Best strategic deployment against the SU? Beginner questions.

[Mantriel]

I understand that encircling is the best tactic.

I am a beginner, I am still learning the game, I am playing as Germany. I have most of the DLCs (not the latest few) I managed to conquer Europe and NA. It is July 1940. All my troops moved back from NA, to the eastern front.

I would like to fight the SU, what strategic deployment would you advise? Even though I have hundreds of factories and they only have ~70 and even though I have several million in manpower, if I just put up a field marshal frontline and give my troops a general attack order, the SU can defend itself for several years before they finally collapse (and I run out of equipment and manpower).

What strategic advantages do you think I should have before I start the attack?

1. I have air superiority and a lot of CAS.
2. I have an army of light tanks (24 divisions), I started producing medium tanks.
3. My divisions are 7 infantry & 2 artillery, 20 width wide for my infantry armies. The tank divisions are 5 tanks & 5 motorized infantry. Support companies are for both: Engi, Support Artillery, Support Anti-Air, Logi & Hospital.
4. All units are trained.
Anything else?
5. I don't understand the spy mechanics. What upgrades should I have? None of them seems to be especially good.
6. I have 3 "collaboration governments".

Q1: What should I do with my navy, especially with my subs? I have probably enough ships to block them in the Baltic sea and the Black sea.
Q2: Should I build radar stations, or anti air stations?
Q3: Should I build hubs? Are level 3 rails enough? Should I buff them up to 5?
Q4: I have several puppet countries, should I take all of their troops and put them on the frontline? If yes how? Should I mix them into the "normal" army groups? Or put them into their own army?
Q5. Should I tell my frontline troops to advance, or should they just hold the line?
Q6. Where should I push? Should I push against the baltic states, or go for the southern planes?
Q7. How many divisions/armies should I have? 3 full army groups (3x5x24). I guess is more than enough?

Tactics
I understand that I just need to encircle their troops with my light tank divisions, still any other advice regarding tactics / micromanagement?

 

[HmJ_JP]

Q1: convoy raid or even patrol all around their Western maritime borders, including the Baltic, plus also the Mediterranean sea
Q2: radar stations are very important for interception: you could have a first phase letting the USSR break it's teeth on your defense, and your air defense down theirs
Q3: I depends the size of your armies, but at least make sure the railways size from your capital is consistent (all up to 4, or even 5). No hub necessary per my experience
Q4: if you're a beginner, they can help. I prefer to handle all by myself and avoid stupid loss of both sides
Q5: depends on the tactics. Recently I'd say hold the line, while in parallel you naval invade close to Leningrad or Crimea and open an offensive front in their back
Q6: You can assign a field marshal order for all your armies & divisions combined: they'll move forward when supplies & resistance are judges acceptable
Q7: depends the quality and size of your divisions. If they are 40 width divisions, probably 5 armies are enough

It's easy to go fast in the USSR, but then you're quickly out of supply and air cover, and the rhythm slows down and attrition kicks in: go slowly and steady. Build railways behind your lines, increase the airfields level. And as you mentioned, execute pincer movements to annihilate their divisions, 30+ at a time.

 

[WSnova]

Q1: What should I do with my navy, especially with my subs? I have probably enough ships to block them in the Baltic sea and the Black sea.- Convoy raid them so that they can´t get lend lease, not like the AI sends lots to the USSR. Use your ships to support coastal battles.
Q2: Should I build radar stations, or anti air stations? Are you being bombed? If yes static AA is great for that. Radar is great to make your planes more efficient when intercepting bombers. If not, then don´t
Q3: Should I build hubs? Are level 3 rails enough? Should I buff them up to 5? Only if you need supply. But you can always capture more. Upgrading railways helps, but only if you need more supplies
Q4: I have several puppet countries, should I take all of their troops and put them on the frontline? If yes how? Should I mix them into the "normal" army groups? Or put them into their own army? I usually put them in their separate army, but if you just want them for filler to hold territory do whatever you want
Q5. Should I tell my frontline troops to advance, or should they just hold the line? Depends on your strategy, If you spam enough decent divs you can battleplan them, but you will lose a lot of manpower/equipment. Microing is more fun, so it can be a good opportunity to practice
Q6. Where should I push? Should I push against the baltic states, or go for the southern planes? Ukraine has more favorable terrain for attacking and has better resources.
Q7. How many divisions/armies should I have? 3 full army groups (3x5x24). I guess is more than enough? Yes, I´d say it a tad bit overkill.

