Berlin fell to the Russian bear already in 1943, what to do?

[Judge]

Finally I am fairly successful while playing Germany 1,06 normal/normal. I captured Poland, France, Belgium the Balkans, Turkey and then got Italy and Spain into my alliance. The British fought on but were on the defensive. I even got a good grip on them in India. Then it happened; the Russian bear moved in on me and I was thoroughly and utterly defeated. They had something of 400 div and it was absolutely impossible to stop them. Berlin fell in 1943 and I was defeated by the end of the year. Oddly enough even in battle on equal terms I was defeated by the Russians.

Now, my plan was to deal with the bear once I had dealt with the British but it seems you have to attack Russia asap to keep them at bay or? Perhaps they get enormous tech developments after 1939? Tips are welcome since I have started a new game to get some revenge.

My plan is to attack the bear as early as possible after securing Europe. I am focusing mainly on industrial research, light aircraft, infantry, armour and electronics. I am planning on doing heavy research up until late 1937 and then start building div like a madman.

 

[unmerged(17298)]

When playing germany I always build a line of forts on the border with russia after poland has been annexed. That way they see you are quite strong and will not DOW on you until a bit later. Also they will not try and attack you in the forts if they think you cannot win. SO you can start teh attack on your terms even if the DOW on you first when you are not ready.

Then its the old trick on cutting off their divs slowly but surely moving up into russia.

Try and ally with Japan as soon as poss to open up a 2nd front.

 

[Heretic]

USSR dow is fairly inevitable by 1943 or so..
you really need to focus on bringing USSR down -
essentially this is where your war will be won or lost
fairly historical actually

Heretic

 

[Judge]

When playing germany I always build a line of forts on the border with russia after poland has been annexed. That way they see you are quite strong and will not DOW on you until a bit later. Also they will not try and attack you in the forts if they think you cannot win. SO you can start teh attack on your terms even if the DOW on you first when you are not ready.

Then its the old trick on cutting off their divs slowly but surely moving up into russia.

Try and ally with Japan as soon as poss to open up a 2nd front.

Sounds good but generally I find it difficult to keep up with the Russians in the field of construction new divisions which in turn will make it difficult to surround them. Got to try at least

 

[Judge]

USSR dow is fairly inevitable by 1943 or so..
you really need to focus on bringing USSR down -
essentially this is where your war will be won or lost
fairly historical actually

Heretic

Yes I realize that now, can´t hope to keep the bear happy forever I guess

 

[unmerged(27034)]

My plan is to attack the bear as early as possible after securing Europe. I am focusing mainly on industrial research, light aircraft, infantry, armour and electronics. I am planning on doing heavy research up until late 1937 and then start building div like a madman.

You are not researching artillery and doctrine ? That could certainly explain a lot. Or did you just forget to mention them ?

And skipping bombers is some of the problem too. You need tactical air, and that means researching bombers.

You want at least one stack with 9 - 12 tactical bombers. 2 or 3 stacks is better. Those bombers should be used to
* Bring enemy divisions down to 10 org before you forces arrive, when you attack.
* Bring enemy divisions down to 10 org, before they arrive in one of your provinces attacking. Whenever you see they are walking towards you.
* Support in ongoing battles.
* Annhilation of lone divisions by repeated bombing, if you find any 1 division sized stacks in provinces with light AA.


As for Soviets many divisions, the solution, is as usually, encircle and destroy.

Breakthroughs can be achieved by massed armored forces.

And most defences can be won by massed armor too. ( since you can see attacks two weeks before they arrive, it is easy to move armor into the critical spots in time.

So basicly, let infantery do the garrisoning, and the armor do the fighting.

 

[unmerged(17617)]

For Germany it is better to take out the Soviets ASAP. They will DOW you by 1942 at the latest, but by that time their Tech is already reasonably advanced, and by 1943/1944 it will probably be equal. Fighting of 400 divisions can be done, but fighting of 400 divisions who are on the same level, is a lot trickier. I personally prefer to postpone Sealion until after Barbarossa because as Gemany you have the luxury of being able to chose the battlefield when it comes to Britain. Do you take them out in Africa, the Middle and Far East or on the Home Isles? Britain can't have all their forces on the same spot so you can take them out front by front. You don't have that luxury with the Soviets, so you might as well take them out when you're still ahead. Use Barabrossa to neutralize the British Airforce and Navy and to build up an invasion fleet.
Edit; Tacair is an absolute neccesity for Germany.

