fortifications useless?

[lollibast]

Hi,
I built a massive Stalin-wall from the baltic to the black sea but it's pretty useless. I'm attacked by e.g. 14 divs in a lvl 8 fort, plains province and get completely smashed (11 defending units), the fort losing ~0.35 per hour during daylight. A fort that took years to build torn down in 2 days? Needless to say my SU defence strategy went down the drain with this discovery
Does that have something to do with SU's 70% grounddefenceefficiency?

 

[Hollandia]

Yeah, probably, or u didn't have enough reserve units to replace the worn out divisions from the front. U have to keep swapping them and refreshing them. But retreating is probably the best option anyway. U better put the IC u used for the forts to build tanks and inf!

 

[Conanteacher]

...and yes, of course the GDE is a major factor here. Retreat until you get Great Patriotic War event, Then try to counterattack and encircle.
Use your air force against retreating enemy, always have many fast (armoured, motorized etc) divisions on "Support Defence" mission, moving them where you are being attacked..

 

[lollibast]

thanks for your info. I think I'll start a new game, all those wasted icd in fortifications and infrastructure to the intended front shall not fall in the hands enemy and thus be turned against me.
So, what are the requirements for that GPW event? is it just number of provinces lost? in that case i could set up a new stalinwall deeper in the motherland, or is it tied to unitlosses or certain victorypoint provinces?

Isn't it crippling for the soviet economy to lose the provinces in the Krivoy Rog and Stalino are due to resources shortfall?

 

[Conanteacher]

GPW event is usually automatically fired 3 months after you get invaded.
Till then, just fight for some hours and then retreat.
Try not to get any of your divisions encircled / destroyed.
Always retreat when still having a bit org left, otherwise you get huge mp losses.
If you log strike captured provinces, you'll slow down German advance.
They need to recuparate their org, that's why you should stand and fight for some hours.
If they capture one of your provinces with only 1-4 divs, counterattack to force them to retreat - but don't re-capture the province.
A German div with 0 org will be useless for almost a month, carefully planned counterattacks could make many of their divs. useless till the GPW event fires.
You could even recapture one of your provinces with a single cav/mot/arm unit, and retreat asap when you get attacked again.
The infra damage is worth it, if a province changes hands it loses half of it.
If you need resources, you can trade - Usually it is not really a big problem, if you stockpile enough of them.

Good luck!

 

[lollibast]

thanks for the advice, but I feel it's just ridiculously unfair.
E.g. it get attacked by only 3 divs and I bring reinforcements to defend with 9 (+3 div initial defenders that get routed within hours) divs against those 3 and I get slaughtered, 4000kia vs 400 german kia. Same against the Fins, I defend a hills province with 3 mounties and get pushed out by 2 divs in no time with staggering kia ratio.
I'm never going to hold out for 3 months but I'll try anyways. On a sidenote, my planes don't seem to produce any effect too

 

[Brucesim2003]

...but I feel it's just ridiculously unfair.

Stalin probably thought so too.

 

[lollibast]

Stalin probably thought so too.

ah cmon, I defend an urban province with 24 divs, tanks, mots and mechs. Germany brings it on with 46 divs and I lose 22k men while they lose 200. Thats just a joke, k/d ratio of 1:100, are you kidding me?

And on the northern front? Leningrad defended by 12 divs of mine and 4 exped forces of finland. While my units have superior stats (up to 62 defence of my elite infantry vs 22 of the fin unit) my units run within hours while the remaining 4 finnish division hold out for a much longer time.

My point is that i just cant relate to it. Some hidden modifier somewhere in the tech tab that makes my units fight like 10 year olds despite good equipment/stats. GDE 70%? Feels more like 20%. The results are just not reflected in unit stats and the combat information.