Hearts of Iron III Catch-All

The base manual refers to experience coming only from combat, and then passing up the chain. Maybe you could bombard something with your ships?

I'm not planning on getting into a fight until 1939, I guess my stuff is on shore leave until then.

What about the Finns? The annoying, busy-body Finns who really need a good People's smashing?

Robear wrote:

What about the Finns? The annoying, busy-body Finns who really need a good People's smashing? :-)

Ding-ding! Exactly. Those Finns are just sitting there asking for it.

ALSO: Your units can gain XP?

Strangeblades wrote:
Robear wrote:

What about the Finns? The annoying, busy-body Finns who really need a good People's smashing? :-)

Ding-ding! Exactly. Those Finns are just sitting there asking for it.

ALSO: Your units can gain XP?

Well, the officers can.

Strangeblades wrote:
Robear wrote:

What about the Finns? The annoying, busy-body Finns who really need a good People's smashing? :-)

Ding-ding! Exactly. Those Finns are just sitting there asking for it.

ALSO: Your units can gain XP?

I was just starting a Finland game! It looks like a good balance of location and manageability.

Bah, in my Soviet game the Japanese are doing really well, it's early 1939 and they have annexed Republican China, Nationalist China, and Giaung Chinx (terrible, terrible spelling I'm sure).

I was hoping for a game more true to history in that I could mostly ignore the East until 1943 or so, but it looks like I'll have to be watching my back.

Oh well, two simultaneous land wars in Asia, what could go wrong?

I was just starting a Finland game! It looks like a good balance of location and manageability.

Oh, sure, at first it is. But then you're all "Bolshiyy chorosho, Kamerad" and "Sehr gut, mein Herr" and pretty soon everyone's talking about Sisu and shooting the eyes out of foreigners at 300 yards in blinding snowstorms.

Coming into control of the Soviet Union I took a quick stock of the nation, this is an overview of the situation:

As far as resources go the Nation is rich, very rich. The Energy supply is amazing, and even without researching any Energy extraction technologies (which you shouldn’t) you will reach the 99999 cap on materials by 1938 or so, and stay there for the foreseeable future, and metal isn’t far behind. Rare Materials and Crude Oil are also plentiful, but technological investment in those areas wouldn't wasted, even if it isn’t a priority for me at the moment.

Speaking of technology, that is something that Russia begins with a very poor grasp of. Most of their Doctrines are still based around World War I, and their units are behind the times as well. The Industrial techs are in an even poorer situation, overall. Luckily it’s a large country, with the Leadership to begin to turn that around fairly quickly.

My highest priority for Leadership, however, is getting a propaganda machine working at home, the Soviets start with a National Unity of only 55%, and if I am going to get to the 60% required for better peace time production economies before war breaks out (which I probably won’t be able to) I’m going to have to really push for that at home. I also use about a tenth of my Leadership to begin influencing Sink Chiang towards the People’s government, as they are nestled under the important and vulnerable underbelly of my nation. I currently have 99% officer coverage of my sizable—but obsolete—military, and for now that military won’t be growing, so the entire rest of my Leadership is devoted to upgrading the Industrial and Supply foundation of the Soviet Union.

I next look at the Nation’s production, there are currently 2 submarine flotillas and a Destroyer squadron in the queue, which I would cancel if they weren’t already halfway complete. While they won’t stand up to real fighting against a powerful nation, they may prove to be useful against, say, Finland, so I leave them in the queue. My highest priority, however, remains modernizing the country, so I queue up a large number of factories along the belt of decent infrastructure that reaches eastward to the Pacific.

With my large Intelligence investment my domestic propaganda machine is working at full capability soon, so I scale down those efforts and redirect them to more research, this time on developing better armoured vehicles for the Motherland. I want to have at least a few divisions of Medium Armour and Self-Propelled Artillery in 1939, and since I can’t currently build either unit (and they will probably take about 4 months to build once designed) that’s going to be a high priority for me. I would also like to have Superior Firepower researched in 1939, allowing me to have divisions of 5 brigades instead of just 4, and getting that done will require concerted effort starting now as well.

Yonder wrote:

Coming into control of the Soviet Union I took a quick stock of the nation, this is an overview of the situation:

As far as resources go the Nation is rich, very rich. The Energy supply is amazing, and even without researching any Energy extraction technologies (which you shouldn’t) you will reach the 99999 cap on materials by 1938 or so, and stay there for the foreseeable future, and metal isn’t far behind. Rare Materials and Crude Oil are also plentiful, but technological investment in those areas wouldn't wasted, even if it isn’t a priority for me at the moment.

Speaking of technology, that is something that Russia begins with a very poor grasp of. Most of their Doctrines are still based around World War I, and their units are behind the times as well. The Industrial techs are in an even poorer situation, overall. Luckily it’s a large country, with the Leadership to begin to turn that around fairly quickly.

My highest priority for Leadership, however, is getting a propaganda machine working at home, the Soviets start with a National Unity of only 55%, and if I am going to get to the 60% required for better peace time production economies before war breaks out (which I probably won’t be able to) I’m going to have to really push for that at home. I also use about a tenth of my Leadership to begin influencing Sink Chiang towards the People’s government, as they are nestled under the important and vulnerable underbelly of my nation. I currently have 99% officer coverage of my sizable—but obsolete—military, and for now that military won’t be growing, so the entire rest of my Leadership is devoted to upgrading the Industrial and Supply foundation of the Soviet Union.

I next look at the Nation’s production, there are currently 2 submarine flotillas and a Destroyer squadron in the queue, which I would cancel if they weren’t already halfway complete. While they won’t stand up to real fighting against a powerful nation, they may prove to be useful against, say, Finland, so I leave them in the queue. My highest priority, however, remains modernizing the country, so I queue up a large number of factories along the belt of decent infrastructure that reaches eastward to the Pacific.

With my large Intelligence investment my domestic propaganda machine is working at full capability soon, so I scale down those efforts and redirect them to more research, this time on developing better armoured vehicles for the Motherland. I want to have at least a few divisions of Medium Armour and Self-Propelled Artillery in 1939, and since I can’t currently build either unit (and they will probably take about 4 months to build once designed) that’s going to be a high priority for me. I would also like to have Superior Firepower researched in 1939, allowing me to have divisions of 5 brigades instead of just 4, and getting that done will require concerted effort starting now as well.

