Soviet Union possibly be op?

[Dichologos]

Of course they are OP - the same same sense that the USA is OP, because it is based on how the countries were prior to WW2.

I mean, Japan is OP as well compared to many nations, in fact every major nation is OP relative to the non-major nations as far as I can see. It just is how it is.

But there are ways to still win even without being "OP". The USA is slow to build up, and could be defeated by not allowing them to build up their military power, perhaps through a major naval invasion by Japan. Russia can be defeated through a combined Japan/German push, or simply by a German push that is fast enough to take over their capitol and enough of their land that they no longer have a major manpower advantage - something entirely within the realm of possibility.

 

[Adonnus]

I knew about Chuikov before you were even born

 

[uglyduckling81]

Numbers aren't everything.

For example, and I use Vietnam example here as WW2 was a lot more mixed stats.

Battle of Long Tan - Company of Australian Infantry (100 Soldiers roughly) defeated estimated 2500 NVA soldiers. Australia lost 18 soldiers with many wounded. NVA lost at least 250 but many drag marks and a history of disguising their losses means they probably lost a lot more.

Battle of Binh Ba - Two Australian Companies (from 5 RAR) crushed a couple of NVA companies. 1 Australian fatality. 107 NVA fatalities. This is an equivalent number of troops but the different in casualties is huge.

Battle of Tobruk - More than half the defending troops were Australian and they repelled Rommels much larger force for 2/3 year before relief arrived.

Quality of troop is even more important than numbers.

Note: Obviously I'm just making a point here and there are lots of factors I am leaving out such as artillery support, naval support etc. Also NVA is not necessarily an accurate representation of the actual opponent being fought in Vietnam. The point still stands though that having a much higher quality of troop can be even more important than pure numbers. Also you might argue these examples don't reflect most scenarios as Australia has arguably the best soldiers in the world and these example aside from Tobruk had them fighting a much lower quality troop.

 

[Greenboot]

Daniels defeat of Russia was interesting. He went toward the end of summer when they were suffering from the purge and maybe some other nasty national spirits and managed to encircle a good amount of their fielded units. Seems like mirco vs. SOV will be the best way to have a chance. Otherwise Russia will train up their troops in combat if they are only pushed back.

 

[elessar90]

It is like it was in real life. USSR can be defeated with a quick sweep (But it is bloody hard) so that it can't bring up those 12 million men. Third Reich can have some advantages in doctrines and equipment for example that give them the cutting edge. If the Reich was to fight an attrition war, say hello to the infinite reserve of men in the USSR. As USSR is a colossal nation, it also has to have a LOT of troops, therefore a lot of equipment. USSR might not always have the best equipment available because of the sheer number of troops that have to be upgraded.

Also USSR did not fight with just Germany, it actually was fighting against the whole Europe united by Hitler. So, IRL just like HOI: probably Hitler wouldn't attack USSR without Industry of conquered Austria, Czechoslovakia, Romania, half of Poland, Belgium, Netherlands and France.

Also there was something like second front from Finland on the north.

 

[greek warrior]

Also USSR did not fight with just Germany, it actually was fighting against the whole Europe united by Hitler. So, IRL just like HOI: probably Hitler wouldn't attack USSR without Industry of conquered Austria, Czechoslovakia, Romania, half of Poland, Belgium, Netherlands and France.

Also there was something like second front from Finland on the north.

I don't think that hitler united all Europe.He united all Germans but not Europe.

 

[elessar90]

I don't think that hitler united all Europe.He united all Germans but not Europe.

I mean mostly industry, resources and a bunch of men (not all, ofc, but they played some part in the war).

At the moment of 22th June, 1941, German Reich laid from Western France to Eastern Poland

 

[greek warrior]

I mean mostly industry, resources and a bunch of men (not all, ofc, but they played some part in the war).

At the moment of 22th June, 1941, German Reich laid from Western France to Eastern Poland

You're right.

 

[CountZeppelin]

Numbers aren't everything.

Germans had quantity superiority during early Barbarossa. Numbers were the most important thing for the Eastern Front.

The problem with the USSR is hindsight. Soviet player can do the Purge early and reorganize the military before the war. Player can annex or puppet Finland and Romania. Player won't build industry close to the German border. Player will have his troops mobilised for the German attack. In HoI3 doing the purge crippled your officers for good and it was really hard to recover before the German attack. The only thing we've seen containing Soviet Union in HoI4 so far is Trotsky's plot and post-purge malus, not a whole lot considering how there are national foci that remove it. Big Red Blob is looking stronger than ever.

 

[V3N0M1300]

It is like it was in real life. USSR can be defeated with a quick sweep (But it is bloody hard) so that it can't bring up those 12 million men. Third Reich can have some advantages in doctrines and equipment for example that give them the cutting edge. If the Reich was to fight an attrition war, say hello to the infinite reserve of men in the USSR. As USSR is a colossal nation, it also has to have a LOT of troops, therefore a lot of equipment. USSR might not always have the best equipment available because of the sheer number of troops that have to be upgraded.

Could I get Japan to cut off the soviet's access to the pacific so they can't get any lend lease gear from the US?

