Cominterning-it-up (A Soviet AAR)

[Reaganing]

Welcome to my very first HoI 3 FtM AAR, this will be purely gameplay along with a smattering of attempts at humour and inappropriately placed memes. As the title alludes to, this will be a Soviet AAR, (I have noticed a distinct lack of them lately).

The difficulty is on normal, BUT I have installed some new fangled LUA files improving the AI and specifically its production capabilities. Apparently this will turn the AI into a beast of successful invasions and unexpectedly aggressive play. The guy who made it said you could even LOSE as the US!?!? Swish that little fact around in your mouth for a while.

Here is the thread about the changes

Regardless of the foolish manipulation of the AI, my main goal is to bring the glorious tenants of Bolshevism to the yearning proletariat of the world. In other words, there will be puppets. The people of the Soviet Union demand Cyrillic letters, and they will get them! Also surviving the German onslaught, that will be pretty important. I also want to get at least balls deep into South East Asia, and try and get some footholds in South and Central America.

Will there be gaminess? Of course! Will there be terrible mistakes? As I’m writing this there have already been many. Will I continue this AAR until the bitter end? You bet your decadent bourgeois ass I will! The best part about University is not the fancy degree or quality education. It’s the four months you get off for summer.

[Reaganing]

Chapter One: Seeing Red



Well here we are, the USSR is a really interesting country to play. You have to think differently, and those thoughts are typically a little insane. First things first is we are going to whore some IC, then we will whore some more IC. We will reluctantly begin a serial run of a single infantry division (w/ arty brigade) just to keep the practicals warm. Later when the techs are ready we will start a single run of armor and interceptors. A few ships were being built, the destroyers and a sub were canceled, two subs were so close to completion they managed to survive the purge.


IC whores, going whore.



We have awful leadership and even worse land techs. I'd take this moment to condemn the Soviet oppression of their intelligentsia but then I would be arrested... see the problem. Anyways, the game plan is to go bare bones rushing for Inf and armor upgrades, light aircraft, industry stuff and as many land techs as humanly possible. I also cranked espionage up to 11 (literally) for the first month just to get a bunch of spies.

Operation Paranoid Ivan: My full domestic spies went to work raising unity (need that high as possible for Barbarossa) The rest flooded into my hapless neighbors Finland, Romania and Persia. They were all set to raise threat. Although Persia was very resistant, maybe they have propaganda press and other espionage suppressing stuff?





By December my first wave of IC was done, and was placed in the middle of my most northern provinces, now if only I could find some people to work there... Luckily 1937 was just around the corner and that means the most onerous event in the game was upon us.

I actually never took the screen shot of the decision, I was too busy crying. For those of you who don't know in order to get a desperately needed boost to unity along with some other goodies you must kill off a massive chunk of you officer corps and take a brutal 15% hit on your leadership. I decided to do it, not sure if that is the optimal way. Someone please let me know?



This is us after the officer cull with a unity of 78, this allows war economy and 3 year draft which I thoughtlessly grabbed as soon as possible.

Time to learn from mistakes! 3 year draft is actually crap for 1937 USSR, reserves cost nearly 4 times more to build and my leadership is so crap I couldn't really take advantage of the increased officer training. At least my IC is in the green and we have even more manpower. That will be my theme, no matter how bad my leadership is (Russia's and my own) we can simply throw more men and material at the problem.

[eqqman]

Not sure how gamey you want to get, but you could crush Germany by 1938 if you wanted.

Either way, I look forward to the vodka and hordes of Militia!

[loki100]

good to see a Soviet AAR with FTM

yes, you really have little choice but to take the purge to be honest. By 1939 you'll get a lot of good generals, the ones who won the Great Patriotic War, so don't worry about that. Equally don't fret about the officer ratio, everyone on the main forum will tell you anything below 10000% is rubbish, well I've survived with it in the high 80s and the low 90s is more than good enough.

re the draft, its a bit of a trade off, it will cost you less later to bring those formations to being combat ready and in truth you should have such decent infantry practicals as it ceases to matter that much. Also, I wouldn't build militia, they will drain off your manpower and are just a means to increase your MP losses in the war with Germany. In general its a-historic but I opt for the best training laws I can use (your units will have enough maluses against the Germans without adding the consequences of low training too)

... good luck

[Barvinok]

If possible, I'd like to see Japan drawn into the Comintern. Coup, perhaps?

