Soviet Armaments Surplus

[hfarrish]

Context - I have been pretty skittish in this game and have avoided major pockets post-early '41...I imagine that is why I have ended up with the situation below (700k+ ARM). Question is, what should I do with this surplus? Sit on it until the Sov artillery divisions arrive? Will it get sucked down once I start creating rifle divisions en mass in a month? Just curious what board experience is, since I am feeling out 42 and beyond for the first time and all I hear about for the Sovs is ARM shortages...

[delatbabel]

You don't have enough manpower to make lots of rifle divs. Hang on to the armaments points for when you can make artillery divs, they will be more useful in the long term.

[Michael T]

Its because like you say, low losses in 1941. I still have over 300K in Sept 41. Last turn it actually went up.

[gingerbread]

You have one major ARM sink around the corner, the 7/42 Rifle Squad upgrade. See this thread.

You are producing ~110k ARM per turn, so you will still have a surplus. It means that you will avoid negative effects, but there are few positive to be had due to MANPOWER & AP constraints.

[hfarrish]

Thanks GB - that is definitely something to look out for. Good call. Will re-evaluate after that upgrade.

[mmarquo]

In my match as the Soviet in August 1943 I have 9,500,000 men in corps and another 1,5000,000 men in the pool and am making 105,000/week; I have over 1,500,000 unused armaments in reserve. It is critical for the Axis player to neuter manpower first cities and armament centers second. I have no need to create anything else. In this game my opponent is trying an Axis goes to the defense in late 1942 strategy and I managed to save many manpower centers.

As the Axis in my other match I tried a Southern strategy and by winter of 1942 I had captured Stalingrad and most points east; I could not drive much past Rostov to the south; the Soviet managed to evacuate most of the armaments; it is now Feb 1943 and he is making only 71,000 new men/week and has 2,000,000 less men in arms than I did at the same point in the game referenced above. My opponent's manpower multiplier has fallen from 40 to 35 when the year changed to 1943; even during the blizzrad where we are now he is losing more men/turn than he is producing and it will only get worse. No doubt in my mind that manpower centers are worth much more than armament centers.

Marquo

[hfarrish]

Can Soviet players facing manpower issues neuter this to some extent by using those armaments to produce extra arty units?

[mmarquo]

IMHO yes; I can't seem to make artillery divisions and AT units quick enough to soak up all the armaments I have.

[gingerbread]

Shouldn't that then be a 'No'? It seems that it's not armaments that is limiting the raising of units, so the surplus is of limited value.

[hfarrish]

I guess my assumption would be that unlike Rifle Divs and Sappers, Arty has a relatively high armaments to manpower ratio, i.e. you can suck up a lot of arms and produce a valuable combat unit without exacerbating manpower shortages. True?

[mmarquo]

Yes; less men to make an artillery division than and infantry division.