Matrix Games Forums

In my current game (vs the AI), I noticed that on turn 17, I ran out of armaments in my pool. Probably not a good thing, but maybe not so bad. I did not lose any armament factories (except whatever was in Minsk) and have not moved any from Leningrad or Moscow (but did move the 25 out of Tula).
Some observations, please correct me if I am wrong:

1) I would assume that in the game, "armaments" represent the rifles, pistols, guns, etc used to equip infantry and artillery.

2) If your armament production cannot keep up with your manpower production, then you will have an armament shortage, and a manpower surplus.

3) An armament shortage could mean your armament production is low (bad), or your manpower production is high(good), or perhaps you are building too much SU artillery.

4) From the AARs I have read, it seems like just about every Soviet player runs out of armaments, but turn 17 appears to me to be very early.

Does anyone have any tips about this armament "shortage"? Is it bad to use them all up each turn (its not like men die because their rifle did not get made). What are some good ways to manage it? Or maybe just don't worry about it in the least?

Thanks in advance

Your results are very typical, actually. Soviet armaments generally crater around October of 1941 and you'll be living hand to mouth until spring of 1942 when factories come back online and you get the 30% multiplier.

By fall of 1941 your armament production will fall by about 50% of what you started with, and when you combine this with heavy losses and the large amounts of shells arriving, the pool will almost inevitably zero out.

You can do a number of things to stretch out the pool, dialing down artillery toes, never putting any kind of tank or mech division on refit, disbanding armament hogs, etc. But these expedients will only carry you so far. If the Axis chooses to grind you all the way to the blizzard, you'll be hurting. If they stop prematurely, you may be able to maintain a surplus. It therefore makes some sense for the Axis to keep pounding away even during snow turns.

Flav is right, it is pretty much inevitable. There are a few things you can do to stretch armaments in 1941:

1. Set Artillery TOEs to 50%
2. Set TOE's of AT Bdes to 50%, or disband them
3. Set low TOE and/or disband Motorcycle Regts (they are armament hogs, and also Vehicle hogs)
4. Set TOEs for new Rifle Units to 80%. What tends to happen is that they fill-out first with Rifles, and certain items that are heavier in armament expense tend to lag. This will create fairly light Rifle units, which isn't optimal in the long-run, but will get more men in the line in the short-run. Lesser of two evils.
5. Manage Tank Brigades so you ONLY Refit enough units that you have tanks for (otherwise, they will all fill-out with Motorcycle squads, which is useless if there are no tanks in the bde). Generally, this means having only a few on REFIT each turn, and the rest on READY.
6. Build hardly any Fort Zones. Or don't build any at all; they are not a great idea in 1941. They are armament hogs

Still with all of this, you'll probably run out anyway.

Cheer up, it really picks-up between repairing factories that moved, plus the multiplier, and you should have a surplus starting in Spring of 1942

To add to Q-Ball and Flav,

Using ToE too set it at 50 for any units u dont want to refit(flesh out), but want the refit moral bonus on if 10+ hexes away. At leased it lowers the armament usage on those, while getting or moral up fast.

My experience is that it isnt getting much better in '42. U get more armament, but u get different device/squad upgrades that at leased in my games eats up any surplus. Plus u'll have to start making units.

Kind regards,

Rasmus