[Pj Fallon]

Interesting. What division composition you building

[Reaganing]

!

Not sure how gamey you want to get, but you could crush Germany by 1938 if you wanted.
Either way, I look forward to the vodka and hordes of Militia!

Well there will be some war decs in 38.

yes, you really have little choice but to take the purge to be honest. By 1939 you'll get a lot of good generals, the ones who won the Great Patriotic War, so don't worry about that. Equally don't fret about the officer ratio, everyone on the main forum will tell you anything below 10000% is rubbish, well I've survived with it in the high 80s and the low 90s is more than good enough.

re the draft, its a bit of a trade off, it will cost you less later to bring those formations to being combat ready and in truth you should have such decent infantry practicals as it ceases to matter that much. Also, I wouldn't build militia, they will drain off your manpower and are just a means to increase your MP losses in the war with Germany. In general its a-historic but I opt for the best training laws I can use (your units will have enough maluses against the Germans without adding the consequences of low training too)

... good luck

Thanks for the tips, seems like I'm on decent course!

If possible, I'd like to see Japan drawn into the Comintern. Coup, perhaps?

Oh I do have have something in store for the Japanese . But it does not involve coups, takes too much leadership.

Interesting. What division composition you building

I'm going 3 inf one arty for my standard infantry division, and two med armor and a motorized brigade for armor. I think I'll build some pure motorized inf as well. What do you guys think of antitank brigades of tank destroyers, I teched those up a bit, but are they worth significant investment?

[loki100]

The problem with AT is its handy (cheap and you'll need all the HA you need), but in the vastness of the Red Army and with the Germans having the initiative its really hard to get them in the right place. TDs are good though, usefully mobile so you can switch sectors, brigaded with inf or mot, they bring both HA and some hard defensiveness which is very useful.

A personal preference is to brigade Heavy Armour with infantry. The German AI (i'm not sure this is so with the new .luas) used to like building heavy armour itself. I've found this combination invaluable in holding the line when its all going wrong during Barbarossa and they will go through the proverbial brick wall when you go over to the offensive yourself.

But in general with the Soviets I'm a firm believer in keeping it simple for your OOB, its too big to really make good use of well optimised formations

[KyrionMyrthar]

I tend to go simple with the Soviets, myself. Glad to see this AAR!

[Barvinok]

Oh I do have have something in store for the Japanese . But it does not involve coups, takes too much leadership.

I hope it's not a war right away. Influencing? Japanese could do the naval affairs of the Comintern.

[Reaganing]

Not much happens in 1937, we continue to build IC, now with our economy running better laws our construction spree is picking up momentum. At the start of the year our IC is at a measly 198 by December it had grown to 245. But there was trouble brewing in the east.



Japan declared war on China and its satellites in the late summer (August 30th), and things start to go pear shaped. Shanxi falls and is annexed by September, and the Soviet attache in China starts lazily sending reports back to Moscow.


Extent of Japanese advance by late October. o.O

The Japanese advance inexplicably continues at a breakneck pace. Note the lack of amphibious action. Now this is normal difficulty, and from my limited experience unless Japan gets super lucky with landings, they get bogged down at least a bit. In this case they are going through China like crap through a goose. The Soviet attache begins chain smoking and sends a flurry of depressing reports.



Nanjing, China's capital, falls November 30th and there is a massive break through in central China. Tables are flipped in Moscow, dissenters are shot. Japan celebrates by destroying the city.



On December 29th, a month after the fall of the Nanjing, China surrenders. The Japanese defeated them in exactly 4 months, with no fancy amphibious invasions. I'm wondering if this is normal or are the changes to the LUA files giving them unexpected competence?

Japan will go on to annex Sinkiang shortly after, further enraging the Soviets. We were planning to do that!
After Japan's reckless, irresponsible and morally abhorrent conquering spree nothing much happened until March.



