I thoroughly enjoyed Jason Long's and Joe Hayes' excellent articles from TEM # 21 discussing play strategies for the 1943 Scenario of The Urals module. Both articles examined their subject competently, yet as a fan of the Soviet hordes I feel more can and should be said about handling the Soviet forces in the later stages of the war. Translating Soviet mass into territorial gains presents a Europa player with a surprisingly difficult problem, given the still vigorous nature of the Wehrmacht and its many panzer divisions.

The Germans will retain their mobility advantage throughout the war, and while the quality of the infantry on the offense declines in time, the Landser remain tough on the defense throughout. So, before you become intoxicated with your masses of armor and artillery units, keep in mind that the Germans, while bloodied, are still unbowed and unbroken as an army.

So how do you break the Wehrmacht?

First, you must identify your strategic aims and allocate your forces accordingly. Rather than go into great detail here, I refer you to Joe Hayes' aforementioned article, "Driving Big Red."

Generally, however, the bulk of your combat motorized forces should appear in the Western and Southwestern TVDs along with the majority of your artillery divisions, while the strong, but fragile rocket artillery divisions are best used in the swamps near Leningrad.

Secondly, you must develop an operational scheme designed to drown the enemy in what the members of Task Force Johnson refer to as "Red Jello."

The trick for the Soviets is to move their powerful armor and artillery units into position to smash a sector held by the Germans without a) suffering undue losses from German counterattacks, and b) allowing the Axis to practice a reverse scorched earth strategy. The resourceful German knows that in a toe-to-toe fight he'll be crushed by the weight of the Red Army, so he will endeavor to avoid precisely that situation, and fight a mobile and active defense designed to extract a prohibitive price for territory gained by the Soviets. And then, just as the mighty Soviet armies arrive at their immediate objectives, the German infantry, screened by their armored brethren, scurry away to the next defensive position.

No, problem, you say, just pursue! Well, it just isn't that easy, comrades! Even if you can break through the armor screen (by no means certain), you may find yourself unable to advance far because of inadequate logistics caused by unconverted and devastated rail lines, as well as the dangers of leaving the cover of your short-legged Sturmoviks. Meanwhile, the grinning German fiend sitting across from you is creating a most unfavorable casualty ratio...

This Ain't 1941 Anymore

As a general philosophical matter, the Soviet player must remember that he cannot employ his forces as if they were the 1941 Germans, nor can he expect the Germans to act like the 1941 Soviets.

While the Red Army possesses the strategic initiative in 1943, it still suffers from tactical limitations on its end and there are considerable tactical advantages still enjoyed by German mobile forces. However, do not despair, for the mighty Red Army has the tools to defeat the cowardly tactics of the fascists.

First, realize that until the Axis armor has been smashed and your Tank Armies can thus sally forth without fear, the speed of your army is limited to that of the lowly Red Army rifleman. That's right, six hexes a turn. That's because in most sectors, you will screen your better units (the c/m corps and artillery divisions) from counterattacks behind an infantry screen just strong enough to prevent overruns.

This will inevitably result in enormous infantry casualties, yes, but you must adopt a bloody-minded attitude about this, and bank on the fact that in the 1943 Scenario you possess many, many infantry divisions, but not nearly so many tank or artillery divisions. I wouldn't recommend such a wasteful use of infantry in 1941-42, but for purposes of this scenario you can feel relatively assured of possessing a comfortable infantry cushion to absorb such losses. Moreover, this advance will not be a passive one, for your mobile units will be attacking before they retreat behind the infantry during exploitation.

Your mobile units must strike at targets of opportunity, delivering a few mighty blows each turn. In the south, especially, this may mean attacking the panzers, since oftentimes the infantry won't be within reach.

"But," the less courageous amongst you might ask, "attack the mighty panzers..." Correct! How do you suppose the Soviets won Kursk? They smashed the panzers, as you must. You, the Russian, need not fear exchanges against the Germans with your armor.

Again, using Kursk as an example, both the T-34s of 5th Guards Tank Army and the Tigers of the 2nd SS Panzer Corps they fought against were burning hulks at the end of the day, and history has recorded this event as a Soviet decisive victory. So exchange against the panzers wherever and whenever you can.

Make low odds attacks: a half dozen attacks at odds of 4-1 (-1) are better than one or two at 7-1 (-1). The aim here is attrition since the trickster Germans will almost always give themselves retreat routes to negate your ZOCs. On the other hand, if you can find a German armor stack without a secure rear, a high-odds attack against it is well advised. Occasionally, you may even be able to fully surround a stack of mobile units by smashing the adjacent units, and then attacking the surrounded panzers, now with no retreat route. The point is you must be very aggressive and constantly look for opportunities to knock the panzerwaffe down a notch or two.

