Soviet defense of Moscow axis of attack - Jam stay out

[karonagames]

I would only stack in Lvl3+ entrenchements and if I thought the hex could not be outflanked. In low level entrenchments with poor flank protection, stacks can be pocket fodder.

Against the AI I try to use the same tactics as I would against a human - you can get into many bad habits when playing the AI that will be exposed by a human opponent.

[karonagames]

Leningrad is fine.

I would just note that I would be happier if the river line next to the Leningrad City hexes had diggers in them north and south of the river. This is the "Small solution" route to the the receiving port on the west side of Lake Ladoga. This was my favourite route against the AI, and I managed it against Trey too.

[BletchleyGeek]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx
Look for places and opportunities to counterattack. Panzers in clear, unfortified terrain at the tip of a spearhead can be mauled, especially if they are tired out. Use your rifle divisions for this: they have enough movement to dogpile on a nearby panzer, launch one good deliberate attack, and then move into defensive positions afterwards. I'm launching 2-4 attacks every turn in this area from about turn 4 onwards. (Sometimes even earlier.) This adds up and the Germans will eventually have to start pulling them out of the line to rest and refit.

Organize your CC first before launching said counterattacks to make sure the units involved are under strong generals at the army level.

I've been doing exactly this on my PBEM game, and now - turn 8 - the Axis has losses of over 1,000 AFVs. It has costed me dearly, as well, but this is the Eastern Front and the year is 1941 [:)]. My opponent seems to have pulled out his forces for refit - I hit them hard. One of my most common mistakes while implementing Flaviusx limited offensive doctrine is to forget about the fact that Soviet units in 1941 have very little MPs. It's too easy to leave them after a counterattack in a position where they can be outflanked and (or almost) encircled.

I'm also starting to have the feeling that TkDivs and CavDivs work better on the offence than in the defence in general, so I usually pull them off the line and set up them as reserves.

One concept I'm currently implementing is to concentrate my TkDiv under high Mech rated leaders, supported by Cavalry Divisions. The idea is to have highly mobile forces to implement the doctrine Flaviusx counsels, these groups worked very well on the initial stages of the campaign on the Ukraine. I'm also considering the idea of disbanding some of them as soon as TkBdes become available - I haven't lost many of them, and now it looks to me I have too many of them [8|]

[Flaviusx]

Tank divisions really aren't very good for counterattacks precisely because of their mobility. Or lack of. 18 movement points is crap when you consider a deliberate attack costs 16 mps. A stack of unusually strong tank divisions can occasionally do well with hasty attacks.

Rifle divisions are actually better. So many novice Soviet players don't get this and try to husband the tank divisions for a counterattack they are usually not quite able to ever manage. They are, frankly, crap. I just use them to fill gaps in the line, preferably on the second line.

A typical 12 movement point rifle division can launch a deliberate attack with 6 movement points to spare for moving into position to attack and then resume a defensive position afterwards. This is enormously more mobile and easier to coordinate counterattacks with than a tank division.

[squatter]

Isnt that a little skewiff that Sov infantry are more mobile than Sov armour (even if in the early war)?

[BletchleyGeek]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx
Tank divisions really aren't very good for counterattacks precisely because of their mobility. Or lack of. 18 movement points is crap when you consider a deliberate attack costs 16 mps. A stack of unusually strong tank divisions can occasionally do well with hasty attacks.

Rifle divisions are actually better. So many novice Soviet players don't get this and try to husband the tank divisions for a counterattack they are usually not quite able to ever manage. They are, frankly, crap. I just use them to fill gaps in the line, preferably on the second line.

A typical 12 movement point rifle division can launch a deliberate attack with 6 movement points to spare for moving into position to attack and then resume a defensive position afterwards. This is enormously more mobile and easier to coordinate counterattacks with than a tank division.

That I was precisely doing: stacking them and doing hasty attacks, deliberate attacks are usually not feasible, because they have to establish contact with the enemy.

What about disbanding TkDivs to furnish the TkBdes? As long as there are any left and the German pressure allows, of course.

[Flaviusx]

Problem is that a stack of 41 tank divisions doing hasty attacks generally has very limited combat power, less in fact than can be achieved with a half dozen or more rifle divisions doing a deliberate attack. Nor do the Sovs have very many mech leaders worth a damn. (They have far more good infantry leaders.)

Occasionally you might be able to put a strong stack of tank divisions, but this is pretty rare. (And by "strong", I mean 4+ CV tank divisions. There just aren't many of these.) It's actually easier to get a bunch of 3 CV rifle divisions in larger numbers for deliberate attacks.

The tank divisions will convert to brigades on their own automatically from turn 11 onwards. (Those remaining on the map anyways. A lot of them will have been withdrawn to reform as tank brigades before that point.)

Just use them to fill in gaps in the line.

[Flaviusx]

ORIGINAL: squatter

Isnt that a little skewiff that Sov infantry are more mobile than Sov armour (even if in the early war)?

No. The tank divisions in 1941 were simply that bad and tended to fall apart even marching around. The Sovs eventually simply reformed them as tank brigades.

The game system as is works in the larger sense.

[jjdenver]

Flav - what sort of SU commitment do you make to infantry Armies and Fronts in summer/fall 41? I've been doing 4x arty regiment, 1 x RR bde, 1 x Sapper regiment as a standard setup for armies, and nothing in Fronts.