The Great Romanian Farce (A War Story)
Late November 1938

After more months inactivity our economy was boosted to an impressive 290 IC, the first batches of medium tank divisions were deployed along with more infantry, interceptors and CAS. All this time Soviet spies were busy terrifying the population with stories of imminent Romanian aggression. Their country potentially shared oil with fascists, they oppressed their workers with capitalism and dared to share a border with us. Now Romania's threat was high enough to allow us to bring the glorious revolution right to their doorsteps, with force!


Romania's body can't possibly be ready, I know ours isn't.

We mobilized on November 16th, Two medium armor divisions, and all the other armor we could scrounge were moved to the center of the Romanian border. The large concentration of troops around Kiev and the south polish border also boarded trains for Romania. Our air force piled into Odessa and Sevastopol.



Our neutrality is still obnoxiously high, 23?!?!? But that means Romania is in our danger zone, and you do not want to be there. I put in the list of all our other high threat countries/future targets, to give you an idea of how successful Paranoid Ivan was. Taking all bets on who we attack next! I've got good odds on Finland.

My favourite part of all this is Romania's highest threat is still Germany, poor bastards won't even see it coming.



War is declared on November 24, 1938. The Romanians have not even begun to mobilize. My troops are roaring drunk and ready to spread communism the good old fashion way. But what began as a cocky smack down of a small oil rich neighbor will become the most absurd, demoralizing and hilarious war I have ever fought.

Tune in tomorrow to see the war in all its ridiculousness unfold it gruesome detail!

[vitcash]

looks awesome, shall be following

[Barvinok]

A strong Japan? It wouldn't be good to fight them AND Germans at the same time. Romania has decent defensible terrain you can use when Germans come.

[Reaganing]

looks awesome, shall be following

Thanks!

A strong Japan? It wouldn't be good to fight them AND Germans at the same time. Romania has decent defensible terrain you can use when Germans come.

I'm wondering if anyone has experience fighting a two front war with Germany and Japan, is that even possible, assuming its late 1939 early 1940?

[eqqman]

Don't bother with the `Install Communism` War Goal, none of the `Install X` ones actually work, they're bugged. They're only useful if you want to end a war with no changes in the status quo.

[Reaganing]

On November 24th my troops marched across the border and slammed into totally unprepared reservists. I was feeling pretty confident about the thing. They were not and immediately started trading space for time, abandoning their sweet river line.


Run Romanians, run!

The plan for the war like everything I'm doing here, was simple. Breakthrough the Romanian lines, get my tanks to open country, and rush for Bucharest (their capital) and the oil fields in Ploiesti that were conveniently right above Bucharest.

Plan A goes something like this. (Although slightly less apathetic)

Nothing better than dots and oil!




Initial battles are standard Russian victories, fast, bloody and easy.


Oh boy, I hope all this success does not lull me into a false sense of security. (Note the city at the top left, that's called Iasi, and it was a bitch to capture)

This was my first test of the army and I was not sure how it would perform. As it turns out, and this is the first source of absurdity, my troops were actually outclassed. They had worse weapons and org than their Romanian counterparts. As soon as we ran into full enemy divisions the advanced ground to a halt. It turns out no matter how high you tech it does not help when you only put 4.5 IC toward 125 IC worth of required upgrades . The production manager was shot for this discrepancy, and his successor jacked things up to a reasonable 95 IC. Luckily we still had more troops and some fast movers to boot. I attempted to outmaneuver the bulk of the Romanian army and bolt straight for their capital and oil fields for a quick victory.


November 27th three days after invasion. Armor breakout looking good.

But then it started to rain... the axis of my advance turned into a quagmire and my armored thrust was slowed long enough for the Romanians to fill the gap with new troops.


This is the extent of the advance on December 12, that's right it took about 15 days to advance through 2 provinces, thanks a lot mud. That is my finest mobile division (the fighting 9th) being assaulted by hordes of Romanians, we would eventually retreat giving up our bridgehead.Time for plan B.

Now a key factor that interfered with the entire operation was that I wanted to puppet Romania, not conquer them. This meant not destroying their army. A large portion of my army spent the war babysitting loose encirclements and tip toeing around the enemy like a bunch of limp wristed nancys. The fact that they had superior men did not help. I feel sorry for the poor officers in charge of this whole operation. "Hey invade this surprisingly strong country with one hand tied around your back, while you are stuck in the mud, and be carful you don't hurt them, you will be summerarly executed if you do!"


