B'aar Baa Red Sheep

STAVKA 21 March 1945

The first days fighting had mostly been a huge frustration to the Soviet leadership. Although they expected it, it was still a surprise to realise just how many countries they were now at war with:



Perhaps the single most successful operation was the bombing of Guam, something like 50% of the large supply stockpile had already been destroyed. This would leave the Americans with the choice of leaving the garrison useless or sending supply convoys into a well prepared Soviet trap:



Elsewhere, the main frustration had been, with the exception of the fronts associated with the European Southern Sector (Swiss & the 2 Italian ones), to actually make an attack. As senior commander for the German sector, Zhukov was the main target of Stalin's anger. The only good news in this whole region was some evidence that the British might commit forces to France and the first V2 raid on London.

The main problem was the tendency of the AI controlled armies and fronts to send their HQ brigades 100s of kilometers to the rear. In the Arctic, these units were retreating back to the USSR, until direct STAVKA intervention, and a similar pattern was being repeated in E Iran:



The relevant commanders were left in no doubt, the NKVD would be visiting their command centres if military performance did not improve. Stalin had no desire to personally supervise every air wing and every decision.

[all this is v wierd, as mentioned above, just to test out stability after fiddling around, I ran a few days and the AI generally got on with it - though I wasn't paying much attention. But this new trait of sending HQs back to the nearest Soviet owned piece of land I've not seen - and Finland and Guanxi where its been at the worst are puppets not allies, and in Finland I've used an almost identical order structure as I did when fighting the Germans]

The 22nd would bring the first naval invasions in the Pacific, as well as the attack on Stockholm.

anweRU said:

May be the Comrade Commanders see this as an unnecessary war, and don't want to fight? The logistical bombing of Guam seems to be going well. This way you won't have to destroy its port. I ended up doing that to the Australians holding the Admiralty islands.

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Stuyvesant said:

Early days, so I'll wait and see how things turn out - but the bombing of Guam is impressive.

I hope the AI gets the message and starts to send its units forward.

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Since the bombing of Japan, I've put a lot of effort into training up the TAC & NAV bombers - esp in logistic strikes and naval actions (ports/ships). That, plus radar guided bombs, is making the air strikes really deadly. As ever, its a lesson in not being into just the hardware, serious research time on the operational techs pays off - as has improved training for the VNF. Have actually won a few small naval meeting engagements

Ended up taking my own control on the main western front - its not just the AIs tardiness, I actually (& this is personal than anything else) don't particularly enjoy the hands off element. Also, the AI was doing some silly things - theres a weak French line more or less on the old Maginot positions, I'd have infiltrated it, gone for their supplies and that would have been that. The AI has chucked my best tank army against fortifications in hills over a river. I like trying to use the different formations as they are configured for.

some gameplay issues

This post is just to report some things I've been testing out ... and also some frustrations with the AI.

So one thing I really wanted to nail was the issue, do Engineers have a positive effect? (this sounds like sex in the city ... apols ):

Well yes they do. The speed multiplier (& I've got bridging to level 4, so +20%) is not added to the base speed, it offsets any reduction. So these two rifle divs both move at 4km/ph, one has an attached police brigade, one an attached engineer. The one with engineers will arrive 10 hours earlier:



Second bit, unusually, I'm playing with the air mission pop up and pause as I'm hunting allied strat bombers and want to know where they are. Well as part of sorting out the AI mess on the western front, I sent in tac to logistically bomb a French strongpoint at Strasbourg, well logistical bombing also kills:



Next, impact of spies on production. Well for some reason almost all (or all?) the impact appears on your reinforcement line - this early in the war I don't particularly need to reinforce anything so can cheerfully ignore this, but if your reinforcement load jumps its probably because enemy spies have got bored stalking your scientists and are now manufacturing fake replacement demands:



Ok, AI. I don't know what its been on, but I ended up going back two days and imposing manual control after the first day. Its not just the tardy start, thats ok and sort of expected, its the really poor decision making. When I got hold of it, it had tank armies going directly across rivers, uphill into fortifications (Metz and Strasbourg) or had just launched everything at the target nearest to it:



So a sector, that was ideal for infiltration tactics (& the individual fronts had blitz orders) has got bogged down till the post-combat delays clear up. This, and the retreating HQ issue, are utterly at variance to my earlier, and v positive experience, with the AI.

