"Not one step back, comrades!"

[ppk]

So I'm playing this game as the Soviets, where I'm trying to avoid falling back from the Ukraine and Eastern Poland. It's not my first game with the Reds so I strayed from the historical path in a couple ways.

Thanks to heavy investment in intelligence operations from the 1936 start (using "Support our Party"), the oblivious American public voted the Communist Party to power in the November 1940 elections. Of course we also spent diplomatic influence on them the whole time, so after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor they were quick to join the Comintern. This, although a bit novel, has proved to be a tremendous waste of leadership. Our American comrades are not proving particularly helpful in the land war against Germany.

At the start, I deleted nearly every starting unit so I wouldn't have to sort their stupid OOB, and focused intensely on IC buildup for the first few years. I started rebuilding the army from scratch in early 1939, just in time to get a full infantry army out for the Winter War. My build focused on teching to Superior Firepower as early as possible to field as many 3xINF/ART/AT divisions as early as possible to form the core of the Red Army. I've also got tanks, of course, in a separate armored/motorized breakthrough army. The German attack came very late, just as winter was setting in, so they made no significant gains in the first year. I fell back to the outskirts of Riga in the North, and the rest of the line held firm. I even made some limited gains in Poland.

As the front got quiet for the winter, I planned my next moves for the summer of 1942 and conceived a daring plan to drive my breakthrough army straight to Koenigsberg and trap dozens of German divisions in a wide pocket.

It's only a ~300km drive from our starting positions, and we have a full breakthrough army with three supporting infantry armies on the flanks. What could possibly go wrong?

I didn't think the Luftwaffe would pose such a problem. It's not that far, but it's far enough that the leading elements of the attack are now out of range of their supporting interceptor wings. So they're getting pounded day and night by relentless bombing runs, which my air force is powerless to stop because we don't have multi-roles. So their strength and organization are slowly dwindling away instead of recovering, and I'm finding it impossible to push through the last few provinces and close the gap. I've made costly attempts to seize the airstrips in Warsaw and Brest Litovsk, but to no avail. Every time our troops are pushed back by violent counter attacks.

To make matters worse, we're almost out of manpower. Because we refused to fall back (we also frankly didn't need to), we didn't trigger the Patriotic War event, which gives a whopping 3.5k MP but requires the SU to be at 20% surrender progress before it fires... So, armchair generals, I ask you : how would you break out of this nasty situation? Of course, falling back is not an option.

Google drive link to the save game (HoI3 TFH, v4.02)

 

[IronMurg]

I'd say an amphibious invasion or paradrop would be your only hope at this point, but I think you would have tried that already if you had the ships or paras.

Another option would be to drive northeast rather than north. Fewer divisions would be caught in the pocket, but you'd be driving back towards your friendly airfields.

Since airfields are so cheap next time you might consider having one or more ready so that you can plop it down on your axis of attack.

Or, aircraft drop tanks are so useful you might consider researching them a year ahead of time to take care of your INT range problem.

Good luck!

 

[Alliegorical]

Oooh, that's so tasty a pocket. Close it and you'll win the war in a stroke. I'm gonna fire up this save and see what can be done.

 

[thexmassteam]

Bring AA brigades in bombed stack may help. You could also start rotating units in bombed places in order to get them re-org. Try to create a diversion for Luftwaffe in range of your INT and damage as much as possible German's bombers.
If you have a navy that can stand Kriegsmarine you do not need to take Koenigsberg, close your pocket on the shortest way and patrol to sink supply convoy. Start building airfield right now, you don't know how long it will take to close/destroy the pocket.

Ultimately, as it seems it's THE battle of the war, disband far east units to get back some MP (costly with 50% loss, but how much will cost a defeat in Poland's plains?)

 

[Alliegorical]

Couldn't get the save to work for some reason. Anyway, bear in mind that in the long run, you have the manpower advantage, so if you can just hold what you have, the AI must either evacuate the pocket, which means this will become a much more drawn out war, or they'll hold out.