Can you send anyone to a gulag?

Strangeblades wrote:

Can you send anyone to a gulag?

Heh heh, there is an event which involves some gulags actually, that will be in my next update.

Strangeblades wrote:

ALSO: Your units can gain XP?

I can confirm that brigades as well as leaders gain xp.

The next two years are more of the same. As the nation successfully industrializes itself its Manpower, Leadership and Industrial capability increases. On the Industrial side those advances are reinvested in an increasing number of factories that begin construction out east. On the manpower side Industrial research is already proceeding effectively, so the extra resources are spent modernizing the Land and (to a lesser extent) Air forces of the Workers.

Unfortunately there is no Industrial Capacity to spare on upgrading the troops at this time. Powerful cannons and impressive engines are demonstrated in Moscow, where honor guards march with shiny uniforms and advanced rifles, while the troops deployed on the borders clean and practice with their fathers’ guns. The world is currently peaceful, however, and promises to be for years. There should be plenty of time to mass produce and distribute the nation’s advances before they are needed…

I do have an important decision to make in this time frame: Do I begin a purge of those within the Army that are disloyal to the People’s government? Doing so has devastating consequences, the loss of 500 Manpower isn’t something to sneeze at, nor is the increased Dissent, it also leads to the death of dozens of generals and military leaders currently leading Divisions, Corps, and Armies in the field. By far the most important detriment, however, would be a 15% reduction in the Leadership of the Nation, which would significantly dampen my modernization efforts currently. If a lengthy war breaks out (as unlikely as that is) it would greatly impact both my ability to keep up to date with my opponents, and to maintain a quality Officer corp for the military.

The benefit, however, is similarly large: the reign of terror (er… I mean loyalty) that would follow would increase the National Unity by 22 points, which would allow a much greater level of peace time mobilization and economic production than would otherwise be possible (Especially because at this time it looks like I won’t be able to reach a National Unity of 60% before 1941, so even the next level of economic production or mobilization will be locked to me until then, and I have a nagging suspicion that by then it will be too late).

This increased Mobilization would reasonably rapidly replenish the 500 disloyal vermin with strong, moral, Communist soldiers. Additionally, the increased production would lead to more Consumer Goods to quickly quell dissent, and then to build more tanks, and guns, and uniforms, and factories. All in all the two choices are at first glance fairly balanced, but I will let my inherent squeamishness of (completely justified) mass-slaughter push me towards giving these possible sympathizers a second lease on life.

Yonder wrote:

The next two years are more of the same. As the nation successfully industrializes itself its Manpower, Leadership and Industrial capability increases. On the Industrial side those advances are reinvested in an increasing number of factories that begin construction out east. On the manpower side Industrial research is already proceeding effectively, so the extra resources are spent modernizing the Land and (to a lesser extent) Air forces of the Workers.

Unfortunately there is no Industrial Capacity to spare on upgrading the troops at this time. Powerful cannons and impressive engines are demonstrated in Moscow, where honor guards march with shiny uniforms and advanced rifles, while the troops deployed on the borders clean and practice with their fathers’ guns. The world is currently peaceful, however, and promises to be for years. There should be plenty of time to mass produce and distribute the nation’s advances before they are needed…

I do have an important decision to make in this time frame: Do I begin a purge of those within the Army that are disloyal to the People’s government? Doing so has devastating consequences, the loss of 500 Manpower isn’t something to sneeze at, nor is the increased Dissent, it also leads to the death of dozens of generals and military leaders currently leading Divisions, Corps, and Armies in the field. By far the most important detriment, however, would be a 15% reduction in the Leadership of the Nation, which would significantly dampen my modernization efforts currently. If a lengthy war breaks out (as unlikely as that is) it would greatly impact both my ability to keep up to date with my opponents, and to maintain a quality Officer corp for the military.

The benefit, however, is similarly large: the reign of terror (er… I mean loyalty) that would follow would increase the National Unity by 22 points, which would allow a much greater level of peace time mobilization and economic production than would otherwise be possible (Especially because at this time it looks like I won’t be able to reach a National Unity of 60% before 1941, so even the next level of economic production or mobilization will be locked to me until then, and I have a nagging suspicion that by then it will be too late).

This increased Mobilization would reasonably rapidly replenish the 500 disloyal vermin with strong, moral, Communist soldiers. Additionally, the increased production would lead to more Consumer Goods to quickly quell dissent, and then to build more tanks, and guns, and uniforms, and factories. All in all the two choices are at first glance fairly balanced, but I will let my inherent squeamishness of (completely justified) mass-slaughter push me towards giving these possible sympathizers a second lease on life.

What?! You know our motto: No second chances! Later out motto will change to: Not one step back!

As we progressed into 1938 priorities began to change some more. Clashes with Japan (all events, no gameplay) in the East made it apparent that the next decade may not be as peaceful as the last, and their momentum in annexing parts of China thus far made those events even more troubling. Additionally, to the West, Germany was beginning to make noise about retaking lands split from it after the Great War, adding to the general tension.

As current Factories were completed new ones were not queued up, instead Infrastructure was laid down in the northwest, to support possible action in Finland, and several brigades of the new Medium Tanks were laid down (still no SP Art), as well as some infantry support. In addition a small amount of Production was earmarked for upgrading the deployed troops to the newly developed equipment.

On the research side the Nation had happily modernized its industry, and in a couple instances was ahead of the curve. Additionally, the subset of the Land forces that the Nation would rely on in the future (currently Medium Armour, SP Art, Infantries, and Artillery) were theoretically up to date, even if the Upgrades had not rolled out. While not completely top-of-the-line, the Soviet Interceptors were much improved as well. While some work on modernizing Doctrines had taken place, now the vast bulk of Soviet development took place in this area, partially in the Air Superiority branches, but mostly with large swaths of improvements in running a land campaign.

