ORIGINAL: hank
I heard when I first got the game that soviet units could not hedgehog.
But, my curiosity is getting to me: What thought process went into the decision to not allow soviet units to hedgehog?
Is it an equipment issue? A quality issue? ...
I'll say from experience, if you hedgehog a high quality Axis unit and place an AT unit and another couple of 4 step units of about any quality in the hex; no mix or number of soviet units will crack it.
The last pbem I had, my opponent had a hedgehogged hex (just east of Kharkhov) .. surrounded for 3/4 of the game and regardless of the mix and number of the highest quality units I could muster, I could not get odds sufficient for the game to allow me to roll the dice. ... supply wasn't even an issue. I guess maybe it was because it was only 3 hexes or so from its own front lines (maybe?? ... I don't know).
Hedgehogging is a question of equipment, unit quality, command capability and doctrine. Lets look at the reasons why a Soviet unit cannot hedgehog:
Soviet infantry formations were not well equipped as combined arms formations, Soviet practice was to attach independent AT, armour, artillery etc. This was OK if you happened to have those attached, obviously not so good if you didn't.
The question of unit quality is fairly obvious. At the time of the Kharkov battle the Red Army had suffered massive losses and was engaged in a desperate scramble to train and equip new formations. The rushed training of Soviet conscripts could not compare with the training and combat experience of German units.
Even if supporting arms formations were attached, the Soviet command structure struggled to integrate them properly, and they usually didn't deliver the same combat power that a similarly equipped German unit would have done. Soviet commanders never approached the ability of their German counterparts to weld together miscellaneous units into a coherent whole.
Obviously, a formation trapped behind enemy lines is going to have to rely on its own initiative to preserve it against enemy attacks, especially in the Red Army with its unreliable and insecure radio communications. In the Red Army 'initiative' was an unword for commanders. Doing nothing because you had no orders, or continuing to execute old orders, no matter how unrealistic, might get you killed by the Germans. Acting without orders would allow any commanders within about 100 miles to transfer the blame for any problems,(and there were always problems), directly to you, with guaranteed negative outcomes for your career and possibly life.
So you can see how a variety of factors combine to make it impossible, in game terms, for Soviet units to hedgehog.
Gregor
