Daniele
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Russian Buildup in the East
Reinforcements 1940 and Early 1941
The USSR gets far fewer build points than Germany at the beginning of the war. Primarily that is because of the difference in their production multiples. In 1939, while each Germany factory is generating 0.75 build points (BPs), each Russian factory is generating only 0.25 build points. In 1940, the comparison is 0.75 to 0.50. In 1941 it is 1.0 to 0.50. Partially to compensate for this painful disadvantage, G kept the USSR out of conflicts, so he wouldn’t take any losses. The USSR claimed Eastern Poland and the Baltic States as per the Nazi-Soviet Pact. But they did not claim Bessarabia or the Finnish Borderlands. Nor did they declare war on Persia or Japan, which many Allied players choose to do. The passivity of the USSR had the other important benefit of not impeding the entry of the USA into the war (i.e., no additional losses of US Entry Markers due to Russian aggression).
G says: The USA entry pool was very low so the Allies and Russia had to be careful about not causing a bad US reaction by declaring war on neutrals like Persia. In China the Japanese were advancing fast and capturing Chinese cities but not one US entry roll had been successful for the Allies for those cities.
G timed his builds so that all the armor and mechanized units in the USSR force pool would be on the map in time for defending against Barbarossa. That means he built them early and put most of the infantry units into production later. See Figure 6-1 for what specifically arrived when. As the turns advanced, he removed an air unit from the east (i.e., Siberia), placing a pilot and air unit in reserve. Then the next turn he brought them back onto the map in European Russia. That transfer of air units from Siberia to Europe cost nothing and was a lot easier that having to rebase an air unit 9 hexes per impulse across all of the Soviet Union. In the figure you can also see that he built pilots for reserve air units: 4 new pilots but only 1 new air unit arrived as reinforcements. That accounts for the drop off in the number of air units in the reserve pool. Besides the air units being useful in fighting the Germans, they served a dual purpose as garrison points along the Polish and Rumanian border. Each pilot cost 2 BPs. That translates as only 2 BPs for 1 garrison point, which was a good deal.
Barbarossa - USSR North
Figure 6-2 shows the disposition of the USSR forces in the north, just prior to Germany breaking the Nazi-Soviet Pact and declaring war on the USSR. It clearly shows that G was “stuffing the border”. That is, he was making it difficult for Germany to break the pact, by placing numerous Russian units within 3 hexes of a hex controlled by Germany. Only 5 units are too far away to count as garrison: the 4-1 unit in Estonia, the 3-5 cavalry in Novgorod, the 6-3 infantry in Riga (Latvia), the 2-6 armor division at the bottom of the screenshot, and the 4-2 artillery in the lower right corner of the screenshot. There were two other ‘lost’ garrison points: the disorganized 3-5 motorized and the 5-3 infantry corps (as indicated by the small orange circle above those units). They were disorganized because G had just rearranged his front line in the previous impulse, during bad weather.
About the 4-1 garrison unit in Tallinn, G didn’t want Germany to invade that city from the sea, thereby liberating Estonia at the end of whichever turn Germany declared war on the USSR. That’s also why there is a unit in Riga, the capital of Latvia. If G hadn’t been stuffing the border, he would have set up a defensive line behind the Dvina river, running from Vitebsk to Riga. Aside from a couple of sacrificial lambs, the rest of his forces would have been out or range of the Stukas.
The standard placement of units about to be hammered by superior forces is to hide in cities and forests. Here, hunkering down in three forest hexes and a city are all the units to which the Germans can move adjacent. In the front line, the 4-1, 6-1, and 2-1 garrison units, plus the 3-4 cavalry unit, are all fondly known as “speed bumps”. They won’t cause a lot of difficulty for the German army, but will slow them down. Other units, with more movement points, will withdraw gradually north and east to better defensive positions. Being within 3 hexes of the German front line runs the risk of ground strikes by German bombers. The 3 Stukas are particularly menacing.
You might have noticed that Leningrad is defenseless at the moment (naval units can simply be overrun by any land unit). That’s not a problem because the USSR will have reserve units to place on the map once Germany declares war. Specifically, a very nice infantry unit arrives in Leningrad. Similarly, reserve units are likely to be placed in Minsk, Vitebsk, and Pskov. All the reserve units arrive disorganized and are unable to move until the turn following the DOW. There will also be a unit going to Murmansk in the far, far north. The cavalry unit in Novgorod has the task of moving up to the Finnish border west of Lake Ladoga (east of Leningrad). That’s important to keep the Finns from rampaging around the lake and messing up the rail line north of Lake Ilmen connecting Leningrad to Moscow.
Barbarossa - USSR South
Figure 6-3 shows the biggest problem for the USSR in 1941. Where are the forests and cities for the defenders to hide in? All those clear terrain hexes in the Ukraine, combined with Fine weather during the two summer turns, means the enemy tanks will be hard to stop. This is why G put his armor and mechanized units in the south, along with the super HQ, Zhukov. Timoshenko is also present. G likes to use his HQs to reorganize his defending units that get into trouble in the front line. When attacked, a disorganized defending corps gives the attacker +2 DRM. Two disorganized corps in a hex sums to a +4 DRM, a juicy target for the opposing side.
Becoming disorganized is a likely occurrence for the Russian units in the first impulse of Barbarossa. Germany has bombers galore in the south, with the majority of them having a range of 4 or more. The better Stukas deployed in the south have tactical air factors of 5 and 6. Performing doubled ground strikes during the surprise impulse (when the Russian air units are forbidden to fly) gives them a 75% and 84% chance, respectively, of disorganizing each unit a bombed hex. That accounts for the USSR forces being spread out: “Spread out men! So they don’t get us all with one burst!”. Notice the engineer division in Sevastopol. He is there to discourage a paratroop invasion. The other units in Crimea are within 3 hexes of a German controlled hex and count as garrison for the neutrality pact.
Conclusion
The USSR is dealt a difficult hand to play when Germany masses on its western border and declares war. Placing the majority of units close to the border can delay Germany from breaking the pact for a while. Choosing that option has its own risks, since so many units are vulnerable to the classic blitz attack by armor and air units. In the next post, I’ll show the first round of attacks that kicked off Barbarossa.
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