Operation Barbarossa...how exactly?

[ladner]

Firstly, would like to thank the many regulars here, your advice has helped out greatly. Whereas a month ago I was regularly getting stalled/crushed in the Low Countries. Now knocking out France, maintaining air superiority in the West, and having adequate fuel for 1939/1940 are regular accomplishments.

I have many hours of playing, unfortunately those hours are mostly a repeat of 1936-1939 sometimes to 1940. Generally in prior games there was some fatal flaw, in strategy that I would make, and with being in ironman mode, you can't recover. So running Barbarossa is new to me. This most recent play through I was having a great game or so I thought: The Deutches Afrika Korps had successfully captured Cairo, the Suez, and the middle East. Italy was now the master of Africa. Submarine warfare was grinding along nicely in the Atlantic. Using Secret Master's tip on having a training infantry template with no support and switching over to tank/motorized I had built up mobile forces which would be at or greater than historic levels. Regarding division composition 20W infantry, all infantry standard support, 20W Panzer standard template medium/mot with support.

The mistakes

For Barbarossa, fuel became an issue. I had built up synthetics, so rubber wasn't a problem, in truth I was slightly lagging behind on the refinery technology both the standard one and the one for synthetic was 1939 tech in 1941. Declaring war on your primary oil supplier, becomes a problem. I was in the midst of going down the integrated economy decision tree with Romania and Hungary.

Tank production. I had built what I thought was a decent surplus of tanks. I had researched Heavy II, using one of the bonuses and was building these up as well, but not to the scale of medium tank production. I switched my template from a mix of light/medium to all medium and ended up with a massive tank deficit (~1k), which required switching partially back. Medium II production had started in late 1940/early 1941. MAN as designer, with Guderian speed bonus.

Yugoslavia/Greece. I invaded in 1940, knocking out Yugoslavia wasn't so difficult, although the mountains caused issues and my mountain troops were primarily in Norway, mostly killing Brits. This became a major mess. 1) because of attacking out of Hungary most of the territory became Hungarian 2) the northern territories primarily the ones that were Austrian became Italian 3) the British mount a massive, and I mean massive intervention. This adversely impacted my Chromium situation, which I didn't pay enough attention to, I will run a deficit in material up to -4 in tungsten/rubber/chromium

Airforce. I had a massive air force, and clearly had failed to plan for the amount of fuel required to keep the sheer number of plans airborne. I have not been min/maxing and more or less historically roleplay. For example went down the air-innovation tree and used the TAC bonus on Ju-88 so that it would be built historically on time and the airforce is a mix of fighter/CAS/TAC with some heavy fighter and Recon. Controlling the skies has not been an issue, although was surprised that the AI Soviet Union could get yellow air on Eastern Poland, but once I brought every plane on the European continent to bear this wasn't the case. If you are importing aluminum from Hungary are you building too many planes?

Land Doctrine - I don't think I had arrived at the left/right split in the tree, and this could very well have been a problem.

Man power - The Yugoslavia/Greece campaign resulted in massive casualties, more than France/Poland combined. I have never been able to have the relatively low casualties that were historical up to Barbarossa by the Wehrmacht. I think this is just the nature of the game engine. By Barbarossa I had gone to service by requirement but manpower was being drained at an alarming rate. Is the hospital company worth it?

The United States - thanks to incredibly bad Japan AI the US has entered the war in September of 1941, with historical focuses on. I am not enthusiastic about this considering the massive economic power, at least it is the hands of an equally bad US AI.

Intel

I had penetrated the Soviet union with a spy, and somehow had enough intel were I could see their tree, I was very surprised to see that the T34 had not been researched yet. Further I could see their equipment pool and they had no armor in the pools. I am thinking the war is lost since I haven't captured Kiev and it is the almost the winter of 1941, but perhaps this is an attrition war that I am about to win, which seem incredulous that Germany could beat the Soviets via attrition in WWII. Of course my fuel situation may be the nail in the coffin.

 

[ladner]

From rough memory:

Soviet casualties 1.2M

British 1M

USA 200k

Italy 1M

Germany 1M (500k from Soviets, 300k from Britain, 200k Yugo/Greece which seems astronomical)

 

[Harin]

@ladner, you will most likely get some posts about min/maxing and/or some posts about how to beat the USSR easily with the current game mechanics. That is a good thing and others who know more than me should be the one to tell you the details.

In the meantime; fuel. If you mouse over the fuel icon on your toolbar, you will see how much each branch of your military and how much fuel it is burning currently and its maximum fuel burn. Just above that, you will see the total fuel you are burning per day and the maximum you can burn per day, with all ships, aircraft, and tanks moving. That total number is sobering. Above that you can see how much fuel you are producing.