 

[Judge]

You are not researching artillery and doctrine ? That could certainly explain a lot. Or did you just forget to mention them ?

And skipping bombers is some of the problem too. You need tactical air, and that means researching bombers.

I do research artillery heavily too but not much heavy aircraft since I thought that was for strategic bombers? However I think I might have used too few tactical bombers (about 8 in total). Thanks for the advice, will try to use tactical bombers more.

For Germany it is better to take out the Soviets ASAP.

Thanks for the advice. I will move in asap and skip my earlier “Turkey invasion routine” since it takes too much time (the mountains). Getting Iraq is nice because of the oil but it slows you down too much.

 

[unmerged(6780)]

Thanks for the advice. I will move in asap and skip my earlier “Turkey invasion routine” since it takes too much time (the mountains). Getting Iraq is nice because of the oil but it slows you down too much.

Why not do both at once? By 1941, you should have at least 180 infantry divisions in order to stand a chance of survival, along with a goodly number of armour and mot (and mech if you can). Go after Iraq, but go through Lebanon. No need to aggravate Turkey if you can help it. You do need to take out Yugo and Greece, though, but that can easily be done with 12 infantry divs and some cavalry. The Austrian army is enough, after they've been upgraded to German standards And, once they're done, deploy a small number of transports and DDs to a Yugo port and make a mad dash for Lebanon or Palestine, landing a corps at a time.

The real trick with Germany is to be constantly building, right from the start. You can't really afford to wait until 37 or 38 before building units and if you start building up your infantry form the start, even thought it'll only be 3-4 divisions at a time, that's 12-16 divisions a year, more, once the Austrian and Czech events fire, and then you can really go on a building spree.

 

[unmerged(21924)]

Important

Finally I am fairly successful while playing Germany 1,06 normal/normal. I captured Poland, France, Belgium the Balkans, Turkey and then got Italy and Spain into my alliance. The British fought on but were on the defensive. I even got a good grip on them in India. Then it happened; the Russian bear moved in on me and I was thoroughly and utterly defeated. They had something of 400 div and it was absolutely impossible to stop them. Berlin fell in 1943 and I was defeated by the end of the year. Oddly enough even in battle on equal terms I was defeated by the Russians.

Now, my plan was to deal with the bear once I had dealt with the British but it seems you have to attack Russia asap to keep them at bay or? Perhaps they get enormous tech developments after 1939? Tips are welcome since I have started a new game to get some revenge.

My plan is to attack the bear as early as possible after securing Europe. I am focusing mainly on industrial research, light aircraft, infantry, armour and electronics. I am planning on doing heavy research up until late 1937 and then start building div like a madman.

One thing that I think is VERY important is that you NOT agree to partition Poland. In basic terms, you start two provinces closer to Moscow, but you also get to garrison half that damn swamp and it's easier to encircle it. The border you start with is just much, much better.

I've heard that after '42 they start to catch up tech wise, but as of the bitter peace they had maybe 5 armored divisions, 10 mechs and I'd wiped out their airforce completely.

Other than that, attacking early seems to be key. Using tanks w/ A-Brigades or Mech with A-Brigades against large numbers of Soviet infantry early on you will be basically unstoppable, especially if you have some air support.

I tried to strike a balance between building and research, not all one or the other, and jumped off with a very large army. Looking at the specs, I am certain that if you started Barbarossa in '40 with advaned light tanks (70mm) and A-Brigades, forgot about motorized infantry and waited for mechs, built lots of tanks (they are FAST) you could annihilate the Russians. Of course, I don't ever build subs.

I once conquered Finland first, it was nice to be able to open up a front in the north like that.