By 1939 all of the Factories were completed, and except for the aforementioned Infrastructure improvements east of Finland (which were taking a very small portion of total capacity) all production was devoted to new units. New SP Art brigades were on the way to join the Medium Armour brigades which had already been produced, and two divisions of the 3x Armour, 1x SP Art were laid down. An Infantry/Artillery division was also ordered, as well as two wings each of Interceptors and CAS aircraft.

As Spring drew to a close tension in the west was rising at a precipitous pace. The Axis powers (which now included Japan, victorious on the Chinese front) were chomping at the bit to acquire more territories. Behind closed doors the Soviets and Germany agreed to divvy up the intervening countries amongst themselves, beginning negotiations on a non-aggression pact. This wouldn’t last forever, our two countries are too different, and too ambitious, but it should buy us four to five years at the very least. Totally.

In preparation for making my move into, at the very least Poland, and possibly Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and Finland as well (IRL Russia also made small moves into Romania as well, I’m not sure if I will do that also, I don’t really feel prepared for this entire offensive yet.) I have mobilized my army. Prior to this point the army has been staffed primarily by reservists, and as a whole we were unprepared for large actions. It is time to get this Nation into a real fighting force.

Unfortunately I am still at 59% National Unity, and as such am still at a completely peacetime economy. Even though my measures over the last 3 years have grown the economy precipitously this mobilization is still incredibly expensive in my position. During the last years the nation has stocked up an enormous amount of supplies, so I drastically cut supply production and shift it into Reinforcements. It’s still less than a fifth of what I need to fully reinforce, but it will be a start. As units come off the production line the vast majority of that capacity goes towards reinforcing the lines faster, and the remainder goes into increasing the trickle of upgraded equipment moving to my soldiers.

As another preparation for the coming wars (although the cleanup of these smaller Nations will hardly qualify as that… I deeply hope) I siphon off a fifth of my research team to begin training more Officers for my war machine. At this point I have successfully modernized most of what I care about, so that doesn’t sting as much as it might.

As we head into August 1939 I finally take the time to fully review the forces I had arrayed on the Western Front. This really should have been done much, much sooner, but this new complicated organizational tree in HoI 3 confused me and I was putting off getting into it (Although I can already tell it will be very useful, and now that I have dug more into it I am much more comfortable with it, and once the troops are arrayed more along my plans it should all fall into place.

There are three theatres along the west:

Arhangel is the northernmost, and borders only Finland. It is also tiny, containing 6 of the standard Infantry divisions (3 Infantry brigades) and a more rapid division which I am calling “Motorized Armour” (2 light Armours and a Motorized Infantry).

The Central devision is STAVKA, and borders Estonia, Latvia, and about half of Poland. It consists of 33 Infantry Divisions, 2 Motorized Armor divisions, and 6 Motorized Divisions (2x Motorized Infantry and a Light Armour brigade) and two “Reinforced Garrisons” (3x Garrisons and an Artillery brigade).

The Kyiv theatre is the southernmost, bordering the bottom half of Poland and all of Romania. It contains 40 Infantry divisions, 3 “Mountain” divisions (3x Mountain Infantry), 5 Motorized divisions, and a division that I have dubbed “Motorized Cavalry” (Light Armour, Motorized Infantry, Armoured Car).

I also found real cavalry in this search! Actual horsies! I start converting those to Light Armoured division and pull back the Armoured Cars attached to them for dealing with later.

As far as my airforce goes I have two Tactical flights (2x Tactical Wings, 2x Interceptor Wings) an Interceptor Flight (4x Interceptors). There is a ground attack flight on the way (2x Interceptor, 2x CAS) but it won’t be done until October.

Then, going on to the free-floating divisions I have built: One “Reinforced Infantry” division (3x Infantry, 1x Artillery) and 4 “Armour” Divisions (3x Medium Armour, 1x SP Art)

My first thought when doing this was “What the heck, don’t I have any more artillery!?” No. I don’t. Started with two brigades out west, built one more, now I have three. If only someone had taken a census back in 1936 when there was still time to do something about this we’d have some better weapons. Anyways, right now it’s time to work with what I have. I decide to classify all of my “Motorized”, “Motorized Cavalry” and “Motorized Armour” divisions as “Light Assault” in my mind and treat them equivalently for this small operation. I bring the north “Light Assault” division Arhangel has down into Stavka, and deploy two of my Armoured divisions there as well. I then make a three “Spearhead” corps. The first two are collected near the tri-country area of Latvia, Estonia, and the SU and consist of an “Armour” division and three “Light Assault” divisions. The third is up on the northern Estonian border and consists only of three “Light Assault” divisions. The latter two Armoured divisions are deployed near Romania, and the “Reinforced Infantry division is deployed to northern Estonia.

The Infantry organization in Stavka is left at the 1936 heirarchy for now, which generally consists of corps of 1 or 2 divisions along the border, with a scattered relief force of larger infantry corps.

On August 8th we finalize our agreements with Germany on how Eastern Europe will be partitioned and immediately declare Liberation on Estonia and Latvia, or on the Slavic peoples that live in those oppressive governments anyways.

My light and medium Armoured divisions ride roughshod over the unprepared and unorganized troops of the two smaller countries, which immediately begin falling back before the onrushing Soviets. Unfortunately for them, my tanks are much faster than them, I fan out the corps into single divisions, cutting off and trapping the retreating troops while the slower Infantry follow behind.

Only the dug-in and highly populated Capitals pose any real delay. My forces first arrive at the Estonian capital, sieging it from three different directions with my three “Light Assault” divisions. It falls just as the infantry arrives to support and the country is annexed. Shortly after that my troops first arrive at the governmental seating at Latvia, which I once again set upon from multiple directions with my Spearheads. A wing of Tactical Bombers supports the attack, which soon falls. The Latvian troops fall back to an Emergency Capital, but my speedy tanks beat them there, and Latvia too falls.

Once the first Latvian Capital fell, however, I had already declared on Lithuania, just south of Latvia (which I couldn’t invade before without going through Poland). My troops simply continued their Blitz south, annexing yet another small and unprepared Country. By this point we were in early September, a month which Hitler began on the First with a Blitz into Poland. They had finally pushed the allies too far, and the UK and a variety of other countries declared War on Germany.

