You are considerably outnumbered by an army almost as good as yours (and in some respects better), and you are handicapped by a madman's decision to stand and fight when retreat is indicated.

The solution can be summed up in two words: attack relentlessly.

Certainly this is risky, but if you take no chances, the Russian bear will lumber up to you and start hugging. Ursus sovieticus is very strong.

Understand that this will be a long-drawn-out fight. More correctly, you must make it a long-drawn-out fight. A rapid blitzkrieg that the Russian player shapes as he desires will inevitably hammer you into paste against the anvil of the cities you must hold long enough to satisfy your boss. You must not merely attack, but attack in such a way that the Russian is forced to divert from his planned offensive to deal with you.

This is not easy. Driving deep, for instance, is hard to pull off against competent Russian direction; the rear guards will hold their position and the counterattacks will cut you off and chew you up. There are some opportunities you should watch out for, nevertheless.

One of them lies to the south. The entire Second Ukrainian Front depends on one road and one railroad for trace supply. If he's smart, he'll also set up a wagon extender to use the Cherkassy bridge to reach the railroads near Kiev. If, and only if, you can seize all three locations at once, the Soviet southern wing will be eating off the map, and there are a lot of them to feed. Unfortunately, to pull this off, you will need to take three well-defended locations and hold all three against ferocious and desperate counterattacks. Unlikely, to say the least, but if you can threaten it (or least bluff that you're about to threaten it), you may be able to slow the Bear by forcing him to watch his tail.

The second opportunity lies in the north

If you can break through to Zhitomir and Fastov, you may be able to similarly isolate the northern wing. This is more difficult, since there's a lot of open terrain leading back to Kiev, and it will be hard to block all available routes for a Soviet truck extender to keep their northern wing in supply. It's still worth threatening, since every Russian unit you keep guarding the rear is one not available to attack you.

Finally, there are a number of roads that lead to Kiev. If the Russians don't watch them very, very carefully, you might be able to re-take the city early in the game, in which case Stalin will transfer your opponent to a penal battalion in the Finnish swamps.

Deep operations, though, are unlikely to be your salvation, barring major failures in Soviet direction and deployment. The Russian army of 1944 is vastly more capable than the 1941 or 1942 models, and more likely to be aware of the need for defense in depth. Look for smaller gains instead.

Operationally, you must try to dislocate the Soviet offensive by forcing them either to burn offensive supply on defense, or to conduct operations in areas they had not planned to conduct and are not wellprepared for. Of course, much of the time you will be dancing to the Soviet tune, and not vice versa. They, after all, have the strategic initiative and the larger forces, and frequently you will be rushing troops hither and yon to shore up weak points or seal off penetrations, or hastily pulling back to avoid being crushed, or trying desperately just to hold onto a few vital hexes a turn or two longer.

But you want to keep looking for spoiling opportunities. In particular, you must find a way to attack up north near Zhitomir and Berdichev early in the game. This is the only zone where you are even close to having force superiority over the Russians, and since the Russians are probably attacking down south, if you attack strongly in the north you will force him to divert his attention and supply flow from the south, which may give you some extra time to restore the situation down there. Most of the area north of the Bug and east of Lyubar is strategically meaningless: nothing suits you better than making the Russians expend supply attacking to conquer wasteland, rather than attacking to gain VP cities and vital terrain down south. Of course you have to do it without sticking your neck out far enough to invite the Russians to hack it off. A tough order.

Tactically, you need to keep two things in mind.

First, conduct spoiling attacks. If the Russians are building up for an offensive, you may be able to catch them off-guard by attacking first. Watch for chances to counterattack into the middle of a developing Soviet offensive and hit units advancing in move mode, or ones that have advanced behind your lines. (Hey, if they're behind your lines, then your units are between them and safety! Isn't it nice of the T-34s to voluntarily ZOC-block themselves?) While it can be very fun to DG Russian reserves during your reaction phase, read the advice to the Russians on why DGing during their own turn is better-it is even truer for you! Russians you DG in reaction will remove the DG, and attack next turn. Russians you DG in your turn, and kill, will never bother you again.

