Matrix Games Forums

Sort of a mis-named post, but allow me to explain.

I have been playing around with the Soviets the most recently.

To me, one of the things that is a work in progress for the Soviet player from the start of the game is getting his command and control fixed and managing where the fronts go in the line, etc. The command structure is a mess to start with and will get worse before it gets better.

To me, some of the questions that lurk are:

1. How do you work your fronts? (In my game, Reserve front wound up going between Southwest and Southern). I also started assigning units to the MD HQ in anticipation that they would go active (like Kharkov MD and Bryansk MD). My front order is currently North, North West, West, Bryansk, South West, Reserve, South. Kharkov MD has not become a front yet. (I am in August).

2. Do you leave units directly attached to Stavka? At first, I left a ton of units directly attached to Stavka, but I don't think this is a very good solution since they are totally out of command range. (Part of my thought was that the good part of that was Stavka would eat the most losses on the win/loss ratio). I am now in the process of assigning units to the new army HQ's (They are also attached to Stavka). I leave the Army HQ's directly attached to Stavka since I don't have room in the active fronts without overloading them, but at least the troops are in command range of a HQ.

3. Managing Russian air. I started out with sticking most of the air force in national reserves and pulled the air bases back. I then started to repopulate some airbases on the flanks (Leningrad area and near Odessa/behind the Dnepr near the Crimea) with the thought of avoiding most of the Luftwaffe and beating on the Axis minor air in the area. I have also got a bunch of air bases behind Kiev. I am flying almost all the "garbage" the Russians have and leaving the good stuff in reserve for later although I have started to deploy some of it.

4. Support units: What do you build? So far, it has been nothing but rail construction brigades to help with the digging for me.

5. Garrison of the Svir river line. The AI uses forts. I saw a suggestion to use the NKVD regiments, which is what I did. Talking 11 units there and 2 more north of Leningrad to keep the Finns at bay. I had some regrets using all NKVD regiments because that is 11-13 units I don't have to use for checkerboard units or digging someplace. Blowing 16 points a shot for the forts doesn't seem like a bright idea either, but I have plenty of command points since I have been putting mech units in static (get 12-18 points each and costs 3 points to reactivate them after they turn into an infantry division). Perhaps a combo of forts on the east side of the line (away from any potential German thrust from the south) and border regiments on the west side may be the way to go.

German issues to "work" on and manage.

1. Command issues with AGC and especially AGS are very overloaded and command points are limited in the start. AGN has some space and some AGC units can transfer to AGN while AGN takes over more of the line, so that seems to be the way to go there perhaps. AGS is more of a mess and really the only options seem to be playing around with the Rumanian high command. Transfering a pile of Rumanian units and HQ's to the high command and using them for rear area security may be the way to go. Transfering the 11th Army would probably need to be looked at and could transfer it to the Rumanian high command or to the German high command and let it run independent.

2. A good garrison plan for the cities to help cut down on partisans. As I mentioned above, a lot of Rumanian units are slated for this in the south and I would move any German security divisions up north. Building a fortification in a city to help with the manpower requirement seems to be something good to do as well or the Germans will have to take actual combat units out of the line.

3. The initial German attack plan. IE, how much to pull from AGC to help AGS on the first turn. Got a good thread going on that, so no need to expand on it here.

4. Manage the campaign so you have an effective winter plan. This includes where you are going to send your two mountain divisions to help hold the line and what to attach to them (stugs is the most common suggestion I have seen).

5. Manage your sub units to get them going to the right spots in the right divisions. How important is this? It is likely to be very command point intensive. Getting pioneers, etc into units that are going to be cracking cities/fortifications seems to be the most important.

6. Manage the rail repair situation not only with the 5 units you directly control, but how you get the automated units to best help.

I'm only now doing my first Barbarossa vs. the AI (playing Axis) so I'm not that experienced, and a lot of the questions you ask are ones I worry about improving in my game too.

I'm going to speak to the soviets though, because I agree that their C&C is awful to start.  It seems that in any scenario I play, one of my Fronts is always horribly over-size.  The Soviets don't seem to have enough fronts, particularly in the North and South. 

For me, playing Soviets, I have a pretty strict rule: if you're over 5 hexes from your HQ, you switch to an HQ within 5 hexes.  No debate, no tradeoff (except insufficient AP).  Soviets have a big TOE problem to start, and I'm finding that limited use of Refit helps local situations a LOT, so you have to be within 5 of an HQ.

The next problem is all the Stavka reinforcements.
My next rule is that if you're in a COMMAND that reports to Stavka, that's okay.  So when you get new armies, and they report to Stavka, they're okay to stay in Stavka until the tactical situation requires re-allocation.  This prevents you, somewhat, from overburdening your Fronts.  You're virtually guaranteed to be in range of Stavka, and so as long as your combat units are within 5 hexes, these STavka commands will be getting as high a supply/replacement distribution as possible.  The only drawback is SUs - hard to get good allocations when you're doing it this way.  But I have a big problem managing Soviet SUs down to the Army/Corps level anyway.  It's a f***in mess!