I at first attempted to pick up the scraps and invade Poland myself from the East, but unlike real life, where there was no political or military will too enforce the Allied guarantee on the Soviets as they had on Germany, this immediately drew me into a war with the Allies as well, even when I tried again later in the Blitz when Poland’s fate was not in doubt. Because of that I stayed out of it, but once Germany was victorious I was able to fire off an event to demand the eastern half of Poland.

So at this point it’s Mid-Late September, I own former Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania, and half of Poland (which the real SU had accomplished before 1940 as well). However there is no current war and my splendid production bonuses have thus lapsed. I currently have battle lines and theatre reorganization to accomplish, as well as two other short-term priorities:
1. Declaration of war on Romania, although I’m unsure if I will go for a full annexation, or just the North-eastern land grab that the SU cleared with Germany and accomplished IRL.
2. Send some of my troops up North to Finland to invade them by the Historical date of November 30th, hopefully more successfully than Stalin accomplished.

As far as long-term plans, I’m still undecided. The closest thing to history would be to sit on my laurels at that point. That would entail demobilizing my troops, with probably devastating consequences at the start of operation Barbarossa. Instead I could continue to declare on other countries, Turkey, Afghanistan, etc. This would let me spend the next year and a half attaining more land and resources, maintaining a much more productive war time economy, and would leave Hitler trying to break into a completely mobilized and ready defensive line.

I think I’ll go for the first option, part of the reason I chose the Soviet start was specifically to see if I could weather Barbarossa better than Stalin, and the former option would really be cheating for that objective. That doesn’t mean that I will play completely ignorantly, German planes were flying over Soviet territory mapping out defenses for months before the operation, with Stalin willfully ignoring or disbelieving reports (he was very worried about UK intelligence operations tricking him into attacking Germany), so I will probably start partially mobilizing my forces at around late April so that they are a little bit less helpless come June.

So right now I basically have around a year and a half to get my military the way I want it at the start of the war (although IC I am trying to follow more in Stalin’s footsteps of preparing for the War I think will be coming in 1942/1943/later if he’s lucky)

My long-term plans for the military consist of the following divisions:
A large number of “Defensive Infantry” (3x Infantry, Artillery, Anti-Tank), in corps of 3 divisions.
A large number of “Offensive Infantry” (2x Infantry, Artillery, Anti-Tank, Engineers) in corps of 4-5 divisions.
Quite a few “Armoured” (3x M Arm, 2x SP Art) in corps of 3-5 divisions.
Quite a few “Motorized Cavalry” (L Arm, Mot. Inf, AC) in corps of 3 or so divisions.
Finally a reasonable airforce, especially lots of interceptors to make up for my lack of AA.

The plan is to have the “Offensive Infantry” advance broadly, pinning their opponents in place, while the “Armoured” corps blitz through the lines. The “Motorized Cavalry” will support them, hold the supply lines while the “Defensive Infantry” move up, as well as attack targets of opportunity that aren’t worth diverting the heavier “Armour” divisions for.

Now unfortunately all of that will be impossible to accomplish in two years, so I’ll have to draw up some more reasonable priorities.
My highest priority is Artillery, I have lots of infantry divisions, and currently three artillery brigades. Hopefully I can make 30 Artillery brigades in the next year and start divvying those up. I’ll also try to get around 10 anti-tank brigades and give them to Infantry in the plains where enemy tanks will be most effective.
Luckily I have lots of L. Arm and Mot. Infantry already, so if I build 15 or so AC brigades I can make my desired “Motorized Cavalry” divisions.
At least 9-12 more wings of Interceptors, and hopefully another 4-6 wings of CAS. I wish I knew more about the German Luftwaffe, but I’ll just have to hope that is somewhat acceptable.
As far as Armour, I’ll need to see what sort of production I have left. I’d like to have more, but it’s entirely possible that my “Light Assault” troops will have to suffice for 1941. If I can’t get any more I’ll probably split my current 4 divisions into two groups of two, and hold them back as a reserve to use where they will do the most good.

Great recounting, Yonder, do continue.

Robear wrote:

Great recounting, Yonder, do continue. :-)

+1

After reading Strageblades' AARs I am now installing HoI III foolishly thinking I will not get my ass kicked.

wanderingtaoist wrote:

After reading Strageblades' AARs I am now installing HoI III foolishly thinking I will not get my ass kicked.

I got my ass kicked because I was drunk dictator. I've sure a tiny bit of forethought will prevent catastrophe.

Thanks for the compliments guys, I'm glad that you're enjoying it.

With Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania consolidated into the Soviet Union our Western Front had shrunk significantly. Around 2/3rds of the freed forces were sent slightly south to reinforce the border against occupied Poland and—now—parts of Germany proper. Oddly enough at this point (and going forward more than a year so far) Western Poland truly is occupied Poland. I don’t know if Poland has somehow acquired overseas territories which the UK is holding Germany off from our what, but Germany has not yet annexed or puppeted Poland, that war appears to be ongoing.

The remaining 1/3 of the freed forces were sent Northward to line more of the border with Finland. This included the weakest of the three Northern armoured corps, the one with three “Light Assault” divisions and no Medium Armour/S.P. Artillery.

On the Southern front I have moved forward the Kyiv reserves in preparation for an invasion of Romania. At this point the Romanian border has only been reinforced with two Armoured divisions and a single division of 3 Infantry/1 Artillery brigades. All other forces along the border have been there since 1936, but with them, along with my Interceptor, Ground Attack, and one of my two Tactical Bomber squadrons I am hopeful that we will be able to handle the Romanians.

Once the Kyiv Reserves have closed to within a few provinces of the border I declare war on the Romanians and move in (sometime in mid-October 1939). I at first experiment with letting the local forces (at the Army Group) level coordinate their own movements. While they did acceptably, I was soon unhappy with the amount of time the tank corps were sitting around, particularly the two Medium Armoured divisions. In hindsight instead of assigning attack commands on the Army Group level I should have gone further down, giving “Blitz” commands to the Armoured Corps and “Attack” commands to the other things on the same level. As it was the Armoured divisions were keeping pace with the slower infantry units.

