Thoughts on Building New Soviet Units

[Hermann Balck]

The key is how youre doing with your manpower. One of the most neglected functions for the soviet player is setting units to static. Divisions give up 1-2 ap but tank brigs give up 3-4 or nearly their entire cost. odds are you wont be using them on most fronts - the germans attack on a limited front and the russians rarely attack. the most harmful thing you can do is stack is stack 3 divs in a frontline hex. you want 2 in the front with a tank brig behind it in either reserve or static role to prevent fort deterioration followed by a 3rd line with 2 divs and an inf brig. That means you retrewat rather than rout and fall back into a forted hex. reserves are immediately behind to retake the hex. The inf brigs can be used to flesh out damaged units or build corps as you see fit, but dont get swallowed up in corps building till 44. Keep your gaurd units seperate and in reserve lines to the rear of threatened sectors stacked with inf brigs to form corps if needed and space tank corps strategically behind threatened sectors with tank brigs nearby again to flesh them out if needed. Aside from that constantly form inf divs. keep them in the rear developing new defense lines at all times and move them up as needed. Building army hqs is important inf and later tank armies to manage your units. beginning fall 43 start building up corps in your shock armies and artilly units. The most valuable unit in 42 is the cav corps followed closely by the motorised brigades, russian armor is tragically weak but the mech brigs that get formed by the mot and later mech brigades are awesome.