USSR Invasion

I’m a bit puzzled here … if I add 5 turns of production (guesstimate of course) to the initial Soviet forces, the German has exactly 0% chance of winning against that massive Red Army. That is of course an extreme example of when the Soviet Union chooses to concentrate everything in Moscow, but the odds are so overwhelmingly in favour of the Soviets, that they can easily afford to have smaller formations elsewhere dealing with minor German flank operations (who will also be very limited due to the concentrated push strategy).

Did I mis anything?

:?

@Latro:

I’m a bit puzzled here … if I add 5 turns of production (guesstimate of course) to the initial Soviet forces, the German has exactly 0% chance of winning against that massive Red Army. That is of course an extreme example of when the Soviet Union chooses to concentrate everything in Moscow, but the odds are so overwhelmingly in favour of the Soviets, that they can easily afford to have smaller formations elsewhere dealing with minor German flank operations (who will also be very limited due to the concentrated push strategy).

Did I mis anything?

:?

I have made an Excel sheet to progress the advance of the German army into Russia.

This a table presenting the size of both armies (only land units included), both in number of units and the total IPC value of the units (TUV), at the beginning of their turns. It assumes the scenario described by JamesAleman on his previous posts.

| | G Units | G TUV | R Units | TUV |
| G1 | 46 | 173 | 31 | 104 |
| R1 | 53 | 198 | 31 | 104 |
| G2 | 53 | 198 | 39 | 132 |
| R2 | 64 | 243 | 37 | 126 |
| G3 | 64 | 243 | 45 | 160 |
| R3 | 78 | 290 | 43 | 154 |

As you may see, by the start of R3 Germany’s army is almost the double of the size of the Russian army, with most of the force will be in position to strike at Russian territories. And if Germany follows the straight for Moscow attack plan then it has no interest of diverting forces to take 1 IPC territories. Any lone Soviet infantry can be dealt with by the Finland and Bulgaria infantry and new production or simply ignored. So the Soviets really have no other option than to pull back everything they have to defend Moscow.
After G4 the distances involved and the presence of UK/US landings will limit the number of units that can be sent to Russia but even then it will take quite a while before the Red Army is able to achieve parity with the Germans.

But definitely the odds are not 0% for the Germans, depending on their buys and moves. If they move hard against Russia its more of a coin toss, and the more resources their pour into it, the better the odds.

I’m not kidding …

I used the list of the German mech inf army as it would be in G6 when attacking Moscow and then made a guesstimate of the Red Army (starting army + 5 turns inf buy) that could be in place at that time to defend it. Tossed the numbers into the Axis and Allies odds calculator … and it came up with 0% chance of a win for the Germans. Keep in mind that the Red Army can have as much as 70 inf by that time …

:-o

@Latro:

I’m not kidding …

I used the list of the German mech inf army as it would be in G6 when attacking Moscow and then made a guesstimate of the Red Army (starting army + 5 turns inf buy) that could be in place at that time to defend it. Tossed the numbers into the Axis and Allies odds calculator … and it came up with 0% chance of a win for the Germans. Keep in mind that the Red Army can have as much as 70 inf by that time …

:-o

I’ve just done the calc as well with a calculatorl:

70 inf, 3 art, 2 arm, 2 ftr, 1 tac, 1 AA Gun for the Russians.
18 inf, 5 art, 35 armor (the initial 8 and 3 production runs on a Major IC on Romania that I mentioned in a previous post, although it won’t produce always 10 arm but will always produce 10 units, some of them mech), 7 mech, 3 ftrs, 2 tac, 1 bmr (the number of planes assumes some losses sinking UK fleets).

Result for a G6 attack:
A. survives: 54% D. survives: 45.8% No one survives: 0.2%

G should kill, on average, 27 units during the first round of combat while the Russians should kill some 25 units. But the Germans lose units with an attack of 1 while the Russians lose units with a defense of 2, so the offensive.
Germans start with 166 attack points, Russians with 161 points. If the 1st round goes average then Germans drop to a 128 attack while the Russians drop to 107. If you keep getting average rolls for both then Russia will fall.

Ah, miscommunication there …

I used the list of the German mech inf army as it would be in G6 when attacking Moscow …

I was talking about the Mech Inf army of JamesAleman and his G6 Moscow push. Your Armour army has a lot more punch, but also a lot less screening units. The best way to stop that, as I metnioned before, would be to counterattack before it reaches Moscow to kill the infantry … after that the battles will be almost pure armour v. infantry which is a very bad match-up for the attacker.