Note that a cadred unit must retreat from the front line to a rear-area city to rebuild, thus removing it from the front line for a turn. Creating German panzer cadres has the added benefit of diverting infantry RPs towards rebuilding c/m units instead of bolstering the shattered landser. None of the above is to say you shouldn't attack Axis infantry at every opportunity it can easily and profitably be attacked, but that in many cases (especially against AGS) you won't have much choice but to attack German armor.

You need not limit yourself, as the German player in 1943 often must, to pure armor attacks. One of the benefits the Soviets enjoy, as mentioned above, is a large surplus of infantry units, and this surplus gives the Soviets the option of launching combined arms attacks without fearing the subsequent loss of infantry. Such combined arms attacks allow you to both absorb the losses from exchanges with your numerous rifle divisions and to increase the number of attacks you launch each turn by spreading your armor assets along the length of the front.

In time, this will overwhelm the Axis, even if it doesn't give you the psychological satisfaction gained by massing your armor. Your catchphrase here should be "death by a thousand cuts!" Remember that, historically, the Soviets did not mass their armor outside of their six tank armies, but instead engaged the Germans with broad-front-style assaults.

Indeed, I believe that Europa would greatly benefit from a rule limiting the ability of the Soviets to stack their armor, as has been proposed by Soviet experts such as Charles Sharp. Even without such a rule, however, great advantages lie in mimicking the actual Soviet practice.

Tanks to the Front

There are two situations where you will want to keep your tank and artillery units in the front. This is when you are either crossing a river, or closing in on a section of German held territory with the bulk of your army. In both circumstances your offensive units won't be advancing by themselves, but will possess many neighbors.

Here you must mass at least two (preferably three) strong stacks running along the grain of the hexsides that are fully ATEC capable, contain an artillery division or two, and are backed by the redoubtable NKVD political troops. Beyond these stacks you need not put anything other than the standard ash-and-trash infantry line, but you must make sure that it is flanking your powerful forward bridgehead. These 60+ point stacks will be difficult to attack, and the lack of flanks to put ZOCs on them as well as NKVD will discourage any would-be Guderians.

Such an optimal set up may not be possible for lack of NKVD troops or because your cross-river bridgeheads may not have enough friendly neighbors, but there may be tactical situations where a compromise will suffice (i.e., a strong, but somewhat isolated bridgehead with NKVD, or a strong mech wall without NKVD but with secure flanks so that attacks can only be made on two hexes.) Also, don't forget to use the VVS to provide some helpful DAS.

The artillery divisions are the both the strongest and most frustrating units in your arsenal. They are almost worthless in mobile situations due to a lack of mobility and their being halved when attacking after movement. Additionally, keeping these units up to strength poses a real challenge to a Soviet player who is handicapped with (to my mind) an ahistorically low artillery replacement rate. So you must protect them behind your infantry screen until you can sucker the German player into standing and fighting.

When deploying the artillery divisions forward, be sure to do it as described in the above paragraph, i.e., in stacks where they'll be difficult to attack. The most criminally irresponsible thing you can do as the Soviet is to place a perfectly good 14-6 artillery division in a flankable infantry stack with less than full ATEC and no NKVD to boot.

Be sure to include veritable armies of engineers in your Fronts, for only with them can you keep the other units moving forward. You must repair everything smashed by the Germans as quickly as possible in order to both maintain the VVS somewhere near the front line and to provide the logistical underpinnings for a continued advance. Combat and assault engineers will, in addition, prove useful in knocking down successive Axis fort lines, as well as aiding in the liberation of Soviet cities.

The important thing is to move forward as quickly as possible within the tactical constraints mentioned above. Six movement points per turn doesn't sound like much, but if sustained, will overwhelm the Germans. Rapid advances will also deny the Axis player time to fully prepare fort lines, and also force him to expend all his resource points building new forts in an attempt to thwart your efforts. Aggressive use of your expendable infantry will be helpful in pinning down the Axis infantry units with ZOCs; these then can be destroyed by follow-on elements.

Flying harassment missions can also yield handsome dividends, especially on a section of the front where the Germans clearly are preparing to leave. Such harassment provides two benefits: it allows some Axis units to be caught by your troops before they can run away, and it slows down German demolition efforts. Occasionally, you may even be able to fly harassment to slow down German engineers in the midst of creating their latest version of the Panther line.

In conclusion, I hope that these suggestions will prove of some use to all you aspiring Zhukovs out there. At the least, consider taking another look at the 1943 Scenario and playing the Soviet side, which, I assure you, can be extremely fun and satisfying for those of you who have too long suffered the slings and arrows of your German opponents in the 1941 Scenario.