I retook personal command of the two Army Groups on the Romanian Front, but left the rear Reserves Army Group continue to with the attack command behind us. My hope was that they would shortly catch up and provide more general pressure along the line while I managed the armoured blitzes and their flank support myself. All in all this worked well, but the Romanians were proving to be tougher opponents than any of the Baltic nations had been. Part of this was due to their terrain, which was not only hilly, but forced frequent river crossings as well. The greater part, however, was the increased quality of the Romanian troops, and the even more dramatic increase in quantity in comparison to the three nations I had just conquered. Though I was able to achieve Air Superiority, I actually had to fight for it at the beginning, and they had a squad of Tactical bombers as well.

They were similar to the Baltic forces, however, in that they seemed to be completely unable to stand up to my Medium Armour divisions. Though I only had two of them this far South they were able to run nearly unopposed amongst the predominantly Infantry opposition, even in River crossings. They had similar trouble with the 6 “Light Assault” divisions in the area, though they did take losses, and were even occasionally repulsed when making attacks over a river alone.

As we entered the second week of November I was gradually beating into the Romanian territory. I was taking losses, indeed, slightly more than them, but I was in a better position to absorb those losses and was confident that as the Romanians fell back our losses would slow. With the Southern front going well, and my forces ready along Finland I pushed up the timetable of a Northern Offensive and demanded territorial Concessions from Finland (an Event, not a normal declaration of War).

They rejected my eminently reasonable demands and mobilized against me. The most important border segment was the Westernmost, a small slip of heavily fortified land that led to not only the most populated and wealthy section of the Country, but also the least forested, with wide expanses of plains that my tanks would operate well in. Because of that I had deployed my “Light Assault” Corp to this location, with 8 divisions of infantry support. They immediately began shelling the enemy fortifications, with support from the nearby Tactical Bombing Squadron.

Up to the North-East we shared a long stretch of heavily forested terrain with little in the way of importance or infrastructure. All the way to the Northern coast were some port towns that I stood to lose, but nothing important to gain. I had stationed a significant portion of troops along this border (at least in comparison to what Finland could field) but mostly just in a failed attempt to force them to redeploy more forces from the south. Our forces here began a protractd melee, there was a small amount of back and forth, but soon I was making steady ground on my opponents.

However the North was really nothing more than a distraction, the War would truly be won along fortified Souther border, and soon my superior and more numerous troops were able to break through the heavy Finnish defenses. When the Finns broke the majority ran North, and I sent my Infantry divisions to continue chasing them into the Wilds. The few that retreated West towards their Capital were overtaken by my Light Assault Corps which sprinted straight for Helsinki.

Once the retreating troops were dealt with there was nothing in between them and the city, which only defended by two Guard Garrisons. Even with their Artillery support they were no match for the tanks and tactical bombers which beset them. Welcome to WWII Finns.

Once the Capital fell the tanks continued their sprint down the Coast to the next major city. In the meantime I was able to add additional War Goals, demanding a full Annexation of Finland (The fired event is a demand solely for the territories historically captured by Stalin, not the full annexation that Stalin had intended, so watch out for that). The remaining cities were nearly undefended, and the entire country fell to Soviet control by mid-December.

During the one-and-a-half month Finnish war things in Romania had progressed slowly. The rough terrain meant that my troops had their work cut out for them in taking territory, so they occasionally found themselves pushed back by reinforcements shortly after defeating their foes, but it was definitely a two steps forwad, one step back deal. The light tank divisions had once again been split to operate independently, but they were having a bit of trouble in this capacity. We had been unable to pocket more than a trivial number of enemy troops, so the large number of combatants we were still working with meant that the Romanians were able to attack the light tanks from multiple fronts simultaneously.

Against the Romanians our light assault divisions were certainly not equivalent to the Medium Armor as they had been in the Baltics, so we switched to a smaller version of the planned maneuvers against the Germans: The Medium Armour took the lead, blitzing through good terrain into the enemy lines. The Light Armour followed through the hole so that they would be fresh against any attempts to cut off the Medium Armour. Behind them Infantry forces moved to reinforce the light tanks, while the locally controlled Kyiv Reserves applied fairly even pressure on the whole line. Meanwhile, the air force performed Ground Attacks against the heaviest concentrations of enemy forces.

Overall it worked beautifully, and we had soon cut the country into three sections. The Westernmost section appeared to be empty, all forces appeared to have moved Eastward during the two months of slower fighting. The middle section contained the bulk of the Romanian troops, although most were weary from months of defeats, low on supplies, and in some disarray from the loss of their Theatre command (poor guys, going from “hey, we are safe west of the Main fighting” to “Hey, how come there are Russian light tanks between us and all our troops?”

The Eastern sliver contained their Capital, which was soon completely isolated. Keeping the bulk of the army trapped in the center was a little touch and go for a bit, but the difficult Romanian terrain was finally working in my favor. Not only that, but the most direct route to reinforce their beleaguered Capital was blocked by my Medium Tanks, which had continued their undefeated streak.

The Capital—being relatively well guarded—lasted through weeks of fighting, including what I believe was the only Romanian Light Tank division to fight in the War. However, the outcome was never in any real doubt, there were more light Tank divisions on my side (three attacking the Capital, leaving three holding off the center) as well as a Medium tank division, and the local CAS squad was possibly even more deadly to the enemy armour. Toss in a 3-1 Infantry Advantage and a Tactical Bomber squadron, all attacking from 4 directions, and you have one doomed city. It was close, but we were able to end hostilities by Christmas.

The full annexation of Romania puts us in an interesting situation, as it significantly adds to the border length that we must hold against the enemy. In fact with that acquisition we have probably gained more border provinces than we closed with the annexation of the Baltic States. However, this also leaves us with an opportunity, as a full third of Hungary is nestled within what used to be Romania. It may be possible to cleanly separate it if fighting breaks out between us and the Axis. Of course, the same can also be said of the entire southern third of Romania. However, the land makes that terrain fairly defendable, and if we act quickly and take the Axis by surprise with a sudden offensive in two or three years (they totally won’t see it coming) we will be able to swiftly redeploy the troops holding the extra borders against Hungary.