 

[Raptor83]

Could I get Japan to cut off the soviet's access to the pacific so they can't get any lend lease gear from the US?

if Japan is at war with USSR, they can just sink convoys shipping Lend Lease equipment.

 

[Raptor83]

You probably can, but I'm not aware that any significant lend lease at all was delivered over the pacific. After all that equipment would be a few thousand kilometres off the front. It all went through Persia or Murmansk. Don't know how th game handles it, but if you had to invade Persia liek IRL to have enough ports to be able to receive enough lend-lease, that would be a cool mechanic.

in-game, shortest convoy route will likely be used for LL shipments.

 

[Daddl]

in-game, shortest convoy route will likely be used for LL shipments.

Oh yeah, and forget the rest I wrote. IRL 50% of US lend lease went through the pacific, I should look things up before I write bullshit.

 

[Verenikin]

The numbers on Wikipedia for men on the Eastern Front are rather: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Front_(World_War_II)

AXIS:

1941 3,767,000 troops
1943 3,933,000 troops
1945 1,960,000 troops

USSR:

1941 2,680,000 troops
1943 6,724,000 troops
1945 6,410,000 troops

Yeah you're forgetting one major thing. That's just how many troops were enlisted at that point. Around 11 million Soviet troops died in WW2, so that already brings the number up to 17 million manpower (11 million dead + 6 million enlisted).

 

[Gort11]

Daniels defeat of Russia was interesting. He went toward the end of summer when they were suffering from the purge and maybe some other nasty national spirits and managed to encircle a good amount of their fielded units. Seems like mirco vs. SOV will be the best way to have a chance. Otherwise Russia will train up their troops in combat if they are only pushed back.

Tons of stuff has changed since that build of the game. In that build the "Home of the Revolution" penalty to industry was 40%, now it's only 10%. Another big change is that manpower has been effectively halved since then.

I think Daniel would have a far harder time against the USSR if he played the same way a second time.

 

[Quantum_AI]

Germans had quantity superiority during early Barbarossa. Numbers were the most important thing for the Eastern Front.

The problem with the USSR is hindsight. Soviet player can do the Purge early and reorganize the military before the war. Player can annex or puppet Finland and Romania. Player won't build industry close to the German border. Player will have his troops mobilised for the German attack. In HoI3 doing the purge crippled your officers for good and it was really hard to recover before the German attack. The only thing we've seen containing Soviet Union in HoI4 so far is Trotsky's plot and post-purge malus, not a whole lot considering how there are national foci that remove it. Big Red Blob is looking stronger than ever.

There are theories that Stalin always knew a war was coming and was preparing for an offensive attack. There are also contradicting theories that Stalin ignored field and Soviet/ British intelligence reports on German preparations and did nothing. In either case, there is no excuse for the Russians to be unprepared.

I don't think it was a matter of lacking hindsight or foreknowledge of the invasion- it was just pure incompetence on part of Stalin and what was left of his Military Command. Worse, he had surrounded himself with obedient cronies who towed his line and even though there were Russian officers who wanted to adjust their tactics based on the Blitzkrieg in France, their voices were drowned out.

I think we need to give a lot more credit to German tactics and strategy for their victories. The French had better and more numerous tanks than the Germans but their tanks were spread out instead of being organized into deep striking spearheads. Similarly, the Russians had more tanks, planes and artillery. Although these were of lower quality they were numerous enough to have dented the German advance, had it not been for superior German tactics.

So the point is that the first few years of WWII were all about tactics, where the Germans excelled. Once the Allies and the Soviets developed their own tactics to counter the Germans, it was just a matter of out-producing them industrially.

 

[kviiri]

Soviets' true power depends on how powerful the Purge penalties are (or Trotsky coup penalties). If the Soviet Army is hobbled by their poor politics, they'll likely go down easily. Until the situation is righted, that is.

 

[Dominico]

In previous HoI games SOV still had pretty much limitless manpower. The issues will be providing the equipment and training. In HoI3 the Soviets were pretty behind Germany and the UK in technology and had a serious shortage of skilled generals.
I will admit though, with the simplified technology tree and lack of OOB it might be difficult to find the right medium to put Germany and the Soviet Union on either level or historical terms and it will be interesting to see how the devs went about balancing this.

Done right germany should be able to crush russia pretty easily all considered.

As long as you dont make the myraid stupid mistakes hitler made!! Will be an interesting playthroguh one day.

Also if history changes slightly ie japan invades russia from the east, the british dont attack germany etc. Then its a cakewalk for germany.

As someone said earlier you just dont turn the battles into attrition tradijg battles but go for important objectives.

Also in real life the population of russia is not so huge so in reality they dont have limitless manpower.

 

[jockedahl]

How will it even be possible for Finland to win the winter war considering how much manpower the soviets have? I doubt the ai will be as willing to negotiate a peace early considering how they usually value own and enemy resources in Paradox games.

 

[nuarbnellaffej]

Tons of stuff has changed since that build of the game. In that build the "Home of the Revolution" penalty to industry was 40%, now it's only 10%. Another big change is that manpower has been effectively halved since then.

I think Daniel would have a far harder time against the USSR if he played the same way a second time.

I haven't watched that WWW vid for a while, but I'm pretty sure the combat AI was currently bugged, and SOV troops just sat still as Daniels troops pushed past.