Barbarossa and the Red Army (Full Version)

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jjdenver -> Barbarossa and the Red Army (12/28/2019 3:42:37 PM)

Hi,

I haven't played SU in a Barbarossa yet but am in an early PBEM game and wondering how this is going to work.

Do the infantry units that are in reserve all come on the first turn of Barb or do they trickle in over several turns/months?

Is it realistic to disband most of the at-start 20 strength infantry units after Barb starts and you have enough 30 strength infantry units to hold the line?

If you build let's say an armor unit pre-Barb I've noticed that it comes on as 25 or 30 experience. Do these units get any bump in experience once Barb starts or they just have to earn the exp in battle? Does this make it a bad idea to build any armor/mech pre-Barb?

If you build arm/mech pre-barb but they arrive after war starts will they get 50 exp or still get the 25/30 exp they would get if they arrive pre-war?

Thanks



murdock762 -> RE: Barbarossa and the Red Army (12/28/2019 8:16:58 PM)

1) reserves will trickle over several months.

2) idk for PMEM. The advantage is you get some production and more importantly you are able to save that logisitics for better units - the really weak infantry tend to shatter a lot. But it is real balance act to trade off long term vs short term. The advantage the RU has is lots of units of inferior quality - disband too many and you will end up with a smaller army made up of inferior units.

3) Yes I think the XP does grow over time, I think is based on date not if invadaded or not though. Might be getting that confused with mobility which definetely goes up.

Hope this helps new to the game and no PBEM experience so might have some details wrong

My understanding is you just want to survive and stay in the fight until the western allies can take off some pressure. Also the weather is huge help in Winter, but you really have to scramble to survive the annual german push in the spring.

Also RU will be able to build Armies of 36 strength - those are the back bone of your mid game / late game armies. But not sure when they become available to build



AlbertN -> RE: Barbarossa and the Red Army (12/28/2019 11:35:22 PM)

As German - I tend to play more Axis - I found the super-armoured (/mechanized) armada of the Soviets to be way more dreadful than an amount of rlatively puny corps that die on the go.

Xp starts at 25, ups to 35 after Winter War, and goes to 50 when at war or '42 - the earliest of the two.



Journier -> RE: Barbarossa and the Red Army (12/28/2019 11:50:49 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: jjdenver

Hi,

I haven't played SU in a Barbarossa yet but am in an early PBEM game and wondering how this is going to work.

Do the infantry units that are in reserve all come on the first turn of Barb or do they trickle in over several turns/months?

Is it realistic to disband most of the at-start 20 strength infantry units after Barb starts and you have enough 30 strength infantry units to hold the line?

If you build let's say an armor unit pre-Barb I've noticed that it comes on as 25 or 30 experience. Do these units get any bump in experience once Barb starts or they just have to earn the exp in battle? Does this make it a bad idea to build any armor/mech pre-Barb?

If you build arm/mech pre-barb but they arrive after war starts will they get 50 exp or still get the 25/30 exp they would get if they arrive pre-war?

Thanks


the xp of the unit will slowly increase as it takes losses in combat, so your gonna have to fight your units on german lines during first winter to just get them barely able to hold a defensive line before summer of 42.



jjdenver -> RE: Barbarossa and the Red Army (12/29/2019 2:13:39 AM)

So a tank unit that is 25 exp - is it better to disband and then rebuild it later? It'll cost a lot to keep shoveling replacements into such a crappy unit. I've already built some and they are pretty ugly - much weaker than a German infantry corp.



murdock762 -> RE: Barbarossa and the Red Army (12/29/2019 4:56:00 AM)

The worst part is you will need tons more supply trucks then you think. Your limited production is even worse then it appears. My current game (vs computer) I am buy minimum of 30 and hopefully a few more every single turn. What number do you guys target? Seems you actually need closer to 50 if you attacking 3 fronts and using some planes. 30 - 35 feels like closer to only 2 objectives per turn



Jim D Burns -> RE: Barbarossa and the Red Army (12/29/2019 8:47:44 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: jjdenver
So a tank unit that is 25 exp - is it better to disband and then rebuild it later?


