German Push into USSR

Apart from the factory I build in Romania, I move the ‘stack’ towards Leningrad to seize that factory as well, Finnish units can help. If your transport is still alive it can shuttle units into Leningrad, maybe build an extra one or two so you can quickly transfer units from Germany. Hurt the Soviets IPC base, so also move a submarine to the seazone next to Archangel. If Japan finishes China off quickly some of its units can march west into the Soviet Union and then the Russians will have to defend that front as well.

On what turn is it best to attack Russia.  Is it possible to do so on G2, right after France and the UK Navy has been smoked?  Buy some transports the first round, either take or get close to taking Leningrad and move troops from Poland and Rumania head on.

I tried a German push into Russia G2 by skimping on tanks into France G1 and using my air-force to make up the difference while purchasing 3 tank 3 mech.  You can take Leningrad very easily but the offensive loses steam afterward. This also leaves the majority of the brit fleet alive so you gotta be very creative in order to adequately defend against allied landings.  Seems too risky to do in future games, G3 looks like the earliest you could possibly pull it off and the question remains whether it’s even worth it to do any sort of aggressive push into Russia as Germany has so much to do already (try and keep the allied fleets honest w/ naval and/or air purchases, try and save Italy in the Med, prepare a large army in case the US decides to go all-in on Atlantic) with a limited economy that will actually lose IPC’s the first turn of attack into Russia.  Russia doesn’t even ened to worry about the Japs showing up around Moscow till further into the game and can afford to stop the Germans in their tracks with inf walls and then turn around and march back to Moscow to thwart Japan. Holding out for someone more creative than I to come up with some sort of strategy to make this more than a high-risk low probability of success move.

Playing my first game tonight, so everything I have is speculation, but I suspect the key against Russia will be Mech infantry.

For the cost of a minor factory (12 IPCs), you can upgrade 12 infantry to mech infantry, this represents 4 turns of production, and the once the front is two territories into Russia, the mech inf will get there faster than units produced in Romania, for example.

I expect a typical turn purchase (Assuming a non-sea lion strategy) to look something like:
~12 ipcs on navy or air force (two subs or a plane of some type)
1 tank
4 inf
4 mech inf

Total: ~46 IPCs (typical turn 2-4 income)

The tank and mech inf are dedicated to the Russian front.  Some of the regular infantry will go towards building up coastal territories, the rest will go on the transport to either Scandinavia or the Baltic Russian front.

Is it true Berlin’s IC is only a minor one? If so, you cannot expect to fuel up your offensive with only 3 units a turn.

Yup, it’s true.

Furthermore, any IC building or upgrading done early-game as Germany IMHO in order to shorten travel time for newly purchases units is done at the cost of lowering the number of units you’re initially going into Russia with.  This is why I’m not sold on that being a cost-effective solution for the Russian problem.  Perhaps using transports as shuttles to Leningrad might be a way around that, but that doesn’t seem to swing the odds enough to make a German offensive anything more than a limited one.

@purplebaron:

Playing my first game tonight, so everything I have is speculation, but I suspect the key against Russia will be Mech infantry.

For the cost of a minor factory (12 IPCs), you can upgrade 12 infantry to mech infantry, this represents 4 turns of production, and the once the front is two territories into Russia, the mech inf will get there faster than units produced in Romania, for example.

I expect a typical turn purchase (Assuming a non-sea lion strategy) to look something like:
~12 ipcs on navy or air force (two subs or a plane of some type)
1 tank
4 inf
4 mech inf

Total: ~46 IPCs (typical turn 2-4 income)

The tank and mech inf are dedicated to the Russian front.  Some of the regular infantry will go towards building up coastal territories, the rest will go on the transport to either Scandinavia or the Baltic Russian front.

I believe, with regards to German purchases for a battle w/ Russia, that anything bought for such a purpose must be viewed through the perspective of “Is it more effective on the attack than the 10 inf Russia will be placing each turn?”.  Even throwing out the fact that Russia will have a close to decisive advantage in numbers early on against any combination of of purely mech/tanks the Germans can throw at em, I think they can stall an attack like that by virtue of their purchases alone.

