What's the optimum size of the late-war Soviet army?

[Slush]

In my modified 1941 Soviet GC (I got a sudden victory in 1943 and had to do the sav->scn trick), it’s June 1944. The lumbering beast, that is my Soviet field army, has grown to 8.7 mio. men with a further million in reserve. Total Soviet forces are 11+ mio.

Obviously, it makes it hard for the vodka and borscht to reach the front lines, so I’m thinking of scaling back and got a few questions:

1. Is the on-map supply situation affected by the size of the strategic reserve?

2. What’s the consensus on the optimal size of the 1944 Soviet on-map army?

3. What units would you keep? Maximizing mech, armour and artillery puts the supply system under extra strain, and the lack of fresh rifle corps with all their oomph, may be a disadvantage. But then again: There’s always the dream of that great armoured break-through, isn’t there?

[loki100]

have a look at the beta Soviet AAR, since that is the only public record of a game from 1941-45 it will give you a feel for one way to construct the 1944-45 Soviet army

[Seminole]

Loki, do you know how/if units in the SR tap supplies?

[loki100]

yes, but not trucks (unlike the active theatres)

[Q-Ball]

I've only gotten to 1944 in the Stal to Berlin campaign, so my experience is limited to just that. 8.7 mil is a HUGE number, IIRC I never had more than 6.5 mil, but I was playing a human from late '42 start...if you are playing AI from a '41 start, I can see that you could have massive amounts of Manpower.

At 6.5 mil, I had trouble keeping everyone supplied; you can't do it without using "Super Depots". Late-war Soviet Army is what that rule was created for (not 1941 armies, which is why I think it's not kosher to us it before late '42)

This is just me, but I would:

1. Start with disbanding AT Regts, AT Rifle Units, all Battalion-sized SUs. Late war soviets do not need these, waste of trucks. Also all Motorized Sapper Units, disband those.
2. Leave 4 Artillery Units per Army; disband all the rest
3. Check your trucks; with that size, there is no reason to have more units than your truck pool can support. If you are short of trucks anywhere, start disbanding motorized units (aside from the ones above), starting with: Separate Tank BNs, Motorcycle Regts, Motorized Bdes. If you're STILL short, look at disbanding some Tank Bde.

I would do this in stages and see where you sit. If you are STILL long on supplies, you can start disbanding RIFLE divisions, though that won't help the truck situation much, just supply consumption.

If you're playing the AI, you don't really need 8 mil + to win.....6 mil+ should be plenty to take Berlin vs. AI

[erikbengtsson]

ORIGINAL: Slush

In my modified 1941 Soviet GC (I got a sudden victory in 1943 and had to do the sav->scn trick), it’s June 1944. The lumbering beast, that is my Soviet field army, has grown to 8.7 mio. men with a further million in reserve. Total Soviet forces are 11+ mio.

Huge. And not unhistorical. From memory, I believe the Red Army reached 11 million under arms in 1945. I assume it was not far from it around the time just before Bagration.