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I have to confess that I'm not getting the operational concept of this game. First time player, reset the game from medium to easiest and tried turning off "Fog of War" for me and turning it back on for the AI. So this should have been a cakewalk. Took France easy enough, even took England in an early Sea Lion because the Royal Navy was in Scotland. Took Egypt eventually. But lord have mercy, the Soviets...

Just from a historical perspective, I would have anticipated greater ease getting into the Motherland in 1942-43, at least getting to the gates of Moscow and Stalingrad. Even Leningrad has been out of reach with two Soviet corps holding off four Finnish corps. I can't degrade the Soviet forces fast enough to get past them or eliminate them, and even with a dozen ships and subs interdicting the US supply route to Soviet Union, the AI keeps bringing more and more forces, keeps rebuilding the wounded forces back up to full power.

Morale is a mystery to me. I see it drop, I get it that they need a rest to recover. Can't let that happen because too many Soviets keep pressing. There's something in the mechanics that is not working for me. Is editing the campaigns manually the answer?

The Axis side is a little tougher for a begginer. Try the Allied side and observe how the AI plays the Axis side and then once you've won from the Allied perspective you'll be ready to command the Axis.

I just finished a game playing as just the Soviets from Barbarossa, and it was weirdly easy. I fell back to the Leningrad-Moscow-Rostov line from the start, and waiting while building up a straight line of units, but the Germans that attacked were far too weak to even be a threat. I made numerous encirclements, and destroyed them over the course of a year, and then took Berlin in November 1944. The encircled Germans were extremely hard to kill despite my ridiculous advantage in numbers, since they had experience and Russian units are worse, which is the only reason it took so long. At the end of the game I couldn't even spend all my MPPs, I had like 8000 extra because I had hit the hard caps on units and done the max amount of research and diplomacy. Even when I had lost half the country it was hard to spend all my points in one turn, to the point I was building useless units like anti-air guns (against a Germany that barely used planes).

I don't know what was wrong with the German AI, but it was way too easy (on normal/default difficulty).

Try it on expert while playing just the Soviets. I did it in the 39 campaign and the AI kicked my butt.

I can beat the AI on expert if I play all the Allies, but as just the Soviets I find it really tough since the AI allies aren't as good at helping out the Soviets.

ORIGINAL: AnimalAl

But lord have mercy, the Soviets...

URSS is easy to beat . With fog of war off which I didn't try, it would be ridiculously easy .
The key is speed and tactical bombers .
Don't bother with encirclements - in this game it doesn't pay off . A cut off unit even with moral and readiness below 10 can hold 2 turns or even more if it is in a town .
Btw this is very unrealistic - how can a cut off unit repeatedly reinforce ? Where do the weapons, tanks and soldiers come from ?

But back to the strategy .

In 41, the Soviets are no threat . So you just push on at maximum speed . On the northern front use paras (you have 2 of them) - if you have a possibility to take an unoccupied town (f.ex Pskov, Novgorod etc) drop a para Inside immediately .
To know what town is free use air recon first .
In 41 every town will fall in 1 turn by using : bombers to remove entrenchment then Panzers, mech inf because of their 2 strikes per turn .
Don't reinforce, don't stop, rush . Kill any HQ or air as priority everytime it is possible .
Should by extraordinary a unit get encircled, just hold on untill the release arrives and then push on some more .
By winter 41 you should be approximately on a line Leningrad - Vyazma - Tula - Kharkov - Stalino .

Winter 41, start 42 is the last moment of the war where the Soviets can still keep something like a continuous front .
It may look impressive especially around Moscow but it is not dangerous .
The reason is that this game is all about towns . The one who holds the town has max supply so can reinforce to max while his ennemy can't .
That's why when facing an apparently impressive blob of Soviet units, forget them all and focus only on the town that supplies them .
Then 2 or 3 air strikes, artillery (if you have one) and 1 Panzer are enough to take any town even if there are 20 units around it.
Next turn the Soviets will try to counter and fail so you just reinforce the unit occupying the town to max and reduce the blob around (if it doesn't start to retreat to the next town what it generally does) .

