How does one play the Russians? - Printable Version +- Forums (https://www.theblitz.club/message_boards) +-- Forum: The Firing Line (https://www.theblitz.club/message_boards/forumdisplay.php?fid=1) +--- Forum: Tiller Operational Campaigns (https://www.theblitz.club/message_boards/forumdisplay.php?fid=11) +--- Thread: How does one play the Russians? (/showthread.php?tid=55345)

How does one play the Russians? - HMCS Rosthern - 04-13-2010 I know this question depends on what game one is playing and whether the Russians are on defense or on attack. I was playing Russian the H2H Clash of Steel at Prokhorovka (PBEM Scoring)_Alt against Rui and I lost decisively (total point 3325 Axis Major Victory). Now I know this game is balanced since it is an H2H scenario, so I must conclude that I played the Russians poorly. I have played other games as Russian, and have had the same problems. Here are my observations. 1. No matter how much I stacked in any one hex, and even with entrenchments, my units melted away. The Germans would hit me continuously with artillery, and direct fire, with the sometimes air units. Quickly the units would disrupt and then the assault would dislodge me from my hex. 2. The infantry was ineffectual. A stack of three Russian battalions firing against a single German battalion would typically generate 1-5 men losses per shot, while a single shot from the German battalion would take 10-20 men, if not more. It was better not to fire at all. 3. Digging was no help. In fact, if I prepared entrenchments behind my line, the Germans would just assault their way into the entrenchments. Even though I retreated into an entrenchment, the Germans would benefit from their newly claimed entrenchment. I even thought the best solution was to not build entrenchments, so that the Germans would have to advance over open terrain, so that each shot by the Russians would yield the most casualties. Moreover, I would try to only fire my artillery on infantry that was in the open to maximize the results. I avoided firing on armor since it had little effect when I tried. 4. Massing my tanks seemed to be the only way to get initiative, but the way the scenario is constructed, it’s hard for the Russians to maintain their balance so they can concentrate a reserve. It was only near then end when the reserves came in that I could get a sufficient armor reserve. 5. I think I did not pay enough attention to ensuring that my units were close to their HQs, which likely further compounded my problems. In conclusion, I am not making a criticism of the scenario. If anyone would like to make some comments on how to play the Russians on defense in general, and in particular in the Kursk game, it would be appreciated (by me and I am sure others). RE: How does one play the Russians? - Bidermann - 04-13-2010 it can be hard I have found with the early battles.I play the Russians with fingers crossed and a tight backside!! lol. I do try and mass infantry if I can and or dig in like mad and they last a bit longer.The only thing I have found is that it cost less to loss men than it is to loose victory points so let the buggers die where they stand. RE: How does one play the Russians? - Mr Grumpy - 04-14-2010 I don't have K43 so i cannot help you directly, however there are two articles covering aspects of playing the Russians in S41 and i hope they will give you some pointers. ;) https://www.theblitz.club/articles/Articles-for-the-HPS-Operational-Campaigns-Series/cid=6 As you you suspected H2H scenarios are balanced when played by players of equal ability who play the most effective strategy for that scenario situation, any other combination(s) will inevitably unbalance the scenario. RE: How does one play the Russians? - James Ward - 04-14-2010 The best way to play the Russians is to play the Minsk Campaign! :) RE: How does one play the Russians? - Aetius - 04-14-2010 There are a number of things I usually do when playing the soviets and that I hope I can show you in our mirror game. Playing the soviets is really very very different from playing any other army. I found out long ago that finesse is not the way to go. This is a mass army that only suceeds when it makes the germans feel it. To put it in more practical terms: - Don't worry if your units get disrupted when firing. They will, eventually, anyway. The important thing is that they keep pounding the germans so that their fatigue keeps climbing and their effectiveness is reduced. - Stack as high as you can so that the german assaults are prohibitively costly to the germans. - All the while, keep your line safe from the german's isolate-and-pound tactics. - Try to stabilize the line so that you can put the soviet artillery to work. Easier said than done? Maybe. In this particular scenario the mud that lasted for two days is a great help in curtailing german mobility, though. When the ground is