So if you’ve played Axis and Allies Global 1940 edition more than 2 times than you’ve probably been exposed to this strategy at some point in time of playing whether as the Axis powers or the Allies. For those who don’t know this strategy, it calls to where the Soviet Union (assuming Germany doesn’t attack on G1) create a fall back line from the territories Novgorod (Leningrad) all the way down to Ukraine, with Western Ukraine and Belorussia in between and strategically screen the German Divisions with their own counter-attacking force in response to which the Germans inevitably do Barbarossa, invading the empty territories of Baltic states, East Poland and Bessarabia.
Frankly as for myself, and after my friend having done this strategy from seeing General Hand Grenade’s video I was pretty stumped on how to stop this. Let alone the thought of it being combined with a Middle Earth strategy as well as the Floating Bridge technique done by the United States, I didn’t really know what I would do as Germany, since the whole Afrikakorps thing worked out in my favor, only Barbarossa often didn’t.
Until it came to me that the solution never really required anything major and/or intense on the Germans part only to do what they did in real life. Use the art of “Blitzkrieg.”
To summarize the war tactic, Blitzkrieg is the German-designed war strategy to which it requires of the general to concentrate a large majority of his/her forces in a designated area.
For example, the German commander Erwin Rommel utilized his Blitzkrieg strategy against the French Republic in 1940 by concentrating over 50 Wehrmacht divisions through a given undefended area known as the “Ardennes” which the French had thought to be naturally impassible due to nature… or something I don’t know the French were kind of stupid during the war back in the 40’s.
Getting back on track though, the only 2 solutions most people saw into countering the Russian Fall Back line was to either 1) Move only your infantry in to distempt the Soviets from attacking a large blob of infantry whilst keeping your artillery and tanks at a safe distance or 2) Move EVERYTHING onto the 3 Soviet Territories mentioned above and hope you hold it all after the Soviets do their counter attack. Neither of these really felt like viable options to me, hense why the strategy was so fond upon as being an effective strategy against the German player.
Until having done some test runs and coincidentally used the Blitzkrieg tactic against them. See, part of a common trend I found with A&A YouTube strategies for Global 40 is that they tend to concentrate their Soviet Units on their industrial hubs of Novgorod and Ukraine, and frankly I don’t blame them since these 2 areas are the last things you’ll wanna lose (aside from Moscow of course) in the war effort against Germany.
Having seen this common trend that most players did, it did not seem any simpler than to move the majority, if not all of your units, into East Poland.
Having done this, the majority of the Soviet Infantry and artillery will be stacked in Novgorod and Ukraine, with only a fleshy buffer force of a handful of units on the territories of Belorussia and Western Ukraine, to which it wont be nearly enough to destroy the largely massed German force.
As for what I did, I moved the majority of my forces, 75% give or take into East Poland and about 25% into Bessarabia as a bait to draw out the Soviet units from Ukraine to attack.
Now depending on what the Soviets do in this scenario, they are pretty much left with multiple different options that may or may not lead them to their inevitable downfall, but more often than not what will happen is they will break their formation, move units accordingly to potentially Baltic States, they may also attack Bessarabia if units are put there, or maybe try for an encircling movement of your largely concentrated units.
To which all you really have left to do is complete the final step in blitzkrieg and divide your forces evenly to overwhelm the Soviet Forces that are spread out and divided, completely unable to do much against a united and concentrated force.
DISCLAIMER: Assuming anybody who reads this knows this, DO NOT KEEP A BIG BLOB OF GERMAN UNITS TOGETHER. The idea is to move and divide your units accordingly to outnumber the Soviet Massed Units not to keep a giant blob of German units marching all the way to Moscow only for them to have dwindled down.
That pretty much summarizes this strategy, if anybody knows a better way to counter it or perhaps to add on to it feel free to share it with me, I’d be more than happy to read what you have to say.
I agree with the meat of this strategy and can say with 100% confidence if the the Soviets have split their forces attempting to defend both Lenningrad AND Ukraine they will lose Moscow. You can just blow right past a lot of useful units. Germany has enough to starting ground forces alone to force the Soviets of either one of their choosing. Any units left behind in either Lenningrad or Ukraine are just easily picked off and a near free gain for the Germans come time to battle for Moscow.
However, the counter to the massing German forces on Eastern Poland is a massing of Soviet forces in Bryansk. What you will likely experience is a stalemate where each side is offensively weaker than the other is defensively strong. Neither side can confidently overtake the other’s massed forces in a decisive engagement and yes, time is on the Allies’ side.
This can be ok. You have choices at this point. Do you pull in your planes and crush the soviets at the expense of opening up Eastern Europe? Or do you hold the line and gobble remaining territory surrounding Moscow.
Understandable why this speculation would come up, but they won’t converge all their units on Byranks and ill tell you way. For the simple reason that they can’t leave Kiev undefended as well as the fact that they won’t have nearly as many units as you by blobbing together.
