soviet 1941 tactics until mud....

[bigbaba]

hi all,

i play my first PBEM as soviet and after makeing numerous mistakes (even napoleon did some mistakes::) i may have found few important tactical points for the soviet which i would like to have judged by some vets here:

-no sir robinov. put 2nd class units on the advance path of german panzers (like those NKWD SEC guys) while digging at pskov, landbridge and along dnjepr. that costs the germans fuel and MP and buys you some time. also put a unit in every city between you and the german panzers. even a NKWD unit in a urban hex will cause some loses and MP reduction when a panzerdivision attacks it.

-carpet defense is better then haveing a strong front without anything behind. 2 raws in fronts where germans have no panzer and 3 on the fronts close to german armor. in the first line, put 1 DIV in static mode. in the 2nd one your best troops (mostly armor and mechanizied units) in ready/refit modus. the reason is to avoid that your best troops would be destroyed by the initial german attack when a handfull german INF divisions attack your front to make room for the panzers.

-put red AF in reserve and bring the units with the highest XP back on front by turn 4-5 when they fly newer models like yak-1, mig-3 or laag-3. concentrate your air force on few bases per front.

-holding leningrad is a must! beside of industry and manpool holding the city will keep the finnish infantry out of game in the blizzard phase. also it will force the germans to hold a longer frontline. so most of the reinforcement and better air groups goes to leningrad with a carpet defense west and southwest of the city.

-ceoncentrate on digging and atrillery SUs and nothing else. 3 gun units and 2 digging units per army should do it. later one can build tank batallions as army and front reserve.

-keep all CAV and some armor units in the rear area digging and getting fitt for the blizzard attack. also all airborne units should be out of action and digging.

-move all the hard ural guys and caucasian troops via train to the front. dont use your railroad only for industry evac.

thats it. any comments from experiensed players and newbies like me are welcomed.

[Tarhunnas]

Sounds good! I just want to add: Try not to be surrounded. You will be anyway, but try to avoid large enceirclements as far as possible. It is preferrable to give up ground instead of being surrounded.

[76mm]

note that playing vs the AI gives you a false sense of security about avoiding encirclements, as it is generally pretty easy. good german players will make the most of german mobility and leave you wonding what just happened to you...

[Tarhunnas]

ORIGINAL: 76mm

note that playing vs the AI gives you a false sense of security about avoiding encirclements, as it is generally pretty easy. good german players will make the most of german mobility and leave you wonding what just happened to you...

Yes, and if you have been playing the AI on higher difficulty levels it might throw off your game because combats will be harder to win, so you might have a skewed sense of what odds you need to win combats, but the AI will OTOH not take advantage of possibilities to do evil things to you by maneuver.

[Q-Ball]

I would toss in a couple revisions.

First, holding Leningrad is key, though a good and determined opponent will take it. It's almost to the point where if the Germans don't, they are doomed.

As far as units:

ARMOR: Move them to the front, don't save them. They have good combat value the first-time around, but degrade rapidly, and are useless in attack. They are basically one or two-shot deals. Burn them up, and get your money's worth.

CAV: Save Cavalry as much as possible! These guys are too valuable come Winter. Don't get them surrounded.

ARMAMENTS: You need to conserve armament points. Do this by the following:
1. Disband all AT Bdes at first opportunity
2. Set NKVD Regts to 50% TOE
3. DO NOT build any SU's other than Construction Brigades
4. You might consider disbanding Motorcycle Regts and some Heavy Artillery to cannibalize for replacements. Harsh, but these units are Armament Hogs, and you need to save it for the Infantry. I did this vs. Tarhunnas, and did not run out of Armaments until the last week of December, while many Red Army players are running out much sooner than that.

[mmarquo]

"ARMOR: Move them to the front, don't save them. They have good combat value the first-time around, but degrade rapidly, and are useless in attack. They are basically one or two-shot deals. Burn them up, and get your money's worth."
 
I disagree: save them for the winter offensive. Their relative CV value in the blizzard is useful for kicking Axis butt, and very useful for iniltrating into holes in the Axis line.
 
