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Resistance will no doubt evaporate anyway once the German soldier realizes he has more in common with his brother-workers than his fascist-capitalist masters.

ComTrav - aye, all too close to the truth - at the end of the Great Patriotic War when Stalin had convinced himself again he was a military genius he came up with a theory of '5 permanently operating factors'. One of which was that in any conflict between a 'socialist' and 'imperialist' force the socialist one would win in any case.
 
Politburo 10 May 1940

The usual suspects - Stalin has a new differently coloured folder in front of him.

Most of the discussion is around the likelihood of a German attack in the near future. Our intelligence detected about 3 Pzr Divisions being deployed away from our borders at the end of April (though that still leaves 4 in South Poland), and we have identified at least 6 squadrons of fighters in Memel and Konigsberg. Yugoslavia collapsed on 12 April and Germany then attacked Greece in support of the Italians (though they have not yet involved Italy in their wider war).

Equally it appeared as if Luxembourg had declared war on Germany in early May, and was now a part of the Axis - something we would have to deal with in due time.

As far as our intelligence gives us information, their war with Britain is purely in the air (ie I have messages that say German bombers are located at Newcastle) and that with Sweden has reached a stalemate with neither side being able to cross the sea between Denmark and Sweden.

On this basis, the assessment is no longer of an immediate attack and accordingly the training period for new divisions is extended. Also reserves are now in place on both Zhukov's and Kirponos' sectors and 3rd Shock Army is about 70% operational. The armour for 3rd Tank Army is in production.

Most members feel fairly pleased .... so: Why is Stalin NOT?

He picks up his new file, and turns on Shaposnikov:

JS - you told me the Finnish Army was totally destroyed;
BS - yes, there was no one left for us to fight;
JS - you clearly didn't look hard enough - they must have been hidden behind the trees .... next time make sure you find them properly.

He slams down a map provided by Orlov:



... and then turns on Orlov

JS - you can stop smirking, not only are our science labs full of foreign agents but you seem to have missed something ....
JS - why didn't you tell me the Japanese had tanks?

and slams down a map provided by Molotov:



JS - also I thought the Japanese were meant to have been beaten?
 
I'm pretty surprised Japan is still on Asia, too. Where they started, no less. (Sometimes they'll make a landing in center-West China).

And Luxembourg is a really funny puppet, you'll see them running around all over the place with INF brigades and no ability to bring them up to full strength...
 
A research interlude

The next set of screenshots give some idea what I'm trying to do in terms of equipment and training for the Soviet armed forces.

First up is infantry:

Here the 1940 focus is on the infantry division (each new tech costs me about 28-30 IC to implement, and another real gain over HOI2 is this load is at least better spread).

I've started with integral AT and am now on defensiveness, then will implement the two more offensive upgrades - obviously the idea is to get them as 'panzer-proof' as early as I can. For Garrisons, the only tech I'll take is in terms of defensiveness - I just want them to hang around and irritate an attacker, not to engage in anything else. Since 1941 looks like a quiet year (in terms of Inf research), I might improve the cavalry - if I do I'll grab the soft attack and toughness techs, so they can get stuck into isolated Inf units, and keep my research going by picking up a few Eng techs:



2nd screen is armour and Art.

2 teams are working over the armour and I really need the whole lot as I've got masses of LArm brigades. Anyway T-34 first, then LArm, then do what I can with the HArm - less critical, its more a way of making some Tank Divs more annoying to German Pzrs. My overall operational logic is that the best AT weapon is a tank.

For Art, I'm doing both conventional Art and Rocket Art (3 SA has rocket brigades for a change) - good thing about rocket art is its a cheap way to build up your rocket theory.

I'll keep the AC up to date, but thats a probelm for next year:



3rd is a view on training for the Red Army.

As you can see I'm ignoring the Superior Firepower branch - theres some nice things but its just too much. Have only just started on the v expensive (if you start with no practical) "Schwerpunkt" so have no doubts the Pzrs will outperform my armour in combat. Hopefully this will be offset by v low operational delay (it'll be 2 days once the new tech is in place) and pretty good infantry training



Final one is on air disciplines. For CAS and TAC - its stuff that helps them in their army support role, I've grabbed some stuff that reduces stacking penalties etc. For INT/FTR I'm keeping to the top 3 as I want them just to be hard to knock out the air, not really fussed about specialisation beyond that.



