Glory of Communism - A Soviet AAR (Black Ice 7.5)

[Trylun]

Glory of Communism - A Soviet AAR
​

Game Version: Black Ice Mod v7.5
Starting date: 1936 Historical Start
Rules: No special rules
Goals: To spread communism around the globe!
AAR-Style: This will be a mix of a reporting and a narrative style - just as my mood dictactes
As this is my first AAR, please bear with me
Note on pictures: Some are taken with a high resolution. Click on them to enlarge!

Notable persons (more to be added once introduced):
Alexej Kazakow - Member of the "Agitprop" (Ministry for Agitation and Propaganda)
Iosif Stalin - General Secretary of the USSR
Michail Tuchatjevskij - Chief of Staff - DEAD
Lazar Kaganovich - Armament Minister
Yan Berzin - Head of Intelligence - DEAD
Andrej Krasnitz - stationed on Heavy Cruiser "Krasni Kavkaz"
Viktor Kyotov - tank commander serving in the "4th Cavalary Division Leningrad"
Andriy P. Panfilov - Head of Intelligence, sucessor to Yan Berzin
Boris M. Shaposhnikov, Chief of Staff, sucessor to Michail Tuchatjevskij (1938)
Yakov I. Alksnis, Chief of the Air Force
Kirill Meretskov, Marshal of the Air Force
Vasily Chuikov, Leader of the Moskva Military District
Aleksei Zhadov - Leader of the Southern Military District

INDEX
1936-01-02 Introduction
1936-01-02 State of the Army
1936-12-23 Personal record of Yan Berzin, Head of Intelligence
1939-03-18 Personal notes of Alexej Kazakow
1939-08-28 Report of Lazar Kaganovich, Armament Minister
1939-09-01 The Fall of Poland
1939-11-30 For the Freedom of the People of Finland
1940-03-31 Sweden - A Story of Integration
1940-11-05 Operation Southern Watch - Part I
1940-11-28 Operation Southern Watch - Part II
1941-06-15 Looking at the Numbers - Part I
1941-06-15 Looking at the Numbers - Part II
1941-06-16 Looking at the Numbers - Part III
1941-06-22 Order of Battle
1941-06-22 Operation Barbarossa - The Northern Front
1941-06-22 Operation Barbarossa - The Southern Front

Introduction

January 2, 1936 -- Personal notes of Alexej Kazakow
Finally. First day in the new position. 12 years of grinding in the lower positions led me to this post - 12 years of Stalin in power, as well.

Henceforth, I shall be responsible to motivate our soldiers to fight to death for the Motherland, should it be required. Make no mistake, we are surrounded by enemies, sacrifice and death will be required!

Our so-called Allies, the Americans, Brits and the French. They all think so much of themselves. Superior technique, superior industry, superior world view ... and Russia? Lost against a Germany on their heels in World War 1, thrown back by their revolution, ruled by a tyrant. A country, soon to be gone into oblivion, so they say.
How very much wrong they are!

And the Germans. Beaten, humilated, land taken away. Yet something happens over there. Since 3 years, the fascists are in power, our arch enemy and ideological counterpart. From what little our spies know, there is a huge build-up in process over there. Something dangerous for our proud country. But maybe they only talk loud? We are still training their tankers and pilots, we still take their money, they take our goods. Maybe, just maybe, in the next conflict we will not clash?

And the product of Germany's defeat and our revolution: The free countries Poland, Lithunia, Estonia and Latvia, along with Finland. Dents in what should rightfully be ours. Will be ours again come the time!

In the east, Japan. Since 4 years, border tensions run high. Last year, over 150 so-called "incidents" disrupted the border and they become larger and bloodier. With our small, out-dated navy, we can not hope to defeat Japan. How will we react?

There is hard work ahead of us and our situation is dire. The industry is underdeveloped, our equipment and doctrines are laughable, our troop order of battle and organisation is disastrous. I am not quite sure how to sugar coat this to make it sound as if we were the most powerful country in the universe. It certainly is my job to make Stalin's subjects believe so!

