Soviet Tank & Mechanized Corps

[HHI]

First of all, this game leaves awesome in the dust. Great work! Now I have a few questions regarding later war periods.

1. The Red Army fielded 5 and ultimately 6 Tank Armies. I don't see any Tank Army HQ's on the reinforcement schedule. How are these created?

2. I am now (SU vs. German A/I) in April 1942. I am forming Tank Corps, which works just fine. That got me curious about how mechanized corps would really work. I don't see any mechanized rifle brigades or motorized rifle brigades on the reinforcement schedule. In fact, every thing seems to be rifle divisions from here on out. I assume that rifle brigades must be motorized and then three of them formed into mechanized corps. If this is the case, I have really screwed up, since I have long ago converted all but a hand full of the rifle brigades into rifle divisions, which can't be broken down. Am I missing something here. The term mechanized brigade is specifically mentioned. Where do they come from?

[ComradeP]

1. The Red Army fielded 5 and ultimately 6 Tank Armies. I don't see any Tank Army HQ's on the reinforcement schedule. How are these created?

2. I am now (SU vs. German A/I) in April 1942. I am forming Tank Corps, which works just fine. That got me curious about how mechanized corps would really work. I don't see any mechanized rifle brigades or motorized rifle brigades on the reinforcement schedule. In fact, every thing seems to be rifle divisions from here on out. I assume that rifle brigades must be motorized and then three of them formed into mechanized corps. If this is the case, I have really screwed up, since I have long ago converted all but a hand full of the rifle brigades into rifle divisions, which can't be broken down. Am I missing something here. The term mechanized brigade is specifically mentioned. Where do they come from?

You have to pay AP's to form Tank Army HQ's and mechanized brigades. There was a bug with some unit types not being formable by the Soviets, but that will be fixed in the next patch.

[randallw]

You can start building motorized brigades right now; they won't fully fill out yet, since the recon squads are not available until later in the year but the rest of the equipment types are.  Of course these units are being raised from the ground up; experience levels will start out very poor ( around 20 ) so the brigades will take awhile before being ready to fight Germans.

It would be nice if the manual mentioned when Tank Army HQs are available.

[Flaviusx]

Mech corps are formed from 3 motorized or mechanized brigades (you can mix and match these even.) They must be built from scratch, 5 APs per brigade, and are available to build sometime in the middle of 42. The upgrade from this to a mech corps is an additional 20 APs and becomes available in September 42.

[cookie monster]

Go easy on the mechanized corps they have a in house content of around 2000 vehicles.

These are required from the vehicle pool.

Although mech corps and tank corps are nice, I would rather use the vehicles on my guards corps and standard corps.

The more mech corps and tank corps you have the more of your front you have to make static.

Mobile corps are needed, for encirclement duty and to shore up any openings in the line.

Just go easy on mech corps, they take a ton of vehicles and lose 25% experience on the build up from 3 brigades.

Perhaps a better mobilty compromise is to build Cavalry. They get tanks, high move points and high cv values.

These are just my observations from my first 42-45 Soviet Grand Campaign.

[Flaviusx]

Yes, they are incredibly expensive in terms of resources.

I limit myself to about a dozen such corps, and build around two dozen tank corps. More or less the historical numbers.

[randallw]

The tank corps also lose 25% experience.

[cookie monster]

ORIGINAL: randallw

The tank corps also lose 25% experience.

I know but I didnt include it.[:D]

This makes building from scratch expensive plus alot of waiting time for the unit to train up.

If you put them on the line they suffer more attrition due to being inexperienced.

But you've gotta build one day. So the earlier the better. I guess when admin points allow.

[HHI]

Thanks, guys. As soon as I made the post, I checked the build and found the motorized brigades, along with some other recent adds. I assume mech brigades will be added later. In the process of checking this stuff out, I didn't see the SU-76, which was built in large quantities. Did I miss it?

[ComradeP]

The SU-76 was only produced in limited numbers, production starts in December 1942. SU-76M production starts in May 1943 and is much higher.

[PMCN]

Although not exactly on topic it is close enough that I think I'll ask rather than start a new thread.  Can you form artillery bde into artillery divisions or do you have to build the artillery division (when available) directly? 

