Soviet Support Unit Usage & Strategy

[PeteJC]

I am new to the Soviet side of things and currently playing another person at T8 of the Campaign game with VP checks for sudden ending.

Per what little advice I have been able to find I have kept the vast majority of the SUs with Stavka or Reserve TB and have left what artillery started with the Front HQs alone. So, nothing down to Army and Corps levels or attached to units so as to minimize SU losses during the difficult pre-wintertime. I have maxed out the 22 Sapper Regiment limit and they are all attached to FZ that are diligently digging away. Other than that, I have not really done anything with the various SUs that the Soviets have.

Can anyone provide any insight on how best to manage the Soviet SUs. For example, should the anti-tank regiments be disbanded so as to fill up the AT brigades quicker or is it better to directly attach the regiments to infantry divisions. Any insight or advice would be greatly appreciated.

[ringhloth]

For the first ten turns or so, support units that can be on the map are best on the map, just because there is value in having counters on hexes. With recentish cpp changes it is more valuable to double stack at important points, rather than having single stacks that used to be used for cpp absorbing. This made on map sus a lot less useful in some ways, though more counters are rarely bad early on.

I'm fairly certain having artillery attached at fronts is only useful if you have units attached directly to the front. Have you been seeing them take part in battles? They are certainly most effective at the army level, attached to armies you have promoted good leaders too, or are at critical locations you can't lose.

I personally avoid attaching things directly to fzs, as they are prone to surrendering. Your milage will vary on this, and the better you can predict axis advances, the better your guess is.

[PeteJC]

For the first ten turns or so, support units that can be on the map are best on the map, just because there is value in having counters on hexes. With recentish cpp changes it is more valuable to double stack at important points, rather than having single stacks that used to be used for cpp absorbing. This made on map sus a lot less useful in some ways, though more counters are rarely bad early on.

I'm fairly certain having artillery attached at fronts is only useful if you have units attached directly to the front. Have you been seeing them take part in battles? They are certainly most effective at the army level, attached to armies you have promoted good leaders too, or are at critical locations you can't lose.

I personally avoid attaching things directly to fzs, as they are prone to surrendering. Your milage will vary on this, and the better you can predict axis advances, the better your guess is.

Thanks. I do have sappers attached to FZs to move along the fortification process. I will then disband the unit once the Germans get close. However, I always have a brigade or division with the FZ to move along the fortifying process (FZs by themselves are very slow at fortifying even with a sapper regiment). In the future I will attach the sappers to the divisions instead of the FZ just in case....