Oh don't worry I'm not going anywhere. I enjoy a good Soviet AAR in any version of the game. I'll be following and hopefully commenting.
As I said...up for grabs...a twist on that phrase I'm sure our present AAR nation government is completely unfamiliar with, of course.Oak Ridge came into being because the residents of 5 hamlets on the Clinch River were ruthlessly evicted. Los Alamos due to a boy's school being ruthlessly evicted (I've seen a copy of that eviction letter). I don't doubt there were ruthless evictions involved with Hanford as well.
The flip side here is, if you planned on defeating the Allies (as opposed to just, say, capturing all the VC provinces or something), you'd still need a navy. That being said, it would likely be sufficient do build a CV-based navy which would rely heavily on the relatively strong Russian air technology for its striking power, rather that the development from scratch of a BB fleet. You'd still need to pursue a DD or CL tech path to get some modern screens, but you could probably save on techs by only researching the AA, engines, maybe enough armor to stop them from being OHKO'd by passing CAGs.At the moment, I’m sceptical about the feasibility (research and production) of ever developing a worthwhile conventional fleet that could compete with the British, French (still intact and probably growing by now) and US fleets in numbers or quality. As at now, I’m developing landing craft for use against Japan. They might be of use for a future smaller op against the Allies, I suppose, but would probably be too vulnerable for much and would need to be very carefully used.
To protect them now, the antiquated extant surface fleet will have to do its best, hoping that by then, the Allies may have accounted for most of it. It will be supported by an expanded NAV fleet (so short range projection only), which at the moment is very small (two wings) and not very advanced. You will see more on that angle in the upcoming episode. Again, NAV with some good fighter support could be of some use against the Allies later if it comes to it. At least they can’t sink them!
I’m also thinking of building up sub tech and capacity. Much as the Germans tried in WW1 and 2, to try and disrupt allied shipping mainly in the Atlantic. Not sure yet if it would be worth the effort.
would welcome any thoughts about other options ... but the strategic choice and investment in TTL is on rockets, nukes and STRAT. Remembering this USSR starts in a far weaker position that in OTL, strategically and materially. My main operational advantage is that the others are AI commanded. But then again, I’ve largely evened that up by using AI command at Army or Army Group level, including for air as well.
can't we just use alaska as a bridgehead and also support through the bering straits? that can be protected by NAVs aloneThe flip side here is, if you planned on defeating the Allies (as opposed to just, say, capturing all the VC provinces or something), you'd still need a navy. That being said, it would likely be sufficient do build a CV-based navy which would rely heavily on the relatively strong Russian air technology for its striking power, rather that the development from scratch of a BB fleet. You'd still need to pursue a DD or CL tech path to get some modern screens, but you could probably save on techs by only researching the AA, engines, maybe enough armor to stop them from being OHKO'd by passing CAGs.
Oak Ridge came into being because the residents of 5 hamlets on the Clinch River were ruthlessly evicted.
Quite, but (unless I want this thing to run forever), I'll limit myself to trying to simply reverse the current Allied World Order. I also have in mind (if things do drag on) setting a time limit of the date of Stalin's OTL death 95 march 1953), which would make almost exactly nine years from the start of this part in March 1944. Similar to the time you get in a 1936 Vanilla start (a little less than an OTL war end in August 1945, but then things have moved along further here in TTL).The flip side here is, if you planned on defeating the Allies (as opposed to just, say, capturing all the VC provinces or something), you'd still need a navy. That being said, it would likely be sufficient do build a CV-based navy which would rely heavily on the relatively strong Russian air technology for its striking power, rather that the development from scratch of a BB fleet. You'd still need to pursue a DD or CL tech path to get some modern screens, but you could probably save on techs by only researching the AA, engines, maybe enough armor to stop them from being OHKO'd by passing CAGs.
I like your thinking! But with the VCs, I don't need to physically attack the US - just keep them off my back (it'd be just my luck if they suddenly decided to do something in an Op Unthinkable war!).can't we just use alaska as a bridgehead and also support through the bering straits? that can be protected by NAVs alone
maybe we can start building a big airbase to the corner of the map and a new rail line connecting there to the transsiberian once we start pushing the japanese out of the way
That's one of my current working options, anyway.Maybe you can bury the allied fleet under a huge stack of Navs.
