Mechanisms in place to reduce the effectiveness of Barbarossa 1940?

[Elessar2]

Over @ the SC forum there's been some discussion of this strategy, with most decrying it as gamey at best, esp. once some AAR's demonstrated its effectiveness.

So just wanted to ask in here for some different perspectives. Does WiF have any safeguards against same? If so what would they be? Or is it laizzez faire and que sera sera? [Note I tend towards the hands-off policy, tho note in SC the scenario design philosophy is to have default setups for a significant % of the Russian army, most units placed at the border, in zero supply, something I questioned the other day there]

Note a current WiF AAR has that as a potential option, given how the French are crumbling in January 1940...

[peskpesk]

Stuff or Stuffing the border comes to mind: An USSR strategy that sees the Red army placed at the Polish border to try to prevent Germany to Break the Nazi-Soviet Pact by preventing them to reach the needed garrison ratio. No DOW is allowed unless the pact is broken.

[Centuur]

The pact is pretty difficult to break in 1940 for Germany (if you compare that to the ratio needed in 1941). That's a pretty good safeguard, if the Soviets are making the right builds to increase their garrison ratio. However, if Russia will do anything else (f.e. a war against Finland or Japan) she will not be able to prevent a German DoW in 1940. All Soviet units are needed to stuff the border.

With France going down so early, Germany can take care of the Balkans in the summer of 1940 and can start Barbarossa in J/F 1941 (if they want to do so). Unless Germany has lost a lot of units (air or land) in France or Poland, that cannot be prevented.

RAW:

You may break a neutrality pact, any turn after the calendar year
following its signing, provided you have at least a 2:1 garrison ratio on
your common border.

(...)

Double the defensive value of your units in the calendar year after the
neutrality pact was made. The defensive garrison value is unmodified
in the next year, halved in the year after that and thirded in the year
following, and quartered in all later years.

[paulderynck]

Given the way the pact works, it takes a pretty careless USSR to allow a 1940 German DoW.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: peskpesk

Stuff or Stuffing the border comes to mind: An USSR strategy that sees the Red army placed at the Polish border to try to prevent Germany to Break the Nazi-Soviet Pact by preventing them to reach the needed garrison ratio. No DOW is allowed unless the pact is broken.

I added (at my own initiative) an optional rule that makes it somewhat easier to break the Nazi-Soviet pact in Jul/Aug 1941.