A tip one guy on the board gave me is to always be building 3 infantry units -as soon as the first three are done, build three more, etc. I followed that advice, and it was very helpful as I had enough infantry to garrison my conquests and gaurd the pockets I created. I DOW'ed them in March '41 and had the bitter peace by August. I'll re-DOW them in March of '42 and finish them off. I had an easy go of it with the Soviets in vanilla 1.06, but when I checked my settings I was playing normal/weakling (meant to go on normal/normal) so I don't believe it was a fair test of the AI, and I am tweaked at myself for "wasting" a game, but oh well, I'll give CORE a shot and see what happens (a crushing defeat, I expect).

Good luck,

Chris

 

[unmerged(6780)]

Interestingly, in CORE, it the usual advice of not partitioning Poland is a bad move. The Sovs usually fortify their orginal borders so if you don't accept partition, the break-in phase will find the Germans smashing themselves against forts instead of being able to crush, or at least encircle, the Sov border armies away from their shiny forts

 

[Judge]

One thing that I think is VERY important is that you NOT agree to partition Poland. In basic terms, you start two provinces closer to Moscow, but you also get to garrison half that damn swamp and it's easier to encircle it. The border you start with is just much, much better.

Thanks for the tips, I did agree to that, will not happen again since you have to fight them anyway

 

[Tamerlan]

Interestingly, in CORE, it the usual advice of not partitioning Poland is a bad move. The Sovs usually fortify their orginal borders so if you don't accept partition, the break-in phase will find the Germans smashing themselves against forts instead of being able to crush, or at least encircle, the Sov border armies away from their shiny forts

It is a very bad move in vanilla HOI 1.06 too ... generally speaking !

 

[unmerged(21924)]

Why so?

It is a very bad move in vanilla HOI 1.06 too ... generally speaking !

What makes not accepting the partition a bad move? I destroyed Russia in 1941, although I didn't realize at the time that my settings were normal/weakling instead of normal/normal. Still, it was such a "blowout" (I had Leningrad in a month and forced the Bitter Peace after 5 months) I'm not sure what the differences would have been on harder settings. I am planning to play CORE next, so would love to know what makes taking all of Poland a bad move.

Thanks,

Chris

 

[unmerged(6780)]

What makes not accepting the partition a bad move? I destroyed Russia in 1941, although I didn't realize at the time that my settings were normal/weakling instead of normal/normal. Still, it was such a "blowout" (I had Leningrad in a month and forced the Bitter Peace after 5 months) I'm not sure what the differences would have been on harder settings. I am planning to play CORE next, so would love to know what makes taking all of Poland a bad move.

Thanks,

Chris

Read my post a couple posts up In CORE, the Sovs generally build forts along the pre-war border, so if you take all of Poland, you're attacking into forts instead of being able to smash the border armies in front of the forts. Also, the tech tree in CORE is radically different from vanilla, as is the AI, so strategies that worked in vanilla tend to lead to nasty surprises in CORE :0

 

[unmerged(16843)]

If you're going defensive, build your forts along the Wisla, Bug, and/or Nieman Rivers. They will have an extremely difficult time breaking through. Remember though that they will produce many more units than you can destroy in a defensive war. You need to make a move with highly technologically advanced numbers of large troops in 1941 or so. Waiting around is suicide.

 

[unmerged(14109)]

The key to beating the Russians is to remember that you can't defend with more than 24 divisions at once. This means that you should retreat when attacked with more than 24 divisions. Respond by counter-attacking and encircling instead. Since only 24 divisions can defend at once but a nearly infinite number can attack, mobility is clearly more important than strength.

 

[elbasto]

nice tip bouis

 

[Judge]

Thanks for all tips, now I took out Poland pretty in a pretty easily by November 1939. The odd thing is that the allies didn’t declare war on me. This means that I am not currently at war. My plan is to redeploy and beef up my army for two or three months and then go for France. However is there a better option in my situation? I have around 90 div, top quality and about ten tac. bombers divisions. The armoured forces are a bit undersized perhaps, around 25 div.

 

[cdat]

Take out Poland early in 1939 and fast. The allies won't D0W you. Wait until the Russians DoW Latavia. Follow their lead and do the same. Latavia will join the English. Now defend (wipeout) the French border. Russia will gain military access through Persia and Afghanistan to attack the Brit's. Once they pull their troops away from the Polish front,DoW & attack.