Before Barbarossa you want to be sure you have access to enough imported oil that does not require convoys. Otherwise, you may need to build storage tanks and fill them up for the Soviet campaign. Sometimes you get enough storage tanks form conquest, sometimes you do not.

Game tip: The Allied AI rarely uses anything but submarines to sink German convoys. The AI likes to stack most of its submarines in the sea zone right next to Germany. Flying bombers over that sea space will eventually sink most of the Allied submarines and you can start using convoys again. That is not historical, but it seems to work more often than not. Just remember to have your convoys go around England by denying access to the sea zones around England to convoys and fleets.

This video has been very helpful to me in understanding how combat works in the game. The game engine does not reward some common sense or historical actions, so video helped me see that.

In Depth Guide to Land Combat in HOI4


Still, from the sound of your game, you have a fight on your hands, which is always fun. Pulling back your tanks, parking your bombers, and aircraft while going on the defensive is not a bad thing. You can build up your fuel supplies, replenish your tanks, and let the Russians escalate their casualties on your defensive line and attack again when you are ready.

 

[Eh up me duck]

Tactically the easiest thing to do is simply slice up little pockets of soviet divisions and eat up their army. Dont worry about making rapid advances - the ai won't be capable of replenishing its losses, not by a long shot.

Just concentrate your armoured divisions in favourable terrain (flat, no rivers) and slice and dice. Once the soviet army is down to below 100 divisions let the battle planner march your infantry armies all the way to the Urals.

 

[squid_hills]

Not having reached the first left/right split in your land combat doctrine by 1941 is probably not helping you. Those bonuses are vital, and an army farther down the tree will do noticeably better than one that hasn't done more than the first few. Germany gets a couple x100% research bonuses from the focus tree and it is worth chasing those down before you invade Russia. It is also worth it to use 100 Army XP to pay down the research cost if you don't have a x100% bonus handy. You should get a fair amount of Army XP from invading France, Poland, and Yugoslavia. Especially if Yugo turns into a grind.

Now for some heresy! I know Germany is all about the Mobile Warfare doctrine, and it's great if you use a lot of tanks/motorized, but consider taking a look at Superior Firepower. I did a SF Germany run and noticed an immediate difference in how quickly I was able to blast dudes off of tiles with even my basic infantry. Of course, I'm still using version 1.8 without the LaR nerf to SF, so your mileage may vary.

Field hospitals are super useful. Yes, they increase the amount of IC you need to use on any given division, but they serve 2 purposes that I find vital to any country planning to pick a fight with a bigger opponent: they reduce manpower loss and they reduce division XP loss. You will lose fewer men with a hospital, and when you do lose guys the replacement troops won't drag your division's experience level down too far. The bonus regular and elite troops get in combat is noticeable when fighting green Soviet conscripts, believe me.

Have you considered rocket artillery support companies? By 41 the tech is available. I put rocket arty support on all my divisions, in addition to conventional artillery support. Yes, this makes my infantry and cavalry expensive, but the soft attack bonus is worth it. Rocket Arty gets bonuses from both the artillery tech tree, as well as the rocket tech tree, so it can increase soft attack to impressive levels even on 10/0 infantry. It gets extra sexy with Superior Firepower as well.

Fuel is the most important thing in the universe when you go to war in this game. You should be monopolizing all of Romania's oil, and grab as much oil from Iran and Iraq as you can. Do not import anything from the USSR at any point in the game. Every resource you import from them is another civ factory they have to make military factories to fight you with. Don't make your job harder than it will be already. Only import from countries you will be allied with, or that will stay neutral. Try to avoid importing from anyone that will require convoys. If you import via convoys, you have to play the naval game to protect them.

Avoid playing the naval game. You are Germany. You can't go toe to toe with the Royal Navy and the French navy and the US navy with just your small joke of a surface fleet and whatever antiques the Italians can scrape together. Spam subs (especially sub 3s with snorkel as soon as they are available) and park them in the sea zone off your coast to avoid getting naval invaded. Build naval bombers and radar stations on the French coast. When you want to invade Britain, turn the sky above the English Channel black with your naval bombers and sink the RN that way. Or use naval bombers to sink British convoys in the Channel. Just make sure you have enough gas to keep them in the air. Naval bombers are OP as heck and often overlooked in the meta. A lot of people use CAS on naval bombing missions instead, as it saves them an entire aircraft production line and research branch. That will get you by in a pinch (and it is good strategy for a minor nation) but naval bombers are noticeably better at sinking ships than CAS, especially when backed up by radar and fighters for spotting. I've used naval bombers as Italy to dominate the Med more than once. Keep up with your air power doctrine, because those air superiority bonuses matter. If you decide not to play the naval game, you can also avoid researching naval doctrines and free up a research slot. Sub 3s (and 4s for late game) are potent enough to get the job done against the AI without any doctrines added on.