In terms of air hardware, I'll have all the 1940 techs in place by the end of the year. In terms of Industrial etc, will try to keep up to date, esp with the critical ones - but no urge to incur the 'ahead of time' penalties.

I hate to think what the German AI is able to do - from what I've seen by spying its well ahead of time, and seems to be concentrating on tanks and aircraft. Big question is whether its funding upgrades.

Like everyone, I'm plagued by spies and am sort of ignoring them - just doing a 2 week stint on counter-espionage every now and then - I want NU up and Neutrality down more than ultra-fast research.
 
ComTrav - when I took that Manchuria screenshot it looked like they were going to pocket a load of Mao's troops in the NE, but, a couple of weeks later, instead the Chinese have regained a band of provinces and pushed the Japanese back again. But the appearance of Japanese armoured brigades (I suppose they could be AC) was a bit of a shock.

As far as I can see, they've not landed elsewhere, but then neither have the Clique conquered Taiwan.

Not sure what Luxemburg did - my guess is that 7 months after the fall of France it either declared war on Germany - or was invaded by them. I await the appearance of the Luxemburg equivalent of the Blue Division somewhere on my front.

Apart from a stalemate between Denmark and Sweden and another at Athens - its all too quiet over there. Its at least 2 months since Hitler invaded someone new.
 
German Intentions

By using a combination of subs and spies, its now clear that the main German effort this summer is going to be in Scandinavia.




This makes me rather glad I left Finland standing - as long as it doesn't join either the axis or the allies it'll be a good barrier between German occupied Norway/Sweden and my forces in the Murmansk region - unless of course the Germans just invade, in which case the situation at Leningrad will get very hairy very quickly.

Meantime, Greece collapsed on 25 May, and then joined the Axis on 27 May - so it looks like the Germans are using quite benign occupation policies - there is 0% revolt risk in their provinces in Poland. Italy decided to mobilise on 29 May, and I grabbed Bessarabia on 2 June - that seems to have pushed Hungary even closer to the Germans but in general improves my lines.

Anyway, unless the Germans hit me in late Autumn, I can't see a 1940 invasion happening, so can scale back the panic build up.

Will let the game run to say start of Sept and then do some more on OOB, organisation and invasion plans etc.
 
The Germans want those Norweigian heavy waters and Swedish ores. And a northern front against you, maybe.
 
Politburo 29 September 1940: Finland again

Usual bunch, except that Stalin has demoted Kaganovic and appointed Bazilevich in his place. Essentially all resource stockpiles are near 99,990 and Stalin was fed up with being told that around 10% of the scientists were actually foreign agents.

Main concern was the strategic position in Scandinavia. Sweden had fallen, but opted for GIE on 11 August and Norway had surrendered on 27 September. As seems to be the current German practice, a puppet govt was then installed.

We have no evidence of a large build up of German troops on the Finnish borders - the strong Swedish CP has fed us information on the location of the German garrison - mostly at the main ports and that several wings of TAC bombers are located at Lulea (from my spies I seem to have good intelligence on the location of the Luftwaffe).

At the moment, in the Murmansk-Karelia front we have the equivalent of 3 armies (15 divs of which 4 are garrisons at Murmansk and Archangelsk) and in the area north of Leningrad we have 8 divisions (mix of rifle, cav and garrisons).

We believe these formations are more than enough to deter any Finnish action, but equally if the Germans were to attack we have no reason to believe the Finnish army would resist them any longer than in the Autumn War. We will increase the forces in and around Leningrad as part of the general build up, but at this stage no additional forces will be sent to the Archangelsk theatre. This might change if we detect a large German build up on the Swedish/Norwegian-Finnish borders. In any case, our supply problems in the Autumn War, indicate that any German attack will be slow, so overall this theatre can only receive limited reinforcements.

