14/4s vs. 13/4 Arty/2 AAs (+ supports) ; Pros & Cons

[dasaard200]

{31 December'40} USSR at war with Germany, Nationalist France (bumbling puppet faction leader) , Japan, the Afgans, and minors; French and Germans are scattered in Africa and Asia .
I've reached 1/2 of German AIR, and must decide which way my INF XXs should go ... I'm leaning to the 13/4/2s, but 14/4s have been talked about, too .
Anybody have advice ??

Afgans have been nibbling at my southern borders, the Japs have Vladivostok under siege, and are EATING far Eastern Siberia .
Stalin Wall finishes in 12 days, Estonia and Finland fell, leaving me an Army of Migration (leftovers from the Finn mop-up) to fall upon the Afgans; and later the Japs, in the East .
In the middle. I've 2 TCs training up 25 XXs each at Tula and Novosibersk, I'll add more to Tula TC soon . Special Forces 2[bottom] and Industry 4 are next techs to be had; a silly number of MTN XXs will be needed for Far East .
20W INF XXs to 'beef up' the Western Line, while current XXs go to attack strengths . TANKS ARE COMING .

Active mods in use : !10 support Companies, Additional USSR Generals, RESOURCE FACTORIES, and USSR Reworked (TSRR+L8 infrastructure) .

 

[SophieX]

What's your long-term-aim or purpose to change the template now?

 

[dasaard200]

I hadn't decided either way, yet .
The long term goal is to kill the French, fascist Spain, and Greater Portugal; after smashing Germany .
Short term goals are the Afgans (who nibble in worthless territory) , then Japan and 'friends' in the east .

 

[Zauberelefant]

I understand that enemy air power is an issue.
You would lose a bit of org and (probably unneeded) defense, but gain piercing and protection vs Air superiority and Air support.
Looks like the way to go. However, you'll probably need 20k or so AA guns.

 

[dasaard200]

My support AA goes to all units; the attack INF (those that have line BNs of Arty) and TANKS get the 2 line BNs of AA .
The 5+score of 10/0 (+supports) INF are LINE HOLDERS ; who could get field promotions later, or go to the Migration program {"Plowing the fields in MY color !"}

As Arty production is diverted by USE/DAY (combat, exercise) , I'll need a few WFs to bring Arty up from 38/day to about 40-42/day, to be able to fund 1 BN Arty every 4-5 days; and continuing the 4 step program [or finishing it] , points to the 13/4/2 INF XX .

For regular AA, I've 3-4k on hand; and a few WFs will help there, too.

Flakpanzers (SPAA) are a whole new breed of cats; and YES, more WFs to fill THIS NEED! Should I dip into my L.tank 2s >LSPAA 2s >MSPAA 1s(T-32) >MSPAA 2s(T-34) ;
or buy direct from T-34s >MSPAA 2s ;
or BOTH methods ??

 

[Zeprion]

Is this a multiplayer or singleplayer game? It depends what and where you are facing. If facing tanks go 13/4/2s, if facing infantry go 14/4.

 

[dasaard200]

Single player, in 31 March'41, and my foes are French Nationals, Germany, N.Spain and 'Greater Portugal' in the West ; Japs munching the East, Vladivostok besieged (lightly), with some Germans in Mongolia to round out the majors .
The Afgans have been nibbling on my southern borders, providing my Migration units [L2 trained newbies] with a LOT of XP; on to KABUL !

In the West,Russian pre-war borders are intact, having conquered Latvia, Estonia, and Finland; the Germans and 'friends' ARE attacking from northern NORWAY !!

Given these 4 widely seperated fronts, I'm going to need BOTH in numbers; while I let those Bozos come to ME !

 

[dasaard200]

To continue #7 this post;
1] Having suffered an AI 'reshuffle' when I tagged back, I had to reorganize CHAOS into ORDER; to pull my nuts out of the fire .
2] As a result, some 'helpful people' for which I'm greatful, I'm now doing Cargo ships and CAS, which would've come later .

3] "TANKS !!","yer welcome"; a Stan & Ollie joke .

I'm fielding 8-10 L.tank XXs and 1 T34 tank XX, at the moment, and both lines are going ;
3a] I'm filling up my remaining 5/5 L.tanks to 10/10 motor for those Afgans, and to keep a supply of them in-hand ;
3b] Should I cut them back, say 2-3 WFs to go to T34s or KVs ?
4] Should I even bother with Heavys ?

AIR production is currently half of the Germans, when my new rubber factory comes on-line; FTR 2s goes UP !, and to fuel AIR and armor the new oil refinery in Siberia (839 raw oil) will see to that .

DAMAGE REPORTS GRIPE !!! There are some WFs damaged (in the wrench icon) of the West area, BUT THE BUILDING LIST DOESN'T SHOW THOSE 'HIT' WFs !!
I need to KNOW WHERE THESE WFs ARE, to shift air to protect them !

It would be nice IF a starting list of CFs, WFs, and Dockyards were made available to the players ... PDX, can fix this for us ??