Tactical bombers are solidly "meh" in this game. They can strat bomb and do ground support, but they aren't really great at either. They do have a solid long range compared to CAS, and proper strategic bombers are very resource intensive, so I understand why people still use them. Build some for use as strat bombers and use your CAS for ground support missions. After you conquer Russia, you can build full-on strategic bombers with all those nice new Soviet factories.

I have yet to find a use for heavy fighters as Germany. They are good in the Pacific where range is important, but in Europe? There are enough airfields that your regular fighters should be able to reach anywhere on the continent once the war gets moving. Consider switching your heavy fighter factories to naval bombers instead.

I really like naval bombers.

I guess that's all the advice I have. Those tips have helped me out as Germany and as a bunch of other nations, so I hope they can help you, too.

 

[Secret Master]

Land Doctrine - I don't think I had arrived at the left/right split in the tree, and this could very well have been a problem.

Yep. This is a real problem.

For novice players, I'd highly recommend a good army theorist as an early pick (Guderian is my preference), and I'd put a research slot permanently on army doctrines. As you get more experience, you can shuffle around the research a bit more, but those doctrines are gold.

Tank production. I had built what I thought was a decent surplus of tanks. I had researched Heavy II, using one of the bonuses and was building these up as well, but not to the scale of medium tank production. I switched my template from a mix of light/medium to all medium and ended up with a massive tank deficit (~1k), which required switching partially back. Medium II production had started in late 1940/early 1941. MAN as designer, with Guderian speed bonus.

Pick either medium or heavy tanks. I wouldn't do both.

Also, for newer players, I'd recommend medium tanks. Heavy tanks aren't bad, but due to increased costs and their speed, they are not the easiest to use.

For Barbarossa, fuel became an issue. I had built up synthetics, so rubber wasn't a problem, in truth I was slightly lagging behind on the refinery technology both the standard one and the one for synthetic was 1939 tech in 1941. Declaring war on your primary oil supplier, becomes a problem. I was in the midst of going down the integrated economy decision tree with Romania and Hungary.

Hmmm, you really shouldn't be running out of fuel during Barbarossa.

Let's run a checklist to see if you missed a source you can tap.

1) Did you buy 100% of Romania's oil?
2) Did you buy 100% of Italy's oil?
3) You mentioned the Middle East. Are you buying/occupying the oil in Iraq and Iran? You don't need convoys to ship it home, since it can travel via Turkey.

Man power - The Yugoslavia/Greece campaign resulted in massive casualties, more than France/Poland combined. I have never been able to have the relatively low casualties that were historical up to Barbarossa by the Wehrmacht. I think this is just the nature of the game engine. By Barbarossa I had gone to service by requirement but manpower was being drained at an alarming rate. Is the hospital company worth it?

This problem mystifies me a bit. I never have a problem taking out Yugoslavia and Greece.

Did you attack Yugoslavia from all sides, not just the German border? I don't mean let Romania and Hungary handle their fronts themselves, but did you put German troops there and push?
Did the Italians steal your supplies?

Regarding HOSP: It's not my favorite support company. Some folks swear by it, but let me just say that it's primary use is limiting casualties so that unit XP is maintained. I'm not sure you will actually save a ton of manpower by employing them in the way you envision.

 

[ladner]

Yep. This is a real problem.

For novice players, I'd highly recommend a good army theorist as an early pick (Guderian is my preference), and I'd put a research slot permanently on army doctrines. As you get more experience, you can shuffle around the research a bit more, but those doctrines are gold.



Pick either medium or heavy tanks. I wouldn't do both.

Also, for newer players, I'd recommend medium tanks. Heavy tanks aren't bad, but due to increased costs and their speed, they are not the easiest to use.



Hmmm, you really shouldn't be running out of fuel during Barbarossa.

Let's run a checklist to see if you missed a source you can tap.

1) Did you buy 100% of Romania's oil?
2) Did you buy 100% of Italy's oil?
3) You mentioned the Middle East. Are you buying/occupying the oil in Iraq and Iran? You don't need convoys to ship it home, since it can travel via Turkey.




This problem mystifies me a bit. I never have a problem taking out Yugoslavia and Greece.