Comrade Stalin ... give me strength!

Difficulty settings:

Political situation:

Economical Situation:

To be continued with an outlook on the Army, Air Force and Navy (it's going to be ugly!).

 

[Trylun]

State of the Army

Meeting of Iosif V. Stalin and Chief of Staff Michail Tuchatjevskij, January the 2nd, 1936.
Also present:
Lazar Kaganovich, Armament Minister
Yan Berzin, Head of Intelligence


Stalin: I have ordered you here, because the status of our armed forces is a mess. And you are responsible, Tuchatjeskij!

Tuchatjevskij: But ... but Comrade Stalin! Look at the number of our troops! Surely that is most impressive!

Stalin: Impressive? Maybe the numbers! Show me how you handled our structure at the moment! Show me the theatres!

Tuchatjevskij: Of course, comrade Stalin. Surely this is a sensible approach to organizing our big army:

Stalin: Sensible?? Tuchatjevskij, have you lost your mind? 8 Theatres! More then 20 Army Groups! Divisions directly attached to the main theatre! Tuchatjevskij, you will cut down the theatres to 3 at most! Western, Southern and Eastern Districts! Everything else - gone! Also see what you can do with the number of Army Groups. We have too many Officers for too few soldiers! There may come a time, where we are hard pressed on army leaders, plan accordingly! And those horses! All those horses - replace them with tanks! Horses are of the past!

Tuchatjevskij: Hard pressed? What do you .... nevermind, it will be done Comrade Stalin!

Stalin: That, it will! By you or somebody else! Now, last year we had the british Chief of Staff in Moscow - and do you know what? He was laughing when he attended our military parade! Pointed at the bi-planes and laughed!! Show me how bad it really is!

Tuchatjevskij: It is not so bad anymore, we have replaced most bi-planes late last year, look!

Stalin: Ok then, is it true, do we have 122 squadrons for our mere 200 air wings? Please tell me it is not true!

Tuchatjevskij: I am afraid .... it is true.

Stalin: I swear, if we had somebody to replace Alksnis ... I will watch him very closely while he reorganises the air force! Get it done!

Tuchatjevskij: Yes, comrade! At once!

Kaganovich: Mind you, general secretary, with some more research we could build you thousands of the newest aircraft! Our production queues are awaiting your instructions!

Stalin: Not to worry, Kaganovich. You will be busy for years to come! First, I want you to expand our production capacity even further. Look at the United States - if they gear up for war, they will leave us in the dust! Change that!

Kaganovich: Of course, general secretary!

Stalin: Now, our navy. I am braced for the worst.

Tuchatjevskij: I am afraid, we did not touch our navy since the revolution - with the exception of changing the names of the ships! Every single ship, with the exception of 6 newer submarine flottillas in Vladivostok can be considered obsolete. Here is our current situation:

Stalin: Damn, this looks grim. Knowing both the Americans and Japanese are building formidable navies, not even mentioning the brits with their huge fleet! Even the German Navy would almost be a match for ours! Russia has never been a big seafaring nation, but Russia always strifed to BE one. And we shall! In time. Comrade Berzin, we need information on advanced ship building techniques. Put your spies on it! What we cannot steal, we have to develop ourselves. I think air power is the way of the future - we will concentrate on aircraft carriers, along with some small escorts, cruisers or destroyers!

Berzin: I am on it, comrade Stalin!

Stalin: I promise you, I will find those slacking officers responsible for this mess! I will not rest until they are brought to justice for their betrayel on the soviet people!!!


To be continued!