Great stuff, Yonder. I'm always impressed how well you are able to paint a picture of the situation in your AARs without having to use screenshots.

I started a game as France using the new Their Finest Hour expansion this weekend. As you may know, one of the biggest features with the expansion is the new "customer game mode" that let's you essentially reallocate your starting production and tech points at the beginning of a scenario. With the option there I just couldn't resist.

Hopefully I'll get a chance to put up a bit of a write up with some screenies this week. As a preview for now though I'll leave you with a hypothetical question: how do you think Italy would have faired against Mechanized Inf and Medium Armor in 1937?

Gunner wrote:

Great stuff, Yonder. I'm always impressed how well you are able to paint a picture of the situation in your AARs without having to use screenshots.

Thanks a lot for that, I am always very impressed with the effort people take to post nice screenshots with their AARs. I generally can't find the time to do so and I'm glad that my AARs can stand without it.

Continuing!

As we enter 1940 we demobilize our armed forces, our desire for territory has been temporarily satiated, and there are no immediate threats. Returning to a reserve footing significantly lowers the required upkeep, and for the first time truly large sections of the economy are devoted towards upgrading current troops. It also allows more industrial capacity to be set aside for expanding the Soviet war machine.

Purely from a gameplay standpoint I actually can't think of a reason to stand down at this point. Norway and Sweden are still unaligned and I could roll through them fairly easy, and so the south there are several other nice choices. At this point I also have a really low threat rating, probably mostly hardcoded to model the disdain that most industrialized countries had for the Soviet Union at this point. For this playthrough I'm trying to play fairly close to the template history gives me for Stalin's intensions. So far all I have taken liberties with was the full annexation of Romania.

Several brigades of Armoured Cars are ordered to allow us to standardize our diverse mix of Light Assault Divisions. We also begin laying down a few stand-alone Light Assault divisions, as well as a couple Armoured Divisions and many, many Infantry divisions. Though we have the ability to field divisions of 5 brigades at this point, in order to increase the number of divisions we can produce we have only done so for the Armour divisions, which require a second SP Art to raise the “Softness” of the three Medium Armour brigades enough for the coveted Combined Arms bonus. The nation is also working on large numbers of Infantry divisions, as well as supplemental brigades and additions to our small Air Force.

The first batch of Artillery Brigades soon comes off the line and are added to many of the Infantry divisions which lack support. In addition, Anti-Tank brigades are attached to those Infantry divisions in the plains of what used to be Romania and Poland, making them the only 5 brigade Infantry divisions I have.

As the size of the Soviet armed forces begins to grow dramatically the officer ratio takes a sharp dive. At its height in early 1939 we had around 8% more officers than is typically budgeted, we are now at 84% and that number continues to fall. Over the first half of the year we gradually transitions from a research-dominated government to one with a large priority in recruitment, in January 20 separate research programs are under way, and by July that number has fallen to 11. Additionally Sinkchiang has finally been brought into the Comintern fold, allowing most of our Diplomatic Corps to be redistributed as well. Our officer ratio bottoms out at 67%, and then begins to rise again.

Officer coverage is not the only thing we are sacrificing. Our Supply stockpile had been rebuilding itself from its drop when we redirected economic activity towards reinforcing our troops in preparation for our offensives. It had now recovered to a very healthy amount in the low 90ks. That was high enough that I again dropped all supply productions so that still more capacity could be redirected to Upgrading and Creating troops.

Early in 1940 we finally achieve a National Unity of 60%, allowing us to institute a temporary draft and divert more of the economy to War Production. This is incredibly useful, and allows an even larger amount of preparation. The fact that our reserve troops are now 33% stronger is alone worth the high priority the Intelligence community had in 1936.

1940 is not all good news, however, it is marked by the unfortunate news that Persia, which reaches along a sizable portion of our South-west border, has joined the Axis. The majority of this border is very mountainous, and I grudgingly add several more Mountain divisions to the queue.

Talk of hoi3 in the wargamer thread gave me an itch I had to scratch last night. So I booted up a game as Italy, set to Very Easy, since I wanted to play things fairly fast and loose and make things pretty ahistorical. By 1938 I had taken Yugoslavia and Bulgaria; Then Greece in early ‘39 and Turkey by the fall. The plan at that point was hold tight for a while, modernising and upgrading my units, and assist Germany as needed. Germany had taken Poland in the meantime, and was just beginning to chew into France. Unfortunately, I guess the USSR felt a bit threatened and attacked the both of us.

And so began a slugfest that lasted until 1943 when I gave up and shut it down (it was 1 am). Germany had made no headway, the line moving back and forth over what was Poland. While I had managed to cut north through the Caucuses, as soon as my troops made it over the mountains and the front opened up we entered a stalemate. I’m sure my long and ugly supply line didn’t help things, as I wasn’t able to join my front on the south of the Soviets to Germany's Eastern front. My manpower quickly bottomed out, and the USSR just refused to die.

Meanwhile, I had build up a modern navy of battleships and destroyers in the vain hopes of keeping the brits out of the mediterranean. Didn’t work. While I was able to give as good as I got in the engagements, my ships were forced to seek shelter in my naval bases within a year of the Allies declaring war on me. That was the end of my African ambitions.

Also of note: Germany never conquered the Belgium or the Netherlands, nor did they annex the czechs (I was really starting to feel like they weren’t taking this war as seriously as I was. ). I never annexed Albania. And since the US never entered the war, Japan did pretty good vs China, but the Brits kept them out of much of the south-east Pacific.

Sorry it’s been so long since my last update. The delay is mostly due to the large amount of traveling I’ve been doing IRL, and also finishing up the book series I started up while travelling. I have been putting several hours into the game though, steadily going through and organizing my disparate and newly produced units into several battle lines. It’s been a slow process though, and the last 10+ hours of gameplay have only brought me through around 4 months. After finishing up this process I may go back and have the AI do it right away for me so that I can compare the results. (By giving Army and Army Groups AI defense orders, and permission to rearrange their units into their own Armies, Corps, and Divisions, and then handing them a big ol’ clump of units.) If the AI does a satisfactory job that will be an indication that I won’t have to go through this sort of busy work ever again.