I just fired the game to see what's the distance between 2 sides of the Bering Strait, but Paradox seems to have dropped the ball there, it's thousands of miles! Dragging a South American country to Comintern and pushing through the Darien Gap, mesoamerica and Mexico seems easier than to build a fleet to defeat USA in Pacific though.I like your thinking! But with the VCs, I don't need to physically attack the US - just keep them off my back (it'd be just my luck if they suddenly decided to do something in an Op Unthinkable war!).
To be fair to Paradox, there are a couple of factors at play there: First, the map projection while weird is generally going to be a problem just because modeling the far north/south is difficult if not impossible to do with accuracy, so it makes sense for the distances to be quite stretched; second, because I think the northern edge of the map cuts off a bit below where the actual landmasses which frame the Bering strait would be placed, so it may simply not be able to exist within the map itself anyways.I just fired the game to see what's the distance between 2 sides of the Bering Strait, but Paradox seems to have dropped the ball there, it's thousands of miles!
Quite good of Comrade Stalin to come to this realization before enacting another purge...It was the first of a growing list of examples indicating the weather was abominable for any but the most overwhelming attack. As the month wore on, the judgement of Soviet front-line generals (including the much-maligned 1st Army commander General Egorov) became increasingly respected.
Good new that we shouldn't have to worry too much about getting bombed in this timeline, except perhaps conventionally which I'm quite certain the Soviet people are used to by now anyways.What was learned was that the FBI had six teams operating, but clearly a large number of Allied agents were helping them. Importantly, it seemed US nuclear bomb making tech was ‘weak’, as was jet engine theory, though the latter was under research. But not nuclear theory or bomb-making, it seemed.
This is less encouraging, as such strong divisions could pose a serious challenge if they are deployed to Europe. Thankfully, as the US is currently engaged chiefly against Japan, we can hope that most of those divisions find themselves wasting away on Pacific islands whilst the Red Army runs through Paris unchecked.Their military production was heavily focused on land units, including mechanised, armoured and paratroop divisions.
J. Edgar Hoover must be mighty proud of himself, here.It was clear from this that the Soviet Union would have a very hard time making any progress in the US. On 11 February, with the strength in the US already down to only five, the Soviets suspended active operations to allow the total to rebuild back up to ten (there were still nine teams in reserve at that point).
This was achieved by 12 February, when full counter-espionage operations were resumed. But one team was captured on 13 Feb (France) and two on 14 Feb (US and Palestine). Leadership was then bumped up to 2.0 on spy training, with the reserve down to just one. By 16 February, though there had been no more losses over the last two days, the FBI was back up to seven agents and it was clear that the effort in the US was no longer worth the extreme attrition rate. No more replacements would be sent and the remaining agents were sent to see if they could discover any technical secrets before they were all captured.
Truly Sinkiang has the potential in this game to be a major military player. And it only took them eight years or so to get there!The review also reminded the Foreign Minister that Sinkiang, while a long-standing Comintern member, had never actually been called in to join the war against Japan! A check showed they had a sizeable army (two corps worth) they could throw into the fight.
The espionage implementation in general is quite shallow and ham-fisted in HoI3, although that system is hardly unique in that regard. It really would have made more sense to allocate espionage in terms of funding/manpower and some sort of slider system, whereas the HoI3 system is very binary - either you invest into a country or you don't, and anything besides running a single mission at 3 bars is very sub-optimal and inefficient.I always felt bothered that minor and puppet nations could basically afford to put in the effort into leadership to maintain so many agents. It would have been a great use for money to keep the number of agents up.
I hope the crazy CAS commander rises high in this new regimePersia became a puppet state and joined the Comintern on 12 February. They were soon given suggested defensive objectives to guard the oilfields of Ahvaz in the west, and along the border with Pakistan, which was now part of the Allied United Nations (having been granted independence at the end of the War in Europe in March 1944 in the French-led decolonisation program).
I've been wrong to advocate sending an agent with a Takarov after him.A telling statistic on the comparable battle management of both sides (both entirely under AI control) during this period was that the Soviets lost 1,625 men killed to ground combat in the Central Sector compared to 6,689 Japanese casualties (not including air strikes). It was the clinching argument that convinced STAVKA that conditions in the Far East were generally not yet suitable for large scale offensive operations. So they would trust their local commanders – and not sack Commander 1st Army.