The Soviets do not have the manpower available in game to make this a cost effective strategy. You lose most of the units manpower when you disband it. Better to keep it on the map defending a bend hex in the lines that can only be attacked from one hexside, as a rear area city guard or as a ZOC garrison behind the main line.

Remember, once your manpower goes below 50% the 50% experience for new builds will tick down rapidly and any new units will then be low experience again, so don't waste time disbanding and rebuilding. Build all new stuff while manpower is above 50%.

I'd perhaps think about disbanding the surviving starting corps once your manpower first dips below 50% to get it to climb back up a bit for a few more units. But only if I had a decently large on map army at the time. Full sized 30-36 strength units however will never build out your logistics cap before your manpower dips below 50%, so don't waste any time trying to disband and re-create a unit.

Jim



Jim D Burns -> RE: Barbarossa and the Red Army (12/29/2019 8:54:08 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: murdock762
What number do you guys target?


30 is way too low. If you have 12 tank/mech units attacking that's 24 right there, another 30+ for your planes and you're above 50. I'd try and build 80+ a turn given that you'll probably have lots of other units that need trucks besides your main force. 100+ would be better, but only during the clear turns, inactive winter turns will let you ease off and build other things.

As the allies in my PBEM game I was building 100+ a turn and was always short late game. Early game when production multiples are low and you're trying to build out to your logistics cap, you should probably do without except in an emergency.

Jim



jjdenver -> RE: Barbarossa and the Red Army (12/29/2019 12:55:09 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Jim D Burns
quote:

ORIGINAL: jjdenver
So a tank unit that is 25 exp - is it better to disband and then rebuild it later?

The Soviets do not have the manpower available in game to make this a cost effective strategy. You lose most of the units manpower when you disband it. Better to keep it on the map defending a bend hex in the lines that can only be attacked from one hexside, as a rear area city guard or as a ZOC garrison behind the main line.

Remember, once your manpower goes below 50% the 50% experience for new builds will tick down rapidly and any new units will then be low experience again, so don't waste time disbanding and rebuilding. Build all new stuff while manpower is above 50%.

I'd perhaps think about disbanding the surviving starting corps once your manpower first dips below 50% to get it to climb back up a bit for a few more units. But only if I had a decently large on map army at the time. Full sized 30-36 strength units however will never build out your logistics cap before your manpower dips below 50%, so don't waste any time trying to disband and re-create a unit.

Thanks Jim. But disbanding gives half production, full logistics, full manpower back. Would that change your thinking? I guess the only problem might be that you'd go over your manpower cap and I think the game rests back down to the cap next turn if you don't spend it immediately. Would that change your analysis?

Btw, it really seems like Soviet manpower needs to be increased. One of the advantages they had was relatively high manpower, so to see them having severe manpower problems that affect the quality of their units before 44/45 seems a little off.
[image]local://upfiles/26942/F0FFD05FB8CC4FE0AFB98F5F0FA48289.jpg[/image]



Flaviusx -> RE: Barbarossa and the Red Army (12/29/2019 3:18:00 PM)

It's tempting to disband the garbage early mech, but don't do it. Better to level up their experience in combat.

If at the end of 1941 you find yourself with some garbage mech despite doing this and the front has stabilized and you are approaching 50 experience, then maybe yeah. Indeed, at this point you may even want to selectively disband some of the reserve rifle armies. Those come in at 30 experience and 39 tech and aren't that amazing initially. You can swap those out for antitank rifle armies.

Soviet manpower is probably too low. I have an idea for how to extend it but that would be revealing my build order and I'm waiting until the next patch is out before I want to do this and have a chance to test this in PBEM.

If it was up to me, I'd bump up Soviet manpower to 80 or so.



Twotribes -> RE: Barbarossa and the Red Army (12/29/2019 4:31:59 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: jjdenver

quote:

ORIGINAL: Jim D Burns
quote:

ORIGINAL: jjdenver
So a tank unit that is 25 exp - is it better to disband and then rebuild it later?

