Soviet Army 1942 Questions

[Sorta]

In mud 1942 and very good shape after mild blizzard. have some questions:

1) Army size
How big is too big - estimating will be 8 million by June - been building max brigades since 41. Will come a point where supply and need to use AP to form corps mean it suneconomical.

2) Tank Armies
Plan in using new front for 5 tank armies. What is the 'best' composition for the armies? 3 tank corps and 1 mech? Do you use motorized or wait for mech in Sept?

Does 20 AP cost for forming tank corp go down in '43 like Inf corps?

PS I have over 3k T34s in pool and a huge amount of tank brigades so the resource cost of forming tank armies is small I assume.

PPS - why is AP the main constraint in the game? Seams wrong.

[loki100]

this is hugely contextual so here's some comments:

1) AI or PBEM? Matters. If you give it enough bonuses the AI can make 1942 quite miserable for you (ie great fun [;)]) but what it doesn't do is create pockets. So if you have an 8m man army at the start then you don't need to build new rifle divisions as you won't actually lose many.

A player will, most German players try for pacman style small pockets, to deal with this you simply can't have enough fresh formations. Also given how slowly Soviet rifle divisions gain experience, building them well before you need them is critical (this makes the difference between a 2 cv and a 3cv division)

2) army size - HI capacity/arms factories. Have a look at some of the current AARs for discussions about the link between HI and army size, you ideally want a well supplied army, a poorly supplied one will have additional morale problems

3) don't race to rifle corps, in the summer you will win very few victories and a sector held by rifle corps is asking for encirclement. You want lots of divisions (=zones of control/delay)

4) I usually end with 6 tank armies (and use the shock armies to hold other mobile units) and tend to allocate 4 to one front and 2 to another - but its very situational and some people keep them back under direct Stavka control. A personal (minor) whinge is the cost to re-assign armies is too high and prevents the standard Soviet approach of regularly swapping armies about. Keep them to 3 corps till they get Gds status.

5) tank and mech corps cost 20 all game (?)

6) have a look at my current AAR, in 1943 you can't have too many T-34s as you burn through them at a horrific rate (again PBEM, AI is less brutal)

7) trucks are the constraint, too many mobile units screws up your resupply efforts and lowers the MP of your rifle formations.

8) AP is a crude tool but basically reflects the highly centralised nature of Soviet decision making and that Soviet society and industry was pushed to its limit. In effect it stops you not just doing all you want to but all you feasibly can do. It works even if a bit oddly.

[Sorta]

Hello Loki

Its a long running PBEM against an experienced German player (we restarted a few games due to major patch changes but are now marching to the end game in Berlin). I'm am/was an avid follower of your AAR and the mass brigade purchasing was a result of your '42 collapse. With hindsight it seemed that you may have stopped building brigades too soon. However I'm trying to get a feel for how big an army is too big. I'm forecasting a minimum of 8 million army by dry weather '42 but will keep builing to make up for the carnage ahead.

Do you know if there is a maximum replacement rate limit hardcoded into the game. I've noticed that the army grows at roughly 115k a turn whether we are fighting or in mud. More importntly my opponent's army is growing approx 13k a turn in mud which means his devastated armies won't be in any shape to launch a early 42 offensive (mud, armies on refit, on rail, in command with plentiful replacements).

My shock armies all hold (guard) Cav.

For the tank armies why only 3 corps (12 CP)? And all tank or mix with mech/motorized. Are motorized even worth it?

Stavka - why not MDs and avoid the penalty?

(AP stops me from micromanging which I don't like. And some of the AP costs seem excessive eg moving an army. End with a choice between winning a game by avoiding wasteful AP use or having fun. Anyway need to add on to WETE 2 thread.)

[morvael]

This "maximum replacement rate limit" is most likely tied to # of manpower being made available per turn (from production, returning elements and returning disabled).
That's why the Germans lost after all. They couldn't withstand the level of losses inflicted at the front day after day, week after week.

[charlie0311]

Is fun to micromanage attacks. Maybe even more fun to build huge army. It's one or the other:)

PS, GD armies have more cp, like the shock armies.

[loki100]

yes I did, and then was building and throwing untrained rifle divisions into the line 1/2 cv compared to 3 just to keep a front. Of course those were often lost ... so more admin pts on simply surviving. I think PBEM you have no choice but to just keep pumping out fresh formations all summer.

You will probably run your supply stocks down in 1942 - don't worry too much as 1943 brings a lot more. Useful tricks are to lower airplane production (its not to late 42 do you get the better types in any case), perhaps lower your digging %

The MDs are usually run by idiots and are fixed on the map. So you gain almost nothing by linking combat armies to them, I do use them to organise my reserves, it helps me track the combat ready reserves, where I originally planned to send it etc.

Other thing, and Chaos45's AAR is a good eg, in 1942 the tank is not really that important, its all about rifle divisions and use cavalry as your shock force. You need tank corps and its good to train them up, but they are secondary

[Ast95NG]

Hi guys. I want to complain about AP's too. Now in 43 I have about 10K tanks, 4M manpower and equally good load of somewhat obsolete planes (obsolete? maybe, but 100 tons of bombs is 100 tons, right? bombs in right numbers never get obsolete!). And I have no AP's to make any use of that force. I just pushing fritzes one-two hexes away, maybe cutting 1-3 divisions every lucky turn. No big successful breakthroughs. My mobile forces are just can't stand counterattacks, and here another complain: unit must get too tired if it have to attack 3 times a turn! Remember that Hitler had to move PzDivs to Germany for rest and refit? In game there is no need for that, units refits very quickly, even routed ones. That is ruining game in my point of view. There MUST be unit rotation if we have OOB's down to batallion.

[Ast95NG]

... let me add some.

There are lot of at least disputable things on my mind that can (or can't) improve game greatly. Like increase hex capacity to 4, or better rework it so unit's size will matter, not only number of units. Say you can place 6 brigades in hex or 4 corps at a time. Or 3 corps and 3 brigades. Such change would make game more fluent, surprising, with more operations and force concentration, recon would be vital. That is much more realistic finally. Look at Kursk battle, there was at least 1/3 of german strength in 200km front. I am sure 3 is physical restriction from board original, not a gameplay mandatory.

I understand such changes never going to be realized in a patch for such old game. But there are one very easy and reasonable thing - look at the pools at start of a turn, and if they really full of anything, add say 20 AP. And we will get almost new and more intresting game (in some cases and for SOV only, but...).