I think G3 would be the best round for attack. Germany just doesn’t seem ready G2 IMO. Anything it takes could have a counter attack and you loose your ground forces. I think adding to the Germany navy has some merit. It will keep UK on a Sea Lion watch (fewer UK tanks in Africa), and helps get German inf to the front (Leningrad) as well via the Baltic. I think that an IC (minor to start) on Romania is a good call. I think I would try to hit Stalingrad before Moscow though. It only has a minor IC, and would be harder for Russia to def w/just 3 units (instead of 10 inf). You may be able to get Italy or Japan to push up through the Middle east as well to help out. If you get Volgograd (Stalingrad), and can hold it a major IC upgrade would be awesome. In AA50 Russia (Moscow), and Caucus (Stalingrad) were back to back making it easier for Russia to counter attack. Now there is a tt between them, and a German threat on Moscow from the north via Leningrad could keep the soviets from counter attacking at Stalingrad  :|

Both the Leningrad and Stalingrad complexes are minor, and both cannot be upgraded as they’re sitting in 2-pt provinces.  Moscow is the only province in all of Russia that has the capability to churn out 10 units per turn.  This is the fundamental problem to a German offensive into Russia.  In order to have any sort of advantage going in, you need a considerably bigger stack than the Russians have at the time in order to expect any reasonable chance of success.  There’s simply no way to do this that doesn’t cripple Germany’s ability to fight the other allies.

Whoops, forgot Volgograd is only 2 ipc (must have been thinking of AA50 w/Caucus at 4 ipc’s). So that theory is out the window, kinda. It will still be harder for Russia to protect Stalingrad w/just 3 units, with any kind of push on Moscow from the north. I wonder if multiple German IC’s on Russian soil in the south would work. They could support each other, and keep German inf at the front. Otherwise the Germans would be spending $ on 2 move ground units, so it might be cheaper to build a couple German minors.

One thing i’d like to try in the south is the mass up in ukraine with mainly mechs and some arm/air thrown in along with a few Italians.  Use this to threaten both moscow and stalingrad.

I think a strait rush/push type strat will fail, you must go more slowly but keeping mobility to threaten multiple locations.  Just try to take every dollar off of them you can to slowly wear them down.  There is a 5 IPC swing just for starting the war, but the border nations add up in value quickly, esp if you can hit them hard in the south.  Russia’s income is much smaller than yours, and they have to deal with Japan on the other side.  Also bombers will be your friend, as they can threaten both navies and Russia with a 7 movement (with ab).  From berlin they can hit every city, and most of the sea zones.

If you aren’t attacking G4 you’re doing it wrong.

I have not seen a picture of the map, but from reading this thread, couldn’t one build transports in preparation for a Sea Lion attack but instead make a dash for Leningrad? It would force the UK to protect themselves and it would also fool the USSR.

This is the fundamental problem caused by the archaic “Capture the Capital” rules: however you try to avoid it, the game always comes down to the Axis trying to capture Moscow before the Allies bring their combined industrial muscle to bear.

This makes Moscow the inevitable prime objective for Germany (except perhaps London, which must be achieved without Japanese help), and as the above posts suggest this is only likely with Japanese help from the east.

No matter how many territories Larry places between Moscow and Manchuria, or how many false diversions towards “Victory Cities”, the C-t-C rule will always bring those Axis armies towards Moscow like a giant magnet.  The huge benefits of closing down the Russian economy are still so vast that any other Axis strategy is completely insane.

This is why so many house rules delete the rule in favour of a power being able to collect money from every territory it holds regardless of capitals, and produce units as long as it has a factory remaining.  In other words, the Axis must close down the Russian economy by stages, capturing all it’s industrial centres in turn, rather than the inevitable drive to Moscow.

There should in fact be 5 such centres in Russia, with Kiev (west Ukraine) and Chelyabinsk (Novosibirsk) having factories and respectable IPC values.  Japan can cast envious eyes on the Siberian factory, but with the race to Moscow no longer the key to everything, a long term Pacific adventure may be more rewarding.

@munchie19:

I have not seen a picture of the map, but from reading this thread, couldn’t one build transports in preparation for a Sea Lion attack but instead make a dash for Leningrad? It would force the UK to protect themselves and it would also fool the USSR.

This looks like the most obvious way to get infantry into Russia, but the Allies will probably be willing to forego the “no Aliens” Soviet bonus in order to pump UK/US units into northern Russia.  I suspect that Leningrad will become as much the focus of this game as Stalingrad was in Revised.

Munchie that is going to be my strategy with the Germans, build a fake sealion fleet of about 4-5 ships and use them to shuffle troops back and forth to Leningrad which I feel is a key, as well as a factory in Romania to dealing with the Russians.  Those sea lion ships serve two purposes and that IC in Leningrad would be worth its weight in gold.

