Understanding the soviet union army

[midget_roxx]

I'm playing my first game as the Soviet Union and I want to know how to 'fix' the army. I started in the 1939 campaign hoping to avoid the buildup period and I've been given a massive army but with mostly obsolete units. I've put the majority of my IC towards upgrades but after 1.5 years and a relentless German army, I'm not seeing great results.

What can I do to help stem the German army from easily brushing away my army despite 2 or 3 to 1 odds? Currently my officer count is at 70% and I"m upgrade my infantry, tank and AT brigades as much as I can. I've padded some of my army with militia but they don't really do much except increase my stacking penalties.

 

[Wraith11B]

The Soviet Union is basically a mess. You're sacrificing land for time, and you'll need to build up an army that can deal with the bonuses that the Germans get towards the start of Barbarossa. It's not something that's going to be done overnight, and its certainly not something that's going to be really ever "finished." I'd recommend dumping everything into building your officer ratio, you at least need that to hit near 100% to avoid the penalties; another recommendation is to focus on your doctrines and keeping AT piercing up-to-date.

 

[Kovax]

The 1939 campaign is tough, because you've got very little time to rectify the sorry state of the Soviet army before Germany decides to pay a visit. As said, officer ratio is critical, at least up to around 100%, although it's still beneficial up to 140%. You've got to focus your limited Leadership on the things that really count, which mean Infantry weapons and Doctrines (the Infantry Warfare and Mass Assault doctrines), Armor techs and doctrines, and a few other critical techs. Germany can research just about everything to current levels.

Note that AT brigades are useful if they can pierce the opponent's armor, otherwise they're a waste of a brigade slot. Keep your AT piercing as high as you can afford to research or else don't even bother with AT guns, because except for that very important Piercing stat, almost anything else would be more effective in its place. The Soft Attack value of AT is negligible, and MOST divisions, even many armored divisions, are more soft than hard, meaning that Artillery or another Infantry brigade would be more effective if Piercing didn't enter the picture. The SU fields enormous numbers of AT brigades by default, so you need to make the best use of them by keeping their Piercing up to date, or even ahead of it if you can spare the Leadership.

I'm used to playing Axis minors in many campaigns, where there's insufficient Leadership to cover all but the absolute basics. You end up doing a couple of things well and simply ignoring the rest. The SU has a bit more than that to work with, but the same principle applies. Do well what you absolutely need to do, and then use the couple of points of research left to cover everything else as best you can.

You don't need a lot of points into Diplomacy (0.2 or so should be enough, after the first few months), not a lot for spies (1 point or a lot less, after an initial heavy surge to clear out enemy agents from your capital). The rest can be divided up between Officer Ratio and Research at whatever ratio you decide, but a measly 2-3 points into Officer Ratio just won't cut it.

 

[Palmerdale]

I've been playing around with the Update slider over the past year or two. I've been moderately successful just putting about 1/4 to 1/3 of my production into Updates to quickly upgrade my forces. Less than 1/4 doesn't really accomplish the 'quickly' goal. This works better if you can focus your research on doctrines, those generally don't require more equipment (which is what the Updates essentially are). I'll generally start out by bumping the basic Infantry and Armor techs to where I want them, usually 38 or 40, then switching research to doctrines only. I tend to let the tech tree determine where I want to stop, for instance, Lt. Tanks required 1940 techs to open up SP Artillery research. (Okay, I'm entirely too dependent on SPArt).

Remember, that any new item you put in the production queue has the technology at the time you added that to the queue. Improvements in technology will not take effect on units in the production queue. This can easily find you creating 'old' tech units and suddenly requiring more Updates to 'modernize' your forces. When you put the unit in the queue might be the most important factor in successfully controlling the Update process. If you want a 1938 level tank, research the 1938 techs first, then put the unit in the queue. Want a 'modern' ARM, MOT, MOT, ENG? Get the tech levels you want for each brigade, then add it to the queue.

Maintaining old equipment in the field is possible by controlling the two Upgrade controls on each unit. So, you can keep your existing 36 Armor units from upgrading to 38 techs. The mechanism is a bit fiddly to me, so I tend to only upgrade a technology beyond my base level only if I am willing to bite the Upgrade bullet. (And I'll definitely look at what units are already queued when making this decision).

This 1/4 to 1/3 goal seems to be independent of the country you're playing. While I haven't messed with the USSR recently, this does seem to hold true with Italy, UK, Japan, US and China. When the Upgrades needed starts to fall below your allocated amount, it's time to start moving. (It's also nice to start moving that production to a military build-up).