You apply exactly this tactics on Leningrad and Moscow in 42 and the game is over .
Leningrad falls to the Finns, don't bother to attack it from the South - you just detrench it with bombers and the Finns enter .
Moscow falls as soon as you get a unit in contact with it (again the routine bombers-Panzers) .
Anything the Soviets have in the north is now more or less cut off and around Moscow they must retreat to Gorki and beyond .
From that moment on (summer 42) there can be no more any continuous front because the towns beyond Moscow are too far from each other so that the Soviets can only have supply in isolated blobs around towns they still hold and are not able to stage any SUPPLIED counteroffensive regardless how many units they have in the blob .

So now you simply take all your bombers and Panzers from the North and Center and send them to the South where they will roll anything the Soviets still have in the area Voronezh-Rostov-Stalingrad .
A cherry on the pie is that by now you should have Turkey having joined Axis so that the Italians and the Afrikakorps are pushing through Baku-Grozny from the South too

Finally the conclusion : as soon as Leningrad falls (summer 42), URSS has lost regardless how many units it still has .

From your post it is hard to tell what is going wrong, OP.

- Could it be you're not using enough HQ'S? They are extremely important. Ideally, all units should be under command of an HQ, i.e. 7 units per HQ. HQ's greatly improve combat results and supply.
- Your low morale is most likely the result of bad supply. Read the supply rules in the manual. They are the hardest concept of the game.
- Buy all the tanks you can. They will do most of the work.
- My usual setup at the start of Barbarossa is 3 HQ's that will move north of the Pripyat Marches, and another 3 to the South. Your first objective is Leningrad. Try to take in the first year of the war. After that, the Fins can hold it and free the northern army groups for use against Moscow. I usually give the the support of one of the southern army groups. You should have Moscow in the second year. Stalingrad will fall the same year or the year after.

Thank you all. These are great comments. I did have lots of HQs, at least 6 plus the Italians when they showed up. Yes the encircled units getting stronger is a very frustrating aspect but now I get it, the towns are key. I will have to reread the supply rules. In my last few turns, I parked units right next to the HQ in a desperate attempt to get them Back up to strength and even then they were getting drive and drabs instead of the max strength.

I'll try the Allies and see where that takes me. Again much appreciated.

If you haven't already done so and can access You Tube have a look at some of the very good Strategic Command gameplay video series from The Wargaming Guy, Paradogs Gamer or Night Phoenix, the latter two were using beta versions but they all give one a fine understanding of the game and various strategies in action.

ORIGINAL: AnimalAl

... now I get it, the towns are key. In my last few turns, I parked units right next to the HQ in a desperate attempt to get them Back up to strength and even then they were getting drive and drabs instead of the max strength.

Well the max strength reinforcement is again the "towns are key" bit .
You only need to know TWO simple things about supply .

First is that a unit is supplied either by a town or by a HQ .
If it is a town, then the supply value is the value of the town MINUS the terrain penalties to go from the town to the unit .
But when you conquer a town its value is very low (you destroyed it in the conquerring process) so it is 1 or 2 while it may have been 8 for the ennemy . That means that this town will supply Nothing that is more than 1 or 2 hexes from it .
If it is a HQ , then the HQ has a value of 8 if its own supply from the town is at least 1.
If you put a HQ in a town of supply value 1 then it is equivalent to this town having a supply value of 8 .
But if you f... up and put the HQ just 1 hex beside where the value from the town is 0, then the supply value of the HQ is only 5 .
That's why it is Paramount to only put the HQs on places where the supply from towns is at least 1 (so avoid marshes, forests and such)!
Exceptions are when you want to push fast and hope that your units will manage with only 5 supply max .

Second is that the max reinforcment value depends on the supply value .
If the unit is supplied with 6+ then it can be reinforced to max (10+) .
For supply 5 it is then reinforcable to only 8 .
For supply 4 it is 7 etc .

When you Wonder where you should put your HQs, you hit S and it displays the current supply values .
If you hit S a second time, you'll see the updated supply values for the next turn .
Use this when you are in a difficult supply situation .
Often just moving your HQ 1 hex is enough to go from 5 to 8 .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4i5xFjoMpA

And if you hadn't seen this one, it may help a little:
tm.asp?m=4189394