loss of troops in absense of enemy attack

[Higgins001]

I am playing my first campaign and in the mud turns, I was loosing between 13,000-18,000 German troops on the Soviet turn, when the AI conducts no attacks! Now in the first winter and suffering around 50k of casualities per turn. When doing a shift o I have no troops isolated or far from supply. How do you mitigate these losses?

[jwolf]

Those losses are from attrition. You get them every turn and in fact for the Germans during 1941 the overwhelming majority of your losses will be of this type. The Soviets suffer similarly but you don't see the numbers for their losses.

Edit: Attrition losses are far more severe during the first winter, although many of these troops will return after the winter is over.

[charlie0311]

You can reduce attrition losses if you place units in static mode, can't do that until '42 and it costs APs.