Slitherine

I was wondering if anyone had tried these late Barbarossa tactics (possibly following Sealion), and if so, with how much success?:

Basically the idea would be to leave Barborossa until quite late in 1941 (not quite sure *how* late - August 1941, possibly even later) - just enough time to advance up to the Russian first severe winter line(s) - which, as I understand it, means the lines on the edge of the Baltic States, Eastern Poland, Bessarabia, and the Finnish hexes near Leningrad etc. if I understand things correctly units here will be unaffected by the special first Russian winter effects (i.e. effectiveness loss, though would still suffer normal severe winter effects)? Obviously the Axis would try to destroy/encircle as many possible Soviet units as possible on the way.

The main idea here is to a) take advantage of the "free" Soviet oil and PPs and to delay full Soviet war effort for as long as possible (both of which would aid German tech advantage) and b) to minimise Axis casualties (and oil consumption) in the first Russian winter - then to follow this in 1942 with a massive offensive...

A variant would be as aobve, but with the addition of a few cities just outside the sw line: Odessa, Vinnitsa, Minsk, Pskov - though this may then defeat the point of the exercise (to minimise Axis casualties)

Obviously I'm sure people can see many problems with this strategy (missed opportunities etc.), but I was wondering if anyone has tried it or a variant of it (e.g. advancing past the severe winter line, but pulling back primary units behind it before before winter, or delaying the invasion to take advantage of free oil/PPs, but not restricting the advance past the severe winter line)?

In GS v2.00 it's possible to DoW Russia as late as 1942 because we've moved the Russian join date till May 1942 instead of October 1941. Russia will, however, mobilize their production in October 1941 so they will have the same production in May 1942 as if they had joined in October 1941.

The surprise value for Russia will decrease to 10 just prior to the join date so if you delay the invasion to 1942 you won't benefit from a very surprised Russian player (-30 efficiency if attacked in fair weather in 1941).

Surprise also works a bit differently. When DoW is being made the full surprise is used and you lose the same efficiency. Each turn you decrease surprise by 5, but won't lose efficiency further. Instead you will only regain efficiency at half the rate once you're surprised. Typically you regain 12-14 efficiency the turn after Barbarossa starts. With this rule you regain 6-7 efficiency per turn for 6 turns (30/5). So Russia will be shaken until about October instead of being at full efficiency in August as now.

This means it will be harder to try to defend behind the Dnepr line. The Germans will get there before you have recovered the efficiency and they will be able to get across.

These changes alone mean the Germans have more possibilities in 1941 and the Allied player must be more clever to avoid being severely weakened in 1941 before the Winter.

NB: one other *potential* problem I can see with this strategy is (espc. if this is done following Sea Lion) that Ploesti will be in range of Soviet STR unless the western Ukraine is cleared out, obviously the Axis could defend Ploesti with (higher tech) FTR, but it seems a waste. Perhaps advancing up to at least Vinnitsa and the Southern Bug is necessary to discourage Soviet STR?

Well in one of my beta 2.0 games (using a bito oder beta version) I DoWed soviet union in late september and prepared only defencive positions near borders, while most of my good troops were fighting in Egypt and Britain. I failed to secure iraq, but conquered britain and going to win this game (now its late 1943 and things looks very good for the axis). Soviets spent most of 1941-42 winter to move their offencive units closer to the borders (I captured couple of border cities like Brest-Litovsk to prevent railing on 1st turn) and by 1942 wehrmacht was ready to stand against soviet offencive. By 1943 I had enough forces to launch my own offencive with some local succes.

oxford_guy wrote:NB: one other *potential* problem I can see with this strategy is (espc. if this is done following Sea Lion) that Ploesti will be in range of Soviet STR unless the western Ukraine is cleared out, obviously the Axis could defend Ploesti with (higher tech) FTR, but it seems a waste. Perhaps advancing up to at least Vinnitsa and the Southern Bug is necessary to discourage Soviet STR?

Soviet STR is not great threat at all. Western allies have better STRs and they can place them on small Greek isles, no matter who controls Greece. And they still will go for Ploesti, if allied player wants it. Also if you are not launching offencive with lots of tanks and planes, you don't need this many oil. Even with slightly damaged Ploesti you should have plenty of it by 1942 spring.