The Tank Corps should be built from your existing tank bde, so they don't start from scratch but with experience of probably 50 to 70 at a guess and that is only 15 points bringing the corps experience down to 40-45 which is crappy but not that bad.  Your guard tank bde should be easily in the 60's for experience unless I'm confused and you should get a few guard tank Bde's from the winter of 41.  Their morale doesn't get whacked so they should train up to pretty good standards in 6 weeks, or a few weeks of combat and some time in the rear.  Unless that is a -25 from experience rather than -25% of their experience.

Good to know that mechanized and motorized brigades can be mixed and matched, I'm unfortunately a long way from getting the good toys and have the spring and summer of 42 (where "Von Kleist's Panzer's roamed at will over the russian steppes" to quote the caption of a picture in The History of WW2 from that time period) to look forward to.

[HHI]

The SU-76 was only produced in limited numbers, production starts in December 1942. SU-76M production starts in May 1943 and is much higher.

I agree with what you say. The SU-76 was actually a thingy produced by the Leningrad Tractor Works. However, the SU-76M is usually just referred to as the SU-76 and in either case, I don't see it on the production schedule. This assault gun was actually the second highest produced armored vehicle by the Soviet Union, built on a T-70 chassis. Although I don't think the crews had much fun (no top cover at all), it was a functional assault gun and built in (by German standards) staggering quantities. Where is it?

Also I don't find mechanized infantry squad on the production schedule. Is this something that will show up on the build list later?

[Flaviusx]

Artillery divisions must be built from scratch.

I actually avoid building artillery brigades altogether with the sole exception of the rocket brigades (which are very strong.)

[ComradeP]

I agree with what you say. The SU-76 was actually a thingy produced by the Leningrad Tractor Works. However, the SU-76M is usually just referred to as the SU-76 and in either case, I don't see it on the production schedule. This assault gun was actually the second highest produced armored vehicle by the Soviet Union, built on a T-70 chassis. Although I don't think the crews had much fun (no top cover at all), it was a functional assault gun and built in (by German standards) staggering quantities. Where is it?

Also I don't find mechanized infantry squad on the production schedule. Is this something that will show up on the build list later?

T-40>T-60>SU-76>SU-76M

Soviet mechanized infantry is called a reconnaissance squad in the game (it has an armor rating, like German PzG squads), and I can't find them on the production schedule either currently.

[Baron von Beer]

* oops, wrong thread.

[PMCN]

Well I've got 8 bde worth of artillery (4 light gun, 4 hwz) building to support my 4 shock armies. When I can make aritillery divisions I'll just disband the bdes and the guns (though unfortunately not the trained people drat) will flow into the new divisions. Thanks for the reply.

I have 2 bn and a regiment of rockets, so far they have not hit anything but they have experience in the 30s at best. They build slower than molasses in january though. The 42 TOE change I endorse heartily as it gets the 2 rocket bn to full strength (or a bit over at 9 and 11 rocket launchers each) but will fill out the regiment faster. When this regiment finishes I'll build another one until I can start rocket bdes. I know now to start them early and leave them building in the urals or moscow military district until they both finish building and then train some. But like my ski battalions they are doing a lot of on the job training.

[Flaviusx]

Rocket units populate exceedingly slowly. Not quite sure why this is, been meaning to bug Pavel about this.

What I've started doing to rush things a bit is to disband the rocket SUs to help flesh out the brigades and divisions when they become available. So they are worth building early on from that standpoint. I'm very wary about committing those SUs to battle due to the slow replacement rate and they tend to be parked in STAVKA until I can get the brigades and divisions in play.

The tube stuff fills up much more quickly in comparison, even the division sized units.

[Q-Ball]

Disregard....starting new thread[:D]

[randallw]

I've also noticed that the rockets get deployed pretty slowly for the Soviets; in recent production screens I would look for them ( middle 1942 ) and had trouble finding them, even though they were supposed to begin in late 1941.

A bunch have been deployed with my tank corps, but production seems slow enough that none are sitting around in the pool.