How to organize Red Army on Jun 22

[Kel]

Here are some basic guidelines that beginners may find useful and use as a basis to develop their own preferences. They are aimed at preserving and rebuilding a decent red army during the first season of the game - from june 1941 to the mud season. They work in pbem but I'm pretty sure that there is ample room for optimization or alternate doctrines.

APs allocation
Each turn,
1. Appoint one new leader (cost 10-20 aps). Appoint the best ones (good stat in Administration with decent stats in Inf and Ini) to Front hqs and then, when every active front has a decent commander, take care of the armies, and last of the air hqs. Start working on the more threatened sectors. Usually Leningrad, Western. Put very good leaders for armies that defend critical sectors. After 3 months, no active army should be commanded by an inf 4 leader anymore.
2. Disband a few corps hqs (cost 15-25 aps) and inefficient SUs (motorcycles rgts). This will free up a bunch of support squads, and vehicles.
3. Equip the army hqs with at least 2 Construction bns (cost 10 aps).

Airforce
1. Send all the airforce to the national reserve (via the CDR report, it will spare mouseclicks). You will start rebuilding it on a more rational basis in the autumn. In the meantime, the aircrafts are better in shelters.
2. Evacuate all the air bases to the rear (ie at least 12 hexes from the frontline).
3. In september, you can start rebuilding it, so that it is ready for the winter offensive.
4. Seven airbases for each front. 1 VVS (half recon, half transport aircrafts). 2 IAP/IAD (fighter bombers - only Yaks,MiGs and LaGG). 2 SAD (1 with U2VS for night harassment - close to the front - and 1 with IL2 for assault). 2 BAD (mostly with pe2 level bombers).
5. Give 1 PVO rgt to every Air HQ. Lock.
6. Disband unused airbases and HQs.
7. When armies are correctly staffed, give a good leader (Air value>5) to all air HQs starting with those in most critical sectors

Command structure
1. Let Shaposhnikov run the Stavka.
2. Starting from turn 1, have a vision of the succession of front sectors you want from the baltic to the black sea. Do your absolute best to avoid overlapping sectors and stacks of frontline units responding to different hqs. If necessary and critical, spend a few aps to change the hq affiliation of frontline units and sort the mess out. In the first turns chaos, it won't always be possible so use common sense.
3. Keep the armies under their command limit (24 points). A good all-around basic composition for regular armies is 9-10 infantry divisions (20 pts), 2 tank brigades (2 pts) that will be transformed in a tank corps in due time with an extra tank bde. This way, you have a 20-22 pt army.
4. Give each front 3 to 5 armies. Some front-level overloading is unavoidable. Keep it low. If you use the 20 points army model, you may have 4 such armies per front with some overloading (80 points vs 72). The optimal distribution of force would be 3x24 points armies per front hq but active hqs are way too rare to allow that. During the winter, Volkhov and Transcaucasus front hqs will be activated, alleviating the burden.
5. Do not give armies to Kharkov MD hq. For some reason, it will be disbanded and its armies will be switched to South-Ural Front that is an Eastern map border static hq and you will lose the benefits of an in-range front HQ. (an annoying bug imho).

Reinforcements
1. My replacement policy is to strengthen as many frontline divisions as possible (vs using frontline divisions as expendable cannon fodder and putting all manpower and replacements in new divisions). Select all units in CDR report, sort them by hq and put on refit all those that are not stavka. It has two advantages 1/ the frontline will be stronger (but be smart and try to detect upcoming encirclements because pockets will hurt more) and 2/ it maximizes the xp gains. It is common to have 3-5 guard rifle divisions as early as september.
2. The drawback of this policy is that the arriving divisions will be completely depleted and need a longer time to grow to full TOE. Keep these new divisions under Stavka, out of harm way (unload them from the train 10 hexes away from the front sector where you want them, in a town or a city).
3. Build "ghost armies". Bunch together a free HQ and 9-12 rifle divisions. The rear areas must be kept clean and orderly. These reinforcing divisions are perfect to build fortified lines in the rear (Vyazma line, Luga line, Tula line etc). But do not insert these in the command structure until the last moment - there may be emergencies. Keep in mind that putting a unit in command from stavka is free but transferring a unit to another command costs aps.

Factory evac
1. Balance the rail points allocation between divisions movement and factory evacuation. 2. Always spend all the rail points.
3. Check the cities (in rail mode, click the factory symbol, they will be highlighted in red) one by one, starting by the westernmost and most threatened, and evacuate one or two city every turn.
4. Be prudent : large cities (Leningrad, Kharkov) will require 2 or 3 turns to evacuate. And don't forget the towns. While most towns only provide manpower, some (Taganrog...) have factories.

Special units
1. Airborne brigades. Preserve them (ie construction duty or stack them to keep absolutely critical hexes. (3 ab bde = 1 rifle guard div)
2. Tank divs. Avoid putting them on the frontline, keep them 1 hex in the rear in reserve mode. Do not expect miracles.
3. NKVD rgts. Rail them to the finnish border. Hand them over to Stavka control. Use as border guards.
4. Motorized divs. Disband them - enjoy the extra vehicles.
5. Corps hqs. Disband them - less clutter, preserved SUs.
6. Fortified regions. Keep the existing. Do not create new ones unless unable to prevent finnish sprawling east of Ladoga.