firm it means that you have to have numerical superiority - about 3 soviet divisions to every german one just to be able to hold your line before it starts leaking badly. Another thing is that you can't be afraid to take casualties. Be as indiferent to them as soviet generals were... Rui RE: How does one play the Russians? - Volcano Man - 04-14-2010 To add to the above: Aetius is right. You have to think one thing: brute force. The most important fundamental thing to do as the Russians is to just sit there with your troops. This might sound strange, but just by sitting in place in the path of the Germans, you can accomplish several things: 1) You are not disrupting your own units (from opportunity fire) on your own turn. In a word, force the enemy to use his valuable MPs to disrupt you from fire, don't make it easier on him by disrupting your units on your turn. On the other hand, and this is adding to what Aetius said, once your units are disrupted and in a stack, then don't be afraid to fire them all off at the same time at the enemy. If they are mostly disrupted then it doesn't matter, just get some shots in anyway. So the trick is to avoid getting disrupted first, then once they are disrupted - go ahead and fire them off. 2) You force the Germans to assault in order to take ground. And going more into detail, when you are "sitting there" try to do the following: 1) Try to create stacks of mixed units to solidify the defense, and especially avoid having one disrupted infantry unit in the line (stack several disrupted infantry units together). 2) Avoid blocking your large stacks in and denying them the ability to retreat by creating stacks behind the front line. This is actually very tricky to keep a handle on, you will have to sometimes resort to checking the right click status window to see how many troops you have stacked in a hex, and reference the surrounding hexes too. The worst thing you can do is have a nice fat stack on the front line get killed off because it cannot fall back when it gets assaulted. All four of these points work to accomplish the larger goal of trading lives for space and time. By sitting in front of the German advance in large stacks, the Germans have to assault them and incur fatigue which in turn will gradually grind down their advance and force them to rest. Sure the Russians lose men and incur the same fatigue, but they can afford it if you manage your reinforcements properly. In the places where you are passive, use your artillery and tanks to do the attacking (by fire). Having said that, the most important tactical thing to do as the Russians is recognize where the main German effort is, then do localized counter attacks in the "other places" to force the Germans to have to diverge from the main effort, to backup / reinforce the "other places" that you are threatening and it keeps them off balance, unable to concentrate on their primary push. In other words, when playing as the Russians you MUST counterattack in order to actually defend anything, rather than doing the traditional "sit and be passive" all along the front which is what a typical defender might be used to doing. Having played the Prokh scenario many times, you cannot (as the Russians) be passive everywhere. So what you do is, you become passive like a sloth in the path of the German advance (using the "sit there like a rock" tactic mentioned above (aka. plan "tree sloth" ™) and in the places where the Germans are not attacking, you should be active and causing all sorts of problems with localized assaults to try to attract attention. Once you attract attention, you execute plan "tree sloth" ™ and go passive, then use only your artillery to fire back in those places, move your reserves to the now inactive areas and execute plan "attract attention" ™ again. This is in a way what the Russians would do historically when you read text that the Russians launched constant counter attacks. I assure you that you can drive the Germans mad with this tactic and if the Germans do not counter your localized counter attacks then you just might break into their rear and take out some German support units. So, essentially you have to take the initiative away from the Germans by counterattack so as to put them in a lose lose proposition: either they pull some strength away from their main effort, or they lose ground in vulnerable places. If the Russian does not counterattack, then it affords the German player the luxury of *concentrating* where he wants, when he wants, and the Russians will inevitably lose if the Germans maintain complete control over the situation like this. So, ideally, as the Russians you are trying to force the Germans to spread out his strength to a degree that he is no longer concentrated. Of course the other thing about the Russians is that your tank (and artillery) units should probably be the only thing