defending leningrad

[xavinwonderland]

Hello,

I am playing my first multiplayer game in road to leningrad as a soviet (never been playing them before even against the IA) and it feels very different than what I am used to.

Is there anything that I should pay especially attention to? I do not want to post screenshots at this stage as I do not know what my opponent has seen or not.

I can figure out the obvious like where to defend or what would be the key positions (at least I think so).

I am at a complete loss regarding the soviet organization. When playing the german the corps are quite ok most of the time (you can fine tune them for your taste but they are more or less ok as they are). With the soviets a lot of the units are attached to the Stavka and I have very few corps (some are even being disbanded automatically).

Should I just keep things as they are or should I try to form army / corps and give them good leaders?
Should I spend my admin point to create additional units?
Should I disband my air units?

I'd be interested in any tips experienced players might have
Many thanks

[Blind Sniper]

Hello,

I'm a green player therefore what I will write can be wrong, anyhow I'm playing right now the same scenario as Russian.

You are asking about organization, essentially I try to keep every Army/Front inside its command limits (Corps are already ok and I don't bother to assign units to them), all the rest stay attached to Stavka.
The Leningrad city is of course the most important objective therefore I try to keep all units under the same Armies/Front till the limits and change the leader with a good one, TOE 100% and dig in like a rabbit.
The other Front is my buffer, no more than 50% TOE and these unit will try to slow down the enemy.
The Armies attached to Stavka are my defence for the other victory locations.

I'm spending my APs in SU, mostly artillery and constructions.

I want to use my air asset therefore I put in reserve badly mauled units and try to fight with all the rest, I swapped several old aircrafts with recent monoplanes (i.e. MIG).

[Gabriel B.]

Keep 3 lines of defense .
Screen –meant to alow the second line to dig in.
Main resistance line –the bulk of your combat force.
No fall back line-volkov and lovat rivers (fortify this line clear open terrain as a priority ).

[xavinwonderland]

Thanks very much for the comments.
I try to organize 3 lines of defense as you mention and delay him as much as I can. He's about to start his turn 5 and Riga is still holding.
I am creating quite a bit of artillery to support my key combat group and when I can I try to assign them top leaders (esp the Leningrad city itself) to prevent a direct assault. Given the amount of fortification and the quality of the leaders it should be a tough nut to crack. What is more difficult is to prevent him from cutting the supply to Leningrad, because once the port are out, not matter what is defending Leningrad the city will fall.

When playing as the german I can assign support manually directly to a division. For some reasons I cant do that with the soviets. Any reason why?

What are you doing with your NKVD units? screening the finish no attack zonz to prevent them from flanking you?

[Gabriel B.]

you can only asign SU to corps but in 1941 you can only build cavalry corps and only in december.


turn 2 , a screen is formed around VELIKAIA river , it is made out of rifle divisions pepered with nkvd regiments and airborne/at brigades.
mot/armor is behind the regiments/brigades to create overlaping zones of control.

7th independent army is defending the janis river line (nkvd Would disband automaticly) no fall back to the swir river.

[xavinwonderland]

I am posting my Nkvd units on the swir river will they disband?

I agree for the Lovat and Volkov rivers, I would fight on those lines and stop retreating, trying to take maximum advantage of the hard terrain / cities

In Leningrad proper, are you keeping the fortified region or are you disbanding it to have an extra rifle division in the city?

[loki100]

few bits.

The NKVD border regiments are both good and bad. You can use them very effectively as blocking units, esp in poor terrain but across a rail line. However, most, but not all (its random) will disband so you can't rely on them to hold the Luga line.

If you manage the retreat of 7 Army with some care, by the time the Finns reach the stop line you should be able to fill it out with a line of brigades which is good enough in this scenario.

I like this scenario from both sides as you can play it in a few hours and try out different ideas, its also a good one for right hand-left hand as there are not many strategic decisions for the Soviet side.

