Russian Questions

[Toolbox1941]

Hi All,



Very new to the game but enjoying it. So I am playing with a more experienced friend and I am playing the Russians. Just got some questions:



1. Quite a few times the Axis player has left holes in his flanks exposing his HQ and air fields. Is it worth sacrificing a unit to displace these axis units?

2. In the Leningrad scenario, I have some forces that greatly outnumber his units in the south. Should I attack, take heavy casualties and move his units? Or will this drain my refit power with my Leningrad units that are taking a beating? I am just worried about refitting too much and not having enough to go around.

3. I have noticed that my reinforcements that show up are at half the man power strength. Is this normal?

4. Concerning morale, in order to increase Soviet morale, do I take the unit and move it away from combat and put it into refit mode?

5. So I had a bunch of artillery brigades hit hard, I refitted them, everything looks good numbers wise but they will not go to ready status. All they can do is refit and unready?

6. Around Leningrad are a few Fortress Units, is it better to disband these units and replace them with a division? Also, the fortress units in Finland, disband?


TIA

[thedoctorking]

1. Yes, absolutely. Especially if you can isolate significant Axis forces. Even if they can re-establish their lines of communication easily in their turn, if they are isolated in the logistics phase they won't get any supplies for that turn (barring air resupply) and will have tiny movement factors. Displacing Axis HQ's will also interfere with supply delivery to units under their command, and displacing air bases will interfere with Axis air support and maybe destroy some aircraft (damaged a/c on displaced air bases are destroyed, so be sure to get in some air battles in the area before making the move).
2. In the campaign game, you should attack if you can win and not get yourself pocketed for your pains. Victories mean that the unit has a chance to promote to Guards status. In the scenarios, probably not unless it gives you a chance to capture victory locations or to distract the German player from victory locations.
3. A lot of your reinforcements are going to be at like 10% manpower. These are the units that reorganize after being destroyed in the early going. You will have to balance the needs of your front-line guys for replacements versus channeling replacements to your new guys. Use the max TOE control (on the unit detail window) to control how many replacements a unit can take. In the early going, there will be a lot of Soviet units that you set at 20% TOE and park behind your lines. They can still interfere with long-range breakthroughs and build fall-back fortification lines, and as your manpower situation improves, they can be shifted to 80% and grow into real units. Another use for them is to bring them forward after their morale and training have gotten up a bit and merge them into existing units to provide a targeted boost of replacements. Make sure to do this after you have already spent all your AP for the turn, though, otherwise your AP stock will evaporate (the system charges the AP cost to rebuild the unit, usually 10 or 20, when you do the merge but it won't take you below zero. So make sure you are at zero when you do any merges).
4. Exactly. Another way is to win battles.
5. The anti-tank artillery brigades are fairly useless. I use them to hold the Finnish no attack line. You can also merge them to produce semi-effective units. The regular artillery brigades that you start being able to build in 1942 are actually pretty useful. I don't know why they wouldn't go back to ready status, though? Look at their TOE and morale levels - if TOE + morale is less than 100 (I think), they won't go to active status.
6. I often build more fortress units up there, especially behind the Finnish no attack line to the north of the city and along the Neva river to the east of the city. Schlisselburg is another very important place to have a fortified zone. The advantage of fortified zones is that you can have a higher fortification level there and also they keep digging even if you don't have a combat unit there. They can also have artillery support units assigned to them, unlike corps, meaning that artillery will certainly participate in the battle. I like to give the important ones the big guns plus, for units in the open, anti-tank or MG-artillery units to fend off enemy tanks.

[56ajax]

5. I think morale + %TOE has to be > 90

6. Forts don't have a great combat value and cannot retreat, so in a losing combat they will shatter/surrender. I use them to build up the fort level and when the enemy comes knocking I disband them.

[thedoctorking]

56ajax, do you know if support units attached to a fort surrender along with it? I was perhaps foolishly assuming that they would be redeployed upwards.

[56ajax]

My money would be on surrender

[thedoctorking]

In 1.12, forts at level 4 don't give up regardless (they just lose fort levels). So maybe assigning artillery to fortification units is only really a good idea in places like Odessa.

[Shupov]

(Partially bumped to Tech Support)

6. I often build more fortress units up there, especially behind the Finnish no attack line to the north of the city and along the Neva river to the east of the city. Schlisselburg is another very important place to have a fortified zone. The advantage of fortified zones is that you can have a higher fortification level there and also they keep digging even if you don't have a combat unit there.

(Italics added)

I don't put a fortified zone in Shlisselburg since swamps can only grow to Fort Level 2 regardless whether a fortified zone is present or not. It will help with the digging though. Time is short before the Germans arrive so I prefer to put units there with high construction value instead.

[Seminole]

I don't put a fortified zone in Shlisselburg since swamps can only grow to Fort Level 2 regardless whether a fortified zone is present or not.

A fortified zone will allow swamp hexes to be fortified to level 3.10 (and allows adjacent hexes to be built up to level 3.10 as well).

[CapAndGown]

The AP cost for merging units does not kick in until November of 1941. Before then feel free to merge units at any time. Indeed, in many of your pockets you may find it useful to merge divisions.

[Shupov]

A fortified zone will allow swamp hexes to be fortified to level 3.10 (and allows adjacent hexes to be built up to level 3.10 as well).

@Seminole - You're right for version 1.12. I was looking at a 1.11 game and the max fort level used to be 2 regardless of whether a fortified unit was present.