As 1941 began the most noticeable event was the highly increased activity along the Russian-German border (Technically still occupied Poland for some reason or another, a strong indication that the UK has a very strong hold on the seas and is still able to fend Germany off from whatever location the Polish government-in-exile has fled to.) Many of those reports are probably manufactured by Allied intelligence efforts in an attempt to provoke a confrontation between the peace-loving workers of the Soviet Union and their NAZI allies. However, there can be no doubt that there is truth to some of the movements. There is no reason to be foolishly lax in our border defense, we must never forget that the Deutsch, while currently our allies, still have Imperialist tendencies that have not yet been consigned to the ash bin of history.

The majority of our Finland occupational forces are brought south to join the Baltic Reserves, and large blocks of newly trained reserves are posted to the Western Border. While some of the Generals charged with holding the line against possible Imperialist aggression request more troops, most report a slight advantage over the opposing forces as things stand. As the troops were rearranged Yugoslavia fell to the Germans, increasing our border with the country further, this did not affect our plans too much, as a German held Yugoslavia had been assumed for some time.

Further east, along our two borders with Persia a reasonably overwhelming force is being established. This may be a mistake, as such troops may be better used elsewhere, but it was decided that since a relatively small number of troops here (in comparison to the Western and Eastern fronts) could attain complete superiority it was better to do so and then plan to shift troops from this theatre after the nation was conquered. In addition, if Turkey, Iraq, or Afghanistan join the Axis powers troops based here will be able to respond to the threat much more quickly than others guarding the Rodina. In addition to a large number of troops two Motorized Cavalry divisions are ready to rampage through the desert plains of the eastern portion of the country.

Going even further east takes us to the section of the country I am most anxious about, the border with Manchuko, puppet state of Japan. If any barbarous world power can compete with our dear friends and allies the Germans for Imperialist tendencies it is the Japanese. They were able to subdue and annex the Chinese powers far sooner than anyone anticipated. (I’m still bitter about that. They are supposed to be bleeding themselves dry against them throughout the entire war!) Additionally they joined the Axis rather late, so currently none of the Allied powers fighting against Germany are arrayed against Japan, leaving them at war with precisely no one. Last, but certainly not least, unlike Germany we have no non-aggression pact with Japan, and they have no interest in changing that. All signs point to them chomping at the bit for a repeat of the embarrassing war of 1904.

This is of course an enormous mistake on their part. The troops guarding our Eastern borders are no longer the downtrodden and enslaved masses that they fought at the turn of the century, but the fierce and loyal protectors of the peace-loving peoples of the Soviet Union. The Japanese ability to subdue their even more savage and primitive brethren in China is no indication whatsoever of their ability to fight the vast and advanced Soviet Union, and any attempts to do so will be undertaken at their own peril.

I honestly have no idea what I’m in for over here. I realized around February of 1941 that my Intelligence investment had been much too low for much too long, I had some spies available in Germany (probably because they have so many enemy spies it’s hard to work through them) but only one in Japan, what’s more I just now set each of those countries to “Military Intelligence” instead of “Lay Low” and I should have done that at least a year ago. I have very, very little idea about how many troops Japan has available, and no idea whatsoever about their tech levels. All I do know is that after taking over China most of these troops will be highly trained, which hardly bodes well for me.

I earmarked a good number of Infantry for deployment out East while I was divvying the fresh troops up, so they are getting reinforcements, but it doesn’t look like they are going to have enough. I just have troops for the border watching, no Reserves to speak of, or even the (very) modest Defense in Depth I’ve got against Germany. I also don’t know whether the“men on the ground” are supposed to have better intelligence than me. The Armies set to defend the borders are warning me that they are only a quarter or a third as strong as their opponents, but if they are judging that on what I’m seeing those numbers could be (and hopefully are) wildly inaccurate.

I have not seen any Light or Medium Armour over here yet, but there are so many unknown brigades that I’m not too comforted by that. I think I am going to have to hope that that holds true though, and that my Motorized Cavalry (L. Arm, Mot. Inf., Armoured Car) will do as well here as they did in Romania. My original plan was to have six Motorized Cavalry divisions here, but I’m going to double that, I’m also going to have to draw a decent number of infantry troops out of the Western Front and head them to the Orient. What I don’t want to do is take any of my Medium Armour away from the inevitable war with the Nazis.

In May a large number of Mountain divisions will be completed, but they won’t be tremendously helpful in Manchukuo or other nearby regions of China. They are the troops I ordered once Persia went Axis, and while I will probably send a few divisions there that border was already reinforced from earlier Mountain troops in the pipeline, so the majority of these troops will be going to Romania where that original batch was intended for. Between these coming reinforcements and my current heavy troop levels in Romania in general I believe the best course of action is to get many of the Romanian troops on trains and send them East, I can spare men from this region far more than from the northern areas.
With this last redeployment I believe that I am happy with the current organization of the troops, which are as follows:

Previous Finnish Territory: 30 Inf Brigades, 2 Artillery Brigades
Previously Polish, Lithuanian territory: 123 Infantry Brigades, 34 Artillery Brigades, 6 Anti-Tank Brigades, 6 Garrison Brigades, 5 Armoured Divisions, 9 Motorized Cavalry Divisions
Previous Romanian territory: 144 Infantry Brigades, 34 Artillery Brigades, 10 Anti-Tank brigades, 12 Mountain Brigades, 4 Armoured Divisions, 9 Motorized Cavalry Divisions
Persian Borders: 27 Infantry Brigades, 8 Artillery Brigades, 54 Mountain Brigades, 2 Motorized Cavalry Divisions
Manchukuo Borders: 108 Infantry Brigades, 17 Artillery Brigades, 12 Mountain brigades, 3 Garrison brigades, 12 Motorized Cavalry Divisions.

