ORIGINAL: mike mcmann
I have to disagree with the "Russia is too weak to defend against both sides" complaint.
There are several methods than can be employed to counter a dual thrust into the Soviet Union.
1) Strengthen SU infantry, AA, Arty as opposed to tanks. This pretty much nullifies Jap infantry.
Teching up soviet infantry is darn expensive, due to the high number of them, and they will _still_ loose most of them during the suprise impulse. Artillery is much better in my experience.
2) DO NOT try to defend in the east. Let them come to Central Siberia and stop them there. The Japanese will have to build rail and transport troops on a weak rail network while your Ural factories are right there.
With just one more level of heavy bomber tech, japan can paradrop into an empty central siberia on their surprise turn. Nothing you can do about that. See my post above. They will then rail in 6 units there at once, before you can react. Taking out central siberia has the triple benefits of getting resources quickly, being able to defend in one of the best defensive areas on the game, and making sure that nothing in irkutsk will retreat.
3) If necessary Rail your Ural factories into the Caucus to protect them from Japan, and Germany for that matter.
Do you really think it is realistic for the allies to win, if russia looses the urals to Japan? No point in having more than 2 factories there, anyway, as that is the number of resources you will get in that case. Also, the urals have the very significant disadvantage of being within range of german bombers stationed in rumenia (even the tac bombers and range 2 fighters).
As a side note - the point of contention mainly is that Japan has not the resources to be everywhere. If they are in Russia in strength, with advanced land tech, then they DO NOT have air and sea tech for fighting the US. The allies need to plan in advance for this and prepare to hammer them for this over sight. A Japan in Russia should be a relatively easy conquest for an active U.S. player.
For Japan it is sufficient to hold central siberia, and grab any unprotected territory adjacant to it. This will take away 6 production from Russia, give the same directly to Japan, as well as denying the USA the 18 extra production they get from a dow by japan. The net effect of this is much greater than the about 12 resources Japan can hope to get from the pacific islands.
Additionaly, the russian resources are very easy to transport to Japan, requiering only 1 transport. This means that an american sub war will be much less effective vs Japan.
Any change to strengthen Russia would simply make it more difficult for the axis by basic logic. Then we would have people clamoring to make Germany tougher.....then the allies stronger....then Japan tougher.....then China....etc.....etc....and on, and on... Point is, the game is well balanced now. I have not, in over a couple dozen PBEM games, seen any overwhelming advantage or disadvantage for any side.
I agree with this. I belive the game is pretty balanced if Japan does not attack Russia. (Though I havent played enough to be certain of this.) What I am trying to achieve, is for russian force setup to make sure that Japan is not able to take much land from Japan during their surprise turn. If the USSR can hold Central Siberia, and conserve most of the forces that normaly dies from the first Japanese attack, i think the benefit of attacking Russia is more or less gone. (A Russia that remains reasonably strong, will crush Japan in the endgame, unless Japan puts no resources into the fleet).
Idealy, for the Japanese to attack Russia, should be a gambit, one that is attempted in 1 out of 3 games at the most. (Both trying to take out China, and doing a historical pearl harbor should be at least as common, imo.).
Since the russian infantry evasion starts at 4, japan can knock out most of russia's infantry on the turn they attack. That is why i would like ot see more Russian armor in irkutsk (the key area), and also some way to deny Japan the paradrop in central siberia. With tanks in irkutsk, Russia will inflict serious losses on Japan, while Japan will have trouble harming the tanks. With a full force attack on irkutsk, the tanks would probably be forced to retreat anyway, which is why a para in central siberia is a threat.
In real life, the russians did in fact have have some of their best forces stationed north of manchuria (mongolia, irkutsk and central siberia, in game terms), led by Zhukov. These were experienced from the 1939 "incident" when russian forces had repelled the japanese manchurian army. In 1941, some 2200 russian tanks were stationed in the area, of which about 1000 were brought to europe when the germans attacked. Also, these units, under the leadership of Zhukov, were familiar with war of manouvre, while russian forces in europe had not learned this lesson to the same extent. I have no problem with these representing 2-3 amor units.
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