Marquo  

[Klydon]

@Marquo

You do realize most of the Russian tank divisions will be gone by the winter, right? (Converted to brigades). There will be little if any available for a winter push and you run the risk of having them suddenly turn into brigades.

@Q-Ball

I usually use my tank divisions to dig for the most part. (Save the trucks). They do see combat on occasion, but not that often. I would certainly protect those few tank divisions that have T-34/KV tanks in them. The Russians start with about 1200 T-34 type tanks and you can lose around half depending on what the Germans do on turn 1. The other half should be somewhat conserved because while you will get some production, you can't count on leaving the Kharkov factory in place, so you need some to tide you over until the tank production comes back on line.

[Q-Ball]

I can see the point on Tank Divisions; I certainly try not to expose the Motorized Divisions until they shed the trucks, to avoid losing all those vehicles.

I tended to use Tank Divisions in the 2nd or 3rd line; back there, they can contribute in a breakout, but are less likely to be captured.

Tank Divisions are useless in attack, because they only get max of 18 or so MPs, and a Deliberate attack takes 16. By the time the MP Cap goes up, they are flipping to Tank Bdes.

[Encircled]

You need to keep your Mech and Armor Divisions until you have enough infantry, and they do make a potent counter attack weapon if used correctly (ie, at breakthroughs, over extended German lines).

You must make them static at the right time though, as the AP gain and the truck gain are very useful

[Klydon]

Trying to get the motorized divisions into static early is very helpful in farming enough points to help disband the corps HQ, support units you don't really want (motorcycle regiments), and also make command changes up front.

If you decide to get really crazy, some air HQ changes need to be made to give the incoming fronts some air HQs and airfields so they have the ability for some direct support. Case in point, Leningrad/Northern front has more Air HQ and airfields than it knows what to do with, so moving those to some other fronts is helpful.

[76mm]

ORIGINAL: Q-Ball
ARMAMENTS: You need to conserve armament points. Do this by the following:
1. Disband all AT Bdes at first opportunity
2. Set NKVD Regts to 50% TOE
3. DO NOT build any SU's other than Construction Brigades
4. You might consider disbanding Motorcycle Regts and some Heavy Artillery to cannibalize for replacements. Harsh, but these units are Armament Hogs, and you need to save it for the Infantry.

I've never done any of this, and never really noticed a lack of armament points. Currently in late summer of 1942, I've got over a million in my pool. Granted in 1941, I had a lot of men in my pool (presumably because of a lack of armament points), but the manpower pool starts dropping precipitously in early 1942, which is fine with me. These steps really seem to make a very incremental difference to me.

[heliodorus04]

One tactic I used well as Soviet was to move the T-34/KV-1 armor from the far south into the Leningrad front.

One of the big problems with the Soviet early armor is that their piss-poor reliability means that just moving them eastward will see much of their combat power erode.  This is more true of non-T-34s (which is the bulk of your armor force).  By putting it on rail, you avoid that reliability breakdown effect.  And a German who finds armor defending swamps along the Volkhov has some tough decisions to make.  Whereas in AGS's area, the tanks are pretty easily defeated in open terrain or outright encircled.

Maybe others play differently, but I found this helpful in my 2 Soviet games.

BTW, I also reduce ALL artillery SUs to 50% TOE, as well as motorcycle regiments, NKVD, and airbases that are basically non-functioning. Anything that is a battalion SU (except sappers/construction) goes to 50% TOE as well. Funneling armaments to manpower to create infantry seems to be the essential strategic function of Soviet production in 1941, at least until mud arrives.

I do not disband corps as I find APs too important.

I'm also a firm believer in accumulating APs to put good commanders into your Fronts during the first 17 turns, as well as creating a few well-lead Army HQs too.