8-)

I agree, if you build all Infantry, and move all units to Moscow…It would not be “Ideal Conditions” for you to continue my all mech push.

At this point, you would have to adjust your plan. It should be apparent by the beginning of turn 4, that Russia is moving its units to Moscow. I suggest you have two choices, based on what the other allies are doing.

Choice 1: Change G4’s planned production. Continue with your move towards Moscow as you have the units on the board, when Russia moves its stack into Moscow, since it is all infantry you can move next to it with your stack…pinning it in Moscow and send 1 - 3 armor to clean up the southern territories plus the V-City. Use the Finland infantry to secure the Northern V-City. Send the Bulgarian infantry to Berlin. Russia retreating to Moscow leaves them maybe 8 IPCs a turn, so add 20 IPCs plus 2 N/Os to Germany’s estimated 39 + 10 for the Norway N/Os. I estimate a German Production of 79 IPCs by turn 6 under this scenario. Now, budget 12-15 IPCs for artillery in Volgograd/Russian front, the rest in navy to either do a late game Sea Lion for city number 8 or a sub air force strategy with a Neutral crush that prevents an allied buildup in Gibraltar…Italy ground forces will enter Spain when Germany takes it. With Spain as a landing field the W. Germany air base reaches most allied staging areas, Axis control of Gibraltar protects Italy. Play a game of production with the allies, eventually Moscow or London will fall if you outproduce them.

Choice 2: build all armor G4, and maybe another round of armor and try to take G7 or G8. I haven’t done the math to see if that would be viable.

This may seem risky, but changing strategies mid game is not without its risks. Again, I am not advocating this as a be all end all strategy. It was just a fast way to take Moscow, unless Russia does “extreme” builds and moves to prevent it. All it takes is a small Russian stack protecting Novgorad or move offensive unit builds and I bet the numbers change. Maybe they don’t and I’m just wasting our collective time.

Thanks for the input and crunching the numbers for me. I value the debate and hope to benefit from the points presenting regarding this strategy.

@Latro:

Ah, miscommunication there …

I used the list of the German mech inf army as it would be in G6 when attacking Moscow …

I was talking about the Mech Inf army of JamesAleman and his G6 Moscow push. Your Armour army has a lot more punch, but also a lot less screening units.

I had noticed that you used the ‘mech army’ for your calculations. I used the ‘tank army’ example because you seemed sure that Moscow could not fall to the Germans  :-)

The best way to stop that, as I metnioned before, would be to counterattack before it reaches Moscow to kill the infantry …

Counterattacking a stack so loaded with tanks (and possibly planes as well) will remove most, if not all of the screening infantry. But it will also bring more losses to the attacker because of the tank stack.

after that the battles will be almost pure armour v. infantry which is a very bad match-up for the attacker.

If you mean that the attacker will be trading units of more value than the defender, yes. But if both sides are equal in numbers (and attacking the tank stack will kill a lot of Russian infantry) then the attacker has the advantage since his units have a bigger attack factor.

@JamesAleman:

I agree, if you build all Infantry, and move all units to Moscow…It would not be “Ideal Conditions” for you to continue my all mech push.

At this point, you would have to adjust your plan. It should be apparent by the beginning of turn 4, that Russia is moving its units to Moscow. I suggest you have two choices, based on what the other allies are doing.

Choice 1: Change G4’s planned production. Continue with your move towards Moscow as you have the units on the board, when Russia moves its stack into Moscow, since it is all infantry you can move next to it with your stack…pinning it in Moscow and send 1 - 3 armor to clean up the southern territories plus the V-City. Use the Finland infantry to secure the Northern V-City. Send the Bulgarian infantry to Berlin. Russia retreating to Moscow leaves them maybe 8 IPCs a turn, so add 20 IPCs plus 2 N/Os to Germany’s estimated 39 + 10 for the Norway N/Os. I estimate a German Production of 79 IPCs by turn 6 under this scenario. Now, budget 12-15 IPCs for artillery in Volgograd/Russian front, the rest in navy to either do a late game Sea Lion for city number 8 or a sub air force strategy with a Neutral crush that prevents an allied buildup in Gibraltar…Italy ground forces will enter Spain when Germany takes it. With Spain as a landing field the W. Germany air base reaches most allied staging areas, Axis control of Gibraltar protects Italy. Play a game of production with the allies, eventually Moscow or London will fall if you outproduce them.

Choice 2: build all armor G4, and maybe another round of armor and try to take G7 or G8. I haven’t done the math to see if that would be viable.