This brings us to your second goal. You want to kill Russians. Many Russians. Any Russians. While you may claim otherwise in your memoirs, they do not have a limitless supply of manpower. Every 12-22 division you kill is a rear-area guard or a line extender that he will have to replace with a 133-3. Every regiment you kill is a regiment the Russians will not be able to use for besieging cities, or blocking ZOCs, or guarding airfields, or any number of other functions that would hamper you without costing them supply.

And every attack you make you make costs him supply. It adds up, especially if you can goad him into firing his artillery defensively. The Russian only gets 15 1/3 SP a turn, on average. If he spends 3 a turn on defense, after five turns he will have only attacked with four turns' worth of supply. In effect, you have forced him to spend an entire turn doing nothing.

If the Russian fears you might attack anywhere and everywhere, he will be more cautious. He will be less likely to race forward, more likely to make sure that his infantry is always accompanied by armor or anti-tank guns, that his reserve armor is well back from the front line, that his front lines are solid and not vulnerable to penetration, that his dumps are well-stocked all along the line in case units get cut off, that his reserve markers are used for defensive artillery instead of offensive infantry and armor: all of this will further slow his forward progress, which is exactly what you want.

Panzer fear exists. Generate it. Make it happen. It will slow the Red Army more effectively than your meager defensive lines will.

Finally, steady destruction of infantry mounts up, and eventually the Russians will start running short of troops. (it will take a lot of time, but at one point in the one game I have won so far as the German player, my opponent Scott resorted to attacking cities well behind his lines with move-mode tank overruns because he did not have enough infantry to mount multiple attacks.)

As to the actual conduct of attacks, remember that you are in this to kill troops and force the Russians to burn supply. You are not fighting for terrain (well, except the bare minimum to satisfy your insane Leader): you are fighting to kill the Russian Army. Since you are outnumbered you need to make sure that your attacks are lethal. Attack where the terrain is favorable. Make sure to DG your targets before attacking. (The Luftwaffe is vital in this effort: bombing raids are cheaper than artillery.) Then make sure to force your opponents to retreat through ZOCs and take an additional step loss. You may not want to surround the victims entirely. Remember that you want them to pay supply from dumps (which other units could use), not internals (which won't matter anyway after you've killed them).

Your panzers will be the primary tool, because of their mobility and high action ratings. But remember that any time the Russians are next to you, you are next to them: the stereotypical German movemode armored overrun preceded by hip shoots is not the only tool in your bag. Front-line infantry and armor in combat mode can inflict a lot of damage. Even better, you can support them with artillery instead of the Luftwaffe (useful on cloudy days, and in sectors dominated by Russian fighters), and you may not even have to fuel them. Any Russian troops next to your troops are potentially vulnerable.

And if you are thinking about evacuating your units... look at the situation and think again. It costs as much supply to attack adjacent units with a panzer battalion as it costs to move it. Never move armored units except to attack, or if you absolutely must retreat right now to the next good defensive line. There are very few situations so bad a good counterattack will not postpone the problem for a turn.

Several Techniques to Keep in Mind

Deal with Russian penetrations immediately. Any time the Russians make a bulge or hole in your line, patch it, preferably by destroying the hole-makers. Otherwise, you are asking to be enveloped, as their mobile forces--and infantry!--force a breach and pour through the hole. Note that driving back the Russians is preferable to merely moving more forces in to maintain the line: the Russians can play that game longer than you can.

Overrun only worthwhile targets. A good rule of thumb is to assume that on any turn you use a panzer division in a multiple-overrun assault, you'll lose one unit from it. (You will usually have to take option results as losses so you can keep moving-if you don't, you'll end up too close to the front lines and then the Russian counterattack will destroy you.) Don't overrun things that aren't worth a lost unit. In particular, it's usually not worth it to overrun single units sitting in nonopen terrain. Unless they're doing something obnoxious like blocking a supply line, cut them off from resupply and let them starve instead. Likewise, you would prefer to overrun at 5:1 +2 if it all possible; lowerodds overruns are too likely to result in a loss. 4:1 or 5:1 +3 is even better.

