Soviet Refit Strategies post Stalingrad Liberation

[rickwarintheeast]

BACKGROUND -- Stalingrad to Berlin with Soviet (me) and Axis (AI)

OVERALL SITUATION -- Stalingrad Front isolates Stalingrad while Southwestern Front builds outer wall to stymie rescue; Western and Kalinin Fronts try (and usually fail) to pinch off everything beyond Smolensk; and Transcaucasus and North Caucasus Fronts try to trap Army Group A(?) east of Rostov.

USUAL OUTCOME -- Stalingrad liberated by mid January, 20 - 50% of Army Group A eliminated, pinching off Smolensk fails and city does not fall until March. And...the Stalingrad and Southwestern Fronts are wrecked.

Coincident with enveloping Stalingrad, and with an eye toward maintaining the initiative across the theater, I damage Axis forces from Leningrad to Rostov (eventually), advancing where I can, occasionally creating (and often holding) small pockets of 1-3 units. Simultaneously creating situations at various point, I force the Axis into bad choices, and never, never, never, allowing them to concentrate their mobile forces. I keep attacking until mud set in in March

I find myself racing to repair units in order to keep going, and still have an army left by April.

STRATEGIC GOAL

Preclude any possibility of Operation Citadel from occurring by so damaging the Axis forces that they have insufficient mobile forces come Summer 1943. After the Western Allies finally invade Sicily and knock Italy out of the war, any large-scale Axis offensives in the east should be off the table.

Then I can concentrate on ending the war in the fall of 1944.

THINGS I'VE TRIED

1 - Move damaged ON MAP units, especially Corps, back to supply depots, and put them in REFIT, hopefully with an HQ on top; even to the point of designating some Armies with the sole function of managing the refitting process...and returning them to active duty when they reach 90%

2 - Move critically ill ON MAP units to Strategic Reserve (but I think I'm loosing experience points doing this?)

3 - Combining damaged rifle divisions into rifle corps, while in REFIT, at supply depots, and holding them until they reach 90%

4 - Transferring damaged SUPPORT UNITS (less than 75%) to STAVKA and REFITTING them until they reach 90%; with a constant SU refresh to the Tank / Mech / Rifle / Cavalry XXX first, then Guards Rifle XX second, and all Rifle XX third.

5 - Building up to the maximum number of Tank and Mech XXX, and add Rifle XXX where possible...but I start to worry about ability to continuously cover the front and have enough striking power to threaten several deep penetrations simultaneously.

HELP

I would love to hear how others approach this problem.

Thank you.

[rickwarintheeast]

I'm new to the forum. Did I post this in the wrong place? If so, I apologize.

[MarkShot]

It's the right place.

The game is out a couple of years now, and so posting is a little less active. But there are members who do great analytics.

I would answer you, but I have yet to be where you are now. Sorry.

Welcome to a great title!

[Sammy5IsAlive]

I would take the lack of response as suggesting that you are already doing the right things and people don't have a great deal to add.

My only brief contributions would be
1) by sending your units back to the SR you should not lose much if any experience. If it is a very low TOE but high morale unit it will lose overall morale as its replacement elements will join with the national morale. So I guess from that you might argue that with your highest morale units it is better to use them little and often with a steady stream of replacements on map compared to them taking very large one-off losses and then having to be refitted. If you have units with high experience but average morale these are good ones to choose to take heavy losses in set piece offensives.
2) I would not automatically build straight up to the maximum number of tank/mech corps if this is going to cause problems with your vehicle supply. YMMV but at least until the Tank/Mech TOEs strengthen I would rather have 1 strong Guards Rifle Corps with 16MPs than 2 average tank/mech corps.

I would take the above with a pinch of salt as I am primarily an Axis player.

[rickwarintheeast]

Hey, guys. I appreciate your responses.

Mark: It's my own fault for being late to the party. I got the board game waaaaaay back in the day, settled in with the Civ series, and was surprised to see these games. It takes me back, in a good way.

Sammy: Hard to believe I'm doing the right thing. I know that most people play the Axis. To be honest, I'm very conflicted playing either side, but thought I'd give the Soviets a try, starting at Stalingrad.

1) I will focus on morale more than experience, as you've suggested, when deciding how to replenish them when they come off the line. While not always possible to pick when ground units come off the line, after they fall to 50% I start looking for when to pull them; and if 40% it's time to take my lumps.

With air units, it's a lot easier. I usually rest them when they drop to 75% and don't bring them back until 90% replaced. The same with Support Units.

If nothing else, it certainly makes the turns longer.

2) As to favoring Tank and Mech units over Rifle Corps, I think you may be right. I've been watching my Fuel reserves dropping faster than the Axis, and I wonder if I will be back to walking to Berlin. I will explore than when I return to the game, but I've taken a hiatus to do other things.

Thank you all.

[Jango32]

Resources don't matter as either side, you're fine. Crank that supply priority to 4 for the entire Red Army and you're good to reach Berlin in late 1943/mid 1944.

The reason why rifle corps are way better is because they have a lot of infantry. The more infantry a unit has in this game, the better it performs. So with rifle corps, attach 3 rifle brigades and make sure they upgrade to Guards by farming 7 victories. Ideally you can spam hasty attacks on a weak unit so it just retreats and is eligible to be attacked again.

Tank and mech corps at this point in the game have little infantry, so unless you need MPs and you cannot temporarily motorise rifle corps, it's not great to build them.

[rickwarintheeast]

Jango, I appreciate the thought about using Soviet infantry.

I remember reading somewhere regarding the strategies used by the Allies to win the war. The Brits, still reeling from their WW I Somme experience, tried to technology their way to victory. The US decided on industrial output as the key, hence the Sherman, Jeeps, trucks, B-17s, Liberty ships, etc. Meanwhile, the Soviets, with neither enough tech or industrial capacity, spent their infantry lavishly.

I've noticed, in WITE2, the Soviet armor and mechanized units can't seem to manage the deep penetrations the German manage in the early stages of the war, in part, because I have insufficient heavy infantry to follow up and relieve the tankers. I guess I'm talking myself into more Rifle XXX.

But to that end, I combine three infantry divisions when I can afford the frontage, and have enough admins, and I also try the production window. But I keep running up against TOO MANY 1's when I try to build infantry XX, so I laboriously build brigades, combine them into divisions, and then into corps. Am I doing it incorrectly?

Thanks.