Did you attack Yugoslavia from all sides, not just the German border? I don't mean let Romania and Hungary handle their fronts themselves, but did you put German troops there and push?
Did the Italians steal your supplies?

Regarding HOSP: It's not my favorite support company. Some folks swear by it, but let me just say that it's primary use is limiting casualties so that unit XP is maintained. I'm not sure you will actually save a ton of manpower by employing them in the way you envision.

Italians stealing supplies is possible, there was a massive AI response both Axis and Allies. The attack was from all sides that I had access from. Romania was unaligned, at the time.

The problem was huge British presence, which I realize is just the nature of HOI AI at this stage.

I was purchasing Romanian oil. But could not buy all of it. Perhaps I am failing some subtle aspect of diplomacy. I know with agents I have become addicted to forming collaboration governments. The IC/MIL/CIV spike is almost too good to pas up on. Perhaps need to focus more on trade missions.

 

[Bergermeister]

Running intercept mission uses a fraction of the fuel that the air superiority mission does. If the enemy has bombers up, run that with some fighters to keep killing theirs while saving gas. If you leave the planes up but with no mission after they ran one, you do not lose mission efficiency when you need to use them again. Even intercept uses some fuel even if there are no enemy planes present. Saves loads of gas.

 

[sekelsenmat]

I have yet to find a use for heavy fighters as Germany. They are good in the Pacific where range is important, but in Europe? There are enough airfields that your regular fighters should be able to reach anywhere on the continent once the war gets moving. Consider switching your heavy fighter factories to naval bombers instead.

If you don't want to sealion for roleplay reasons, then heavy fighters are very useful as any axis nation. They are the only way to kill Strat bombers effectively. Strat bombers fight equally with light fighters, to win in IC you have to use heavy fighters. Maybe a light fighter +5 gun variant would do the trick, but then you need to produce two light fighter variants.

 

[Simon_9732495]

Medium II production had started in late 1940/early 1941.

You should mass produce Tanks with around 2/3rds of your Mils at that point. The earlier you start the higher your production efficiency at the end.
I'd say 15000 Tanks is the minimum for Barabarossa. With a production of 40 Tanks per day this takes a year.

 

[Voigt]

Regarding HOSP: It's not my favorite support company. Some folks swear by it, but let me just say that it's primary use is limiting casualties so that unit XP is maintained. I'm not sure you will actually save a ton of manpower by employing them in the way you envision.

I use Field Hospitals somewhat rarely, but where I like them are French Troops in Africa, especially after they capitulated. If you build up you factories in Africa you have decent production, and if you evacuated big chunks of your army you only need to resupply those from attrition. Meanwhile you manpower is quite limited without the French Mainland, so adding Field Hospitals there while fighting with your squishy infantry against the Axis in Africa can save you quite a bit of manpower. And on top you get more experience on your troops.
Also those battles happen somewhat later, you have enough time to research 1939 Hospitals, which make them quite a bit better, and 1942 hospitals aren't thaat far of.

 

[sekelsenmat]

You should mass produce Tanks with around 2/3rds of your Mils at that point. The earlier you start the higher your production efficiency at the end.
I'd say 15000 Tanks is the minimum for Barabarossa. With a production of 40 Tanks per day this takes a year.

Wow, that's far more than I usually do. Don't you lose green air with so few fighters? I thought most people recommended to build most of all fighters. It can be hard to get the balance right.

 

[Voigt]

I usually do 30~50 Mils on MARM. 100~150 Mil on Fighters. (in MP, in SP 50 Mils on Fighter and 30 Mils on MARM is more than fine)

 

[ladner]

I usually do 30~50 Mils on MARM. 100~150 Mil on Fighters. (in MP, in SP 50 Mils on Fighter and 30 Mils on MARM is more than fine)

How do you get the resources to do this? I don’t think I have ever had 100 MILs on fighter aircraft production, that’s a staggering amount of rubber required. Do you have synthetic plants on every territory?

 

[Voigt]

Synthetic Plan in all States of the Strategic Region of East Germany. (Only one strategic region to protect with your airforce to keep up rubber). With the Focus and right tech this should give your 350~400 rubber. So even on export focus to supply Italy so they also build airplanes, this should be more than fine.

So you don't need to build up all the states at the start.
Personally I start researching 1941 rubber in mid 1939, which takes a year. I mostly do this so the 300% research bonus gets applied to the last 1943 synth rubber tech, which then I can research in like 100 days.

Depending on tech you should get 5~7 rubber per synth raff. With 5 states fully filled up with 3 rafs you have already around 100 rubber, which becomes 130 rubber with excavation tech. Depending if you are on limited export or export focus this could be already enough for you for the start.