Other game play grumble - my 3 island invasions for some reasons all got cancelled on reloading so are into post-combat delays before they restart. This is a pain in itself and all the more worrying as there is a US carrier fleet in the region .... and on that note of tension --- back to the game

STAVKA 25 March 1945

Again, the results of the previous 3 days were mixed. NKVD cadres had been sent to a number of staff HQs on the western front to check out rumours of sabotage. The net result was a major improvement in performance but some earlier mistakes needed to be rectified.

The two fronts pushing into the Netherlands and Belgium were making steady progress:



The main problem here was the erroneous decision to commit 4th Shock to a direct assault in Luxembourg when the doctrinally correct manouvre would have been to engage to pin, infiltrate and surround the enemy.

The main drive across the Rhine had suffered from a similar failure to follow proper doctrine on the commitment of armoured forces. Fortunately units of the South German Front had operated according to doctrine and these, plus the 19th Army moving through Nancy, would pocket the French troops whilst Soviet bombers hit their supply dumps:



In South France, the Swiss Front had followed up its earlier victories with a new offensive and had split the Vichy from the Free French forces, opening the scope for a deep offensive. Further south, Turin Front forces had just cleared the alpine line and the Marseilles Front would do so later in the day, at which stage both fronts would release their armoured reserves:



In the Pacific, radio silence had led to confusion and the various invasions of Wake, Johnston and Midway had been temporarily broken off. The planned landings at Hawaii had been cancelled as a scouting destroyer squadron had been destroyed by a USN carrier group. A revised invasion plan, hopefully using the new island airports would be devised.

The biggest success in this period was in the air. Guam and Hong Kong had both been put out of supply and a single Naval air squadron was badly damaging the Swedish navy:



The new Il-28 bombers were proving highly effective in a range of roles:



Equally the re-equipped strategic bombers were reducing Siam's capacity to resist:



Soviet jet fighters and interceptors were hunting British and Spanish bombers over Germany and Switzerland - whilst some raids had got through, they were not sustained, indicating heavy allied losses at the hands of the new Mig-9s and Yak-17s:

STAVKA 29 March 1945

At last, the western axis was progressing as expected, even if a number of tank armies were still out of position.

In the Benelux region, forces were now just on the verge of starting to enter Amsterdam and Brussels, whilst elements of 3 GA were entering Den Haag, also 3rd Tank had disentangled itself from the Luxembourg fighting and would allow the Ardennes front to broaden its range of operations:



Further, south, the main French front had been ripped open and Soviet supply lines much improved by capturing Strasbourg and isolating the fortress at Metz. Of particular impact were the new T-44s in use by 3rd Tank Army in the drive for Paris:



Some elements of S German Front and the Swiss Front had combined to drive deep along the Vichy/French border and to threaten the final defensive lines of both forces:



Elsewhere, a number of border battles had been won in NW and NE Iran, opening the road into Iraq and for a drive onto Tehran. In the Pacific, the assaults on the islands had recommenced, and a number of small, but morale boostiing victories had occured against small USN squadrons - whether they were trying to extract key personnel or just on reconnaisance was not clear.
In Scandinavia, Stockholm was expecting to fall in a day or so, whilst Lulea had been captured in the north. Critical to this operation was the 20th Tank Division (unusually attached to an infantry army), again with modern T-44s:





The political consequences of the war of liberation were slowly spreading, with Saudi Arabia joining the Comintern:



In the air, the VVS continued to hit allied bombers hard and had achieved almost complete air supremacy over France and the low countries. The interceptor squadrons were being deployed for air superiority rather than the defense of Soviet territory:



Something like 30 V2 batteries were now available, but were being saved for the campaign against the UK.

In the Far East, the Phillipines debate continued. It was clear that the capture of the main Pacific islands would be slow, not least as some solution would have to be found to the USN at Pearl Harbour. This meant a considerable number of ground units and naval assets were unused. The VVS' strategic bombers had shifted from Siam to bombing Manila and other industrial and resource centres whilst the Tactical bombers were knocking out supply and ammunition dumps. Once this was complete, well equipped Soviet units should be able to capture Manila, despite the notional size of the defending army.

STAVKA 30 March 1945

When the histories of the war were written, the 29th became known as the 'day of the VNF' as throughout the day news of naval defeat and victory came through.

