Matrix Games Forums

How exactly does Russian naval transport work?

What cities or hexes can it be done from and what port cities or Hexes can you evacuate your troops to?

Can you use naval trans to move factories from Leningrad?

What naval transport can the germans do? Answer the same questions above that apply to them?

I have not been allowed to evacuate factories from Leningrad, Moscow, Stalingrad, Saratov and many other cities that are in or behind the second line of defense in 41' campaign. Is this normal? It has happened to me in all 3 of my current PBEM games. I can do fac move from Kiev, Kharkov, some other southern cities, but after that the option does not work. I always try to do these moves even before air attacks, so it is not a rail points issue. I have been thinking that it is just part of the game that those factories that were not evacuated in the real war can not be evacuated in WIR..is this correct??

Is there some way in PBEM to actually see your opponents turn all the way through? Is there a replay function? It really sucks to just see the final resting positions and not know how or where the attacks happened, only the final resolution of the battles. Is there a mapping function? Can you see the path that enemy units followed after the fact?

Finally is it better to hold Russian armored units in the HQ's and then throw them out to the entrenched units once your enemy starts moving in a concerted direction, or is it better to spread them out to all armies on the front in a combined arms unit, with some very strong armored units waiting in 2nd defense line to pick off the enemy that gets through? My question goes to how to avoid being spread to thin...

Thanks for any responses,
Zhukov43

you can only evacuate 9 factories total i believe [or is it 10?]. I can move leningrad ...

Naval transport works from Odessa, Leningrad and maybe Sevastopol. It works as normal rail. Normaly houserules are good for keeping soviets alive in 41-42 so I do not remember playing with a houserule on naval transport. But a city who has naval transport ability and has supply while encircled will not give supply to units connected to it (they should have supply normaly).

I never used naval transfer from Lenningrad, or cant remember it. I always evacuate Lenningrad real early. In normal wir Lenningrad cant be defended succesfully against a competent german player. I only try to buy time, after a while the whole northern parts can be cut off by a single panzer korps.

The germans have supply in those cities and maybe even more but I never had the pleasure to cut off german units in a german coastal city. They can be railed out as well.

There is a limit of how many factories you can evacuate (9 or 10), and it takes 3000 rail points I think. I did evacuate factories from Lenningrad in the past so it should work. I opened 41 normal campaign and I could evacuate factories from all the cities you mentioned. If it does not work for you in pbem you might be over the limit, not enough rail points or bug. But I had never problem with evacuation.

Wir battle reports are very bad, many bugs. Germans see even less of soviet attacks.

Stacking up hq's could be a good, but gamey tactics. It could save Moscow if you have enough troops saving the flanks. But many dislike this, and houserules often target this. Very unrealistic for sure. My normal soviet army is 1 tank unit and 3-4 rifle division. Or 6-7 rifle with an independent tank bn/regiment.

As the soviets in 41 you should have 3 lines, the more digged in the better. The first is strong enough to stop german infantry. But dont dream about stopping german panzers with it. The second line is just behind the first one, trying to occupy the road which the german panzers must take to encircle and destroy your first line. The strongest armies should be here, relatively safe from encirclement, they have a chance to fight another day if defeated (the defeat of them will mean only retreat and the weaker first line troops will get destroyed). The third line in the back is building the new defensive line entrenchment. You dont have enough armies for more. Of course in Moscow and Lenningrad the dig in begins on week 1.

ORIGINAL: Tom1939


Wir battle reports are very bad, many bugs. Germans see even less of soviet attacks.

Huge understatement! You have to be VERY careful of the battle reports. They can be really wrong and miss-lead you badly. The fundamental issue is that they seem to include damaged units in the 'loss' report. So, you think you eliminated 120 SOV aircraft, but in reality you only downed 20, and the other 100 were damaged and come back to get you at a higher exp level 1 - 2 weeks later. Dittto for AFV's. Some percentage seem to end up in the pool, so the losses aren't quite as bad as you think.

Finally is it better to hold Russian armored units in the HQ's and then throw them out to the entrenched units once your enemy starts moving in a concerted direction, or is it better to spread them out to all armies on the front in a combined arms unit, with some very strong armored units waiting in 2nd defense line to pick off the enemy that gets through? My question goes to how to avoid being spread to thin...

I have had mixed results using this tactic. Tank divisions reinforcements have stopped Germany's panzers but reinforcements have also been comitted to encircled armies resulting in total loss.

I always like to mix my tactics up so the enemy does not know what you are doing.

ORIGINAL: kingtiger_501



I always like to mix my tactics up so the enemy does not know what you are doing.

As I watch King, Tom, and Josan here in the forums, they clearly are always mixing up their tactics. Really interesting to watch.