Yeah, you’re right.
Russian Doctorine: RED BLITZ
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TITLE: RED BLITZ**OBJECTIVE:**To survive German onslaught, by playing for enough time that Eastern Forces can reach Moscow.
ASSUMPTIONS:
-Against 100% focus, Germany can win in Russia almost everytime
-Trading 50/50 for german units is a WIN scenario for Russia.
-Asia will see 0% assistance from Russia, save for Mongolia forces if activatedCONCEPTS:
#1. Russia is in a RACE to the front line. It’s about how many Russian units you can bring to bare as fast as possible against the German stack whilst it moves forward against you and builds up. If you build heavy mechanized/arm early you CAN meet par against germans numbers, and force them to slow down, or face a 50/50% or better conflict in your favour#2. Whilst building mechanized units, retreat and recover russian infantry stacks from Leningrad area etc. Use your mechanized builds and movement to cover your stacks as they escape, all whilst threatening immediate counter attack
#3. Add artillery after R2 in the game for counter-attack punch
#4. Russia will get 6 inf R6, and 12 inf R7 as reinforcement - these are your saving grace.
#5. Any focus that’s less than a G6 90% forces focus against Russia is survivable.
#6. If Moscow looks doomed - Fall back into your R7 approaching stack, and/or towards ME. If you’ve added Artillery R3/R4 or R5. The germans will not likely be able to hold Moscow, and you can also counter to try to hold.
#7. By buying time for your eastern forces, you’ve hopefully also bought time for Allied planes to arrive.
#8. if you see good/small counters along the way, take them, having mech forces also Russia alot of reach.
#9. Sometimes this will allow delays with Germany’s ability to capture Leningrad. Leningrad WILL fall, but be cognizant that you can use mobile forces to keep it shielded for an extra turn or two sometimes.
#10. By keeping counteroffensive pressure against the germans, and delaying the offensive - this actually may raise your IPC earning potential, and I would argue this strategy “pays for itself” as opposed to not being as cost effective.
Bottom Line
-If you can stall the german advance by just 1 turn anywhere from G2 to G6, you should have bought enough time to survive entirely.DISCLAIMER
-Every game is different, use the concepts I’ve posted to develop your defense yourself.
-Please discuss positives and negatives or additional concepts
-This works better in F2F scenario’s, as players are less likely to be able to unit-focus above 90%. (unlike online when they spend HOURS planning each turn) -
Love the theme and the doctrine. Thanks for posting.
When I play Russia I used to buy a sturmovik or a few tanks somewhere between R1-R3 and I’m not sure this is that good of an idea against a strong player. I think I get your idea about having a mobile stack of armor, but some posts recently make me thing that mech infantry is the best your going to do. A huge stack of artillery is the right way to go, this is where you should focus your money rather than just men (or anything more expensive).
Each artillery you buy increases your attack by 2 more than buying an infantry alone, as long as you have a pair. The problem is that the artillery are slow, and therefore its harder to place them where they’re going to need to be. This is where the mechs come in…the mechs can move up to the front in order to pair with the artillery at the last moment. You’re going to lose a lot of men as casualties, so the artillery will need new units to pair with after every battle, and the mech stack can provide a more flexible pairing. In fact, this makes the offensive power of the artillery as good as armor, but costing 1 more rather than 3 more than infantry alone.
On R1, you don’t have nearly enough men (or anything else) to pair up, so if Germany attacks at that point, you don’t have any choice but to abandon your line and run for it. But by the time the reach Moscow, you can have a really hairy stack of stuff standing there (20+20) as long as you don’t buy anything fancy. If they can STILL take Moscow, your only choice is to fall back onto your East Siberian stacks and counterattack from there; well noted.
The only problem with moving your Siberian stuff west is that any good Global strategy against Russia is going to involve japan invading you and taking that 7-ish income away, early. I guess the defense of Moscow is such hard odds that you don’t have any other choice…but 7 income x 4 turns is 28…8 guys (rather than 18), if you could stop japan from taking all of it.
If Germany doesn’t attack you early, that’s going to contribute hugely to your survival and the viability of the defense. However, except for some gambit, Germany is going to attack you on turn 2 in almost every case.
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Today’s front page headline…
Gargantua makes his return to the Global forums with a tremendously well thought out post for a brilliant Russian strategy.
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Not to get bogged down into detail but I personally do not see how a 50/50 trade for German units is an assumed victory? I could easily be overlooking something or simply be ignorant, but when i play Germany i love seeing Russia trade with me 50/50…. However I am no pro so I could be way off base, just looking for some explanation.
Thanks in advance :-)
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Not to get bogged down into detail but I personally do not see how a 50/50 trade for German units is an assumed victory? I could easily be overlooking something or simply be ignorant, but when i play Germany i love seeing Russia trade with me 50/50…. However I am no pro so I could be way off base, just looking for some explanation.
Thanks in advance :-)
It comes from the premise that Russia is outmatched in terms of economy, available unit count, and unit mobility.
It also comes from the premise that like chess - it’s not so bad to trade piece for piece if you are in control of the board.German Air power means that at any given time Germany will have 2 to 1 odds or better in most of it’s battles. If Russia can drag that down and force situations with 1-1 odds (50/50) which is a bit of a feat, it’s not a bad place to be.
If you can do better - by all means do so, but as discussed russian resources are in short supply. The best way to delay Germany is to force situations where he can’t advance - or it’s higher risk for him to advance.
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Germany usually comes in with a very limited supply of infantry units, and it takes lot longer for new German infantry to reach the front than it does for Russian infantry.
Thus, if you can remove the German infantry at a 1:1 ratio, you gain a greater likely hood of making the German player lose more valuable units like tanks and planes. -
Ok I see what y’all are saying… Makes good sense, appreciate it :-)
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Great post Pancake!
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