As above, you have to build a roadblock at Pskov, fortunately this also tends to coincide with the Germans running out of fuel around T3/4.

Set up to defend the Luga but in depth. Multiple weak lines using the poor terrain will be more effective than a single strong one.

Build a fort in the eastern hex on the Lena asap, T1 if you can. I find I can defend Leningrad itself with just 23 Army (shed its mobile units as you can), that will give you about 8 divisions across the southern front line (so 16 cp), a couple of divisions in reserve behind this will take it to 20 cp. You need a very good commander (Tolbukhin is a good choice) to maximise your chances of passing any checks. Stock it up with SUs, esp engineers and artillery. You can then fill out the other Leningrad defensive lines with units reporting direct to N Front (the goal here is to cover the stop line).

What you are trying to do in Leningrad is deter an immediate attack. In the campaign the Germans can form a couple of super corps by grabbing SUs from across their OOB, in the scenario they will struggle for that sort of power.

Leave the two PVO air bases in the city region, one to fill with fighters, leave the other empty. That will really help if you have to resort to air resupply.

You then need to hold the Volkhov as long as you can. Terrain and the major river are your friends but the axis will push across. The second key is that wee port up on the stop line on the east side of lake Ladoga. Hold that and a supply line west as long as you can, if you manage that Leningrad will probably survive. If you lose it late in the scenario, you still have a decent chance as the supply produced in the city will keep your units from complete collapse for a few turns.

I think for the Soviets, this scenario is all about creating Support Units, do that and you'll gain the edge in a few vital battles and may well survive.

I'd not worry about your at start corps, they go away pretty soon and you need your admin pts for other things. I wouldn't build on map units, too expensive (20 Admin pts at this stage?) and too weak when they appear ... and will take an age to gain experience and morale. Your admin pts are for a bit of re-organising and for support units and some FZ counters.

The Soviet airforce (VVS) is weak due to command problems but its not useless. Fighters in Leningrad will stop the Germans bombing your supply ports, bombers will add just a little to your combat capacity in the Luga-Volkhov battles. Remember the main advantage of airpower is not direct casualties its disruptions. Disrupted elements don't fight and trigger more fatigue when they do recover, this is good as fatigue costs the German combat capacity but they can't really sit back and rest.

[morvael]

I think I added some delay and those NKVD units disband on their own later now (since I found them present in Moscow 41 scenario and it was bad for the Soviet player to see multiple counters disappear on turn 1). They still can disband earlier when routed.

[Gabriel B.]

Frankly put, the historical force is not enough to defend Leningrad .
Even counting the units in karelia , the north and northwestern fronts had only 50 rifle/ militia divisions between them in august . That is barely enough to defend the narva novgorod line at the time the axis is making his push to isolate the city.

[xavinwonderland]

Build a fort in the eastern hex on the Lena asap. Where is that? I couldnt find the place. The problem is that I assigned good leaders to corps which disappeared with units reattached to Stavka which is very annoying. I'll save my points for later or just assign the units directly to the fronts/army with decent leaders.

For the Nkvd, I understand that they are not a good choice to defend the luga line, but is it ok on the Swir line. Will they disband as well?

[Gabriel B.]

It is the hex acros the river Neva next to Leningrad .
Have no ideea , I defend foward on the Janis , either way all nkvd regiments eventually disband, I use them in combat to disband them earlier (free up comand capacity )

[timmyab]

Build a fortified zone in x83 y16. This hex is the key to the direct route into Leningrad. Defend it to the max. Disband the FZ before the Axis player is ready to assault the hex.

The Soviet corps HQs get disbanded very early on in the game. They are useful only for the first turn or two and even then only for convenience. Concentrate on building strong army HQs right from the start.
Cavalry corps and airborne corps HQs don't disband in 41 and are useful.

I just form road blocks with the NKVD units. I put them wherever I think the Axis mobile forces will be channeled by terrain.