Methinks that to really take down the Russian collosus, it’s going to take teamwork between at least 2 if not all 3 Axis powers.

If Russia is reduced to building all infantry 2-3 turns after the initial invasion, the defending stack on Moscow will be insane (70-80-100? Inf), plus any FIGs the other Allied powers land on it will just add to the mass.  It’s probably a safe bet that Germany can get a stack of its own in striking distance, with the right units to attack it (the right ratio of tanks and planes to infantry, just not enough stack overall to kill the Russian stack).  Germany/Italy and Japan will probably have to have alternate stacks on Russia with enough force between them to chew the stack apart.  I’m thinking a Japanese stack of like 20-30 ground units plus 10-15 planes, and a German/Italian stack with 40-50 ground units and 5-10 planes, against a Soviet beast of 70-80 inf plus whatever else is lying around, maybe 5 planes.

Japan would have to start off the initial attack from its stack in the Caucasus and essentially sacrifice its stack to get as many causalties as possible piled up (hopefully about even numbers for the units its killing off, 20-30 Russian inf or so), then Italy would follow (hopefully getting 5-10 more inf killed), and finally Germany would land the killing blow (probably just barely too, with the forces available~ 50 vs. 50 land units) before Russia’s turn where it would be able to build more inf again.  This order could be changed so that Japan deals the finishing blow, but with the way things are set up in the Pacific with Japan unable to attack J1, I believe Japan will be arriving in Russia much later than Germany does (plus the Reds will have a turn to build some inf inbetween attacks).

The Allies would most certainly land more fighters into Russia once they realized what the Axis are doing, but this seems pretty much the only way Russia is going to be taken down (with a HELL of a lot of casaulties!).

@SgtBlitz:

Methinks that to really take down the Russian collosus, it’s going to take teamwork between at least 2 if not all 3 Axis powers.

If Russia is reduced to building all infantry 2-3 turns after the initial invasion, the defending stack on Moscow will be insane (70-80-100? Inf), plus any FIGs the other Allied powers land on it will just add to the mass.  It’s probably a safe bet that Germany can get a stack of its own in striking distance, with the right units to attack it (the right ratio of tanks and planes to infantry, just not enough stack overall to kill the Russian stack).  Germany/Italy and Japan will probably have to have alternate stacks on Russia with enough force between them to chew the stack apart.  I’m thinking a Japanese stack of like 20-30 ground units plus 10-15 planes, and a German/Italian stack with 40-50 ground units and 5-10 planes, against a Soviet beast of 70-80 inf plus whatever else is lying around, maybe 5 planes.

Japan would have to start off the initial attack from its stack in the Caucasus and essentially sacrifice its stack to get as many causalties as possible piled up (hopefully about even numbers for the units its killing off, 20-30 Russian inf or so), then Italy would follow (hopefully getting 5-10 more inf killed), and finally Germany would land the killing blow (probably just barely too, with the forces available~ 50 vs. 50 land units) before Russia’s turn where it would be able to build more inf again.  This order could be changed so that Japan deals the finishing blow, but with the way things are set up in the Pacific with Japan unable to attack J1, I believe Japan will be arriving in Russia much later than Germany does (plus the Reds will have a turn to build some inf inbetween attacks).

The Allies would most certainly land more fighters into Russia once they realized what the Axis are doing, but this seems pretty much the only way Russia is going to be taken down (with a HELL of a lot of casaulties!).

Good. I was getting frustrated until I realized Japan would invade Russia from Persia, not Siberia. If Russia fell, it would need to take this much effort.

What are the other 2 Major allied powers doing while all 3 Axis countries are teeing off on Russia?  The only way I’ve found to bring down the bear so far was a turtle Germany churning out stacks of inf and the odd tank or 3 while Italy goes all defensive as well while using the transports (assuming they don’t die GB1) to begin evacuating forces from Africa back into Europe (which I find to be pretty entertaining as its the only effective use I’ve found for the Italian forces in Tobruk so far).  Make a quick G4 push to take Leningrad and leave an adequate holding force there while retreating the rest of the army back to Europe to destroy allied landings each turn.  Soviet forces are forced to call off any pursuit as a J1 attacking Japan comes cruising in, building IC’s where it can to produce about 90 pts a turn of tanks and mech inf to marshal in Stalingrad with the remnants of its air-force for the final push.  Then it just turns into a race to see if the Japs can finish off Moscow before the US/Brits conquer Berlin.