Btw rubber is the smallest problem, you are swimming in it. The biggest problem is Aluminium, especially with Fighter III. Mostly fine after you get France, and if Italy builds up the one aluminium state on Yugoslavia (I think it was Montenegro or Macedona).

 

[ladner]

Synthetic Plan in all States of the Strategic Region of East Germany. (Only one strategic region to protect with your airforce to keep up rubber). With the Focus and right tech this should give your 350~400 rubber. So even on export focus to supply Italy so they also build airplanes, this should be more than fine.

So you don't need to build up all the states at the start.
Personally I start researching 1941 rubber in mid 1939, which takes a year. I mostly do this so the 300% research bonus gets applied to the last 1943 synth rubber tech, which then I can research in like 100 days.

Depending on tech you should get 5~7 rubber per synth raff. With 5 states fully filled up with 3 rafs you have already around 100 rubber, which becomes 130 rubber with excavation tech. Depending if you are on limited export or export focus this could be already enough for you for the start.

Btw rubber is the smallest problem, you are swimming in it. The biggest problem is Aluminium, especially with Fighter III. Mostly fine after you get France, and if Italy builds up the one aluminium state on Yugoslavia (I think it was Montenegro or Macedona).

Thank you for the insight, have almost 300 hours and still have much to learn.

 

[Voigt]

I am over 2000 hours but I still learn new stuff now and then. ^^
Although it is often bugs/designoversights you have to workaround or fix per mod for MP.

 

[Simon_9732495]

Wow, that's far more than I usually do. Don't you lose green air with so few fighters? I thought most people recommended to build most of all fighters. It can be hard to get the balance right.

I started a seperate thread to compare production for Barbarossa: -> https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...ed-produced-for-operation-barbarossa.1406983/

 

[Eisscrat]

First though 15000 tanks are excessiv but also match this in my current game. But after conquering portugal, spain, france, benelux, denmark, sweden, norway, hungary and romania for industry tungsten and oil.
In my case i start building medtanks III in 1940 and befor that only build light tanks. With this and converting captured tanks into light TDs and light SPGs for the Panzergrenadierdivisionen i came up to 24 light tank divisions with ~ 7500 tanks and spgs and 24 mot inf divisions with 4000spg and td. Think at mid 41 18 medium tankdivisions should be ready with ~6300 medium III tanks. So i also get up to 17000 but only a third are medium tanks and this is already excessive for a buffed UdSSR.

Dont think 15000 are a minimum. Maybe if u use battleplans and push on along the whole front. I manage my tanks and mot. Inf manually. Make 5 big encierclements. Two in the north at minsk and riga, one surround the whole pripyat swamps and two to kiev and the krim. That should wipe out most of the red army. The concentratet tanks nake the breakthrough and than light tanks and mot inf make deep pushs in the back. Infantry only hold the walls of the encierclements while medtanks pull them closer. If you have 15000 tanks u can made this at the same time but also with less tanks you can made this step by step. This would take more time but also should work.

Important is not to attack with your infantry. This would cost a lot of manpower. Use your infantry only for defense and let the tanks do the attacks. And there every time with the maximum number if tankdivisions. 4 20with from one province or 6 if u attack from two directions. That shorten the combats and save lifes.

 

[porta80]

Synthetic Plan in all States of the Strategic Region of East Germany. (Only one strategic region to protect with your airforce to keep up rubber). With the Focus and right tech this should give your 350~400 rubber. So even on export focus to supply Italy so they also build airplanes, this should be more than fine.

So you don't need to build up all the states at the start.
Personally I start researching 1941 rubber in mid 1939, which takes a year. I mostly do this so the 300% research bonus gets applied to the last 1943 synth rubber tech, which then I can research in like 100 days.

Depending on tech you should get 5~7 rubber per synth raff. With 5 states fully filled up with 3 rafs you have already around 100 rubber, which becomes 130 rubber with excavation tech. Depending if you are on limited export or export focus this could be already enough for you for the start.

Btw rubber is the smallest problem, you are swimming in it. The biggest problem is Aluminium, especially with Fighter III. Mostly fine after you get France, and if Italy builds up the one aluminium state on Yugoslavia (I think it was Montenegro or Macedona).

Air Zone of East Germany has 9 states.
9x3=27
27×6rubber (1 base 3 from 41 tech and 2 from focus) = 162
162×1,4=249 rubber
Still enough on export focus for the whole axis.
One of the reasons I created a mod for myself where synth have no base rubber and focus is reduced to 1 rubber and also fuel base output reduced by 15%.