Either way, time is on your side. Focus on building airfields and more fighters and bombers. If you can just close of the land route, you could set up a nearby airfield and bomb his convoys en route to Konigsberg.

 

[ppk]

Thanks for the feedback. Couple things :

1. Airborne and transports are sadly unavailable. The Air Force and Navy were put on the backburner to get the Army in good condition for the war. No heavy planes or naval transports were built, ever, so practicals will further slow down production of a first batch and it would at least be a year before we can realistically attempt airborne or amphibious operations. Besides, we would need to shift our research and production focus heavily to that area, and there is currently no leadership available for further research. Everything is sunk into officers as long as our build queue won't be done, because at the rate at which we are spamming out new infantry divisions it's barely enough to keep an 80% rating. In the case of the Navy, we would also lack a proper surface fleet to screen the transports. We do have one SH Battleship that's almost done, but it still lacks screens as we were planning to get production licenses for American cruisers once our land army is complete.

2. War with Japan has been safely avoided, so the Far East troops are on their way, having spent most of their time in strategic redeployment for now. It's only one full infantry army, with five full corps. Their lead divisions have already joined the fight on the flanks of the pocket. Likewise, Finland was defeated over the winter and the last divisions of that army are also joining the fight. So everything we have is already concentrated on the front against Germany, or on it's way.

3. We also didn't tech or build AA. Could build some, but it's still on the 1918 level...

4. I already tried baiting the German air force in fights elsewhere on the front, and to be fair my interceptors are shit even when they're in range. They can take the edge off of an attack and achieve local air superiority over one province for a few days. Then they need to reorg because the Germans are stacking far more interceptors than we are. All we got are three wings of four INTs, so we can't cover more than one or two provinces at a time. There are some more in the queue, and also some multi-roles. I'm hoping that mixing them into my interceptor wings will bring up their air defense a bit and give them the extra endurance they need.

5. The manpower situation isn't actually that bad. There's like 1k MP worth of unbuilt units in the queue, so I can always cancel some infantry if I need some. I like to fill up the queue up to 900-1000 IC and just let the slider AI slowly chug at it on "prioritize reinforcements" when I'm at war.

 

[thexmassteam]

Could build some, but it's still on the 1918 level

Try to licence AA. I can't remember what practicals is used but it's quick to build afair.

 

[Less]

Downloaded your save and did this:

You have a monstrous army. Low Officer % hamstrings you a bit, but you should still roll over Germany if you use it properly.

My assumption is that your aren't being mindful of your stacking penalties/frontage limits/etc. Since you are using 3 frontage divisions you want to attack with a max of 4 divisions from a single province, 6 for a 2-province attack, etc. Make sure all of your breakthroughs are strong attacks from as many provinces as possible.

Also you are being highly overdefensive. When defending across rivers you don't need to heavily outnumber the enemy. On the south front you have way too many divisions just guarding against an attack that won't come, and too much of a strategic reserve everywhere. I wouldn't put more than 3 divisions per province and reduce the strategic reserve to almost nothing. Maybe the Axis could mass forces for a breakthrough across a river, but that will take a long time during which you could easily have 15-20 more divisions breaking through Braunsberg, and if they send any divisions south to do so then that just weakens Germany in the place that matters. On the North front you have more than enough forces to aggressively drive through lithuania.

Enemy airpower is not your problem (yet). AI airpower is mostly a manpower drain, which you currently have plenty to spare. Your ORG problems are primarily due to not giving your units a chance to rest, which also means digging in with enough troops that the enemy won't counterattack. Do that for a week and you can still advance. German airpower means you do need to either defeat them in the air or win the war within a year or two, or you'll be drained and unable to reinforce, but that should be more than enough time.

End Result:

 

[ppk]

Very nice

Haven't had time to play much these past few days, but I definitely need to close that pocket! Thanks for taking the time to load up the save and give it a shot.

 

[yamato2cz]

assault with infantry everywhere and rout their forces. after that, its simple. you can win as china if you just dont stop after winning near benjing.