[bigbaba]

thanks for the input so far. thats very true that a human player can get behind your perfect looking defense line like "speedy gonzales", a totaly different thing then playing against AI.

from what i read here armament seems to be the key for the STAVKA and until now i didnt spent any special attention to that. seems that for a newbie player its the best to get your tank divisions as far from the front as you can to save their truks. always better then starting risky attacks with armor and having them cut off and captured.

would it be a good way for the russian player in 1941 to disband the mobile forces manualy and create tank battalions with all the "pool tanks" instead as army reserve? would such a defense (infantry in forts and 2-3 tank battalions with T-34 or KV tanks as reserve per army) have any chance against a german panzer schwerpunkt in 1941?

about leningrad:

i made a mistake and got 10 divisions in a pocket at the pskov river line. but thanks to god my enemy seems to have little intrest in leningrad. recon reported only infantry north of pskov. to get leningrad (or to get a breakthrough into the 3 harbors first) haveing panzer is a must or can it be done wit infantry?

if no then i may be able to hold leningrad. turn 8 now and the river line north of volgograd? is still intact.

[Klydon]

If you disband the tank/motorized infantry units, they can't convert to tank brigades and infantry divisions, so you are essentially reducing the number of units you have, which is not really what you want to do.

Tank battalions are not very good in 1941 since they have a high number of light tanks in them. What makes it harder is you can't directly assign support units to divisional units (The Germans can, but not you), so even if you build a line intending to use your tank battalions, there is nothing saying they will show up for sure when the fighting starts.

Besides some tank divisions and most of your motorized infantry, the big units to "save" are the cav divisions. By all means dig with them and have a few handy for trying to cut off narrow German advances, etc but by and large, you do not want to risk a large number of them. Putting panzers out of supply? Sure, but don't just throw them away like you would an infantry division. The reason why is cav corps are the first corps unit allowed (you can start forming them in December) and they can help a lot during the blizzard offensive. The more the better really. Those cav corps are also good units to stuff tank battalions in. (or some sapper regiments).

[bigbaba]

when tank divisions do auto convert to INF and tank brigades will the remaining tanks/truks move into the pool or are they gone?

about cavalery divisions:

i read alot of great AARs here and understand their role in the blizzard phase. too bad for me i got this after i lost around 20 in my running game as soviet. hopefully stalin will never hear about that or i will end up digging in a gulag instead at a frontline.

best SU for a cavalery corpse would tank, sapper and some artillery or?

[mmarquo]

@Klydon
 
"You do realize most of the Russian tank divisions will be gone by the winter, right? (Converted to brigades). There will be little if any available for a winter push and you run the risk of having them suddenly turn into brigades."
 
Yes, and 3 tank brigades stacked together are potent in the winter blizzard, and then in 4/42 can be converted into corps. I have used them to infiltrate like universal acid into cracks and holes in the German lines.
 
Marquo [:)]

[Klydon]

@bigbaba All excess of ToE will be returned to the pools over a couple of turns, so it isn't lost.

You should still have around 30 something left I think, so you can still do ok on the cav front.

Probably a mix of sappers and tank battalions are best for 1941 cav corps. The tank battalions will later upgrade to tank regiments. Just remember they are not direct assault units, but rather pursuit/exploitation units. If you want to attack with them, the ideal situation is to hit units that have already been attacked before and also punish minor allies.

You can't directly assign artillery units to corps.

[randallw]

Any Soviet unit created from scratch will have low experience for the elements inside it.  Tanks sent to the pool from disbanded tank divisions, pushed into tank battalions/regiments will have low experience, as bad as they were in the beginning divisions, or even worse experience.

I experience an unhappy amount of support units cracking apart while trying to defend the German '41 offensive; I wouldn't expect tank units to hold up any better than the AA or arty units.

[bigbaba]

ok, from now on i will treat my cavalery divisions like VIP with kaviar for the riders and green gras for the horses.[;)]..until they get into action in december.

ironicly that in a modern warfare the cavalery is the most important unit in winter 1941.

[TulliusDetritus]

ORIGINAL: bigbaba

ok, from now on i will treat my cavalery divisions like VIP with kaviar for the riders and green gras for the horses.[;)]..until they get into action in december.

ironicly that in a modern warfare the cavalery is the most important unit in winter 1941.

I disagree. Cavalry is needed during the summer if you want to slow the Germans down [;)] I do not use a posteriori tactics. The Soviets didn't know they would need their cavalry during the blizzard: I mean, no crystal ball. What did they know? That the Motherland had to be defended. Ergo I will sacrifice cavalry units during the summer IF that can save the USSR.