that is actually firing on the enemy, just let the infantry units sit in place 99% of the time. Once your infantry are at a numeric superiority (in number of units in a stack) in an area, then you should go ahead and start firing with them. And speaking of artillery, Russian artillery is second to none. If you are not using it each and every turn then you are not being a good Russian. Don't underestimate the need to check for detached units too, because it might turn out that the artillery you keep calling in is at a reduced effectiveness. And in passing, don't forget to assault with the combined arms stack of SMG and T-34 units -- don't assault independently of each other, it is a waste, and where possible don't waste your SMG units holding terrain unless it is absolutely necessary. Use them instead as an assault force that stays 1 hex behind the lines waiting for the right time to strike with the tanks that are up front. And finally, as the Russians, don't be afraid to assault the Germans even if the Germans are not all disrupted in a hex (as long as the Russians outnumber the Germans in number of units in the assault!). You can usually force a costly assault upon both sides by doing this, of which the Germans cannot afford to sustain. Then, where possible, bring up fresh units and continue that costly assault against the same unit -- something will have to give! It is better to do this though once all the Russian reinforcement divisions have arrived on the line, at which point you will outnumber the Germans by a wide margin and should have a nice depth to your forces. I did things like this in the Prokh_Alt scenario, and in one result I actually ended up running the Germans all the way back to the Psel on the west side. However, it is certain that although both sides have a shot at winning, it is indeed very tough to do so (with both sides). Both sides really have to know the strengths and weaknesses of their units! I hope my random rambling helps. *edited for typos* RE: How does one play the Russians? - Dog Soldier - 04-14-2010 The Russians in any PzC game are sandpaper. They get worn away. By rubbing the enemy you wear him down too! Remember the Soviet symbol. Hammer and sickle. No rapiers here! Smash and scythe! #3 Digging in. - It is always best to leave open ground for the enemy to cross. In some cases you can "cluster" your fortifications rather than dig in in a linear fashion. This helps if your have (as the Russians do) many units so the flanks of the "cluster" have some bite and are not easily dislodged. As a general rule, in the _alt scenarios think in terms of strong points with flank guards / counter attack reserves. Think carefully where to commit to a strong point. Terrain is everything with good interlocking fields of fire for you. Minimize hexes the enemy can reach you from more than one hex away. If the enemy tries to flank your strong point have a force ready to counter attack him so your strong point is not surrounded and isolated. Lacking sufficient strength to conduct counter attacks? Then place many interlocking ZOC as you can muster and make the enemy wade through your forces to flank the strong point. That will delay the inevitable a little longer so you can wear down the enemy. Work him over with all the artillery you can muster, as others have said. Katiusha rockets fired over open sights (as was done at Kursk) will hurt those German soft units. Unfortunately in the _alt series, firing large caliber artillery over open sights at armor from a fortified village position is no where near as effective as it was historically. Save your artillery for fatiguing the German foot soldiers. It can be very hard for the Germans to take a VP village with tanks alone by assault if you stack the combination of armor, ATG, and infantry there in the later part of the game. (Just beware of those Flame PzkIIIs! in other K43 _alt scenarios. They can clear a hex like nothing else.) When using VM's sloth / rock tactic, try to shuffle your defenders around a bit or have a small reserve you can shove into the stack in your turn just when you think the enemy is done softening you up and is ready to assault. You only need one C morale unit to make that stack of E and F units become heroes of the Soviet Union (posthumously of course)! :) Do all the things VM and Aetius suggest above! Dog Soldier RE: How does one play the Russians? - Taffy6 - 04-14-2010 Gentlemen, that was some fine reading! Thanks for putting in the effort to write those replies- it's much appreciated by many! Taffy RE: How does one play the Russians? - HMCS Rosthern - 04-16-2010 Thank you for the informative responses. - Patric RE: How does one play the Russians? - herr_oberst - 04-19-2010 I am printing this thread for carefull studying. I think that the contributions of expert players here will make many games much more interesting. Thanks a lot.