This may seem risky, but changing strategies mid game is not without its risks. Again, I am not advocating this as a be all end all strategy. It was just a fast way to take Moscow, unless Russia does “extreme” builds and moves to prevent it. All it takes is a small Russian stack protecting Novgorad or move offensive unit builds and I bet the numbers change. Maybe they don’t and I’m just wasting our collective time.

Thanks for the input and crunching the numbers for me. I value the debate and hope to benefit from the points presenting regarding this strategy.

I only crunched the numbers on that total-infantry defence to get an idea of what the situation would be during the mech-infantry push to Moscow on G6. Needless to say, those numbers turned out to be very extreme indeed. So extreme actually, that the Soviets can afford to operate several smaller infantry formations away from Moscow and still have something like a 95% chance of victory at the capital. Due to the massive defenders advantage, the Soviets have a lot of flexibility in their build … the Germans on the other hand do not.

This immediately locks down your first choice as alternative strategy. The German mech-inf can’t lock down the Soviet army in Moscow because it has no chance of victory in either attack or defence. For every small flanking formation you move away from the  main army, the Soviets can intercept with more and still keep their massive advantage around Moscow.

The reason for this lies in the effectiveness of the initial builds. Germany builds mech infantry to attack, the Soviet Union builds regular infantry to defend. For every 30 IPC Germany uses on the mech infantry, they gain 7.5 pips in the attack … the Soviets gain 20 defensive pips with their infantry build using the same 30 IPC. That’s almost 3 times as effective!

Choice 2:

G7 attack with 10 extra armour gives 1.1% chance of success
G8 attack with 20 extra armour gives 14.5% chance of success
G9 attack with 30 extra armour gives 36.7% chance of success

Personally I don’t put too much faith in precise predictions so late in the game though … way too much can happen to mess things up. I also don’t think it’s realistic to expect Germany being able to spend up to three turns of (almost) full production going East … in my games around turn 4-5 the landings in the West start to become very serious and drain a lot of income.

On a sidenote: I haven’t been able to find a good way to attack the Soviet Union yet, but I’m considering trying lots of smaller attacks in stead of the single concentrated push towards Moscow. So far I haven’t seen any concentrated push strategy with good odds of success. The advantage of multiple small attacks would be:

• The Soviets will either have to defend with multiple smaller stacks or give up a lot of ground and lose valuable economic power.
• Multiple smaller attacking formations can easily concentrate attacks against a single defensive formation, defenders can never react in time … and if the concentrate in an important location, the attackers will remain spread out and take more territories.
• Defending infantry becomes very scary in large numbers … but small formations are easy to destroy. So the defender has the choice of losing valuable troops defending against multiple attacks which prevents concentrating a large powerful army, or giving up a lot of ground very fast leaving him with very limited resources to build his main army.

8-)

@Hobbes:

The best way to stop that, as I mentioned before, would be to counterattack before it reaches Moscow to kill the infantry …

Counterattacking a stack so loaded with tanks (and possibly planes as well) will remove most, if not all of the screening infantry. But it will also bring more losses to the attacker because of the tank stack.

after that the battles will be almost pure armour v. infantry which is a very bad match-up for the attacker.

If you mean that the attacker will be trading units of more value than the defender, yes. But if both sides are equal in numbers (and attacking the tank stack will kill a lot of Russian infantry) then the attacker has the advantage since his units have a bigger attack factor.

Let’s take the G3 concentrated armoured push through Belarus as an example. I’ll leave the “Italian option” out since it’s too easy to counter.

The Germans can take Belarus with a max army of 19 inf / 5 art / 13 arm as you said. The Soviets can counterattack with a max army of possibly 33 inf / 6 art / 2 mech / 2 arm / 2 fgt / 2 tac (though build can vary of course). Tossing the numbers into the calculators gives the Soviet counterattack an 83% chance of success with on average 6 soviet ground units surviving.

This leaves Germany with basically just 1 stack of 10 armour at the factory, which could of course again take Belarus. The soviets 2 stacks of 10 infantry ready, 1 stack adjacent already to Belarus for the next counterattack with air support.

There is no doubt that eventually Germany will win with using a 60 IPC build each turn against a Soviet 30 IPC build, but without that all-important infantry screen that armour will not be at the gates of Moscow anywhere near turn 5. So the question is, how long can Germany afford to spend nearly 100% of the economy on the East?

Another option for the Soviets at Belarus would be to fight for just one or two rounds before pulling back. Such a two-round counterattack (counting pips) would leave the Germans with 2 art / 13 arm in Belarus and the Soviets with 9 inf / 6 art / 2 mech / 2 arm and an extra 10 inf reinforcements in Smolensk. No matter how you look at it, without a good screen it will be a slow and costly road towards Moscow for the Germans.