But if you're an infantry division or some generic combat unit reporting directly to Stavka, that's bad.  I'll leave them in Stavka if they're going to far rear areas.  Basically a lot of Stavka reporting units I will use to start defensive lines in the rear, and then when my front line retreats toward it, I can drop them in Armies and Corps that come close enough.

By the way, you said you create RR Construction Battalions.  Aren't those for railroad repair?  Don't you want regular construction battalions?  That's what I build.

I also think it's realistic that the Soviet man the Finnish no-move line with line units rather than forts.  This is a house rule for me.  And I'm advocating a randomized line for WITE that Soviets cannot see.  It should even be staggered and not one universal east-west line.  But that's another idea and debate.

I don't know how to fully optimize Soviet air.

As the German, AGS has a big problem with over-commitment of units and commands.
Like you, I'm interested in moving corps and armies to Army Group Antonescu, but this is pricey.  Up to 35 or 40 points to move an Army from AGS to AGAnt.  Since I'm mostly playing the smaller, one-army-group scenarios, I've not had the ability to afford this.  Now that I'm doing Barbarossa, I'm going to move one of the AGS armies to AGAnt and see how it goes.  I'd rather put a German army in there so that it has punching power and can help whoever commands AGAnt get victories and possibly promotions.  I'd also like to get one of the 'junk' Rumanian armies in there to free up AGS for reinforcement units.

I'm debating moving the Hungarian and Slovakian corps under either Slovakian or Hungarian command as high as possible.  I noticed some cost expediencies to moving these corps into national commands, and AGS needs the help.  Plus I find these units competent, and I like having them to hold the flank of the Pripyet rather than wasting German superior mobility there.

For the Axis, a big issue with AP is using it for HQ buildup versus re-aligning Army subordination...  I like that aspect of the game strategy.  AP are valuable, for both sides, and you try not to waste them.

As far as Partisans go, I try not to worry too much about them in 41, but that's as far as I've played.  If cities are under-garrisoned, so be it.  There are bigger fish to fry than garrisoning cities properly in 41...  But given that I play scenarios, Partisans don't have time to appear as far as I 've seen.

Change that habit of garrison when you shift to versus a human. Best to start using them so you get a feel for how thin your front line Corps can get when you have to garrison properly.

I have AP's out the rear end. Maxed at 500 and stays there after turn 8 or so. I play German.

ORIGINAL: heliodorus04

By the way, you said you create RR Construction Battalions.  Aren't those for railroad repair?  Don't you want regular construction battalions?  That's what I build.

I believe that both/either Flav or ComradeP have both posted that rail engineers also count as construction guys, so I would rather create a unit that can do both over a unit that just helps with the digging. The rail part will help potentially during mud and absolutely during the winter offensive.

Something else I forgot to include for both sides is disbanding units.

For the Russians, the obvious conversation is corps HQ. I know the testers are split on this one. In my current game, I am very fat on command points and this is after trashing most of my corps hqs. I see the pros to this as cleaning up the map board a bit for the Russians, releasing leaders back into the pool so you can assign the good ones to your armies as you desire and also sending goodies back to the general pool. It also "floats up" where the units are attached to for free (they go to the parent army or front). The cons are they go away for free at some point.

What other things are targets for Russia disbanding stuff? I think I saw something on motor cycle regiments. It also seems to me that small stuff like battalions are not necessarily that useful for the Russians, especially if there is a bigger regiment or brigade sized unit of the same thing.

Threatened fortified regions are good to disband as well I think. They present no special defensive challenge to any sort of Axis units.

For the Germans, I noticed that some of the players have been getting rid of companies. This makes sense since they are so small and you are restricted by slot (only 1 unit, no matter what the size, so may as well make it as big as you can). I would think much like the Russians get rid of most battalions, the Germans will benefit from getting rid of companies in most cases.

I have also seen comments about getting rid of the RHG HQ units for the Germans (security HQ units). They can only have security units attached as actual units. I have also seen others mention they like to use them with attached auto rail rail repair units and it gives them some freedom to position the rail repair units.

Certainly cutting down on the number of air bases for the allies (esp Rumanian) is something that I've done and it makes managing the south a bit easier

Can't see the point of the security HQ's, just stick them into OKH control, as they are never going to fight

I'm having trouble reducing my fatigue level on my planes, even when I stick them in National Reserve, and I'm wondering if I'm doing something wrong.

Construction units do help to repair rail lines.

The Germans may have to get pretty close to Kharkov to get the M.D. activated into a Front.

Try installing the 1.03 patch; that seems to fix the air unit fatigue problem.

ORIGINAL: randallw

Construction units do help to repair rail lines.

They do but sometimes 2 CB's can't get the damage down low enough for an auto repair to be carried out.

I would prefer my RR crews to be the ones at the railhead fixing damage.

They are much larger in size.

Cheers Randall

Is it save game compatible btw?

I wish for a swith that would put an air group on RR to reduce fatique. Instead of having to put them into the reserve.