Best Russian Defensive line 1941

[MButtsworth]

While I enjoy playing Russian I now think my defence has been poor and is too easily pierced by German players creating deadly pockets.
Up till now I have relied on trying to form a single line of a stack of three Russian units, with in depth defence of key areas.

After the first checkerboard defence what do players think is the best Russian in-depth defence.
two checkerboard lines followed by a single 3 stack line of Russian defenders?
Or continuous lines of single units to slow the German advance?

All advice appreciated.

Matt Buttsworth

[Callistrid]

Run back to the Dnieper river on T01 (and Pskov on north).
Permanent retreat on T03-T10 (mostly 3-4 hex), and avoid german infantry division attack against your main frontline. Only the german panzers must attack you, so you need to deal only with 33 mobile division.
Th new evacuation rules favor russian, so you need to protect Kharkov, and D-town just to evacuate the industrial area.
After you did it, the value of the cities are low.

Maintime, you change on critical sectors the useless leaders, and build numerous support units, what help your fort construction efforts (sappers, constr. units). Keep you remained HQ corps (air corps) at fort building units (attach them sappers, and const.)

On T10, you can build the wall of steel, with reserve units, on difficult terrain, and try to hold Moscow, Rostov and Voronezh at all cost.
Leningrad will fall against experienced player, so on that front, you play only with time, giving a hard job for the 4th pz army.

[timmyab]

Callistrad has it about right.

There's no formula that can be applied to all situations and no two defenses are ever identical but generally I follow these principals where possible.

1. Form layered defenses where the pz groups are threatening with weaker units out front and stronger units behind.
2. Try to form a MLR around the best terrain features and behind a river if possible. This will normally be layer 2 or 3 but can be layer 1 (e.g. if behind a major river).
3. Don't rely heavily on forts. If forced to defend clear terrain form strong points in any good defensive terrain that there is.

Here's a random example of a strong early game layered defense.
The first layer is there to break up an attack before it reaches the MLR and also to help disguise the strength of the main position. The second layer is the MLR which is mostly in good terrain and behind a river. The third layer is the strong points at the rear which are there in case the MLR is penetrated and to defend against encirclement from the rear. (These are not very strong in this example because the main position is so strong). If you notice these strong points form a ZOC locking shape. I.E. if anything does penetrate the MLR it will have to either remove one of these strong points or go through a ZOC.