Keeping a blob of units is an incredibly newb thing to do as it doesn’t accomplish the goal of your playable nation. And the Germans won’t be keeping this blob they’ll divide it evenly to overwhelm the Soviet units. And if they blob together i absolutely welcome that because if they do then all those units are dead. The luftwaffe as well as every unit on the Eastern front will move in and destroy the Soviet presence in Bryanks
@luftwaffles41 Yes, the Luftwaffe will come in and all but guarantee a Soviet defeat. I don’t question that. What I question is the risk of removing the luftwaffe from the western front vs the other Allies.
You will crush Russia, yes, but will you be able to obtain that final victory city in Europe? I think unlikely. Therefore, as the allied player I absolutely welcome you to bring the entire luftwaffe to the eastern front to crush the soviets. If the Germans want to obtain Moscow, they can obtain Moscow by moving everything east. This is a no brainer. They have the power of choice. If winning this game was a s simple as obtaining Moscow, nothing would stop the Axis from winning.
I disagree with the blobbing and I think deep down you do too. You define your blitzkrieg strategy by “concentrating the majority of your forces in a designated area.” This is the same thing. I welcome you to split your forces as either the Soviets or the Germans. If either side does they are doomed because you open half your army to attack from the entire enemy army.
USSR can’t split defense. If you leave or spend your IPC defending Lenningrad those units are wasted. Germany can turn on a dime with superior mobility and take Novgorod with minimal loses and you won’t have enough to hold out in Moscow. USSR Should fall back with everything. If they survive long enough they may be able to mount a counter offensive. If they Die, they die, but the game is still afoot and the luftwaffe is out of position for 2-3 turns to repel amphibious invasion. That’s the classic tradeoff.
Don’t misunderstand this strategy for what it actually does
The name of the strategy says it all. “Countering the Russian Fallback line.” This by no means is a full complete guide on how to win the Eastern Front but merely a way to get past the so called “unstoppable wall that is the Redy Army.” Blitzkrieg, or as we know it to be called Flash War or Lightning War. Such a tactic is used in this scenario to take advantage of the Soviet positioning.
And you’re right, im against blobbing units together. Hence how I said it as a disclaimer at the end of the thread not to just keep a huge blob of units together that just March on Moscow.
Now that we’re on that. By the time the Germans take Moscow the game may as well be over. With national objective money and the steady campaign in the Middle East the Germans are capable of making over 100 IPCs a turn, and that’s without Sub Saharan Africa (i playtested this and saw it happen). And an player in charge of the Allies that thinks the game isn’t technically over yet after Moscow has fallen needs to smell the pavement because the reality of it all is that Germany has won the war having done this.
If you truly don’t believe that the enemy won’t send everything they have at you in the weak joint of your line up than thats fine. Charles de Gaulle didn’t believe this either and look how that turned out for France.
This strategy for the most part is still a prototype having that I didnt go into exact builds on as to what Germany should do and what they should build to make Blitzkrieg work and I might or might not state the terms of what should be done since ultimatly its up to the player to determine how to go about the Eastern Front. Touching on the topic of the Luftwaffe, if the Germanys luftwaffe is sitting in Western Europe inactive until the Americans make a landing then the Axis ought to find themselves a new player to play Germany
Like I said before, an effective German player will find use for all of his units, in terms of the size of the German airforce Germany should consistently be building up planes to make up for the loss planes in the event a battle doesn’t go your way and ultimately increasing the size of the airforce all together being able to have a full starting sized German airforce on the Eastern Front with some planes leftover to defend Europe. And last, these are planes for crying out loud. They can move 4 spaces at the least, so idk why you’re saying the Luftwaffe will be out of position
Just out of curiosity when Moscow falls ain’t the Allies pretty much liberating Paris ?
So there is no way Russia can take back Moscow ?
If Russia holds Stalingrad don’t you guys feel like Allies still can or should win ?
@gen-manstein
Exactly. See the thing is for a standard G3 attack, since I dont know a single soul that attacks on G1 let alone G2, would like to be getting at Moscow by around turn 6 at the earliest since a direct path to Moscow would take exactly 4 spaces from the original German-Soviet border.
As for what the Allies are doing, that really depends. The Allies or atleast the Soviets would hope that the Allies would be liberating Paris or at the very least close to liberating Paris, and if they aren’t then it’s game over.
As for Stalingrad, it’s one of the other priorities I feel Germany should inevitably have in the event the conflict is drawn out further than usual. It’s hard to explain how to exactly go about doing the Eastern Front since many people have many different ways of going about doing it. As for myself, I see less importance in Leningrad and more in Kiev and the southern portion of the Soviet Union since that’s where all the money is. As well as the fact that having taking Stalingrad and the Caucasus will qutie literally give you a bonus 10 IPC’s for the national objective of each these territories allowing the Germans to be able to pump out 70+ IPC’s a turn since they should be making roughly 50 if they’ve done their turn properly.