In the case of such a build up, orders have been issued for a pre-emptive Soviet invasion so as to secure better defensive lines than our current border.

However, Germany now has no enemies on the European continent, Spain is outside the Axis but sympathetic, Hungary drifts to the axis and Finland and Rumania seem to want to remain neutral. An attack on the Soviet Union is now inevitable and our build up on the Western borders must continue.

In the Far East, it was noted that the war in Manchuria seemed to be static but a small Japanese naval invasion had taken place south of Macao.
 
The balloon will go up soon now. Are you hoping for the German attack to come sooner or later? At this point I'm not sure who the extra preparation time benefits more, be interested to hear your perspective.
 
The balloon will go up soon now. Are you hoping for the German attack to come sooner or later? At this point I'm not sure who the extra preparation time benefits more, be interested to hear your perspective

I'm not sure - they must have masses of leadership from the conquests and benign occupation policy - I can see that from the spy screens on their research, they seem off into some 1942 things if I'm reading right, and researching almost all the air doctrines. But I still wonder about their IC, my spies show 213/356 for them and I have 215/290. So, they are either prioritising upgrades vs new production or all the shiny new units are well equipped and they have weaker stuff rattling around too - I'm be v disciplined, if I research it, I use it (so fully funding upgrades). The other thing is their combat experience levels are through the roof - air is up at 90.

I've now got decent local level reserves (3 inf and 3 mech armies in Zhukov's and Kirponos' sectors), each Inf Army is up to strength but in the main are covering the border at a density of 1 rifle div per province. What I'd like to now do is to fill in so the the second line is of 2 rifle divs with another 1 province further back - so my front is a bit like a tar-baby.

Strategic reserves - I have 3 fully formed shock armies, a Mech army and 3 almost complete tank armies.

VVS is still weak, but now have something like 5-6 inteceptor (PV0) formations in place but need more air support units. I also know/think the Germans have loads of FTR/TAC & STRAT in Poland - so the PVO could be busy on city defense rather than front line air superiority. Combination of spies and my new radar base at Leningrad is starting to tell me quite a lot.

However, I have a cunning plan to regain strategic initiative in Scandinavia.

So, I'm assuming an attack next spring - I've got lots of 'buildings' on the go so it'd be good to get them deployed and shift to even more INF+INT. They must have IC funding things for the war with Britain - I know they are bombing from my spies, so in terms of IC to deal with me - I'm probably ahead, as almost everything I build is for my Western Front.
 
Operation SIBTS

Main Military Soviet 3 November 1940

Top Secret Briefing and Plans for Operation SIBTS*

The Germans now occupy both Norway and Sweden, and clearly could attack us via Finland either as an act of aggression or if Finland, as some of its leadership seems to want to do, joins with the British imperialist block. In either case, we cannot rely on the Finnish army to either effectively resist an attack or to co-operate with fraternal Soviet assistance.

We have now decided to put in place the detailed planning for SIBTS to pre-empt any such developments. Especially, if, as at the moment actual German troops in Scandinavia are widely scattered we could regain the strategic initiative in the entire region.

The plan is to attack Finland, on the day that any German attack falls on the Soviet Union. We are releasing elements of the STAVKA reserve to facilitate this manouvre and they must be returned so they can join in delivering the fatal counterblow on the Polish borders. Thus timing is all.

There are two elements to SIBTS. Uborevich's Archangelsk Front will break the Finnish lines in the Arctic and then push at least as far as Hammefest and ideally to Narvik before adopting a defensive posture. The front is being reinforced by 34 Army drawn from the Caucasus and reinforced by new rifle divisions. The 34A will then consist of 2 mtn divs, 2 rifle divs & I cav div. The other two armies of the Front (35 A and 1A) will push to Lulea and extend a defensive line up to Kiruna to secure the coal supplies. At the moment, intelligence indicates a German division and TAC air at Lulea but no other German or Norwegian troops in the proposed area of operations.