The Soviets do not have the manpower available in game to make this a cost effective strategy. You lose most of the units manpower when you disband it. Better to keep it on the map defending a bend hex in the lines that can only be attacked from one hexside, as a rear area city guard or as a ZOC garrison behind the main line.

Remember, once your manpower goes below 50% the 50% experience for new builds will tick down rapidly and any new units will then be low experience again, so don't waste time disbanding and rebuilding. Build all new stuff while manpower is above 50%.

I'd perhaps think about disbanding the surviving starting corps once your manpower first dips below 50% to get it to climb back up a bit for a few more units. But only if I had a decently large on map army at the time. Full sized 30-36 strength units however will never build out your logistics cap before your manpower dips below 50%, so don't waste any time trying to disband and re-create a unit.

Thanks Jim. But disbanding gives half production, full logistics, full manpower back. Would that change your thinking? I guess the only problem might be that you'd go over your manpower cap and I think the game rests back down to the cap next turn if you don't spend it immediately. Would that change your analysis?

Btw, it really seems like Soviet manpower needs to be increased. One of the advantages they had was relatively high manpower, so to see them having severe manpower problems that affect the quality of their units before 44/45 seems a little off.
[image]local://upfiles/26942/F0FFD05FB8CC4FE0AFB98F5F0FA48289.jpg[/image]

Actually in most ww2 games the Soviets have man power problems in 44 and 45.



Jim D Burns -> RE: Barbarossa and the Red Army (12/30/2019 1:05:48 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: jjdenver
full manpower back. Would that change your thinking?


If that is true then yes. I'd disband them once manpower went below 50% to drive it above 50% for builds. But only if production experience is still at 50%. It goes down fast when you dip below 50% stockpiles so it would only be worth it if you still were at 50% for new units.

In my game most of my mechs were near 45%-50% from battle experience, so I didn't even look to do this. But if you have stuff still near 30% go for it.

Jim



jjdenver -> RE: Barbarossa and the Red Army (12/31/2019 1:39:55 PM)

I looked at units avail to build. Understanding that when a unit is disbanded all of manpower and half of production is returned, it seems like cavalry is the most efficient way to store manpower pre-war (120 production, 20 manpower to build) and would return 60 production and 20 manpower with a loss of 60 prod when disbanded.

Their combat capability is reasonable - better than the pre-war 20 strength infantry corps and they are much cheaper than the mech/armor corps which would sacrifice a lot of production when disbanded.

What do you think of a strategy of building a bunch of approx 20(?) cavalry corp pre-war to avoid letting manpower hit the 99% cap and essentially "store" manpower. Then Barb starts, begin disbanding the pre-war infantry corp to reclaim manpower while building infantry armies with saved production. use cavalry corps to hold key cities and river crossings while you fill a line somewhere in the rear with the new infantry armies. Cavalry corps are mobile enough to run away fairly well (7 vs 5 movement). Then when more manpower is stabilized after all the pre-war infantry corps are disbanded, the cav corps can be disbanded. This strategy seems like it could keep manpower stored up fairly efficiently. The only problem is that I haven't seen a Barb so am not sure if Germans would take too many important cities while all this was going on.



Flaviusx -> RE: Barbarossa and the Red Army (12/31/2019 4:13:15 PM)

What I think is that you have discovered my new secret Soviet strategy. This is exactly what I plan on doing. Pre war Cavalry spam. You have to wait until after Finland to do this. And you may as well disband most of the rifle corps, too, save whatever is necessary to guard the Crimea and caucus coastlines.

Build these at AT. With 1940 tech and 35% experience, they come in as strength 4 units. And they are dirt cheap. You could literally build dozens of these things up to the end of 1940, at which point you need to switch to upgrades and replacements for the armor on map. By May of 1941 it will all be up to speed, except for perhaps some air units.

But it is untested and I don't know how well it will perform in PBEM. It works like a charm against the AI, but that is no proper test.

