STAVKA - 8 player multiplayer Soviet thread

[Hortlund]

No Germans in this thread please.

Soviet commanders report in.

[Hortlund]

Your assignments:


EwaldvonKleist: Commander of Northern and Northwest fronts
Initially prepare to defend north of the river Dvina.

Sardaukar: Commander of Western Front, Orel and Moscow Military District
Initially prepare to defend south of the river Dvina and north of the Pripyat and Seym rivers. Responsible for the defence of Kursk.

Shonyu: Commander of Southwestern and Southern Front, Kharkov and North Caucasus Military Districts.
Initially prepare to defend all areas south of the Western front areas of responsibility

[Nix77]

This is going to be interesting! Hold Moscow at all costs, comrades!

General guidelines that I've found useful to follow as a Soviet player: rail strong units from south to Moscow defense and Luga, use just light screen in south and trade space for time. Kursk/Bryansk/Orel aren't really that important, so there's barely any need of stronger presence on that sector. Use rivers as defense lines and combined with ZOC screening in all appropriate places, hold on to major rivers as long as it's safe! Screen the panzers in front preferably at all times, back up when German infantry has chances to make several deliberate attacks with panzers present.

Good luck!

EDIT: I'm eagerly waiting to see the heated discussion on railing the 16th Army to north between the marshalls

[Timmeh]

Spies ! spies everywhere.

Ooops, I'll back away slowly then and enter the German thread. It's the best thread, it will have all the best cyber. This thread is low energy, sad.

We will simply need to crash this thread's door in with our thread and the whole house of cards will come crashing down...


Have fun you crazy Russians, See you in the Urals.

[Sardaukar]

This will be interesting...I'll probably end defending Ural MD... [:D]

[Nix77]

Lots of rough terrain, mountains and good rivers there, should be a breeze

[Hortlund]

Ok, first turn is now in the dropbox for Germany

[Telemecus]

Grabbing it now.

Can anyone point me to where you can download the map jpg on the forum. I just lost my copy and cannot remember where I downloaded it from on the forums?

Edit: clicked on STAVKa rather than signup - apologies

[EwaldvonKleist]

Meeting of the soviet general staff.
Axis players, please stop reading here!
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I have a few questions regarding the first turns:

Airforce strategy: What are we going to do?
i) Fight from turn one
ii)Send everything to national reserve with commander report for turn 1&2, maybe 3.
I myself prefer ii) for the following reasons:
-reduced truck use. I have run tests, and sending all soviet planes to national reserve in turn 1 reduces the truck need in turn two by 20 000-30 000=>better supply
for ground units, therefore MPs which helps in arrangin defences and evacuating units
-the Airforce isn't of much use in turn 2&3 anyway I think???
-the fast German advance forces to place airbases far away=>only a few missions can be flown

Airforce management: How will we do this: Will Panzerjäger Hortlund manage the whole airforce and we only do ground attacks and use it for ground support or do the front
commanders this as well? I still have to learn airforce management (differences among airbase types and best plane for each task etc.)

Leningrad defense: As I have nearly zero PbeM Experience, I ask for advice here.
I like the Leningrad defense strategy of GeneralfeldmarschallWalterModel a lot. Basically building a straight row of lvl 2 forts from Oranienbaum to Nowgorod, using the existing lvl 4 forts, rough hexagons and swamps there. If manned with 3 3CV infantry divisions, one should be able to get 40-60CV per hexagon+reserve units+second fort line. And every hexagon can only be attacked by two sides. Why I like this? Its an easy plan, and if it works, one does hardly lose divisons while other plans call for sacrifices to slow the enemy down. I am especially interested what you think panzerjäger Hortlund, because you faced the defense as the German player. The question is: Can such a line hold against a determined assault?

[Sardaukar]

Maybe leaving recon planes on map? They might help a bit to see the situation more clearly. And Transport planes maybe too?

I am happy to let PzJgHortlund manage the AF. Maybe requesting odd ground attack ot two now and then.

[EwaldvonKleist]

Yes, recon planes+transport+a little bit escort for them should remain.
Airforce management: I am happy as well to let Hortlund manage the AF.

Support unit management: Does Hortlund create and distribute them or should players do so with their AP share?

Support units creation: I suggest to focus on sappers only, no artillery. As far as i know, sappers can help at fort construction (right?????), and this is very valuable for the defense of Leningrad. I think whe should limit the TOE of the Artillery units and don't bild too many new ones before the blizzard so they do not steal the ressources from the on map units. What do you suggest?

