Soviet Fortifications

[matt.buttsworth]

I am beginning a game as Soviet facing the bitter retreat.
What are the best units to create Soviet fortifications to defend key areas?
Airborne units I believe fortify hexes?
What about infantry divisions?
How else can hexes be fortified?
What is the best way to do it, given the Soviet shortage of AP points at the beginning of the Barbarossa campaign?
All advice appreciated.

Matthew Buttsworth

[heliodorus04]

For me, Soviet fortification revolves around an army HQ with 2 RR Construction Brigades and 1 Sapper Regiment.

Each turn of the first 10 turns or so, I try to create those SUs in my Army HQs. Certain sectors are priorities, since you can't do everything given the AP bottleneck (although, in a campaign game, when new Fronts activate the APs they bring should more than make up for that early bottleneck).

Regarding Fortified Zones, I use them very sparingly because if you throw a lot down, you're only encouraging the German to go elsewhere and make them wasted purchases. I put forts down near Leningrad (I actually fortify the port north of the Neva, not the infamaous 'backdoor' hex; this serves to fortify the backdoor to level 3, and also the port to level 3.

Garrison your cities, because cities can fortify to level 3 without fortified zones.

After that, I prefer full infantry divisions for digging, and airborne brigades for digging a second line further to the rear. I don't like losing airborne brigades because they become guards infantry relatively early and inexpensively.

Full infantry divisions are a luxury for the Soviets in 1941. So I try, if I have the defensive coordination, to have a shuffling hedgehog of forts created as new infantry divisions move from rear to front.

New infantry arrives with the least men: These go far to the rear and will dig the rear-most fortifications.

The infantry that came last turn has more manpower now, and it moves from rear forward, probably going from STAVKA to an Army HQ on the line. It moves in to digging positions that are in the middle.

At the front, I have two things going on: I have good order units that are re-positioning to good defensive terrain or good forts. Sometimes repositioning means moving west, but usually it means moving east a few hexes. Then, units that were attacked and mauled in the German player's turn will be moving to the 2nd or 3rd line, depending on how badly mauled they were. If they're badly mauled, I might re-assign them to STAVKA (it's super cheap for Soviets to move divisions around: do it to your advantage - you have in effect better C&C than the German) so it can stay in the 3rd line until it's ready for reassignment.

Remember to look at your construction value on your units; that's the most important part of deciding which units to use for digging.

[Texasgrunt]

I avoid building ANY fortified szones until they are no longer 16 pts each. What a waste of APs. USe security divns or brigades to keep the Finns out early on.