Support Units
1. In each army HQ : at least 2 Construction bns (for roleplay reason, I do not build RR brigades this early in the game). 2-4 artillery (mix the types : guns, howitzers, mortars to hammer the opfor at different ranges).
2. Keep the scheme simple. When armament production is lavish, you will start having more sophisticated army support schemes (tank bns, sapper rgts, skis bns, etc).Lock.
3. In each front HQ : 1 RR construction bde, 1 PVO rgt. Lock.
4. Set the stavka support level to 0. Support units are needed at the frontline, not in Moscow.

General advice
1. Have a vision and develop it turn after turn.
2. You may panic but never give up.


My two cents [;)].

[Scarz]

How do you move a Construction SU back up the chain to say STAVKA? Also, have the newest patches stopped the STAVKA grand tour plan to allocate SUs? It seems to cost one AP now matter the distance from STAVKA to an HQ.

[ComradeP]

5. Do not give armies to Kharkov MD hq. For some reason, it will be disbanded and its armies will be switched to South-Ural Front that is an Eastern map border static hq and you will lose the benefits of an in-range front HQ. (an annoying bug imho).

The M.D. transforms, it's not actually disbanded as far as I know, so the units assigned to it stay attached to it.

How do you move a Construction SU back up the chain to say STAVKA? Also, have the newest patches stopped the STAVKA grand tour plan to allocate SUs? It seems to cost one AP now matter the distance from STAVKA to an HQ.

Support unit movement from OKH/STAVKA to a HQ is still free. If you want to move a construction unit back up the chain, you'll probably have to do so manually as due to the fixed support level settings for construction and sapper units, they might stay in the HQ when the HQ's support level is set to 0. Careful planning should make sure you can avoid having to reassign construction units.

[vilcum]

The M.D. transforms, it's not actually disbanded as far as I know, so the units assigned to it stay attached to it.

Disapeared (sI suppose disbanded) in my own PBEM, with all patchs applied, I do not have any new front in exchange (of I am not aware of it!) other than reserve and bryansk (this one indeed was transformed from the MD)

[ComradeP]

From the manual:

Karkhov MD to Southern Ural MD (when Kiev is captured)

[76mm]

Just found this thread, very interesting...
 
What have people done to maximize available Sov recon flights?  I seem to only get a couple per turn across the entire front.  Especially vs a crafty PBEM game, being totally in the dark is a little scary!

[Tarhunnas]

ORIGINAL: Kelblau

Here are some basic guidelines that beginners may find useful and use as a basis to develop their own preferences. They are aimed at preserving and rebuilding a decent red army during the first season of the game - from june 1941 to the mud season. They work in pbem but I'm pretty sure that there is ample room for optimization or alternate doctrines.

Thanks for a good summary!

[Encircled]

I managed five (1,2,3,4,5) across the whole front in my last turn of my PBEM game

I could really do with knowing what I'm doing wrong as its very hard to keep track of German Pz/Motorised Divisions

[Scarz]

ORIGINAL: ComradeP

Support unit movement from OKH/STAVKA to a HQ is still free. If you want to move a construction unit back up the chain, you'll probably have to do so manually as due to the fixed support level settings for construction and sapper units, they might stay in the HQ when the HQ's support level is set to 0. Careful planning should make sure you can avoid having to reassign construction units.

How is it done manually? I have RR Con units in HQs and I would rather them be somewhere else, but can not seem to get them out.

I also just ran a quick test, sent STAVKA to Northern Front, and in the same hex with the HQ it cost 1 AP to transfer an SU. Am I missing something here?

[ComradeP]

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[ComradeP]

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[Scarz]

That worked, thanks. Seems a bit odd that one costs and one doesn't...

[ComradeP]

If I were to guess, that's because in the assign/form menu the HQ the support unit is coming from isn't taken into account.

[Mehring]

ORIGINAL: ComradeP

From the manual:

Karkhov MD to Southern Ural MD (when Kiev is captured)

Thing is, unlike the other HQ transformations, Southern Ural MD is frozen hundreds of miles away from the front, leaving all your ex- Kharkov MD Armies without HHQ. And because the Southern Ural colour is the same as that of Southern Front, you may not even notice the switch, what with everything else going on.

[randallw]

It's hard for the Sov player to have lots of recon early, with a dearth of recon units; you can maximize the amount by having them set to day flying, which may allow more than one flight a turn, provided their morale isn't in the dump.

[Mehring]

The biggest problem I find with Russian recce isn't the quantity so much as the quality. It doesn't reveal as much as Axis. Experience? Dunno.

[Encircled]

I haven't been able to do any recon at all in my last two turns.

I have planes, I'm in range, I select the air base, I double check the % required to fly is alright, and I still can't fly any.

Even clicking on the AI button still results in no recon flights

Thoughts?

[Mehring]

Encircled, have you checked supplies and fuel at the airbase? I take it the airbase is in clear, urban or light wood hex?

[randallw]

Air recon has a limit on raising detection level.

[Mehring]

ORIGINAL: randallw

Air recon has a limit on raising detection level.

Up to det level 4? But Russian recce in 1941 (don't know about later) doesn't have the detection rate of Axis recce. Frequently nothing shows up, even in clear terrain.