Assuming the first landings can start as early as turn 4, Germany simply can’t afford to spend everything in the East for that long.

8-)

Am I the only one who always upgrades to a Major Factory in Germany on the first turn? I never see it mentioned but to me it’s obvious. You need to be able to mobilize 10 units there.

@Raeder:

Am I the only one who always upgrades to a Major Factory in Germany on the first turn? I never see it mentioned but to me it’s obvious. You need to be able to mobilize 10 units there.

Yes, because everyone is doing sealion right now and building a carrier G1

@calvinhobbesliker:

@Raeder:

Am I the only one who always upgrades to a Major Factory in Germany on the first turn? I never see it mentioned but to me it’s obvious. You need to be able to mobilize 10 units there.

Yes, because everyone is doing sealion right now and building a carrier G1

I see. Well, I’m not much of a Sealion guy, more of a Barbarossa guy. On G1 I’m already thinking Barbarossa.

@Raeder:

@calvinhobbesliker:

@Raeder:

Am I the only one who always upgrades to a Major Factory in Germany on the first turn? I never see it mentioned but to me it’s obvious. You need to be able to mobilize 10 units there.

Yes, because everyone is doing sealion right now and building a carrier G1

I see. Well, I’m not much of a Sealion guy, more of a Barbarossa guy. On G1 I’m already thinking Barbarossa.

Yeah, good for you. Sealion looks really cheap and ahistorical.

@Raeder:

@calvinhobbesliker:

@Raeder:

Am I the only one who always upgrades to a Major Factory in Germany on the first turn? I never see it mentioned but to me it’s obvious. You need to be able to mobilize 10 units there.

Yes, because everyone is doing sealion right now and building a carrier G1

I see. Well, I’m not much of a Sealion guy, more of a Barbarossa guy. On G1 I’m already thinking Barbarossa.

Look at it this way. The carrier is very important to delay/defeat the initial Allied landings in Western Europe which gives you more time to capture those vital victory cities in the East. Without a carrier, the Kriegsmarine will probably go down during UK1 which leaves the entire coast wide open for the Allies.

So even if I don’t go for Operation Sea Lion (which turns out to be a self-defeating victory if you ask me), buying a carrier is still a very viable choice.

8-)

@Latro:

@Raeder:

@calvinhobbesliker:

@Raeder:

Am I the only one who always upgrades to a Major Factory in Germany on the first turn? I never see it mentioned but to me it’s obvious. You need to be able to mobilize 10 units there.

Yes, because everyone is doing sealion right now and building a carrier G1

I see. Well, I’m not much of a Sealion guy, more of a Barbarossa guy. On G1 I’m already thinking Barbarossa.

Look at it this way. The carrier is very important to delay/defeat the initial Allied landings in Western Europe which gives you more time to capture those vital victory cities in the East. Without a carrier, the Kriegsmarine will probably go down during UK1 which leaves the entire coast wide open for the Allies.

So even if I don’t go for Operation Sea Lion (which turns out to be a self-defeating victory if you ask me), buying a carrier is still a very viable choice.

8-)

Seconded!

@Latro:

Let’s take the G3 concentrated armoured push through Belarus as an example. I’ll leave the “Italian option” out since it’s too easy to counter.

If you mean to leave 3 or more infantry on Belarus to prevent the Italians from conquering it then that’s 3 less inf for the Russian attack force.

I am trying to get a clear look of the moves/buys required to get to the 33 inf / 6 art / 2 mech / 2 arm / 2 fgt / 2 tac Russian attack force. I’ll list them here to see if am getting anything wrong:

R1

• Buy 8 inf and 1 art
• Move 3 inf from Baltic, 3 inf from E. Poland, 1 arm 1 mech from Russia, 1 inf from Archangel, 6 inf 1 art from Novgorod to Belarus
• Move 2 inf from Bessarabia to Ukraine
• Move 2 inf from Vyborg and Karelia to Novgorod
• Send everything else towards Bryansk/Smolensk
• Place 3 inf on Novgorod, 5 inf 1 art on Russia

Total units: 32 inf, 4 art, 2 arm, 2 mech, 2 ftr, 1 tac

R2

• Buy 3 inf, 2 art, 1 tac
• Put everything in position to attack Belarus on the next turn.
• Place 1 inf, 2 art to Novgorod, 2 inf, 1 tac on Russia

Total force 35 inf (2 in Russia), 6 art, 2 arm, 2 mech, 2 ftr, 2 tac. That’s the attack force you describe to counterattack the Germans at Belarus.