December 19th: We finally take Iasi after numerous, costly defeats. Rather anticlimactic, as I could not brutally capture/murder all those defenders.

After the loss of our bridgehead in the south, another armor spearhead attempted a breakthrough on the northern flank. Over a few days they advanced and bagged a considerable portion of the Romanian army. Normally they would be swiftly crushed, instead we allowed them to go carzy. This "encircled" army attacked everywhere threatening our southern advance.

Late December, our salient is assaulted by men who in a proper war would be dead or captured,

Cheeky

We have a corps of infantry rushing from the north to rescue our overextended tank divisions. To deal with encircled armies that are attacking or moving in unwanted locations I have started making huge abortive attacks. Just long enough to get them to stay quite, but pulling out before I force a retreat that could destroy them. These are micro intensive and are eating into manpower. Romania better be worth it.


December 28th. Largish setback and rage inducing moment. My huge rescue corps entered the battle just as the one division fighting broke, the whole stumping force retreated. Now only one late comer is holding the line, as the divisions on the sharp end are being worn down by multiple attacks. It is clear after two failed attempts, that a push through the center of the country will be hard, slow and costly.

Plan C: Super Sneaky Flank Attack!

Back in early December when the armor was bogged down in mud I did a quick search for some dry ground. There was a strip along the cost that was dry and high infrastructure. I cobbled together a large flanking force that would swing around all the mud and clashing armies and hopefully nab the objectives before anyone was the wiser. They marched steadily at their 4 kph the whole time unopposed.

They were remarkably successful, after a few attempts to cross the last river they had found some open ground.

This is their position on December 24th, Do I see a Christmas present for Stalin sitting right there for the taking?

Seeing this ripe opportunity I gathered the recovering 9th armored division and whatever else I could scrape together from the center to hit this weak flank.

Before they could do that we had to suffer yet another defeat in the province to the north of the newly exposed flank.


Round Two at Tecuci (its the 77 battle)


The End Game

It's December 31st and we are now on the outskirts of Bucharest. But our single weak, tired division is attacked in Carlarasi by two strong Romanian ones. In other news we are still bogged down in the center of the country and our flank attack is picking up momentum in Tecuci.


Before the 47th division is able to retreat to Fetesti, a Romanian force will get there, destroying the unit. This will be the only total loss for the entire war. But it would not be a Soviet AAR without some spilled blood and military disasters. The defeat also distracted a whole bunch of otherwise dangerous enemy divisions. After the victory in Tecuci, armor was able to cross the river unopposed and set up a bridgehead in the province adjacent to Ploiesti.

Our position on January 16.

Mobile units have just evicted the Romanian's from their precious oil fields.

At this point most of the Romanian army is a disorganized mess. There still are huge pockets in the north just sitting around, getting thrashed by stacks of belligerent Soviet infantry whenever they try and move. The bulk of the army that had stopped our armor in December was also herded into a pocket, and slapped around a bit to keep them in line. They can be seen retreating into a single province in the picture below.

January 24th, a hilarious suicidal attack from the city against our doom stack in Ploiesti. We are also attacking an infantry division to the east of the city, just to keep them from joining the defense. I am so clever

Romania, your puppeting is inevitable.

​War Addicts Anonymous:

Romania was now on the verge of surrender, their capital was about to fall and communism allowed to spread its leathery wings. But deep in the Kremlin all was not well. If we returned to peace we would lose all the laws that are allowing our overheating economy to continue overheating. We would also have to demobilize, one the most emasculating things a country could do to itself. Despite all those horrifying changes, our people would want more consumer goods, and less factories building factories. This was a unacceptable. It was decided that before we end this war we should start another one, just to keep the good times rolling.

Why hello there Finland, what lovely borders you have there, it would be a shame if somebody violated them.


Next post: Romania Owned, Germany Mad, Allies Jelly. And a new relaxing war.

[loki100]

neat early move, but can you clean up the language, feel free to pm me if you don't know what I'm referring to

[Axe27]

The Germans are going to kick the crap out of you initially if you're having trouble with the Romanians. Remember these key words: Medium.Armor.Horde.