The forces currently being trained/produced are as follows, in order of estimated completion:
March 6: 6 Motorized Cavalry Divisions
May 2: 3 Three-brigade Mnt Divisions
May 5: 3 Armoured Divisions
May 16: 19 five-brigade Mnt Divisions
May 19: 12 Artillery Brigades
August 1: 4 Armoured Divisions

Moving into March my entire production has remained behind training, upgrading, and reinforcing new troops. This has left my supply production badly outmatched, from the cap of 99,999 a few short years ago we have fallen to 33k and are still lowering. Luckily in less than a week my next batch of troops (several divisions of Motorized Cavalry) will be done. That will free up more than enough production to get my supplies climbing steeply again, even if I siphon a bit off the top for starting another couple of Infantry divisions.

Some of the more paranoid military commanders have been clamoring for the mobilization of our armed forces. This is currently seen as unnecessary, we are currently not strong enough to liberate the Polish and other peoples from the grasp of the Nazis, and they would surely not be foolish enough to open up another front against the peace loving people of the Rodina. As far as the “Eastern Devils” go, while they would certainly be foolish enough to attack us, they are not currently at war readiness either. If they were to begin mobilization we would immediately join them as well, as it is, we will continue to wait. We will also order our Intelligence Networks to begin ferreting out foreign spies, so that we do not have to worry about reports on Nazi movements being a UK ploy. (Not an in-game worry at all, solely a real life one, as far as game play goes that sort of work is abstracted as a “Raise Threat”mission)

Nice writeup, Yonder, I think I know what I'm gonna do this evening.

I have saved this write up to read over breakfast.

Midway through March 1941 we received news that Germany had completed their conquest and annexation against Greece. This news was met with a great amount of consternation, as it greatly increases the possible difficult of an offensive campaign against the Deustch. Now pushing west into the German border will continue to open up a southern front which the Deutsch can use to flank our forces, locking down a sizable contingent of our forces on that front. Additionally, our obsolete naval forces mean that we will be completely unable to stop the Nazis from moving forces from Vichy France or other locations along the Mediterranean to reinforce Greece.

This news also served to underscore just how widely the Imperialist German power had expanded. They now control nearly all of Western Europe, with no sign of their appetite being satiated any time soon.

The first inclination was to immediately throw our troops into open warfare amongst the Reich, we are fairly evenly matched against our foes now, and a surprise attack could beat them back before their troops in Greece reorganized and moved up to our borders. In the end that plan was vetoed, Stalin has no qualms with the armed liberation of the peoples oppressed by the German Imperials, but he is a patient man; there is no reason to hastily commit to a war we are unprepared for against a fully mobilized enemy, not when the inevitable historical dialectic guarantees the people a victory in the fullness of time.

This does not mean that there are not obvious steps to take in the face of such naked aggression. The first step is the occupation and annexation of Bulgaria. This country lies to the South of former Romania, and is highly friendly to the Axis powers; in fact it is close enough that it is likely to join them at any time. However, it currently has no formal relationship with the Axis powers, most importantly no alliance or Guarantee of Independence. Preparations are immediately made to rearrange the Kyiv armored forces to the border against Bulgaria, to prepare for an immediate declaration of war.

Conquering Bulgaria will do nothing to lessen our defensive line against Germany, but it won't expand it by much, while the German defensive line will be affected much more. Additionally, the Bulgarian territory is even more mountainous and unyielding that that found in Romania, Germany will find it very difficult to expel the Workers' Army from that terrain.

The other countries which should be dealt with are Turkey and Afghanistan. We currently share borders with Turkey, and upon the annexation with Bulgaria those borders will become even more extensive. Luckily Turkey is almost entirely neutral, only slightly leaning towards Axis powers. We will immediate try to foster warmer diplomatic relationships with the country. It is unlikely that we will be able to spread Communism to them before matters with Germany come to a head, but we should be able to ensure their neutrality during the conflict, which will be nearly as beneficial.

Afghanistan, on the other hand, is a different story, while not as friendly to the Axis powers as Bulgaria, it would be very difficult to pry that nation loss from the Fascist grip. Like Bulgaria they will have to be crushed and annexed.

On March 25th, with Soviet Armoured and Motorized Corps more or less in place along the Bulgarian border we declare war and order a surprise attack against Bulgaria. While our forces are still in Reserve status Soviet superiority should still easily carry the day!

This proves to be accurate. Bulgaria seems to completely lack an air force, the three Ground Attack Squadrons (2 CAS wings and 2 Interceptor wings) deployed to this region completely own the skies, and our medium armoured divisions perform even better than expected. The enemy infantry completely lack the ability to meaningfully damage the Armour holding the line, and the tanks are quite satisfactory at attacking the softer targets. Even if they weren’t, the self-propelled artillery they protect have no difficulties whatsoever with infantry. Prior to the campaign it was worried that these heavy divisions would prove ineffective in mountainous provinces, bogging down to a stalemate, but against the Bulgarians this worry proved unfounded. Movement was slower, but a single Armoured division remained able to successfully evict three to four infantry divisions single-handedly.

The lighter Motorized Cavalry divisions were similarly effective, but they were held up once or twice, mostly as a result of low organization from the rapid strategic movements right before the war declaration.

The war takes less than a month, on April 20 th the Bulgarian bourgeoisie surrender and the nation joins the workers’ paradise. Mindful of the danger the Nazis pose forces are ordered to continue mobilizing to full-combat readiness even after the end of hostilities, although the strain this will put on our industry will greatly delay the current production.

It is worthwhile to note that Afghanistan can see the way the wind is blowing. Shortly after we declared war on Bulgaria the nation began mobilizing its own forces. We will have to invade them quickly, before they are able to fully prepare, unfortunately we do not have forces organized for such a war right now. Hopefully the pieces will be in place by May 1 st .

Nice updates, Yonder!

Did you get a chance to perform those AI tests? I'm pretty curious to see how it fairs on its own.

Gunner wrote:

Nice updates, Yonder!

Did you get a chance to perform those AI tests? I'm pretty curious to see how it fairs on its own.

Hmm, not yet actually, the Bulgaria thing kind of threw me, I'll have to see when I can get into that.