A number of things to remember when carrying out attacks and planning them. These are lower-level concerns than your operational direction of the battle, but nevertheless serve to make it much more effective.

They call it "Combat Mode" for a reason. Attack in combat mode whenever possible. You get twice the punch per supply token expended. Also, staying in combat mode means any German counterattacks are less effective. Don't advance in move mode unless you're sure that the Germans can't counterattack effectively: the technical term for infantry caught on the march by panzer divisions is "track grease."

Pocket. Pocket. Pocket. Attacking is supply-expensive. And chancy. Make the other guy do it at bad odds. The way to do this is to create pockets whenever possible. Don't try to slam the whole enemy line hard: look for places where you can drive a narrow gap and rush exploiting units through to surround the German line. Then attack the pocket-but only enough to force the defenders inside to burn supply, and perhaps retreat onto and DG each other; it will then be harder for them to get out.

Watch out for enemy reserves in the area-but if you can deal with them, and completely surround chunks of the line, he will have to try to break out before the Supply Phase. That means overruns, and doing lowodds overruns with one- or two-step stacks is a great way to cause attacker casualties.

Ideally, you want your pockets (especially big ones like the ring you throw around Korsun and the Dnepr hexes) to be double rings: an inner and outer envelopment. This will make it very difficult for the troops inside to overrun out, and anyone attacking from the outside will have to carry out two overruns to break in, leaving them with not enough movement to get away from your counterattack. Ideally, you want to form a pocket when going second, so if you go first next turn you can flip any Move-Mode envelopers to combat mode and have your tanks go crush any reserves that might be able to intervene. Ideal situations do not always arise, but try your best to arrange them.

Use movement, not firepower, whenever possible. This is particularly true of strong defensive positions. Why attack troops dug-in in the woods across a river when you can get them out of the position by threatening to go around? Why attack a city immediately when you can surround it and wait for it to start starving? Keep an HQ in reserve in each sector, where it can race up to rivers during your reaction phase and flip next turn to form a bridge at an unexpected spot. Instead of throwing an extra tank battalion into the battle, move it around the flank of the line to ZOC-block retreating enemy forces and increase casualties without expending supply. Many other applications of this principle exist.

Avoid cities

Yes, I know, it's glorious to present the key of each newly liberated city to Comrade Stalin, and eventually you will need to free your worker comrades and clear your supply lines. But in the meantime, each of those cities is a marvelous fortress for the Wehrmacht, horribly expensive to attack. Don't. Drive around the cities. Attack troops near cities to force the Germans to expend supply dumps inside. Keep driving past them. You shouldn't besiege a city unless you're able to simultaneously attack beyond it: this will keep any would-be relief forces busy.

If you must attack a fortified city, make sure to DG its defenders. Try to arrange multiple attacks in the same turn (stacks of infantry in reserve, moving next to the city, can overrun DGed targets in the exploit phase, and then attack; you don't want to use armor in urban areas if you can avoid it.) Also, don't pile on the troops hoping for a big victory. You're unlikely to get it, and huge attacks eat huge amounts of supply. Try to arrange small attacks that result in Aol Dol results. You'll spend less supply for each step you kill. (A 14-4-3 and 122-2 attacking together can often cause just such a result.) Your goal here is to burn up the supply dumps inside the city-once out-of-supply markers appear, and the Germans have started to lose steps to attrition, then attack in force.

The joys of consolidation

If you have two shattered tank or mech corps, merge them into one. It saves fuel. Try and keep your biggest corps (like 7th Mech and 20th Tanks) up to strength, at the expense of the smaller ones (or the independent tank brigades). You may wish to consolidate infantry divisions as well, once they start taking hits.

Maskirovka

Take full advantage of the rules here--the historical Soviet commanders spent a lot of time and effort on camouflage, radio discipline and deceptions, and the like. Do the same. Hide a tank corps counter under an infantry regiment, but leave one battalion in the open... fifteen hexes away (as long as you're drawing from the same HQ or railhead). Play shell games with how full your infantry divisions are (are those four divisions all 2 steps down? or are they full strength with a IT counter under them?) Stack 10 IT supply counters under a decoy offensive, and a 10SP counter near the real one. Put reserve forces in the open in one area, and hide them under non-reserve infantry regiments (or even artillery brigades, if you know the enemy can't get adjacent to expose the deception before you're ready to use it) elsewhere. Be sneaky, and vary tricks so your opponent doesn't catch on.

Plan at least one operation ahead. Don't get so caught up in how well you're attacking on this front that you lose the big picture. Ask yourself, for each attack, "How will hurting the enemy here advance my operational goals?" If it doesn't affect the success of the next step of your plan, save the supply for something that will.

Press forward

Don't just sit in one place, even if you aren't attacking. Keep moving forward, looking for better positions to attack the enemy, better jumping-off spots for a new offensive. Your infantry and artillery can move forward on their own, and the supply to move some tanks along with them for defense in the open isn't that much (your other tanks can catch up when the offensive gets underway.) Try to maintain contact with the Germans all along the offensive front. If anything opens up, you will be ready to take advantage of it, and meanwhile, with your units adjacent, his will not be able to go into reserve or use strategic movement mode to disengage.

It can be dangerous to be adjacent to German units-they can hip shoot and overrun with no warning, or attack in the combat phase without any preparation and while your reserves are elsewhere-but it's dangerous for them, too, and you want to keep the Germans confused about where you're planning to attack. A purely defensive deployment would stay several hexes back from the Germans, so they would be forced to expose themselves when attacking-but if the Germans know you're purely defensive in one area, they may pull forces from it to reinforce another. Decide what risks you're willing to run, but on the whole no general will do very wrong who places his force in position to wreak havoc on the enemy.

Keep your planes covering each other, and the field of action. Build air bases in threes, within 10 hexes of each other, but not so close that a single raiding tank battalion can shut down multiple airfields, or a single interdicting plane reduce the refit rate on more than one. Your air bases protect each other, and the Germans have to use most of their fighter force to clear off your fighters if they want to raid freely in an area. You also want your air bases to provide cover over your front lines (and, ideally, over where the front lines will be a few turns from now, so you're not always building more airfields.)

Send out planes on interdiction. You want to entice the Germans into sending fighters off air bases so you can dash in and knock his remaining planes down, and then smear them on the ground. Be careful here; you may want your bombers to hit the enemy lines instead. Consider carefully how your air power can best support the battle.

More Setup and Strategy in Hube's Pocket Part 2

The Conduct of the Battle: Zhukov
The Tools
The Techniques
The Conduct of the Battle: Manstein
Air War, Options, and Historical Note

More Setup and Strategy in Hube's Pocket Part 1

Introduction
The German Setup
Soviet Opening: North, South, or Deep?
The Soviet Setup