The Soviets had lost a massive 21 teams in total for the month, adding seven, and therefore finishing with four in reserve. It would be some time before another new operation might be launched – and probably not against another major Allied power, if the US experience was any indication of how they were all helping each other.
Maybe the next intelligence target might be a country that has victory condition countries but with no chance of joining comintern (i.e. too far away in the diplomacy triangle?) so there's a coup or something?Molotov reviewed the diplomatic situation that night. The two crucial (ie Comintern victory condition) large neutral countries of Spain and Turkey remained in stasis, close to the Comintern but still under constant Allied influence, drifting slightly back to the Allies in net terms.
I didn't know multiple reactors were useful! Does having more increases the production rate of nuclear warheads?And the remaining IC was allocated to starting a second nuclear reactor. It would start out at about one-third production speed, until more IC could be allocated to boost it.
They could've still manually edited to make the northernmost provinces closer to each other somehow.To be fair to Paradox, there are a couple of factors at play there: First, the map projection while weird is generally going to be a problem just because modeling the far north/south is difficult if not impossible to do with accuracy, so it makes sense for the distances to be quite stretched; second, because I think the northern edge of the map cuts off a bit below where the actual landmasses which frame the Bering strait would be placed, so it may simply not be able to exist within the map itself anyways.
Very good debate here, actually. From a lot of angles I liked what they wanted to do with HoI3 and against all its shortcomings HoI3 is still the best one in the series. I wish its source was released open source and I had the time to redo the parts with flawed mentality like the things you mentioned.The espionage implementation in general is quite shallow and ham-fisted in HoI3, although that system is hardly unique in that regard. It really would have made more sense to allocate espionage in terms of funding/manpower and some sort of slider system, whereas the HoI3 system is very binary - either you invest into a country or you don't, and anything besides running a single mission at 3 bars is very sub-optimal and inefficient.
It strikes me as symptomatic of the larger flaw in the game, which is derived from a philosophical failing of the devs as they clearly wanted to force the player to make interesting choices (borrowing Sid Meier's famous turn of phrase), but took that to mean that every choice should be all-or-nothing rather than allowing the player to tweak their direction and preponderance of effort in a realistic manner. Another example is the support brigades system: whereas in OTL all military powers had to decide how to fill out divisional support formations based on a balance of combat needs, costs of production, supply logistics, etc. in HoI3 this is reduced to "choose ART or AT but you can't have both*, wow this game is so complex isn't it?"
A bit of a deep freeze, yes. But yes, spring approaches ...In a word the Siberian front is a stalemate. But with the Soviets running the war of attrition handily hopefully - once better weather occurs - matters will proceed more favourably.
It does seem like something that might/should have been corrected in say the fourth DLCI always felt bothered that minor and puppet nations could basically afford to put in the effort into leadership to maintain so many agents. It would have been a great use for money to keep the number of agents up.
Yes, but there are limits to his patience, even his TTL alter-ego.Quite good of Comrade Stalin to come to this realization before enacting another purge...
Seems that way ... I'm interested to give the nukes a go and see what the effect is, never having done it in a game yet.Good new that we shouldn't have to worry too much about getting bombed in this timeline, except perhaps conventionally which I'm quite certain the Soviet people are used to by now anyways.
"if they are deployed to Europe" - that could be my saving grace. Let's hope its the latter scenario. But even without a lot of US units in Europe, the French-led Allies will be formidable - given they beat Germany and Italy but puppeted both, thus also enlisting whatever forces they had left, which for the Germans were still quite considerable. And are likely to have been building stuff since.This is less encouraging, as such strong divisions could pose a serious challenge if they are deployed to Europe. Thankfully, as the US is currently engaged chiefly against Japan, we can hope that most of those divisions find themselves wasting away on Pacific islands whilst the Red Army runs through Paris unchecked.
Yeah - though the Guyanese Secret Service seems to have caught as many Soviet spies as the FBI!J. Edgar Hoover must be mighty proud of himself, here.
