Matrix Games Forums

As the Soviets you receive plenty of rifle division reinforcements each turn early on, but most of these seem to be not completely formed yet (their TOE is pretty low, and they start with unready status). Is there anything I need to do manually to help these divisions up to decent strength? It seems like they take several turns at least to do this. I'm hesitant to set them to refit status, because even my combat-ready formations have pretty low TOE strength.

I guess the real question is: which formations should you think about putting in refit mode?

Also -- how do people organize their armored and motorized units? Do you organize them into separate armies (sort of like panzer groups), or just add armored divisions to infantry armies for support? I'm not sure how useful armored units are for the Soviets in '41, since there's no real opportunity for offensive operations anyway.

Park them on rail lines. Set everything on refit, more or less. You can afford to do so in 1941, replacements are plentiful and your manpower is at its peak.

I farm motorized divisions for APs by setting them on static mode and wait for them to turn into rifle divisions. Tank divisions aren't terribly useful and I just use them to plug gaps in the line. They can occasionally be used for counterattacks, but mostly lack the mobility to do much. I wouldn't go out of my way to organize them into armies. The rifle division is the unit you want to organize armies around, and supplement those with other formations.

Eventually when you get tank corps and tank armies, then you can organize real mobile formations at the army level. But that has to wait until summer of 42.

For me, every unit that is not going into the initial meatgrinder goes on refit. All those guys around Odessa and Kiev, the Dnepr River line, around Moscow and Leningrad, all they do is soak up reinforcements and dig dig dig.

I organize the tank divisions into two tank armies, one south of Kiev and one south of Moscow. I use them to screw with the German supply lines when the panzers get close by counterattacking laterally across the axis of advance.

Motorized divisions disappear too soon to make proper use of them. I have them fall back and plug any holes in the front if necessary.