focused on tank destroyer and general). Having the Italians focus on solely infantry research and production helps with the German manpower shortages later in the war.

3, Perhaps don't take Sevastapol and that other Russian city on the peninsula. They are simply too tough to take without a bloody battle and the rewards for taking them are not worth the cost.

[StevenCarleton]

Which difficulty level did you use to achieve all this?
How do you conquer all those countries and still have enough PPs to build up forces for an attack on USSR?
Having trouble getting amph attacks working for an invasion of Norway.
How do you tell if its a beach hex, or is any coast hex eligible for amph. landings?

[Der Kuenstler]

You can land on any open coast hex but must load from a port hex.
 
I am playing my second game with oil on against Russia with a 1941 start date - I was doing pretty well until the oil ran out - lol -I'm only getting about 31 oil every turn and the Russkies are starting to wear me down. I'm thinking of not buying motorized corps next time - only foot infantry - they don't use oil and can move farther than motorized in Russian winters.

[StevenCarleton]

Well that's not realistic - amph. landings should only be allowed on beach hexes.
This gives the Allies a huge advantage!
Also, the Allies should be allowed to land on occupied hexes since the US had real amph. combat landing craft (LCI, LST, Higgens boats, etc).

I think the oil resources avail to the Axis are also unrealistically low.
Perhaps the game designers didn't know that Germany was able to make fuel from coal.
It wasn't 'til the Allies bombed the synthetic oil plants in 1944 that Germany became desparately short, which then became worse with the loss of Ploesti to the Soviets late that year.

[Shawkhan]

...Excellent idea about the beach hexes! I hope it can be easily implemented. If not invasions at only port hexes at this scale would even be better I think.
...Oil is exactly right in this game. The Germans simply couldn't mechanize their forces to the extent some gameplayers would wish. I seldom play with more than 6 tank units for this very reason. Motorized units can actually take the place of extra tanks if you use them in pairs, they are still cheaper than moving tanks, but naturally are individually weaker and more limited by weather conditions in their movement. Oil from coal was made but was of extremely low quality, seriously lacking in octane value. If German planes for instance, had had access to the 100 octane fuel used by the allies, their fighters would have been even more devastating than they were.

[StevenCarleton]

Yes, but I'm just basing my oil assumptions on the actual military activity Nazi Germany was undertaking in say, 1943. They had about 15 panzer and 10 mechanized divs in action on the eastern front (esp at Kursk), they were waging day and night air battles against the allied air offensive, and the uboat campaign was in full swing 'til May 1943. Due to continuous Allied & Soviet offensives, there was no way they could've stockpiled much oil.

BTW: It would be nice if the game included the huge numbers of ASW aircraft the Allies had patrolling the Atlantic, as well as the effect of the western allies breaking the Enigma code and the high-level Soviet spy rings (esp. the infamous agent Lucy). Its seems the 'Ultra' secret was the biggest reason the uboats were defeated.

What about all the Soviet siberian units released from the Far East when Japan attacked? Of course, if the Germans aren't doing very well against the USSR, maybe the Japanese don't attack in Dec '41?

The game also doesn't seem to consider the British naval forces sent to the Far East from the Med theater early in '42 to take on the Japanese. I know they sent at least two battleships which were sunk.