Trubnikov's Leningrad District is to be reinforced by 1 Mech Army from Stavka reserve and the goal is an early capture of Helsinki - at which stage we hope that any Finnish resistance will end. 35 Army will make the initial breakthrough and 1 Mech will secure the 3 ports so as to minimise the risk of a German naval invasion. Once the operation is complete, additional Garrison divisions will be deployed to help with port defence and 1 Mech will be returned to STAVKA reserve.



In the first instance we will install an occupation govt in Finland, in the longer term we will end direct Soviet control. Once the initial attack is over, we will revise the options for a second phase seeing an offensive into Southern Norway and Sweden.

Since this will be mis-represented in the imperialist press as an act of Soviet aggression, the utmost security must be maintained.

* - Shostakavich is better than Sibelius!

... and have finally got proper text in the screenshots!
 
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The Defence of Western USSR

This post, and the next couple will present the detail on the Soviet plans to deal with a German assault from Poland/Hungary. My expectation is this will occur next spring but the most likely changes between now (mid-Nov) and then is I’ll have more Infantry armies and VVS formations (ie more of the same).

Worth stressing there are two differing concepts of the early phases of the war. Stalin believes the front line rifle divisions will stop the German offensive on the border, the 2nd echelon units in the front line armies will then complete that stalemate – the Front reserves will start to break through and the STAVKA reserve will complete the rout and push on to Berlin.

The alternative view, is that the front line rifle divisions are a road bump to the Pzrs, the 2nd echelon will then do some decent delays, the defeated first line will fall back to the 3rd echelon, etc etc. In other words, esp in Zhukov’s sector the initial phase will be a staged withdrawal inflicting maximum time loss on the Germans. The sector reserves (Inf and Mech armies) will then reinforce at key sectors, launch local counterattacks or seek to seal off breakthroughs. At the best when the Strategic (STAVKA) reserve is committed, it’ll convert local counterattacks into strategic breakouts of my own. At worst, they’ll hit the German spearheads.

So best way to conceptualise the main Soviet defense is as 2*3 matrix, with 2 strategic blocks (Zhukov at Minsk & Kirponos at Kiev), each of these made up of 3 lines.

The Estonian Front (2 armies – 8 rifle divisions) then becomes an additional reserve for Zhukov and the Odessa MD can release troops to Kirponos assuming no direct war with Rumania.

So at a large scale level it looks like:



Zhukov has 7 front line armies (each of 4 rifle divisions) and his second echelon is 2 Inf armies (again 4 rifle divisions) and 2 Mech Army.

Kirponos has 5 front line armies and a second echelon of 1 Inf Army and 3 & 4 Mech Armies.

The Mech armies no longer have much armour as most of that is now in reserve, so deploy something like 1 LArm Div, 2 Motorised Inf Divs and a Cavalry Div (mostly with brigades of SPA or AC).

The STAVKA reserve is deployed where roughly where it will go into action, but this could change and its flexible enough. At a major strategic level, I'd rather let the Germans run riot in the Ukraine than seriously threaten Leningrad/Moscow.
 
Smaller scale

Two screenshots below give OOB etc info for Minsk and Kiev sectors respectively.

Just as a quick reminder - I'm using (to a large extent) Soviet military terms so as a translation Army=Corps; Front=Army; District=Army Group. I'm also trying to make it easy to remember what is where, so every Army not otherwise designated is composed of 4 Divisions (usually each of 3*rifle brigades) and the Mtn Divs are scattered about in appropriate places.

The Mech armies vary a bit at the moment as I've been shifting bits and pieces in and out as I've built up the Tank Armies, so 2 Mech has 2 Arm Divs (2*LArm, 1 Mot) and 2 Mot Divs (3 Mot). 3 & 4 Mech each have 1 Arm Div, 2 Motorised and 1 Cav Div.

So Minsk sector:

This is by far the strongest of the two - mainly as a collapse here opens the door to Leningrad and Moscow. I'm hoping it will do a fighting retreat till the chance to counterattack comes. Even though its not the best tank terrain it has better armoured reserves both as part of the District and nearby(ish) in STAVKA reserve.

One other thing - I'm seriously upgrading the Moscow-Minsk road, this is already easing the supply flow and will make it quick to bring troops forward to this sector.



