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Just curious what others do on this....as the Soviets in early '41, you will inevitably end up with lots of UNREADY Tank and Mech Divisions. Many are understrength to begin with, and the rest are basically "one shot deals"; usually one combat is enough to destroy enough tanks to make it unready. Of course there are few replacements available. So question: What do you do with all those UNREADY units?

I am inclined to mass disband those I know I can't rebuild, particularly with low morale. There is plenty of demand for the manpower and whatever equipment I can salvage from those; I can use the leftover AFVs to actually have some replacements for other units.

However, I wonder if that screws with the "Free" Tank Brigade shells that you get later on, costing APs.

MERGE may also make sense in select circumstance, though I find it usually just makes a unit overweight in some elements (like support), and still short in the ones that count

Thoughts?

Corrollary to this, "Destroyed" units come back to the pool as Tank Brigades or Rifle Divisions. Is that true of DISBANDED units, or no?

I suspect it is NOT, but want to make sure.

no, disband is fully lost

have a look at M60's AAR and notes, he's good at refitting the tank divisions and getting longer term use out of them. He also holds them back as far as he can till the Pzrs are running out of fuel and replacements

Don't disband tank divisions, they convert to tank brigades. Mech divisions convert to Rifle Divs but I think the rule is only if they become depleted - like everyone has to be killed off first. What a waste of men and equipment. So I disband 1 per turn and manually create a Rifle Div, when the cost is down to 2 AP.

I’d probably keep them as a 3rd/rear line of defense and, once the panzers have pushed quite far, have fatigue and depleted CP, are in clear terrain, and preferably overextended past the German fighter support. I’d conduct a deliberate attack with several tank/mech divisions, perhaps a rifle division or two for padding and as much close air support/IL-2 as you can muster. You’ll take a beating and probably lose as many or more tanks, especially if your divisions have older models instead of t34s, but you manufacture a lot more tanks and the Germans have a very tough time bringing the few panzers they have to the front because the panzers are oftentimes very far ahead of the rail lines and working depots. As but one example, by turn 3-4, the Germans will have connected Minsk to the rail net, and the depot will begin to receive some freight on T4-5 logistics. Depending upon damage to the rail yard, it might not be fully functional. Meanwhile, most of the panzers will have blown past Minsk on T1 (for parts of 3panzercorps) or T2 (for 2panzercorps) and will
Have depleted their initial supply surplus by T4 and their position (maybe near Smolensk) means they will be using trucks by that point, which will reduce their combat effectiveness cumulatively with reduced fuel/supply. That’s around the time I’d try to strike—especially with some of the tank/mech divisions that spawn near moscow. IIRC, they begin with good morale and toe. In the south, you might need to wait another turn to two until the panzers are fully extended because of the Romanian supply net, but thankfully 1 panzercorps divisions start quite weaker.

If you refit only a few on map divisions a turn and keep your tank/mech reserves at minimum toe, you’ll be able to have a few fully nearly fitted divisions made each turn. I think keeping the low toe divisions on the map is better than the reserve because they’ll gain CP while waiting for there turn to refit and even a low toe division with high CP can have good mobility, which might give you an opportunity to cut off overextended panzers and only risk losing a low toe division. I wouldn’t worry too much about the admin costs from merging or disbanding a division—by time you have enough manpower to begin buying units, admin costs alleviate quite a bit.

Thanks, reading further it looks like the key is waiting for the 41a TOE to flip over to 41b, which there is a realistic chance of filling out

The Mech Divisions......there aren't enough BT Tanks to go around, so seems like some disbands are needed