 

[FStefanak]

Have you considered 15/3/1 instead of 13/4/2?
(With regular AA. HSPAA is better with 2 battalions due to how attrition works)

 

[dasaard200]

I'm putting in a line of (?)SPAA; my T34s are slowly reaching production goals, and I haven't decided which to use yet, Mdm. or Heavy for tanks .

The INF got regular AA BNs and (+support); but HSPAA would need ANOTHER line for the Grunts ... and I don't have that many slots to spare ... yet .

Industry 4 (+slots) is another 90 days away, as are Construction 4 and Tools 4, also I've some infrastructure problems to fix in Finland, Afganistan, Mongolia, and Eastern Siberia, plus ongoing CF production to see to . I am spread rather thin, here .

How do you keep a tank offensive going ?, I think you'll need a 3 stage 'leap frog' approach : to blow a HOLE in Bozo's line, you'll want a 3 tile wide target using 6x 40W tanks (and other supporting units in tile) to blast through {We'll call this group T1}, and will push until almost out of fuel . ;

The T2s (and supporting units) are more tanks ready to move [by road or rail] up to take T1's places, and the T1's TANKS pull back a tile to 'gas' up in the CENTRAL tile of newly taken turf ; the T1 support units spread out to widen the hole recently blasted [those motor/mech and INF XXs] . ;

The T3s (and supporting units) move by rail to the hollowed out turf, while the T1s have refueled, rearmed, had a beer, and are ready to finish encirclement with the T2s support units while T2s TANKS refuel . ;

A couple days later, the T3 TANKS pull back to refuel ...

 

[GAGA Extrem]

It has been a while since I last played (and I prefer to use 20 width 7INF + 2ART divisions as SOV, with a later swap of 1INF for 1HTD), but from what I recall it's best to concentrate AA in specialized divisions to maximize enemy shootdown. Dispersed AA is better at defending troops to avoid damage, but a full on AA division can shoot down dozens of planes per enemy sortie, quickly ramping up kills. Two dozen or so should be enough to cover all the critical battles, keep them in reserve and then move them into battles as needed. They aren't particularly great at fighting, but all you need for them is to stay in the battle for a while to work their magic. Afterwards the division can withdraw, reorg a bit and go back into the fray.

Also SP-AA should be better in the long run, given that tanks can boost their AA value quite a bit via variants.

 

[dasaard200]

For @GAGA Extrem, what do you consider a "full on AA division" ?
I arm my 13/4/2 AA (+support AA) INF XXs with a total of 80 AA guns; do I need more ??

My T-34 XXs are getting Mdm. SPAA 2s as fast as I can build them; support first, then 2 line BNs .

 

[GAGA Extrem]

I actually don't recall the exact composition I used.
Iirc it was something like [4 INF + 12 AA] or [6 INF + 8 AA] (+ ENG/ART/AA/LOG/WILDCARD support).

Might be changed by now, but back then the AA of every unit was compared on its own vs. the bomber's defence (and only used if they actually were targeted by it). So dispersed AA was good at mitigating damage, but rarely managed to overcome the defence values, resulting in few planes shot down. On the flip side these AA divisions will pretty much shoot down any plane attacking them.

In general I consider Fighters to be more important than AA anyway. I usually ramp up production to about 30-40 MIC[*] until 1940 to get about... I actually don't recall... I think about 4-6k fighters by 1941? But again, that was a while back, iirc SOV starting conditions have been somewhat rebalanced since then, so it might be a bit harder.

For comparison, my army usually consists of ~450 [7 INF + 2 ART](+ART/ENG/LOG/REC/(+ later RART)) divisions by early 1941, plus 24 LARM divisions with one or two H-SP + H-TD brigades. Around 1940 I start to produce H-TDs and slowly swap existing division templates to [6 INF + 2 ART + 1 H-TD](+support). I usually don't bother researching medium tanks at all and instead use that free medium tank research boost from the research agreement to start research of MBTs around mid to late 1942 (but I think that was finally fixed as well?) - not that those are really needed.

My army sits behind the long river lines in forts and just waits for the Germans to exhaust themselves, after the first winter they are usually so weak that I can start a big encirclement at the souther front towards the Romanian border, supported by CAS and TAC. From there on it's just a walk in the park to Berlin.

[*] My total MIC allocation was something like 15 INF EQ, 15 SUPP EQ (scaled down to 5 once everything is equipped), 30 ART (15 converted to R-ART once it is unlocked), 5 MOT (scaled down to 2-3, although that was before we had motorized RECON), 5 LARM, 5 H-SP, 5 H-TD, 30-40 Fighters, 10-15 CAS, 0-5 TAC, 1-2 Transports, 1-2 Recon. Excess MIC is funneled into H-TDs until they reach around 60 MIC, later down the line I assign a bunch into MECH, MBTs and MBT ART, TD and AA as well.

 

[bitmode]

but rarely managed to overcome the defence values, resulting in few planes shot down

The defense value on planes does not work like that. Concentrating AA in few divisions does not help in shooting down more planes on average.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

The defense value on planes does not work like that. Concentrating AA in few divisions does not help in shooting down more planes on average.