Hit the low-quality troops first. The Russians will burn up enough of their 4 AR infantry leading attacks, and you're only +2 overrunning them after you DG them. Better to hit the 3 AR units and attack at +3 after they're DGed-and 12-2-2 divisions alone in the front line should be obliterated on sight. Attacking any full Russian division costs him 2T in defensive supply: you might as well attack the ones that are easiest to kill.

Keep reserves handy; keep a solid line. The two go hand in glove: reserves are fairly useless if not protected from enemy air attack and perhaps overruns by enemy armor. The line protects the reserves; the reserves deal with threats to the line. If you don't have enough troops to form a line and reserves, it's probably time to pull back to the next line. The Russians will usually spend a turn or two catching up with you, which gives you time to form a new line and maybe move reinforcements to the threatened sector.

Pair off your panzer divisions. A single panzer division can carry out two attacks, assuming it follows the usual plan (stay 3-4 hexes behind the line so it won't get shelled; move forward and attack; move back behind the line to avoid getting crushed in the next enemy turn). This is not enough to seriously dent an incoming Soviet offensive. You would really like to have at least two divisions in reserve behind each sector, so they can team up and deliver a crushing blow. This opens up several possibilities, such as using one division to break open a small gap that lets the other one hit ZOC-blocked enemy positions (you want to make sure as many defender option results as possible are losses, not retreats.) Another possibility is to use one division in combat mode to attack, and a second in move mode to finish off the stragglers. Of course, the Soviets will be doing their best to keep you from having adequate reserves.

Know the difference between defensive and offensive reserves. Defensive reserves are either artillery, to shell attacking Russian units (usually a waste of supply, except perhaps in chokepoint situations like the river gap north of Kirovograd where only a few stacks can attack at all), or units in combat mode, which move in to reinforce stacks DGed by bombing or to form a second line behind an area where you think a hole is going to open up. Offensive reserves are the movemode stacks intended to go out during the exploit phase and annihilate enemy stacks after your air and artillery have disorganized them. Don't confuse the two... and have them both available, if possible.

And, of course, keep in mind that occasionally you do want combat-mode reserves on the offensive for sheer crunch power, or move-mode defensive reserves (very nice for overrunning enemy tank battalions that penetrate into your rear to spot for their artillery, or for moving a good distance to patch a hole or guard a flank.)

Always adapt your tactics to the situation. Use your fortresses cleverly. Your boss won't let you give up cities. Take advantage of this. Make sure that cities won't fall to a rapid Soviet attack (build hogs, place AR 5 units in the cities, and use four or five steps), then fall back behind them. When the Soviets move up to surround the city, attack heavily and take advantage of the free barrage spotters and ZOCblockers in their rear. Never forget that while units in cities cannot leave them, nobody ever forbade the garrisons to attack adjacent units.

By the way, you should never build hedgehogs anywhere but in VP cities you intend to hold for some timethe supply expenditure could pay for a couple of panzer overruns instead, which are much more destructive to the enemy. And a level 1 hog is probably enough: it gives you combat shifts and a benefit on the bombardment table. A level 3 or 4 hog isn't worth it, unless you are defending the west edge of the map with almost no units and can't spend all the supply you're getting.

Don't give up

It's not over until the sudden-death victory is scored. The Soviet player has to take cities (and the Dnepr bank) to make that happen, which will force him to eat a lot of supply, giving your army a breather and a chance to regroup for a counteroffensive. Your cities can hold out for a long time; an AR 5 unit, under a hog, even DGed, is more likely to shift the surprise roll in your favor.

If you can ride out the first 10-12 turns of the game and hold onto Uman, Vinnitsa, and Nova-Ukrainka for that length of time, things start working in your favor. Once the eastern cities fall, the Russians have to move a long ways to reach more worthwhile targets, and you can fight them freely while they're advancing across the open spaces. If you can last long enough to fall back behind the Bug, the burden of attack is on the Russians, not on your defense.

This may be the hardest task in OCS. I've only pulled it off once, and I was aided by some Russian blunders (plus I had the optional supply in the organic trucks). But it's a very sweet accomplishment.

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