 

[Mantriel]

Thanks for the answers, a couple more:

Q8: What division is the best for infantry? 14 inf, 4 art?
Q9: What division is best for tanks? 10 tank, 10 motorized inf?
Q10: What espionage upgrades should I have?
Q11: How do you build your airplanes?
Q12: How do you build your ships?

 

[Secret Master]

2. I have an army of light tanks (24 divisions), I started producing medium tanks.
3. My divisions are 7 infantry & 2 artillery, 20 width wide for my infantry armies. The tank divisions are 5 tanks & 5 motorized infantry. Support companies are for both: Engi, Support Artillery, Support Anti-Air, Logi & Hospital.

I would be producing medium tanks either before France falls or immediately after. We want medium tanks with 8 kph speed on them so they are going fast enough to overrun and encircle. Light tanks are simply not going to cut it against the Soviets.

(And yes, I know I literally have a livestream where I defeat the Soviet Union with light armor spam, but that's highly advanced tactics, not something a beginner should think about or try.)

I would also dump the 2 line ART for the infantry divisions and put some of that MIC that you have on ART on either planes or tanks. I also loathe HOSP as a support company. I don't think it helps you that much. Use LOG instead.

5. I don't understand the spy mechanics. What upgrades should I have? None of them seems to be especially good.
6. I have 3 "collaboration governments".

If you have at least one collab on the Soviets, then don't worry about spies right now. If you don't have one on the Soviets, still don't worry about it. Let's just focus on solid tactics right now.

Q2: Should I build radar stations, or anti air stations?

Not for fighting the Soviets. It's wasted investment as you advance. You have other things to build.

Q3: Should I build hubs? Are level 3 rails enough? Should I buff them up to 5?

I would upgrade a few key supply pipelines to the front to at least level 3. Keep in mind that as long as supply hubs can reach your capital with some kind of railway line that is high enough level, they are fine. You don't need to turn every railway east of Berlin to level 3. I wouldn't build any supply hubs on the front, though.

Q4: I have several puppet countries, should I take all of their troops and put them on the frontline? If yes how? Should I mix them into the "normal" army groups? Or put them into their own army?

No. Instead, send those crappy puppet troops to cover the west and defend against Allied landings. Also, don't be shy about asking puppets for garrison support. Let them eat bullets from the French and Yugoslav resistance.

Q6. Where should I push? Should I push against the baltic states, or go for the southern planes?
Q7. How many divisions/armies should I have? 3 full army groups (3x5x24). I guess is more than enough?

You should make one armored thrust in a hook to trap Soviet forces along the Baltic coast. Another armored thrust should be trying to encircle Soviet divisions facing Hungary and Romania. If you tie down Soviet forces along the mountainous Hungarian border, you can bag a ton of them by just cutting them off with an armored thrust.

When I run Barbarossa, I have 2 FMs with 5x24 under each of them (infantry divisions) with 10+ fat panzer divisions (40 or 42 width) in a panzer army. The panzer divisions will probably contain a total of 5000+ medium tanks (not counting TDs or recon tanks or flame tanks or MECH or trucks) by the time I start Barbarossa.

Q11: How do you build your airplanes?

You're still new, so let me give you some easy designs.

(Ignore that these look Soviet; I already had the Soviets loaded up when replying to you)


This plane should kill anything the RAF or VVS can throw at you. It has enough range to be useful. It has enough air defense to win duels.

For CAS:

I know a lot of people love their anti-tank cannons, but this is simpler to produce. You don't need anything from the AT tree. It can also bomb ships with the bomb locks and bomb ports with the bomb bays. So, the RN and Soviet fleets aren't safe from this.

Some players are going to tell you to use self-sealing fuel tanks. But that increases the rubber cost of the planes. You are still new, so you don't need the added headache of trying to build enough rubber plants to build planes that cost 2 rubber per factory.