All it really comes down to is if the Soviets are willing to defend Stalingrad and if the Germans are willing to devote forces to take Stalingrad since unless you’re sending a secondary party off to go take Stalingrad, it’ll take you to G7 or G8 to taking Moscow which isn’t exactly ideal. Like I said though, for the most part I can guarantee a successful opening into a Barbarossa but unfortunately not a proper way of going about doing it since there are so many different options the German player can do and so many different outcomes.
But the Soviets should be building even after Moscow falls in the urals.
If Germany goes all out for Moscow then Paris should always get liberated. Unless allies play wrong.
Other option is if they just go after Stalingrad and oil fields then Germany of course gets money but should get some kind of victory point for each. Point for Stalingrad and a point for the oil in some way. Then u would have a clash there.
But don’t know if you have that in game.
I had a game not 36 39 and Germany took Moscow , lost Paris and west Germany and still barely pulled out a win based on Japan had to win the game then for a few more points. That was awesome.
Another game Moscow fell and Paris was liberated and Russia was able to hold Stalingrad based on correct IC moves, tankograd and Russian planes retreating after a certain amount of turn battles for Moscow.
Ok. Well good luck
@gen-manstein
You shouldn’t be losing Paris as Germany.
I assume the Americans are the ones responsible for the liberation of Paris which means 1 of 2 things.
Youre moving too slow on the Eastern Front and not taking Moscow in time or
Youre not doing anything to stop the Americans from landing.
In another thread a made i talked about how to counter the floating bridge to which the Americans are capable of shucking 8 troops at a time into Europe being they properly set it up.
The way to counter this is by doing Afrika Korps. Afrika Korps allows the German Player to build a formidable navy and send a decent amount of units down to Africa to stop the American Operation Flashlight
@luftwaffles41 said in Countering the Russian Fall Back Line:
@gen-manstein
You shouldn’t be losing Paris as Germany.
I assume the Americans are the ones responsible for the liberation of Paris which means 1 of 2 things.
Youre moving too slow on the Eastern Front and not taking Moscow in time or
Youre not doing anything to stop the Americans from landing.
In another thread a made i talked about how to counter the floating bridge to which the Americans are capable of shucking 8 troops at a time into Europe being they properly set it up.
The way to counter this is by doing Afrika Korps. Afrika Korps allows the German Player to build a formidable navy and send a decent amount of units down to Africa to stop the American Operation Flashlight
Depends on what you are looking for in the game. Why should Germany never lose Paris then ? Is game setup for Paris to fall in 44!and like on turn 10 or something ?
@gen-manstein
Well assuming you’re playing with natural OOB victory conditions, if Paris is being liberated by turn 10 then that’s way too late for the Allies. 4 turns late to be exact. It takes America roughly to turn 6 to get a complete floating bridge up and running and Germany only to turn 3 to officially get a navy and formidable sized army down to Africa to assist Italy as well as it’ll take the Germans to G6 to reach Moscow which is right around the time the Soviets are wanting reinforcements from Siberia and planes from UK middle east.
All in all, the Axis have the absolute advantage to win the game swiftly and soundly its up to them to enact that properly.
Ok. Not a fan of allies stuff able to go to Russia. Should only be from lend lease.
Ok. Nice talkin.
@gen-manstein
Yeh, I really don’t like it either. More often than not the UK will put a complex on Persia then slowly build up fighters and when Germany arrives they just stack all their fighters on Moscow I ain’t a fan either.
Glad I could answer your questions man! Obviously this strategy still needs some work but I just got done running a track race so I need some rest before I do that.
If you have any other questions about Germany id be more than happy to answer them with the best of my knowledge
Well I don’t play this game but was just getting up some chat about different stuff about what Russia has and don’t. Since ain’t much going on else ware.
@gen-manstein
Do you play A&A Anniversary? Thats another favorite Axis and Allies game of mine
No. Good game though. I’ve been playing 39 games since 2009.
Now I play my 41 game with group.
@gen-manstein
Ahhh okay I see. By 39 do you mean Global War 1939?
Ya. 2 buds have 39 games. Then group started playing tigermans 39 game from HBG like version 6.0. We played that. Gar was involved too. Discussed stuff with tigerman and changes were made and then HBG came out with version 1 39 game.
Then we played and discussed stuff and rules where adjusted up till version 7.2 rules.
Then HBG came out with I believe version 2 36/39 and nice map but then my group and a few other groups wouldn’t play it based on to many rules and then version 3 came out which you guys are playing now.
So after playing version 1 39 US would get to war to late in game and Russia had issues. I had like 8 house rule changes but pretty much group was done with game. So I never got a chance to test.
So in mean time I came up with my 41 game so everybody is at war and axis at peak strength.
Most guys love when US is at war at start of game.
And now we got about 50 games in on that.
Setup of my game. Plus map I made. Almost done with another version of map. 
@gen-manstein
I’ve always wanted to play 39 it seems engaging dont have the time to buy the board and pieces though