[ComradeP]

Flavio: Hmm, setting motorized divisions to static because you know they'll turn into Rifle division is an interesting, if somewhat gamey idea. Is there a reason why the poor quality/wrecked Tank divisions don't get the same treatment? Brigades are cheap to reactivate.

Comrade question. I've been building RR construction regiments (maybe battalions?) and i'm wondering if i attach them to an HQ do they help all attached units construction value if they are in range? I've seen the AI also break them off to repair rail lines as well. Hopefully i didn't waste those men by making RR construction units.

There's currently hardly any reason to build construction battalions in 1941, considering that RR repair brigades are much better and also cost only 1 AP. It obviously takes more manpower to fill them up, but that's not a problem in 1941. A construction unit is a construction unit as far as the game is concerned. RR repair brigades will also assist with fort construction.

Also i don't remember if it was you or comrade or both but soviet cav rock.

The thing you should keep in mind is that they're REALLY lousy offensive units when they downgrade to brigade size, even as corps (which are essentially the same size as the units they start with). Use them to hit enemy supply lines or to encircle. The Axis will just bulldoze over them when you're using them for defence.

Late war, they're quite good as Guards cavalry corps, but it's not a good idea to use them as offensive weapons early on, unless concentrated in significant numbers. I try not to leave gaps in my line for cavalry to sneak through as the Axis. Even if they do, an attack or two will usually rout them.

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The more I think about it, the more the value of the +1 odds bonus is seriously underestimated (possibly by the developers too). The Axis really have no unique bonus like it. Experience or morale is in no way such a good bonus as a +1 odds modifier. Not to mention that there's nothing limiting the Soviets to get to 99 experience/morale. The only thing limiting from getting leaders that are as good as the Germans is that combat skills can only be increased to 6, but I'm not really sure the difference between a leader with an inf/mech rating of 6 and one with 7 is substantial.

Let's say you're attacking an Axis infantry division with a CV of 80. You're using 4 Rifle divisions with an average CV of 25. The Soviets supposedly lose more men from defensive fire, but it's difficult to truly see that as such a test would require units of equal experience. As your units are not as experienced as the German unit, it's difficult to see what's caused by poor experience and what by the increased casualties modifier. Let's say you lose 20 CV from defensive fire, or 20% of your total, which is extreme as you'll normally not lose more than 10% of your men, tops. You end up with 80 CV. As you're the Soviets, odds are around 1:1 (support units will add a bit) you win the battle and the Germans retreat. As the Germans, such attacks fail per definition.

The more difficult the attack, the greater the benefit of the odds bonus. Most of my failing attacks in swamps in my game with notenome come up with odds between 1 and 2. The Soviets would win all of them. Keep in mind that, after all other modifications, if your odds jump from 1.0001 to 2, they're almost doubled. The Germans can only dream of that. Their unit CV's might double after their leaders make the checks, but they can't cope with such an essentially post-battle increase in odds (it happens based on the final odds, so after the shooting stops).

The key thing to note is that, as far as I know, the Germans have no bonus that the Soviets can't get, aside from slightly better leaders, a bonus which will again be nullified if the leader skill increase cap is increased to 7. German units decrease in size over time and as said there's nothing limiting you from getting units with 99 experience or morale as the Soviets. Your support units are bigger and you get on-map artillery units. The Germans have what comes down to no unique force multiplier, or no real force multiplier at all aside from the Luftwaffe, but the Luftwaffe's performance is questionable with the current state of the air war. Of course, the Soviets also have the VVS as a force multiplier, which does even out the Luftwaffe when it comes to ground battles as the VVS can commit a lot more planes.

The +1 odds modifier might be the Soviets' best friend, and not many people seem to realize it yet. The Germans have more or less no counter: as you're attacking on your turn, you decide how many men to bring to battle, so a tougher stack will just mean you'll bring more men.

[Flaviusx]

Depends on where the HQ is. 4 artillery is more than I'd usually put in a run of the mill army. I actually like to husband a lot of my artillery in STAVKA until mud. During the summer, HQs have a rather bad tendency of losing their artillery SUs when displaced. I go down to as little as 2 artillery SUs.

Now, if you are in Leningrad or some other high priority objective, then you might pile it on. (You can get as many as 18 SUs committed in urban combat.)

Typically I put 2-3 RR construction brigades in each and every Army and Front. Yes, every single one. I might go even higher than that in certain areas. You could substitute construction battalions for RR brigades on a roughly 3:2 basis according to taste. RR brigades retain their utility throughout the war, whereas CBs become less useful as time goes on, but on the other hand, are easier to build in large numbers in 1941 and can possibly give you better construction coverage for forts. A judgment call.

[Flaviusx]

Pieter, you could pull the same trick with tank divisions, but the return on investment isn't nearly as big. Also, you really can't afford to pull all those units out of the line to begin with. Motorized divisions exist in limited enough quantities that they won't be missed. Tank divisions are far more numerous and will be missed.

[ComradeP]

Yes, the return would be only around 1-3 AP's per Tank division.

[bwheatley]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

Oh one more thing.

If you are short on replacements, and can spare the APs...start disbanding corps HQs.

I actually start disbanding all of mine as early as turn 1. You can get literally hundreds of thousands of fresh troops from these. Although I suspect they are mostly gone by now.

+1 to that idea flaviusx. It used like 30 AP over a few turns but it helped my new shell units fill out much faster.
And thats by t3-t4 depending on which corps are still unable to disable because of enemy proximity etc.