[Deus Eversor]

subs

[Reaganing]

It was late January, 1939. A Soviet army still wracked by disorganization, old weapons and lack of officers pushed against a string of land forts along the Finnish border. We expected an even harder fight than the Romanians. Back in the Kremlin we were already celebrating a few more months of war. But then we started to win, very easily, and all hope of a wonderfully long and profitable war was lost.


Despite seeing nearly 100,000 men massed along their borders the Fins neglected to mobilize, we chased them out of their defense positions in a few hours.

As this worrying situation unfolded in the north, we finally achieved victory in Romania. Shortly after the fall of their capital they surrendered and became willing puppets, with most of their army intact!



After two months of bitter fighting, demoralizing setbacks, and costly holding actions we have puppeted our very first state.


Victory is sweet.

Shortly after the surrender of Romania our diplomatic services sent out a flurry of taunting and inappropriate messages. Now Russia is slightly embarrassed to even have a diplomatic service, so its members were picked for their boorish manners, jingoism and xenophobia. Most of their correspondence was directed at Germany who had been attempting to influence Romania and saw the nation as a important strategic asset. Examples of the carefully crafted diplomatic messages include: “Are you mad bro? You look pretty mad. Oh did you need those oil fields and refineries? Don’t worry we’ll take good care of them. ” Others were more simple and baffling, like 3 pages of the letters “ROFL” typed over and over again. A final letter was sent containing a weirdly artistic picture of the Soviet minister of natural resources taking a bath in what German intelligence services would later identify as Romanian oil.

A "meta" Strategic withdrawal

Finland gets a second chance to get the Winter War right.


Faced with pitiful resistance we were forced to pull back our forces before they could deliver the final blow. Reasons cited included fears of unnecessary casualties and sportsmanship. The Soviet press will hail this decision as a glorious humanitarian gesture by Stalin toward his army. Later sources would call this a cynical attempt to keep the electricity turned off and people working triple shifts in Siberian factories. Those challenges are essentially accurate. Welp.

What we need is a new enemy that can actually last a few rounds before being puppeted, unfortunately our neutrality is still too damn high (around 17ish). But there is still the remains of Paranoid Ivan, perhaps a second round of that could help. Out of all the countries I could target Turkey had the highest threat at around 14. So I slammed out ten spies as fast as possible and started making Turkey seem scary.


Think of all those poor scientists and engineers who were suddenly shipped off to Turkey.

By mid February we have Turkey crammed to the rafters with spies, now it's a waiting game.


Spring Cleaning

With a self imposed stalemate in Finland, and a slowly rising threat counter I took some time get the house in order.
In case Finland suddenly surrendered I checked to see if Japan was a ripe target. It was not.


I was significantly outnumbered in Manchuria, I sent a few corps from the Romanian conflict east to help shore up the defenses.

More worrying is the troop buildup in what use to be Sinkiang. Next time I'll be sure to keep that place on lock down, or go for them if I play Japan. At first glance it seems like the area bordering them is just endless empty space with low infrastructure and no value.

But right there on the border are three high IC and resource provinces that would be very painful to lose. Upon discovery that the Japanese had massed troops there, I rush more of my own to defend those areas.


With our borders secured it was time for the economy to receive some lovin'. During March a massive IC build completed, note the growth of my sprawling industrial region.

Before


After

It's so beautiful


A smaller IC run was started immediately, get a load of those practicals! This was helped by a massive infrastructure build a while before, I'll show the results by 1941.


Our red hot war economy was also able to build a plethora of new units. Including 6 transports that will be used for nefarious purposes. I have also been slamming out more CAS, INT and multi-roles my small plane practicals are getting very nice.



In fact why don't we take a gander at the practicals.



In the diplomatic world things are starting to heat up.


And it looks like the loss of Romania is already hurting Germany, who came begging for Soviet oil. Immense pleasure was taken when we refused.

Nein!

During the spring and summer countries began to mobilize left and right.


Enjoy spending a 3rd of your IC on consumer goods!

They should start proxy wars like us. Speaking of proxy wars, by mid April 1939 one was about to end. Will the Soviet economic powerhouse be able to continue or will it be forced to take a cold shower? Find out next time!