Q9: What division is best for tanks? 10 tank, 10 motorized inf?

Let's not go with what's "best." Let's go with something good that I can actually justify with logical arguments.

Now, why in the name of Guderian do I have a division like this?

To understand this template, we need to understand the tanks it has: (Again, Soviets were loaded up already)

Let's start with the medium tanks in the tank battalions:

Upgraded to this:

We start with the Close Support gun because Germany starts with that. We can upgrade to Howitzer guns as you get them, but note for the record that if you can't afford the tungsten for howitzer guns, I won't make fun of you for just using the close support gun and using only steel.

This tank meets our speed requirement, has decent armor (but not too much) and has tons of soft attack. The only thing it's bad at it piercing other tanks.

Because it's bad at piercing, it needs some TD's to help out. We get the piercing from these guys:

This TD utilizes the heavy cannon to get both piercing and SA. It's a resource hog and more expensive. But we only have 1 battalion of these in each division. It is good enough to give the template the requisite piercing. I stack armor on this tank to boost armor values on the whole division.

Stats (in the field, not just on the template designer):

Note that these stats do not count Guderian's bonus to speed or some bonuses from Mobile Warfare. You will get some better ORG as Germany with enough progress on your doctrines.

Why did I choose those support companies?

It would take 30 minutes to explain all the details, but the short version is that recon tanks speed up panzers in open terrain, LOG will reduce supply and fuel consumption, support ART is the best source of SA in the entire game for the cost, AA guns deter enemy air attack (which really hurts armored formations), flame tanks make it easier to fight in cities (which you sometimes need to do as panzers even if you are trying to encircle), and engineers have terrain bonuses that offset the terrain penalties the tanks have when trying to cross rivers or fight in certain places. I don't like using panzers in bad terrain like rivers and forests, but sometimes it's got to happen.

 

[WSnova]

Personally, I prefer Maintenance and Truck recon for my armor.

Maintenance because my tanks tend to be more unreliable, I use my tanks to attack and kill divisions so I will get captured equipment and I like putting easy maintenance on them.

Motored recon because IIRC it gives the most speed on good terrain.

Flame tanks and engineers for attack bonuses.

For the 5th slot I usually put logistics. I ditch support arty and AA. If I am really struggling with air superiority I change 1 arm batallion for 2 SP AA. I miss the support Art but slots are limited and feel I have enough soft attack.


My planes look like this:

My tanks:

Divisions I don´t super duper optimize but I try to keep them practical. Stuff is bound to change with the new DLC anyways:

 

[WSnova]

Of course, since you are going with Light tanks I would use lots of CAS and Infantry for the initial breakthrough and send in my Light tank divisions once the tile is broken.

Make them speedy, 12 km/h and rush them to capture keey points like airports and supply hubs.

 

[marcelo r. r.]

IF using 20 width templates:

- "autoplay" frontilines playstyle to win in 6~9 months
240 INF divisions(2 field marshals, 5 generals each (24 divisions x10) ), dividem then "north" and "south".
48 Light panzer divisions (2 panzer generals). divide them "north" and "south".
this playstyle will form automatically pockets too(and a big one on center), if u form light tanks frontlines alongside army.

- Tailored blitzkrieg playstyle.
same as above, but will use "megazord" 40w tank templates, will focus on tailored encirclements(more micromanagent) and infantry only for defend. its highly manpower saving, and close to MultiPlayer playstyle.

- If something went wrong and ur get underequiped:
The AI don't know how to recover, neither economically prepare a counteratack, then u can just sit, while your armies recover. Soviets will just sitting too, but very underequiped.

- If supply situation get desperate after Moscow:
on and after astrakan-moscow-arkangelsk line the supply will be hellish. u can just push back half of your troops(in case using 2 field marshals formation above).

- Extra troops from your allies.
U can request troops from axis allies and manage them, they will offer some also. they can be useful, if youre worried with garrisioning west or make a "crimea army" to take care of caucasus/karelia, to don't deviate ur main army from frontal push. Romania have decent mountainers.

 

[HmJ_JP]

Interesting. I use my stockpile of light tank for armored recon, thinking it gives some armor to my infantry divisions, but trucks are also fine, and there's quickly plenty of.