 

[Hawke0]

Interesting. Planning a major naval buildup? You'd be surprised what a small fleet in the Black Sea, along with some paratroopers and marines can achieve in operations in that region. A strong Baltic Fleet has some limited, but very real uses, and a strong submarine fleet can quite easily cripple the Japanese. I'll be following this.
Partly because you're another newcomer, and I'm glad to have someone lower than me on the totem pole

 

[Trylun]

Interesting. Planning a major naval buildup? You'd be surprised what a small fleet in the Black Sea, along with some paratroopers and marines can achieve in operations in that region. A strong Baltic Fleet has some limited, but very real uses, and a strong submarine fleet can quite easily cripple the Japanese. I'll be following this.
Partly because you're another newcomer, and I'm glad to have someone lower than me on the totem pole

Cheers Hawke, it is quite some more work than I originally anticipated, but so far it's fun! It's completely different from how I am used to play and sometimes I catch myself clicking away windows I should rather screenshot.

I am not sure what I will do naval-wise, I started with Carriers and Light Cruisers (as announced), but there has been some tension among the Chiefs of Staff, Army, Navy and Air Force. They fear for their jobs/lifes at the moment and it is unsure, how a possible new Chief of Navy will handle the matter!

About marines, keep in mind in the Black Ice Mod you need to develop Landing Crafts before you can conduct Amphibious Landings (can't use Transports), which takes considerable development ressources. I am not sure that'll be feasible for me. For Paratroopers to have any big effect, you need a lot of them and LOTS of transport planes to drop them. In Black Ice, those planes are hugely expensive. My Paratrooper force will be very small at the start (actually there is one unit in the starting oob).

I will try and do an update later today!

 

[chals]

Get some H transports - and pump out "sea" tanks(forgot the name), Mixed support as add on commandoes + paratoppers itself, and can add on a battlecommander for the Jazz of it They shoud be not to bad then - can even hunt some rebels to get some early xp

But yes - they are a supporting and firefighter option, not a wow FACTOR

 

[Trylun]

Personal record of Yan Berzin, Head of Intelligence ...

1936. A busy year. The re-organisation of the armed forces has been well underway.

Alas, too slow for comrade Stalin.
I was tasked with the removal of the complete Chiefs of Staff, minus the Chief of the Army, who must have done a satisfactory job of putting Stalin's orders into action.
I must admit, this surprised me the most, as it is a herculean task to make our land forces more effective!

The prohibition of new political parties brought quite some unrest into our country, but this was to be expected and our police force was instructed to act accordingly.

Finally, with the Stalin Constitution being established, the Soviet worker had something to really build up morale!

Luckily, my spies did not leave me hanging. Their haul was most impressive and as a result I am looking forward to a luxurious Dacha on the Crimea!

One thing irked me though. We learned too late about the Nationalist Spanish movement and their intention of Civil War. Although we DID support the Republic, I fear they will loose this war. At least they sent us their money to ... protect!

 

[Hawke0]

Skipping screens you should screenshot? Can't count how many times I did that. While I'm not familiar with Black ICE, my idea for paratrooper deployment was largely to attack Romania, and disrupt the oil supply from Ploesti and then retreat into the sea when a large force moves against you. Another notable point would be that it would draw forces from the front, setting the stage for a counterattack. I think three divisions would be enough, but four or five ideal, but again, I'm not familiar with Black ICE. And when I play as Russia (read. Twice) I always use spies to bring the communist party to power in Finland and Romania anyway, don't make land claims against them, and skip out on the Purge. As Nice Stalin, I've never failed to get Romania into the Comintern and keep Finland neutral (Their cores I own by default make it impossible to get them in an alliance if I don't use console commands to give them back), and the war never leaves East Poland

Except when it goes into Yugoslavia, Hungary, Austria, West Poland and Germany

 

[Trylun]

Not doing purges in Black Ice has HUGE repercussions. You basically have to do them.

 

[Hawke0]

Ooh, sounds fun. In HoI3 vanilla it's just a severe NU hit, but you avoid losing a significant amount of leadership. What are BICE's penalties for doing it or not doing it?

 

[chals]

Ooh, sounds fun. In HoI3 vanilla it's just a severe NU hit, but you avoid losing a significant amount of leadership. What are BICE's penalties for doing it or not doing it?

