Let's do a surprise attack on Russia. Should be easy, right? After destroying all those units in the first few turns, they cannot have much left!
- Rommel: Compared to the historical Wehrmacht, Rommel has a decent unit composition at his disposal. Nevertheless our prestige is still too low, to use all core slots: http://youtu.be/gndH05aCBqY
- Guderian: I have added some tips on how to beat the Barbarossa scenario really quickly. http://youtu.be/LWgdrW13BPQ
- Manstein: Not going for a dicisive victory here, so this should be fairly easy, but the Russian airforce will be a serious threat! http://youtu.be/rdc7drKLaGE
AAR - Efficiency
To keep it short the numbers are this order: Rommel, Guderian, Manstein and Average. Top 3 are highlighted and stars mark overstrength level.
0-3x Wehrmacht Inf >> 5,42 / - / 5,19** / 5,31
1-2x Wehrmacht Inf - Transport >> 2,46 / 1,81* / 3,63** / 2,63
1x Pionier - Truck >> 5,37 / - / - / 5,37
1x Granadier - Halftrack >> - / 1,83* / - / 1,83
1x Gebirgsjäger >> 10,61 / 6,08* / 5,99** / 7,56
1-2x SE-Infantry >> 3,28 / 4,18* / 4,79* / 4,08
1-3x Fallschirmjäger >> - / 1,93 / 2,16** / 2,05
3-4x Panzer IVF >> 2,49 / 3,91* / 9,02** / 5,14
1-2x SE Panzer III/IV >> 1,96 / 3,57* / 5,56 / 3,70
1-2x Panzerjäger I >> 2,15 / 3,18* / 2,80* / 2,71
1x SdKfz 222 >> 0,95 / 5,82** / 3,17** / 3,31
4x 17 cm K 18 >> 3,88*** / 3,88** / 7,27*** / 5,01
2x Wurfrahmen 40 >> 5,14 / 2,96 / 8,92 / 5,67
1-2x StuG IIIB >> 0,46** / 5,09* / 7,41* / 4,32
4x Bf 109F >> 1,98* / 2,76* / 2,50** / 2,41
1x Bf 110D >> 2,83*** / 2,01*** / 2,69*** / 2,51
1x Ju 87R >> 1,44** / 2,96** / 2,75*** / 2,38
2x Ju 88A >> 0,78** / 1,18*** / 2,43**** / 1,46
Now this is unexpected. No it is not the tanks that dominate the Russian plains. Once again the infantry is best value - by far. 138 kills by the infantry compared to 154 by the armored forces that cost more than twice the prestige points. Both are dwarfed by the work done by the Luftwaffe which did 175 damage to the Russians, but almost at double prestige costs of the tanks. Artillery did 131 damage and a lot of suppression only the StuG is notoriously underperforming (all numbers taken from Rommel).
Average unit cost and performance
In order to keep track of the soft cap I will note the average unit cost of my deployed core and because its easy and interesting, the total number of kills (hit points) and the kills per average prestige cost in this order: average cost / kills / kills per average prestige:
- Rommel: 389,69 / 601 / 1,54
- Guderian: 439,17 / 695 / 1,58
- Manstein: 478,07 / 1094 / 2,29
Efficiency is rising again, the Russians in the opening stage clearly field more quantity than quality.