Kiev sector.

By contrast, Kirponos has problems. Not only the 'Hungarian envelopment' but he has none of the front line strength that Zhukov has. The 3 front line armies (13, 14 and 31A) are all in single rifle div blocks whilst further north the 2nd line is mostly 2 div strong. This is now my priority reinforcement area. But I can better stand a disaster here than further north, so ...



*IF* Hungary stays neutral, its all a lot more defensible, but that is unlikely to happen.
 
Great maps! Its like reading a history book.
Will you move the tankarmies up the line or keep them as a reserve for the most of '41?
 
Nice look at your OOB. I agree with your prioritizing of the norther sector over the southern one. Protecting Leningrad-Moscow is essential. If the Germans break through in the south, which definitely seems possible, you could always draw them into the Ukraine towards the Dniepr with an aim towards cutting of the lead elements once an opening in their front appears. That could net you a large number of mobile formations and through the strategic balance into your favor.
 
I just recently played a Barbarossa SU game in HOI2 and I found several things significant:

1. Bring all your southern troops to behind the Dnieper River (river just east of Kiev). Place another 6-10 divisions in Kiev. This will completely stall the Axis in the south - it will also Protect Stalingrad as long as Kiev does not fall.
2. Use your troops in Murmansk to attack Finland with as much power as you can muster, it will draw them away from Leningrad and therefore give you time to dig in and entrench.
3. The center... just keep them concentrated and roughly 3-4 provinces (12-14 in HOI3) away from Moscow.

By September 2 or 3 I completely ground the Axis advance to a halt. Its currently January 1942 and I'm already advancing in the South and Center!

Then again this isn't Barbarossa :/
 
Middelkerke Great maps! Its like reading a history book.
Will you move the tankarmies up the line or keep them as a reserve for the most of '41?

Thank you, was afraid it was far too much detail - but its easier now I've got access to a better picture editor.

Ideally, I don't want to use the Tank Armies individually, not least as the new 3 Tank is configured to dump on Pzrs. My guess is that the KV1 brigades will do the same to medium tanks that AC do in inf-inf combat. Its not that they do any more damage but they deflect a lot making your units hard to shift. So ideal is 3 TA hits a breakthrough head on, and one of the others goes in on the flank and the LArm Divisions either go hunting for German Infantry or act as reserves. In reality it depends how effective the German AI is, but even then they are my equivalent of Stalin's 'Siberian reserve', and need to be kept for counterattack not holding. At a pinch the Inf based Shock Armies can do defensive work.

Juan_de_Marco you have 2 '21 army'-s (that a typo or real?)

No, its me being scatty - I've got a scrap of paper with a set of 5-bar gates that I used to number the Inf armies - and got a few wrong/duplicates. As I catch them, I'm just renumbering (but at the moment the stats pages are not as helpful as they could be). It has no effect in-game as the HOI3 is using the original allocated number (so they are unique in that sense).

VILenin Nice look at your OOB. I agree with your prioritizing of the norther sector over the southern one. Protecting Leningrad-Moscow is essential. If the Germans break through in the south, which definitely seems possible, you could always draw them into the Ukraine towards the Dniepr with an aim towards cutting of the lead elements once an opening in their front appears. That could net you a large number of mobile formations and through the strategic balance into your favor

There is a case for and against setting a strategic trap in the Ukraine. In favour is the opportunity to hit over extended Pzrs with fresh armour and set up a huge encirclement. Against, is that their follow up Inf could still break in and the loss of IC (not too bad) and worse of leadership. I think the occupation of E Poland and the Baltics gave me about +2. The loss of everything to the Dniepr would cost around -5. So my view is the opportunity exists in that sector to possibly turn bad news to my advantage, but I'd rather not have the bad news in the first place - really depends on Hungary and, to a lesser extend, Rumania. Germany is signing a lot of trade deals with both so they are now slowly edging to the axis.