Massive RR to the end of time like +5 each time. IT build ups fast, as you run low on Rares with the minimum RR in 42-43 - unless you dont expan industi. - YES RR reduce production - and spron hellish things.. And no, having KNVD(police) does not solve it, but reduce the effekt, but need plenty of em to remove em entirely, not an option

Base RR(Events + more) is something like 6-8 ish - so skipping one is .. well risky.

you will pay 100k officers for all the "reforms" as well. Or something like 3-5 full mounts of leadership. (might be more, depends on lucky events and how you handle things)

 

[Trylun]

March 18, 1939 -- Personal notes of Alexej Kazakow

It has now been over 3 years. I call myself lucky to be still alive. Then thousands of officers - gone. Liquidated because of the fear and suspicions of a madman. I would have never thought I would call our leader this, and nobody shall ever suspect, or I will line up with all the dead. Just yesterday - Ban Yerzin, our head of intelligence, murdered in his dacha. And he was so proud of himself. I have to keep note about that. Pride gets you killed.

Yet, I have to paint a positive picture about mother Russia, something getting continuously harder for me to do... all those dead! And we have lost in Spain, which was to be expected considering how late we really pulled our weight there.

As if killing our people wouldn't be enough, we also started enslaving them. Calling the whole thing "Five-Year Plan". At least the focus on Heavy Industry will help us prepare for the inevitable conflicts!

Yesterday, on March 17, 1939, I visited the Leningrad Naval Yard. Impressive. Our new Chief of the Navy really knows his life depends on delivering. I can see the carrier "Leningrad" take shape before my very eyes. Only two more years and this ship will take to the seas - one of three of the same type. Along with them, a host of new Light Cruisers will form the screen for our aircraft platforms.

As I understand, our whole Baltic Fleet will be replaced with a Carrier Group (1 Carrier, 4 Light Cruisers), the other ships are planned for our Vladiwostok station, where they are aimed against our Japanese enemies (I can confidently call them as such, seeing the tension rise even since before I came into my position).

The Black Sea fleet will be merged with the Baltic Fleet - making our home waters completely safe for operations.

In other news, Germany didn't stop after annexing Austria, but they also took Czechoslovakia for themselves. Already they are eyeing the Poles - it cannot be long, until they are under threat by the Nazis. Through the grapevine I hear plans of Stalin to form an anti-Hitler coalition with the UK and France. I have little hope for this working. We are on our own, as we have always been!

 

[ConorSpittfire]

I'm liking this so far, subbed!

 

[Trylun]

I'm liking this so far, subbed!

Cheers Conor, thanks!
Looking to do an update for OOB on the eve of WW2 soonish!

 

[Trylun]

Report of Lazar Kaganovich, Armament Minister

Secretary General, I have received your order concerning the modernization of our armed forces. I have since put considerable ressources on development of new Medium and Heavy Armor, as well as Tank Destroyers.
As you requested, we started working on a new, easy to handle, infantery main rifle.

This should help us increase the fighting value of our divisions.

As I understand, the composition of our main fighting divisions is pretty streamlined by now - good work by the Chief of Army indeed. This leads to an Infantery Division looking, usually, like this:

The main infantery rifle is still the Mosini Nagant Rifle:

The Artillery suplement consists of our reliable 76 mm Infantery Gun:

Badly needed is an upgrade of our machine gun, which is still built by Maxim to this date:

Unusual for other nations, but common for Soviet Infantery to give them more punch is our Light Armor Attachment, consisting mainly of BT-2 Light Tanks:

Finally, the german-licence built 45mm Anti-Tank gun:

In every war with a developed nation, we would propably fare very badly. Thank god you mentioned, that we are still removed at least 5 years from a war, which gives us plenty of time to increase the quality of our Army!

Now, for Armored Divisions, the main setup looks like this:

Our mainstay tank is the BT-7 - we call it a medium tank, for most other nations it is a mere Light Tank design.
It's fighting value is questionable at best.

