I wish to address the topic of how to run a Soviet offensive in the OCS system, but a few more general statements are needed first. Playing the Russians in GB takes more than guts, it also takes skill. Repeated play has confirmed that it is far easier to be a competent German player than a competent Soviet one. Both require prior planning for success, but the German is allowed much more freedom in assembling his plan on the fly. Doing this with the Russians will only lead to disaster. Soviet play requires mastery of a vast number of system skills, a cool head, and a cold pitiless cunning. Nothing less will do. Thankfully, for playtest purposes, Owen Fuller brought all these traits in abundance to the gaming table.

Soviet offensives require a different mind set, a different tempo, and a different method from that practiced by the "hair on fire, fangs out" German player. In Enemy at the Gates, Soviet offensive power is very brittle-those early tank corps can't take much in the way of hits before they are useless. Proper coordination between units, their modes & functions, and the game's turn sequence is the only way to get a Soviet offensive to work with anything nearing acceptable losses. You just can't fight like the Germans do and expect to come out on top-repeated play has shown this. Strangely enough, you must fight the Russians like they really did to make it come together--how odd!

The Soviet offensive in the OCS is a process, not an event. It occurs throughout the length and breadth of the turn and uses attacks of all sorts throughout all the available phases. It has a different tempo than a German offensive and a much more attrition-based mentality.

Preparations

The first "rule" with regards to Russian offensives is that you must plan them ahead of time, and that this planning means much more than what a German player might call "planning." For the German, if he has managed to throw a little supply where he needs it and can get his panzers to the dance on time, he's done a great job of "planning." To be this cavalier with the Russians will make for a very short offensive and a lot of happy Germans.

The Soviet player's offensive plan must include supply accumulation, extensive unit positioning (it takes effort to get those silly Russian infantry divisions to be in place to contribute something and a whole lot of attack sequence planning. If those Katyushas aren't prepositioned, they will not be their to add their weight. The same goes---to a lesser degree--for the regular artillery. The echelons of the attack must be both set up and have their initial objectives assigned. Each unit must have some sort of purpose for the greater good. Since overruns are not the forte of the Red Army (see below), improper attack planning and mode assignment cannot be madeup for in an excessively violent initial movement phase attack.

After you have assembled all the required elements of your offensive (and Stalin is getting pushy), you will notice that all of this took time. Chances are your erstwhile German opponent (the slug) will have attempted to thwart or prepare for your blow (how uncooerative!). Pains must be taken to conceal the offensive's preparations from the enemy. That means strong stacks must be made small to look unimportant (use of DSE markers and carefully spread out forces with weak units on top). Spreading out of forces is important for other reasons, too. Once the Germans have identified a potential offensive, you can expect nearly the full wrath of the Luftwaffe to come down on its head. The Red Air force can help with the protection, but much of the German air power will still slip through. Having the offensive's power spread between numerous like-appearing hexes (with a bunch of identical dummy stacks thrown) will force the German player to spread his air strikes thin. He will find himself laying waste to hexes with a handful of worthless units in diem, and ritissing some important hexes entirely. The more choices he must make with his limited number of air units, the better off you will be. It may be of great use to develop two offensive areas at once, one real, one fake in an effort to divide the Axis airstrikes between them. The more the multiple offensive zones look like each other and, hence, 'real' the better. The really crafty Russian might if he has the resources to pull it off, build up several real offensives at once, and jump off with the one (s?) which are ready first and have suffered the least at the hands of the Germans.

Soviet planning must be broad-based not detail-based. If your whole offensive relies on the capture of one hex or a particular unit (or its mode), chances are the thing will unravel before it begins. Putting a Soviet offensive on the fly is very difficult- -but not impossible-and usually is of less impact on the Germans than a prepared one. Just be advised that setting it up will take a little time. It should not, however, take too much time or be too obvious (exactly what that means must be left to each player and the personality of his opponent) or the enemy will be. fully prepared for the blow before it lands.

Overruns R Us--NOT!