The day's greatest success came at Wake, where despite heavy losses, the fleet protected the last stages of the landings and Wake became the Soviet army and navy's first successful marine operation:



On the opposite part of the area of operations, the invasion of Johnston though ended in a costly failure, with the loss of considerable ships and expensive, well trained and equipped units - the survivors limped back to port to re-organise:



It was off Midway, that the effective power of the new VNF was shown. No less than 3 USN fleets attacked during the day, including 3 BBs (& 2 of these were sunk and the third badly damaged), each was beaten off by Kuznetsov's battleships and failed to interfere with the ongoing landings:



The only losses were that all the Heavy Cruisers had been badly damaged, but none sunk, and were now moving back to port.

Given the disparity in naval strength between the VNF and the USN, it was clear that 3 simultaneous invasions was too many, and that the main combat power of the fleet was needed in operations in potentially hostile areas, preferably with VVS support.

Almost unnoticed in all this news came in reports of the fall of Stockholm after bitter fighting across the old city and the numerous small bridges and canals, and the destruction of what was left of the Swedish navy:

anweRU said:

Regarding the Wake army, Bagramian was a Front commander in real life, and Getman was a tankist. I don't recall if he ended at Corps or Army level command at the end of the war.

Good job with sinking two USN BBs. And good luck with further naval invasions.

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I like giving Bagramian a decent role as he looks such a jolly soul - esp for a Soviet general of the era ... its hard to imagine him in a Brezhnev style get up.

The naval thing continues to be tense ... and in part disastrous

STAVKA 4 April 1945

The next 6 days of the war was also dominated by the evolving campaign in the Pacific, although the bulk of the focus was on Western Europe.

Not surprisingly, further bad news came from the stricken survivors off Johnston Island when the last CA and transports were sunk - with the loss of one of the USSR's premiere combat units, the 2nd Shock Army. Fortunately the senior officers were rescued and given new commands:



This bad news was partially offset by the discovery that, in fact, so far, all the Swedish navy had NOT been sunk - something that was quickly rectified by the Baltic Fleet:



Finally, the naval combat off Midway intensified across the 30/31 March. First a small USN destroyer squadron was quickly sunk, but later on the 30th the carrier group, earlier spotted off Hawaii, attacked. Again Kuznetsov managed to keep the landings safe and not only beat off the USN but sunk 2 carriers. Another carrier group attacked on the 31st and was beaten off with the loss of another carrier. Shortly after this, Chuikov's 2nd Gds Army captured the island.



These naval victories had been secured for minimal outright Soviet losses, but almost every ship in the main fleet and the transports had been badly damaged. They were sent back to ports to refit and reorganise.

These operations had a large impact on Soviet planning for future naval invasions. Clearly escorting transports with HC/DD units was not enough if the enemy was strong & would lead to the utter destruction of both ships and land units. However, a large group of BBs seemed to be able to withstand considerable damage, and the substantial training programme was paying off in naval combat. For the invasion first of Hawaii, then of N America, it was clearly desirable to avoid contested landings if at all possible and to ensure that the main combat fleet was on hand to fend off any interventions by the USN.

Politically the Comintern carried on growing and Afghanistan took the chance to attack the British in India:



In the meantime, the war in NW Europe became a clear Soviet victory, Amsterdam fell after light fighting on the 30th, whilst the tough Luxembourg army was finally overrun late on the 30th with 2000 Soviet and 9000 Luxemburger's dead. With these victories, the tanks of the Central Front were able to start moving on Paris:



It was during this stage of the war that Soviet logistical planners had to struggle with the consequences of the heavily motorised forces in use and the impact of jet engines for the VVS. Fuel shortages, rather than supplies, proved to be common and hampered both air superiority and ground attack operations.

In the middle and near east, Soviet troops moved in NW Iran, and entered Iraq. In the E of Iran, the cavalry group was now making steady progress and had outmanouvered the slow moving Persian troops. The main enemy here, and in India, was time not any organised resistance:

Stuyvesant said:

Sweet mercy! You just killed something like 3, 4 percent of the entire population of Luxembourg in that battle! They must've mobilized every man, woman and child to field such a large army!

Overall, you're doing very well. I'm especially impressed with the naval performance in the Pacific. Granted, you've had to downsize your ambitions a bit, but considering the solidly land-bound nature of the Soviet Union's forces even a few years ago, it's quite impressive that you're now able to pull of amphibious invasions in the midst of the Pacific.