Re Spies, I think I have a workable theory. The longer a given spy hangs around the harder they are to shift. So I'm doing counter-espionage about 25% of the time, when I shift over, I kill a batch of the newly arrived ones but it takes an age to cull any of the older ones. I'm also noticeing this in Germany, now I've had a strong presense for quite a while, I lose very very few.

MastahCheef117 I just recently played a Barbarossa SU game in HOI2 and I found several things significant:

1. Bring all your southern troops to behind the Dnieper River (river just east of Kiev). Place another 6-10 divisions in Kiev. This will completely stall the Axis in the south - it will also Protect Stalingrad as long as Kiev does not fall.
2. Use your troops in Murmansk to attack Finland with as much power as you can muster, it will draw them away from Leningrad and therefore give you time to dig in and entrench.
3. The center... just keep them concentrated and roughly 3-4 provinces (12-14 in HOI3) away from Moscow.

By September 2 or 3 I completely ground the Axis advance to a halt. Its currently January 1942 and I'm already advancing in the South and Center!

Then again this isn't Barbarossa :/

Aye, I had a few HOI2 games where the Great Patriotic War became a 1 year stalemate up and down the Dniepr till German supplies and manpower cracked.

Its so hard to say with HOI3. A lot of other AARs (esp those with the Western Allies) seem to be seeing a return to WW1 style combat, but I think the additional provinces means that the East should be more mobile, if you take a risk you can always shift troops to try and breakthrough somewhere else. But, the basic Soviet strategy - keep Moscow and Leningrad at any cost has to apply. If the Ukraine degenerates into a set of isolated actions then so be it.
 
Isvestia 8 March 1941

Speech by Comrade Stalin at the Supreme Soviet: On Domestic and International Politics.

Comrades, I speak to you in dark times, all I can do is to assure you that our party, proletarian state, and armed forces are ready to meet the challenges. At the moment the imperialist wars continue on our borders leaving the USSR as a beacon of hope and humanity amongst the gloom.

To our east, Japan remains locked in its aggressive war with China, it is making slow progress in Manchuria and in the south. To our west, Canadian lackeys of the British Empire have invaded Norway, whilst all of Europe is now under the control of Fascist or Nationalist regimes.

However, the popularity of the USSR, despite the imperialist lies and distortions continues to grow. Comrade Kalinin is actively exploring how we can better rebut these lies {Historians note that a paragraph was cut here - what the original reported was that this comment was met by laughter, a shout of 'thats a good one, Joe', followed by a scuffle and an ominous single shot - another imperialist assassination attempt was thus foiled}. Nonetheless. the Mexican CP is now the second largest party in that country. Many refugees from the darkness outside our borders come to us - they work along side the Soviet people in factories, in our armed forces, or return to dangerous agitation work on behalf of the Comintern. There is a cost to this. Our very successes make our enemies jealous - and we face ever increasing levels of spying and sabotage.

The third five year plan continues, we are still creating new factories and upgrading our road and rail networks even as we, unwillingly, have to prepare for war. Our Tank Armies are now fully equipped with the new T-34, the equipment and training of our Infantry formations is up to date. We have now also deployed 2 paratroop divisions, giving the RKKA even more operational flexibility.

Our scientific and industrial effort is now on improving the quality of our VVS squadrons and in the efficiency of our industrial production and logistics. The defence of the Soviet Union is enhanced by improved fortifications at all our main ports and the development of large scale radar bases at key locations.
 
Politburo 21 March 1940

Stalin is really, really, not amused with the NKVD's latest lapse.

He's just appointed Panfilov to the post of Head of Intelligence as he is meant to bring a +20% to Land Intel, so we know even more about German operations.

The discussion is about the the recent Canadian invasion of Norway and is there any need to adjust or even stand down planning for Operation SIBTS.

However, the discussion gets boring and his eyes wander over the map to Northern UK and ...



... this far outweighs Molotov missing the Japanese invasion of China, or Germany attacking Poland. If it works, the degree of military force the Germans will be able to deploy against the USSR is immense - so is it time for a serious rethink about my defensive posture? Or to do really nice things to keep the Germans happy? Will Panfilov survive to the next meeting of the Politburo?
 
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