But to reach those numbers the Russians will have to move out every unit they start with plus all their production on R1 and on R2 will have to place units on Novgorod (the 1 inf and 2 art) and also leave some units behind to stop the Italians from taking Belarus. Or they might decide to take advantage of W. Ukraine being unguarded (since all units are placed to deal with the hypothetical Belarus thrust) and move to W. Ukraine since the Germans can defend that position from a Russian counterattack on R3. A large part of Russia’s army will simply be out of position, since they are placed on Novgorod and out of the fight if Germany advances then to Bryansk. For the time being Russia will still be hold Novgorod but the Germans can either go for Moscow or take over the Caucasus.

I like the sound of that. :)

We’ll see. I’ll play tonight and see how it plays out.

@Raeder:

Am I the only one who always upgrades to a Major Factory in Germany on the first turn? I never see it mentioned but to me it’s obvious. You need to be able to mobilize 10 units there.

I have thought about it but on the first rounds I think getting one in Romania is more effective than upgrading the one in Germany if you are planning to take out Russia. It costs 10 IPC more but from there arm/mech can reach Moscow/Novgorod/Volvograd in 2 turns while it takes 3 turns for them on reach Russia from Germany.

Well, quite an interesting game last night. I ended up with Germany and Italy was given to a new player who had only tried the A&A computer game but likes board games.

I bought the Romanian IC on G1 and on G2 bought 3 arm and attacked, focusing on E. Poland. Russia focused its production more on infantry so on G3 i moved to Belarus with the 19 inf, 5 art, 13 arm stack and bought 5 arm, 5 mech.

But I made a mistake by moving the 6 inf from Finland to take Vyborg/Karelia on G3. The Russian stack on Novgorod was already cutoff from the rest of Russia and I just gave them targets to slow down the Germans by retaking Karelia on R3 and killing my 5 inf there.

So on G4 I had to build 3 transport to deal with the threat to Norway (and the US were about to attack France the next turn) so no arm/mech builds for Romania were possible. I had to clear the Russians on Novgorod and nearby areas but I also took Ukraine/W. Ukraine with my arm/mech builds.

On G5 I bought 13 mech for Novgorod/Romania. I finally cleared Finland and was set to move my entire stack to Bryansk to force the Russians give up Stalingrad but the attack on Bryansk failed! So my army was split into two. I moved the southern stack to Rostov for a feign towards Stalingrad (the UK had bought an IC for Persia and started sending armor to Russia from there).

On G6 the southern army retreated from Rostov to Ukraine due to the large Russian infantry/mech stack there. Both stacks finally joined up on Smolensk on G7 and attacked Russia on G8. Russia had plenty of infantry (32-33 if I’m not mistaken) plus 8 Russian/UK armor and the planes. I attacked with 12 infantry, 25 armor, 1 fighter, 1 tac and 3 bombers. Odds were close to 50/50 and I got lucky and won.

Too bad Italy fell to the US to US7 and the Allies had a secure position on France. :P

Has anyone considered/tried an early G1 Barbarossa with the purpose of securing Ukraine and West Ukraine and putting factories there instead of Romania (or perhaps with only a minor in Romania?)

I had actually been considering doing just that in my next game. Not so much for getting factories in Ukraine…something that as far as I can see couldn’t be accomplished until G3 at the earliest and thus you only get one or at most two builds out of them, but for putting pressure on Russia before they can consolidate their stacks.

A factory in Romania along with capturing East Poland and Bessarabia on G1 and shifting the two inf/art stacks in Germany east brings possible enormous pressure on Russia and might put them on their heels and never let them regain their balance. The downside is that some planes are needed to take France on G1 so you will leave the UK with some fleet, but I don’t see how that is a problem for Germany. Build enough units to hold (or possibly retake if UK is aggressive) Denmark and I fail to see how the UK can bring sufficient force to bear before Germany has a secure hold of most objectives in Russia.

A G1 attack on USSR force you to watch carefully Poland and Germany (even maybe Norway or Denmark) because they can drop 2 units with their transport and BB. UK could even reinforce the USSR navy with their surviving navy, so that must be something to consider. This could be an suicide attack from the USSR (losing there initial navy) but it can cut your forces in two and block your tanks and mech inf from joining your infantry stack for one turn, giving more time to USSR to organise themselve.

For Germany, pressuring the south would be the best choice though, because there are few unit there and Stalingrad could fall easily (even more if you have a major IC in romania).