Well, as I said, that might have changed by now. Back then a division could only shoot at the planes that attacked them (in fact in the very early days AA couldn't even avoid bomber damage since the plane was considered shot down AFTER the attack run & its damage had been calculated), so a single support AA was usually not enough to kill anything outside of interwar bombers and maybe T1 CAS (?). I think at this point adding 1-2 AA should at least allow to reliably kill a few of the buggers, but concentrated AA is pretty much guaranteed to kill anything.

That being said - AA divsions are mostly a way to limit your MIC expenses on AA guns. Because if you have tons of MIC you probably would have enough fighters to get air superiority anyway. As a minor I usually go for something like [6 INF + 2 ART + 2 AA] because of that. But I don't think SOV needs to play like a minor in that regard (at least not in SP).

 

[seattle]

Well, AA is pretty straightforward.
Do you plan air superiority or not?

If yes, why waste MIC and slots on AA.

If not, then invest heavily in AA as long as the enemy has formidable air power.

I like 14/3arty/3AA.
If you skip AT, you can focus on teching AA so that it will both be a plane killer as well as offer solid piercing.

 

[dasaard200]

Germany and France went a-historical and formed AXIS, and have spread XXs all over Africa, Asia; when Japan joined the Axis in 1940 . The French roped the Japs into DW'ing me at Vladivostok (still holding), and beginning to munch eastern Siberia ... thus blowing my focus on building up for Barbarossa, then Finland and Afganistan erupted; the Finns walked all over the Kola peninsula {Murmansk held out !}, almost made it to the west edge of N.Urals and Moscow, while the Afgans nibbled on worthless southern Russia .
Scrambling my deployments, due to Finns stealing my Steel, the Armies of Migration were formed to take back Our territory; and to punish those upstart minors, who joined the Axis . Finland and Estonia fell quickly the Afganistanis are trying to hold Kabul .
Now with the Steel shortage solved, I can resume my building schemes ... more Arty, AA, T34s, Mechanized, and Mdm.SPAA 2s.

Current Fronts :
1] USSR borders in West : intact; Latvia, Estonia, Finland, conquered ... Lithuania ignored NEUTRAL !
2] Afgans : in progress, siege of Tashkent lifted .
3] Jap front : Vladivostok under siege, deploying units east of Lake Baikal to'push' Japs NORTH into Upper NE Siberia' Mongolia line is holding .
4] Norway : Spanish, Italians, and Germans attacking from Norway's border into Finland; holding firm .

Le Frogs have tried naval invasions [all failures, dey wuz French] ; none since August'40 . Ports in Baltic now have 6x 10/0 (+arty) XXs spread over 3 tiles each .

 

[dasaard200]

For @seattle, I think that 14/3/3 XXs are a mite heavy and use a LOT of AA/XX; when building up to 13/4/2 AAs ,targeting 150-200 XXs of INF, ya HAVE to dole them out carefully .
Even with 38+ arty/day, it takes time to do a 4 step upgrade to get to 4 line BNs of arty; and as long as I've got 250 [various] INF XXs on Western Wall to Axis' 110-130 XXs ... I've got time to do 30 upgrades to 13/4/2s in stockpile, and 1 upgrade every 4-5 days through production alone !

During the Finn Romp, my northern Steel was cut off; so all I could build was AIR, so why cut this back when I have many Fronts to wage upon Bozo's air ?
I've got about 2/5-1/2 of German air, FTRs, CAS, a few TACs and 300 STRAT bombers; but I DON'T KNOW how spread out they are, those BOZOS !

AT is for Japanese and minor armor; big guns and armor are big XP buys, plus heavy tank designer ... even for T34s .

Tank numbers are slowly climbing after the Finn Romp; there's a refinery, a resource factory, an infrastructure, a CF build, and 9 WFs (Moscow) to finish before choosing more WF States to build . Industry slots 4 comes on-line in 70 days ... so that'll help !

 

[marcelo r. r.]

GER AI spam crazy amount of CAS, but only support AA is needed to counter them.
The AI production of tanks is negligigle too, so dont need invest in AT, unless u are using some mod to enhance AI production/templates.

 

[dasaard200]

I have seen some screenshots of many countries suffering Bozo's "Snake City" operations, both here and elsewhere, like Eisenhower's drive through Germany after the Rhine crossings;
to counter this, IF you've got the deployable manpower, the Armies of Migration are a good stopgap option .
While using newly available troops (L1, L2) in exercise mode to get into the way of invading 'snakes', as better (L3+) troops are funneled to hot spots for the kills .
Rail and road march are the Migration's weapons of containment; providing B'rer Rabbit's TAR BABY option in the Briar Patch for Bozo's throw away units; gaining lovely XP for YOU .
In my game, the Finns, Afgans (and Japs) DID take significant territory, but after they were squashed; these Armies of Migration (now much closer in XP to L3s) provide occupation of taken turfs, and/or reinforcements for avenging armies to SMITE active Bozo's (Axis) in Siberia and Norway .