PS: Like your reasoning for using Bagramian. He does look like a cheerful fella.

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When they retreated, it turned out that at least 4 of their huge pile of divisions in Luxembourg were in fact the UK in disguise (perfidious albion and all that) ... who took Gent off me, and then got stomped by a frustrated tank army that was finally moving to the front lines.

I'm reasonably pleased to have grabbed 2/4 of my targets ... and to have taken the rather summary dispatch of my destroyer unit as a warning not to go straight for Hawaii. I'm building a small airbase on Midway that may give me some air cover over Hawaii, but in any case the fleet needs about 2 months to lick its wounds, so I may just clean up my rear at Guam and the Philipines with otherwise redundant marines etc. I'll set up air cover so if the USN risk moving into my rear it'll get hit by NAV & TAC bombers.

Once I've finished off France, need to position the V2s and the Baltic Fleet for the UK - who are remaining mostly very aloof from the war in Europe, and try to put their main forces out of supply, grab a port (I've got 5 para divs to help with this) and put enough ashore to at least hold a decent chunk of the South East of the UK

Beakmiester said:

I've finally caught up on all the action, makes me want to dust of HOI III (which I have been avoiding) and have a go.

Thanks for the entertaining read and some inspiration.

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I'm glad you're enjoying it, there are still problems with HOI3 - not least the basic advantage a human player has over the AI at the moment - but it is a great game even so.

Supervixens said:

Yay! WW III did happen! You`re making nice progress on each front. Well maybe except on the sea. Any plans containing the americans?

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Well it looks like the godless commies need to go to them - I've not looked but I guess the traditional Washington group hug is in place over there ... which is in part why I'm trying to go for the West Coast first, I might be able to grab a couple of ports and a reasonably decent defence line before any of those arrive.

The only problem is I've got to get there. I think the lesson of the last round of naval action is I can only do one major contested landing at a time - so Hawaii probably in June when the fleet has recovered (my outright losses were low, so its about sorting out org and some reinforcements) and then see if I can reach for San Diego or similar in about September - but I don't mind taking my time.

The other option would be to go and clear out Australia first, but so far they've not done much, not even to my very isolated ports I nabbed off the Portuguese in Timor/Indonesia.

If I can induce a UK surrender, I might be able to pick a spot on the East as well, using the ex-UK holdings off Canada and in the Caribbean - Miami could work and see if I can build another large bridgehead.

STAVKA 19 April 1945

The war in the last 2 weeks settled into a steady pattern, Soviet dominance on the land meant steady progress in France and Scandinavia, and slower progress in India and the Middle East.

However, at sea, a series of setbacks occurred. First the USN, pushed deep into what the Soviets had come to see as *their* area of the Pacific, first eliminating a submarine patrol:



and then driving off the invasion of Guam:



although actual losses were low, the entire transport fleet and escorts were badly damaged.

Soviet bombers hit the US fleet on several occasions but it still managed to catch and defeat another submarine squadron:



A worse naval disaster happened off the Philipines when British carriers hit an invasion force sinking 5 transport, 1HC & 2DDs, plus all the associated land formations (I somehow forgot to take a screenshot of this o).

From this, it was clear, that only very localised naval control (rather than supremacy) could be managed and that meant using the main fleet to support every contested landing. After the losses off Wake and Midway, this was in port and would not be ready till June.

In the meantime the naval bad news continued with the loss of a so-far quite successful submarine squadron in the Bay of Biscay:



In the air, the new Yak-17 interceptors meant that any allied air raid was quickly repelled and Soviet air control now extended to the Eastern Channel and south of the North Sea. If the Jet aircraft were causing fuel problems, it became clear there was a need for much less of them to be active at any time. Their speed meant they could catch the same bombing raid many times, and from quite distant bases.

On land, the northern part of the invasion of France (Flanders and Central Fronts) was temporarily on the defense. This was partly to ease supply and fuel problems but also to encourage the UK to commit more divisions to France (most of the blue units left are in fact UK/Canadian) making an eventual invasion much easier. The Bordeaux Front was ordered to capture the Loire ports.