Then I re-read this after playing the next month through and realised none of their units had appeared at the front! They were all still where they were at the end of Feb 45. So I've now given them a couple of Allied objective requests for Tsetserlig and Ulaanbaatar, to see if that will give their AI generals a kick along. Thanks for reminding me!Truly Sinkiang has the potential in this game to be a major military player. And it only took them eight years or so to get there!
Agreed. I've tried to use some nuance in it and deal with it the best I can in an AAR sense, but it is generally quite lame.The espionage implementation in general is quite shallow and ham-fisted in HoI3, although that system is hardly unique in that regard. It really would have made more sense to allocate espionage in terms of funding/manpower and some sort of slider system, whereas the HoI3 system is very binary - either you invest into a country or you don't, and anything besides running a single mission at 3 bars is very sub-optimal and inefficient.
Well, he's still got a job in the new regime, anyway!I hope the crazy CAS commander rises high in this new regime
Maybe. If he doesn't get a move along, it may just be a bureaucratic appointment in some Moscow office.I've been wrong to advocate sending an agent with a Takarov after him.
I'll give it some thought when the time approaches. Certainly, if the Allied countries are all mutually supporting each other with agents, some political influence in one of the important neutrals would make a lot of sense.Maybe the next intelligence target might be a country that has victory condition countries but with no chance of joining comintern (i.e. too far away in the diplomacy triangle?) so there's a coup or something?
I believe so, but have no personal experience of it in-game. The basic manual says:I didn't know multiple reactors were useful! Does having more increases the production rate of nuclear warheads?
Agree. It would be fantastic if still under improvement/development, as an alternative to HOI4 but alas we know, other than the existing mods (some of which I'll try some day), that's not going to happen.Very good debate here, actually. From a lot of angles I liked what they wanted to do with HoI3 and against all its shortcomings HoI3 is still the best one in the series. I wish its source was released open source and I had the time to redo the parts with flawed mentality like the things you mentioned.
Thanks - good tip: see next ep!You should split Finland off from the western Europe theatre so it doesn't take all forces from the Prussian border.
There's always a thaw after the freeze ...The Eastern front looks to be frozen in place, but with casualties and air combat heavily in favour of the USSR that's not much of a problem really.
Thanks to @Surt, that little glitch should now be fixed.STAVKA is really overreacting to the Finnish uprising, I just hope western intelligence doesn't hear about this.
And all because they were silly enough to join a failing Axis and attack the USSR! Now that wouldn't have happened in OTL, no matter how 'fascist' the Shah got!Interesting, in TTL it's the Commie's who get to Iran first to install a puppet government and get that sweet black gold.
Yep, the Air Force had been neglected by the AI for way too long, IMHO.Soviet Fighter Ground Crew training is abysmal. It's definitely an area where improvement is necessary.
Not sure of what the IJN has left, but an awful lot has been sunk - except for their carriers. I also thought that about their night-time take down of my subs!A single DD flotilla to screen two fleet carriers? Is the IJN low on escorts? That fleet is rather vulnerable to a modern fleet with a high average speed, even if it doesn't have a carrier of it's own.
It also looks like the IJN has much better sonar than OTL. Too bad you lost those submarines. I do hope they were obsolete pre-war vessels and not the latest and greatest the Soviet Union has to offer.
Me too. We should get to find out IDC. Given how weak my Navy is, I need any landings to be as quick as possible: not sure how long I can protect them against even a heavily degraded IJN.Indigenous landing craft designs are a great addition to the Soviet arsenal. I do hope they actually work as intended.
They should be - but can be surprisingly pesky and tenacious.The Japs in Malaysia and Indochina are doomed now. Siam isn't likely to be distracted by other theatres, they'll finish the job if the French and British bug out.
Ditto there: at least they were stopped before they took over entirely!Australia is interesting. The Japs are trying to hold on, but going back and forth between the Southern and Northern front isn't doing them any favours.
Expecting a reaction?Finally this:
What about a Nuclear Reactor?
We already have one.
We have one, yes. What about a second Nuclear Reactor?
Very much so - wait until you see what happens in March! The Japanese either don't have much, or have decided not to deploy it in the Soviet Far East theatre.The last chapter suggests the importance of a strong air force in Asia.