Organization and leaders: How will this be managed? Will you do everything Hortlund or do all players get their share of the APs?

[bigbaba]

intresting point to send the red air force back in turn 1 to save truks and get better supply for the ground units. And maybe sending some elite fighter and ground attack regiments to endangerd front areas.

[Sardaukar]

ORIGINAL: EwaldvonKleist

Yes, recon planes+transport+a little bit escort for them should remain.
Airforce management: I am happy as well to let Hortlund manage the AF.

Support unit management: Does Hortlund create and distribute them or should players do so with their AP share?

Support units creation: I suggest to focus on sappers only, no artillery. As far as i know, sappers can help at fort construction (right?????), and this is very valuable for the defense of Leningrad. I think whe should limit the TOE of the Artillery units and don't bild too many new ones before the blizzard so they do not steal the ressources from the on map units. What do you suggest?

Organization and leaders: How will this be managed? Will you do everything Hortlund or do all players get their share of the APs?

I'd say that Hortlund could be responsible for creating and distributing support units, plus creating new units and allocating them as needed.

Sappers would be indeed priority for first year, IMHO. And they will be very useful later in war too, when Soviets can concentrate building more artillery.

My suggestion is that Hortlund uses part of APs as STAVKA for support units etc. and after that APs are allocated to players to organize the Fronts and commanders as they wish within APs available. E.g. STAVKA uses 10-20 APs and Front Commanders (players) 10-13 each..depending what is available after STAVKA (after all, we are subordinates to Comrade Stalin.. [:D])

[Hortlund]

As Commander Im responsible for all airforce- things. I will do all airforce things before I send the turn to the front-commanders. But I will of cource use the airforce to support you guys as best I can.

We will not send the airforce to the national reserve. I understand the logic behind the reasoning from a game-perspective, but I refuse to play like that. The Motherland is under attack and is fighting for its life. The idea to send all airunits to reserve airfields behind the Urals in such a situation is just gamey and completely unrealistic.

Leningrad. I will not give detailed orders on how to conduct the defence there. Just make sure to defend both sides of the river. Also be aware that losing Leningrad is unacceptable.

As for the fort-line. Maybe. I'll consider it. But I think it borders on gameyness.

[Hortlund]

As for AP and support units. I will create them at STAVKA and distribute them. I will also handlar leadership changes. You will be alotted APs during the order-phase to change units between the armies

[EwaldvonKleist]

Good points about gameyness, i forgot that. You are right. I still think it is the best way to go, but not for this game because its no competitive one.

About the fort line: I think you are talking about my Oranienbaum-Novgorod fort line? Right, it borders on gameyness as well. On the one hand, I would really like to test this, on the other hand it can result in a boring game for the axis (few fighting during the first 5 turns, then the line holds or it is not strong enough and it becomes a cakewalk for the axis which is lame as well).
Maybe we can go a middle way, where I don't build forts in the swamp hexagons, only in the clear ones and in Novgorod.

[Sardaukar]

I think we should fill in orders in..well..order (like S1-S2-S3-S4), right?

[Hortlund]

Yeah

[Hortlund]

Situational map June 22 1941

[Hortlund]

From: STAVKA

To: All Front Commanders

Orders:
We are under attack. The General Secretary of the Communist Party's Central Committee has ordered the armed forces of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics to resist the invasion by all means neccessary.

The superior forces of the Red Army should have no problem repelling this desperate attack by the fascist warmongers. All front commanders should therefore use the forces at their disposal to beat back the invaders and prepare to liberate the workers of Europe.

The Red Army is to reorganize into a more suitable organization for this war, therefore all corps HQ will be disbanded and units are to be organized into field armies. STAVKA will handle the disbanding of the HQs and each front commander is given 5 APs to use as they see fit in order to organize their forces accordingly.

Comrades, be ruthless in the defence in order to ensure that we can switch to offensive operations as soon as possible. The invaders must be crushed without mercy. Any sign of treason must be dealt with by the harshest means. Assign trusted commissars to the army headquarters and report any signs of defeatism to your superior officer.

Your priorities should be:
1. Organize your forces into suitable groups and take up defensive positions
2. Preserve your forces in order to wait for the mobilization of the workers of the Soviet union.



SIGNED
Marshal Hortlundski