In the south, the 3 Fronts were moving to take up positions to attack into N Spain (& are back under AI control and behaving themselves):



In Scandinavia, 1 Army had pushed across from Denmark and was occupying most of Skane, 24 Army was extending its bridgehead at Stockholm and in the Arctic 8 Army had destroyed 3-4 Swedish divisions on the Baltic coast whilst 9 Army was making steady progress in the center. 42 Army had captured Narvik and was now pushing southwards in Norway:



In the middle east and India, Delhi was now under attack and Persia on the point of collapse. Armoured and Motorised formations were pushing into Palestine and Jordan. The only problem in this sector was the danger that the Saudis might be knocked out - and forces would be diverted from Persia to shore up this front and overrun the various British puppet regimes:

STAVKA 1 May 1945

For the last two weeks, apart from eliminating any remaining French (of any type) positions in S France, that front had been largely quiet. The interceptors continued to catch most UK bombing raids.

The invasion of Spain was going very neatly with all 3 fronts aligning themselves as ordered and moving along their designated axes of advance. The only odd problem was the decision by the Aragon front to use its fighters (allocated to protect the CAS wing it also has) to Scandinavia:



In Scandinavia, particularly 1 & 8 armies continued to build on their earlier successes and it was hoped that both Sweden and Norway would be knocked out the war in the next few weeks - freeing up troops for the invasion of the UK:



In the middle east, Persia collapsed, but refused to surrender:



allowing one army to given over to the Saudis and the rest of the active units to be split between the invasion of Egypt and the invasion of India.

Less satisfactory was the situation in the Far East. Not only had the British retaken Hong Kong, meaning that another army had to be drawn out of reserve, but the campaigns in Indo-China and the Philippines were effectively stalemated, potentially tieing down 5 armies:



The situation could not be resolved by adding more troops due to supply constraints. At the moment, both sectors were making slow gains, and would be left to keep inching forward until the troops were needed for the invasion of the USA, at which stage, if still unresolved, both offensives would be abandoned.

The naval situation in the Pacific continued to be the largest constraint on Soviet actions. Most of the surviving fleet had been repaired and it was estimated that 2 armies could be landed in Hawaii by mid/late May:



This in turn, if successful, would pave the way for landings on the West Coast later in the year. These had to be substantial, meaning not just replacing the lost transports but adding the capacity to shift an entire front (5 armies, roughly 20-25 transports) at once. If the VNF could hold off USN naval intervention, then this force should be substantial enough to seize one or two major ports.

Effectively, the Soviet strategy for shifting the war to N America now rested on two naval battles - off Hawaii and presumably off SW America, if either failed, the alternative was to use the forces in Europe, after the surrender of the UK - an equally risky manouvre.

anweRU said:

Ah, but STAVKA has thrived on risk so far!

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... aye, but this seems like the biggie - at least till the next biggie - if I get a right humping off Pearl Harbour then the next round of BBs don't appear till early 1946 (maybe as late as May), so I may need to think of a much more creative route to the Americas (even assuming I can also come at it from the Atlantic too) - perhaps, New Zealand, Tahiti, Ecuador would at least give me a placement.

STAVKA 16 May 1945

The main events in the last few weeks were the surrender of Sweden on 8 May:



Steady progress was being made into N Spain and, finally, some in Indochina. However, for the Philipines, Soviet planning was now for an evacuation of the two armies rather than any expectation of success. The British breakout from Hong Kong had been trapped and beaten, especially with Soviet bombers attacking their supply routes.

At sea, first a group of British and French submarines were caught in the Kattegat:



and, then several days later a small French surface fleet was mostly sunk:



Some limited scouting indicated only a few UK naval units actually in the UK (& few in the east Med where Soviet tanks had occupied Alexandria and Cairo). With the almost complete victory in France, Soviet planners returned to the idea of an invasion of the UK. Sufficient naval transports existed to move the best part of 2 inf (gds &/or shock) and a tank army at any time. The disposition of UK forces continued to favour an attack on Portsmouth and some of the UK troops had been lost in the recent battles in France.

Further planning on the air war was underway but Soviet fighters were now over SE England on a regular basis indicating little effective UK airpower. Around 30 v2 batteries were available for a single massive bombardment of industrial and logistical supply networks:



Thus the invasion was tentatively set for 5 June 1945.

In the Pacific, naval transport and combat units were moving into position. Submarine patrols had been restarted to scout out US naval strength and only limited groups of LC had been spotted. The plan to seize Pearl Harbour was, by necessity, fairly simple, 2 armies would land to the north and the marines would pin the garrison by a direct assault. It was hoped that the full force of the Far East fleet would protect the landings:



It was planned to commence the landings between 20-25 May.