I hate giving this away, but there you go. If it ends up being a total flop in PBEM, well, you have been warned.



Flaviusx -> RE: Barbarossa and the Red Army (12/31/2019 4:29:58 PM)

What I found in solo playtesting is this Soviet cavalry spam, stiffened by Soviet armor and air, has some reasonable counterattacking capability even in summer 1941. The extra movement helps a lot here. They can infiltrate zocs. They can zip through the Pripyet marshes, too, and cause the Germans headaches.

You probably will end up losing many of them over the course of the first year, but whatever. They are far more useful than the prewar rifle corps.



Barthheart -> RE: Barbarossa and the Red Army (12/31/2019 5:14:28 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx
...

You probably will end up losing many of them over the course of the first year, but whatever.
...


Stalin? Is that you?
[:D]



Flaviusx -> RE: Barbarossa and the Red Army (12/31/2019 5:15:10 PM)

Driving the Red Army requires a certain bloody mindedness, heh.



Barthheart -> RE: Barbarossa and the Red Army (12/31/2019 5:17:57 PM)

👍



jjdenver -> RE: Barbarossa and the Red Army (1/1/2020 10:52:00 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx
What I think is that you have discovered my new secret Soviet strategy. This is exactly what I plan on doing. Pre war Cavalry spam. You have to wait until after Finland to do this. And you may as well disband most of the rifle corps, too, save whatever is necessary to guard the Crimea and caucus coastlines.

Build these at AT. With 1940 tech and 35% experience, they come in as strength 4 units. And they are dirt cheap. You could literally build dozens of these things up to the end of 1940, at which point you need to switch to upgrades and replacements for the armor on map. By May of 1941 it will all be up to speed, except for perhaps some air units.

But it is untested and I don't know how well it will perform in PBEM. It works like a charm against the AI, but that is no proper test.

I hate giving this away, but there you go. If it ends up being a total flop in PBEM, well, you have been warned.


This makes sense Flav, but why upgrade the prewar tank (and are you also saying mech?) units? They have low exp, and seem better disbanded and rebuilt at 50%?

re: disbanding rifle corp, I guess you have to be careful not to go over 100% manpower as you do this - right? That would be inefficient since one of the basic goals here is to maximize manpower which is a Soviet weak point in this game (kinda silly that the game models it this way when manpower was actually a Soviet strength).

When is winter war script triggered in game?



ClanCochrane -> RE: Barbarossa and the Red Army (1/14/2020 3:49:33 AM)

Defend river lines and hold cities as long as possible, and always have a fallback line ready. Use the defend mode on all units, and don't loose the red air force. Keep it out of overrun distances



Flaviusx -> RE: Barbarossa and the Red Army (1/14/2020 11:45:19 AM)

I disagree you should always use hold. There are intermediate fallback lines that don't need to be held and weaker units will explode if you do this rather than retreat and force the Germans to spend more moves and attacks chasing them down.

I also don't think you should necessarily immediately run back to the nearest river line.

What I think the Russians should do is use their depth in the first few turns to let the Wehrmacht outrun their infantry support and try to catch the panzers in exposed positions and counterattack them. This is where cavalry spam comes in handy. They can work their way around the gaps.

That's the theory anyways, and I'm hoping to find a non Sea Lion game where I can test it.



Michael T -> RE: Barbarossa and the Red Army (1/14/2020 12:38:17 PM)

quote:

and I'm hoping to find a non Sea Lion game where I can test it


Good luck with that.



Flaviusx -> RE: Barbarossa and the Red Army (1/14/2020 1:23:45 PM)

It's super frustrating. Either Sea Lion works and it is game over. Or it doesn't work (or work well enough) and it is also game over, but the other way.

It's forcing games to end prematurely before things really get cooking.

It needs to be made much harder and less tempting.




AlbertN -> RE: Barbarossa and the Red Army (1/14/2020 3:06:57 PM)

I don't believe Sealion is a game over at all for the Allies - since it boosts up USA production drastically.