And here what most of our tankers think about this design:

Higher fighting value, but also very old, the AT-1 Tank Destroyer we use:

Finally, the BA-10 Armored Car for recon and to fight infantery:

Comrade Stalin, we shall very soon present to you our new developments!

 

[chals]

For thouse who will ask, show some of the negegative effekts of saying NO to the purges..

 

[Trylun]

For thouse who will ask, show some of the negegative effekts of saying NO to the purges..

I missed to screenshot that, now I am too far in .. it's like loss of 5 Unity, 10 Dissent and negative modifiers for each Purge. Really, really bad!

 

[Trylun]

The Fall of Poland

September 1st, 1939
HQ of II. Gruppa Armiya (Army Group), Smolensk
Present:
Field Marshal Vasilevsky (Leader II. Army Group)
Field Marshal Timoshenko (Leader of the Operative Reserve, consisting, amongst others, the whole mobile forces of the USSR)
General Govorov (Leader of III. Army)
General Shaposhnikov (Leader of V. Army)
General Yerymonenko (Leader of II. Army)

Vasilevsky: Greetings comrades. You know the reason for our being here today. Nazi-Germany have started their campaign against the Poles. They did start sooner then we expected, but we still are ready almost on time to act as well.

Govorov: Comrade Vasilevsky, how do you mean, act?

Vasilevsky: Govorov, do not interrupt me. You would not think our great leader Stalin being taken by surprise, would you? I would certainly hope not! We knew about the Germans' ambition in Poland. There is more to the non-aggression pact we signed a few days ago. We lined out our sphere of influence in Poland and the Balticum.

Timoshenko: What dear Comrade Vasilevsky means, is that we spare part of Poland and the Baltic states the yoke of German occupation and take them for ourselves, restoring much of our old territory.

Vasilevsky: Now then. Let's look at the situation at hand. There is much to plan! The II. Army Group consists of 3 Armys with a total of 8 Corps with 24 Infantery Divisions. All in all, around 350.000 men.

Timoshenko: We have to asume the Poles will be pulled back from their eastern posts to meet the Germans in battle. Nonetheless, speed might be of the essence here to ensure our German ... friends hold their end of the pact. Comrade Vasilevsky I can spare 10 Armored and 2 Motorized Divisions from the Reserve for operation "Fall of Poland".

Vasilevsky: That will do. Now then. We need a quick and decisive blow to capture our main targets Brest Litowsk, Grodno, Lwow and Wilno. Something like this:

Shaposhnikov: To handle the north, I need tank support.

Timoshenko: Which you shall have, comrade. Three divisions. And the two motorised divisions as well. 7 more Armored Divisions for the southern flank then. There's no getting-through in the swamp area in central poland.

Vasilevsky: Comrades, it is decided then. Strike quick, strike hard. We are protecting our blood here!

.
.
.

Almost 4 weeks later.

The Germans made short work of the large Polish Army. The Soviet Army is on the pounce and ready to strike. Warsaw is already threatened - we have to be fast now!

The following documents are excerpts of the ongoing offensive:

Only two days later, coupled with heavy Air Support, the first territorial gains were reported:

This war was one the Poles could not hope to win.

As the conquest of Eastern Poland finds it's conclusion, an ultimatum is delivered to the Baltic States: Be annexed or be doomed.

On the 19th of October, not even one month after the start, the war is over. The USSR is now ranging much further west. A well-needed buffer against any future German aggression. For now though, the Germans are our friends! Meetings during the Poland campaign were very friendly, there even was a joint-parade in Brest Litowsk. For the German side, one "Heinz Guderian" was attending. He seems to be the "star" in Germany at the moment!

Next up:

 

[Towll]

Subbed, comrade.

 

[Trylun]

Subbed, comrade.

Welcome aboard!

Also, if somebody wants to know something specific, e.g. Japan front et al, let me know!

 

[HecNev]

Looking good!

I'll be sure to follow!