The first thing a player who has done the Germans will need to unlearn when playing the Russians is to forget about over run is except for very specific uses and times. Since the Russians can't do hip-shoots, there is no way to prepare a target hex for overrun. Also, the action rating differential is on the negative side which causes attacker surprise to be a pipe dream and defender surprise to be an allto-real possibility. Quite frankly except in very special circumstances. I wouldn't bother even considering overruns as a weapon for the Red Army to use. The places where it is used should be

A) to prepare the way for more important (real?) attacks later,
B) really good Soviets vs. obviously inferior Axis units (beware of tricks), and
C) where speed seems to outweigh all other concerns.

Of these, the last is most likely to cause a disaster of sorts, so it is best to check out and weigh all imagined eventualities before leaping in. Both of the first two (especially in combination) might make good sense at one time or another, regardless the point is that the primary method of fighting for the Germans is a secondary one for you.

The Movement Phase

During the first Movement Phase of the offensive a number of things must happen and all of them must occur with brutal effectiveness and coordination. The last minute deployments and preoffensive movements must be carried out so that everything is in place and ready to go for all of the assorted phases of the first turn's attack. This may mean movement of reserves closer to the front, prepositioning of artillery forward of the start line for deep attacks, and the repositioning of HQs.

One of the earliest steps in the actual execution of a Soviet style offensive is a complete infiltration of the enemy front line and near-in reserves. If your opponent has craftily formed a continuous line of units, a few sharp overruns might be needed to blow a weak unit or two out of the way. Barring that, the forward infantry divisions (some in Move Mode, others not) should ooze through the front-line and surround all of the Axis units out to a depth of about five hexes. Naturally, the deeper ones might require a tank unit or two. Surroundmg should be taken quite literally-it is not good enough to cut off their combat supply, you want him to take every option result as a loss. The actual 'results' of the first turn's attacks cannot be observed until the end of the first Exploitation Phase--by which time stubborn Nazi hexes will have been overrun twice, barraged up to three times, and

attacked once with an extensive accumulation of multiple option, step and retreat results which should eliminate even the largest units in the game.

As soon as the initial infiltration movements are finished, each of the front-line hexes should be hit by an overrun by a pair of infantry divisions. Chances are these divisions may be all but destroyed in the attempt, but the goal is to force the enemy to take at least one option result as a loss per hex. With the target out of combat supply, even the Soviet 'Jerry's Kids' might be able to pull off a decent overrun (unless surprise intervenes dramatically) and dish out one or two step losses.

Be sure to station large numbers of fighters in big groups out where they can provide cover for where you expect to be at the end of the turn and especially to cover your positions during the first German Reaction Phase. A little known fact about the air to air system is, while most players realize they are better off attacking than defending, that a defender doubling is more than worth the difference in probabilities and can be used with devastating effect with weaker (read: Russian) air units. In other words, form big stacks and Let the Luftwaffe try to sweep you out. If you have a bunch of lousy fighters in a hex and two good ones, you can use all your doublings to add the two good ones together. This could come as a rude awakening for the German used to clobbering Russian Fighters at will.

Heavy Barrage Preparations

Just like in real life, Soviet armies in the game come equipped with an energetic artillery component Since your combat method of choice involves the regular Combat Phase, this is a good thing. In the key hexes of your axis of advance, you should strive for an artillery barrage which will give you a better than 60% chance at giving the target a DG. More than that might not be better since the point of diminishing returns on the Barrage Table comes sooner than you might think.

Each of the now surrounded hexes should be barraged as per the above with the goal being a DG result. Any step loss win be gravy. Especially important targets can be hit by the Red airforce at the end of the Movement Phase (so that those hcxes get barraged twice before the regular Combat Phase). Those hexes too deep to be hit by artillery during the first Barrage Segment, should be hit by the air force and a good rule of thumb is to use less air power the nearer you get to the front-line and your own artillery and more the farther you get away from it. Pay particular attention to Nazi reserves with the air force. Denying the German his Reaction Phase will ruin his day and make yours.

