Matrix Games Forums

I've been experimenting somewhat with buildouts for the red army and I was hoping to get some advice.

1) Of the soviet mobile units (motorized/mechanized/tank), does it every make sense to build something other than tank brigades/corps? Seems like I get more blasting power with the tank units and I usually have a surplus of tanks. Am I misreading/understanding something here, or are motorized/mechanized just budget units you build when short on tanks?

2) Of the various artillery divisions, what do people build? Is there an advantage of a mixed divisions over a heavy division over a rocket division? Has anyone done the math as to which one gives the most bang for the admin point?

3) I have a mess (over a million if memory serves) armament points banked. I also have a shortage of certain types of gun tubes e.g. some of my artillery divisions are sitting on railheads in refit, but not filling out. Is there something else I need to do to "suggest" to my armaments points that they should transform into gun tubes for me?

4) I'm currently short on rail repair (summer 1943). If I build a lot of railroad construction brigades as army level add-ons, will they auto-repair my railroads like the copious german rail repair brigades? If so, does it matter where I put them?

The support units you can put in tank corps and mech corps are different I think (for instance, I don't think you can put tank regiments in tank corps, but can put tank regiments in mech corps). In theory, the mech corps are tougher on defense against a counter attack because they are more like a motorized infantry corps with tanks. Tank corps don't have a strong contingent of infantry, so are more "offensive minded".

Can't really help you on 2 and 3 as I don't have very much experience with them. What I have done in the past is to try to look at the ToE of what I want to build and pick units that I have stuff in the pool for.

Yes, the rail brigades will help repair lines, but they will only work on 1 hex at a time (IE, advance the rail head 1 hex at a time). They can do it in multiple spots, but otherwise follow the same rules as the Axis units. I think you can have them in either Stavka or Front HQ's for them to do their rail repair job. Careful on getting too many however as they take up a lot of manpower and with it being 1943, manpower might be becoming an issue for you.