The difference is only felt in the -long- run where there is the absence of UK units with their logistic cap. BUT at the beginning it is a huge advantage for the Allies by what I saw.
USA can take back UK a year after or so - which is plainly wrong as I see it.

In my game against Saper2229 though as he sent USA troops in Russia - well his Brits are awfully absent now.

But in regular games without Sealion the Allies are on steroids that can do '42 DDay happily (Sure they risk to get crushed depending how much Germany strips from Russia)



Flaviusx -> RE: Barbarossa and the Red Army (1/14/2020 3:12:09 PM)

Like I said: it's game over one way or the other. If it fails or comes up short and ends up bringing in the US early this is an Axis loss.

If it works and Britain is overrun quickly and Iberia flips, I'm going to call that an auto win for the Axis. This hole is so deep at that point that it will be hard for the allies to recover from it. It's an 8 point swing in VPs. That is huge.

It's an all in move.

The nature of all in moves is such that they will determine the outcome of the game then and there, one way or the other.

Right now the game's incentives are lined up to drive Axis players towards this early all in and many of them are taking it and we aren't seeing hardly any historical games now with the Germans turning east. I find this frustrating as hell and very questionable design.

The core problem is that Sea Lion is too easy. It needs to be made more difficult so fewer Axis players take this road. The fact that so many of them are taking it is highly telling.



kennonlightfoot -> RE: Barbarossa and the Red Army (1/14/2020 5:31:55 PM)

First a question on "Hold". Seems I saw something to the effect that a Unit on Hold traded extra losses rather than retreating. If so is it all that good of idea to use it unless the Unit is really in a position that must be held to prevent surrounds, etc?

It looks like some changes were made for games started using 05 update that make Sealion more difficult for the Germans. I can't be certain since I tested against the AI (just to judge production rate). But I didn't have equivalent data on 04. I can't pinpoint the cause of the change but by March 1st it looked like the UK raised their forces in England to 20 plus units. This may be enough to prevent any easy port captures.



Jim D Burns -> RE: Barbarossa and the Red Army (1/14/2020 10:45:27 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: kennonlightfoot
This may be enough to prevent any easy port captures.


The problem as I see it is Germany's air dominance. Britain cannot prevent Germany from taking any port within ground strike range of the German air force. Germany begins the game with 4 tac and 2 cas, that's 12 ground strikes (more if he built more cas for France). Britain can only intercept a few of those, the rest will reduce a port defender enough to guarantee it falls due to Germany's 30 point experience advantage.

Perhaps the game should start with some AA in every southern port within 10 hexes of the French coast, that might help. The Chain home radar the British used to counter Germany's air power advantage is missing so use AA to simulate its effect or something.

I'm not saying make it impossible to invade, but at least make it a difficult proposition. Right now it's pretty much unstoppable if the Germans put some early resources into the effort.

Jim



Michael T -> RE: Barbarossa and the Red Army (1/15/2020 2:11:13 AM)

The other thing is Russia. There is no incentive to attack them. They can build these very ahistorical cav/mech armies and they have harder VP to capture.

More VP in Russia, less in the UK plus some restrictions on disbanding the crap Russian Corp while neutral would help make them a more tempting target.

As is all the Germans I have encountered are quite happy to spend 1940 and 1941 pounding the UK. Even though to date I have won all those games it is same story every time.



Flaviusx -> RE: Barbarossa and the Red Army (1/15/2020 3:10:55 AM)

I would say that Britain needs fewer VPs. 5 packed into that one island is a lot. And it's really 8 as part of a package deal including Lisbon, Madrid and Gibraltar. Spain activates if Britain is overrun. Russia has 6 total, but only 3 of those are easy.

The only reason the infantry corps get disbanded is because they are abysmal. Bump up their experience and I'd leave them alone. Give them 30% at least. The prewar formations were at least as professional as the wartime reservists that you get at 30% experience. Then, if you want to disallow disbands, ok.



Michael T -> RE: Barbarossa and the Red Army (1/15/2020 3:14:55 AM)

Yes, 20% exp is too low.



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