Again, don't overkill! You are better off making 10 attacks with 25 points each than 2 attacks with 125. Just enough power to hit, say, the 25-40 table will do the trick. The idea is to spread the attrition around in numerous attacks so as to make the total higher, getting a nearly guaranteed kill with an odd chance at more than one step kill isn't going to work.

Regular Combat Phase Attacks

Now is the time for all the "rings" to do their thing. Each of the infiltration rings should now have a DG stack of enemy units inside with a step loss or two. The units which attempted the overrun earlier should also be stacked on the edge of the ring to lend what's left of their weight to the attack. The defender should be at least 1/4 strength right now (1/2 for the DG, and 1/2 for the lack of combat supply), possibly even 1/8 if enough steps have been killed. Hopefully the surprise differential won't be such that a nasty surprise shock will occur (it will happen somewhere, so be prepared) and nothing more than raw odds (in your favor) and a bit of a negative Action Rating dice roll modifier will affect the combat.

Chances are you'll get one of those "L1o1 " style results and that is ok. Make sure you take all attacker options as step losses to ensure that 'Mr. Pocket' will take all of his as the same. Retreat results are more of the same, except cheaper from the Russian point of view. Remember, taking an option as a step loss is an anathema to a German attacker, not so with a Russian. In a fair exchange of steps like that, you'll come out on top.

Exploitation

By the time the Exploitation Phase rolls around, assuming the German hasn't had a great Reaction Phase (you saw to that didn't you??), most of the front-line and many of the second fine Axis formations will have ceased to be. This is the time when you find yourself needing three different types of reserves: Reserve Artillery, Reserve Infantry, and (what amounts to the actual 2nd Echelon of song and story) Reserve Tank & Mech Corps. The first two groups of reserves (the artillery and infantry) are used to mop up any remaining overly heroic Axis stacks and any stacks which were a little too deep to get at earlier. These operations occur in the same manner as the earlier ones, but at a much reduced scale.

The Reserve Tank and Mech units (almost all of those available should be in reserve, don't use these units earlier in the assault unless forced to by important targets which are too deep to get at by the more-sluggish infantry units) are there to drive deep into the Axis lines taking out things like supply dumps, HQs, air bases, and anything else which will force your evil opponent's hair to fall out (what's left of it anyway!). Care must be taken at this step to avoid leaving your mobThe assets hung out to dry-by now your Axis counterpart is drooling about the chance to deploy some Panzers and kick around some of your all-too-brittle Tank Corps. Don't let him have the chance. Keep the reigns tight at this point and pace the tempo of the attack so as to avoid an excessively deep drive which you cannot support.

Follow-On

After the first turn's assault, you will find it extremely difficult to re-establish the needed organization to pull it off again. While you will be able to follow-up the rust turn with movement of infantry and artillery forward, generally speaking, they won't be able to pull up far enough to do a repeat performance. This unfortunate break in contact will allow the Germans to rebuild a line deeper in their rear while you drive forward with the infantry formations. A highly skilled player might be able to force the offensive to last more than a turn or two (not counting simple mop-tip operations), but, in general, the momentum will dissipate as the original organization is expended. Usually, this will mean that another build-up for a future rematch is in order. It may also mean a violent German counterattack which might make holding the gains harder than getting them in the first place.

Conclusion

As in the defense, the offense with the Red Army is a different beast than that experienced by the Germans. It takes a subtle and crafty hand to drive the Red Army forward without making a fool out of yourself and your army. The 'Soviet problem' is a much more complex gaming challenge and requires a finer level of gaming skill to perform at a master's level. Playing the Soviets 'off the cuff' will generally lead to disaster-which will be followed by the Soviet crying about everything from supply, to his units, his aircraft, and blaming the game system for all his failings. When he's done bitching, help him look at the problem of dealing with the Germans with the tools he has at hand. It's a tougher job, no doubt, but we are not here for children's level of challenge.

Having my head handed to me in a recent game of EatG, I can only stress the above and make it conditional in that parts of the above will work in some situations-there are no pat answers to the Soviet Dilemma! More later ... after the lessons are digested.