Leopard's FoW Soviets

[leopard]

Ok, following Campaign 2016 a few sessions have been observed by Bolokov as his troops tickled various Germans.

The issue is inability to handle enemy infantry, the list eats armour for breakfast with just the troops and the tools they have thus it is important to do nothing that will hamper this.

So the core of the army must remain two Strelkovy companies, who must have attached pioneers, flame throwers and anti tank rifles, so this is considered the core of the army.

To give the infantry more punch, specifically to be able to pin enemy troops without outside help, and to be able to punish infantry that are falling back, hence we upgrade to Rifle/MG from just the rifle teams, so able to actually hurt dug in, GtG veterans while still moving. We then upgrade one platoon to have SMG to provide a much higher level of close range punch when on the move, while still able to use the rifle/mg teams for warm bodies defensively.

Large artillery is dropped to be replaced with the more efficient 120mm mortars, a more accurate option that the artillery and useful for blowing a hole.

the regimental guns are a 6th platoon that is useful but will normally be hidden away as being highly fragile.

Final addition is to add four SU-85, fragile but good guns, aiming to use them as I would fragile panzers - i.e. out of sight until there is a specific target for them, they can hurt panthers, or at least scare them. The purpose here is to bring in something that can hurt armour beyond 4”

We end up thus:

HQ, 9x pioneer teams and supply cart
Strelkovy, 2x rifle/mg & 1x SMG platoon, commissar
Strelkovy, 2x rifle/mg & 1x SMG platoon, commissar
12x PTRD to combat attach to the above
4x flame throwers to combat attach
6x 120mm mortar
4x regimental guns
4x SU-85

Note this army lacks the previous “auto attacks” and “infiltration” tools, the former is less useful than imagined, though fun to force panthers to defend, we go back to having the dice off or defending against armour, we can of course still mount an aggressive defence which may even be more of a surprise. Half off is only the Strelkovy on the table, the rest in reserve which works nicely to keep them safe.

Infiltration needs the ‘Always attacks’ option to make it work, so its removal saved 100pts for other things.

This puts two full sized platoons down, they lack HMG support, it would be possible to drop the regimental guns (down to four platoons) and to embed HMG, this may be considered.

More importantly this list has a good chance to defend against its previous nemesis, veteran infantry, who will seriously struggle attacking this lot. Its also not that easy to score points from

This does means assembling some more SU-85, or using SU-100 in a proxy role as I have six of them.

[leopard]

Ahhhh Bolokov...

Learnt a few things at Challenge 2016, tried the Rifle/MG upgrade to lift firepower and allow adding an SMG platoon into each Strelkovy company. The intention was to provide the ability to pin infantry without needing the flame throwers, to allow a second assault if the first turn failed.

Didn't work, yes they roll more dice but against veteran infantry its not enough, or at least not enough for what it costs.. So will be going back to the plain rifle teams to save a bucket load of points.

Still need to think of a way to actually force an assault home, problem is that while they need 10 hits to bounce, generating 10 hits against conscripts isn't really all that hard, plus they lack the ability to winkle out dug in troops apart from the flame throwers.

Wondering on trying out a Storm Company, brings a few trained troops in an otherwise conscript army, and allows a lot of flexibility, speaking to a few at the event recently it appears the unit is considered overcosted with the issue being if you get the configuration wrong they are worse than useless so it sounds like they need practice and a very specific role in a given scenario.

Also noted that the three Su-85, as expected, are too risky to be useful - the expected ambush role didn't work and they are just too easy to hit and remove. Also unexpectedly the heavy mortars proved very vulnerable to ranged fire and are too small to survive it, it seems that any platoon that can't sustain a turn of fire without being above half size is basically too small.

This is a bit limiting, means infantry formations and infantry formations alone really.

Then there is the other trick that needs an answer, the Finns have captured KV-1, these basically cannot be taken out in assault due to the rear MG - perhaps the Storm guys can do it but the basic pioneers are too few and unskilled for the job.

Much thinking remains to be done

[leopard]

Another day, another battle, this time a 5-2 against some somewhat surprised Americans who presumably thought all that equipment they supplied meant we were on the same side or something.

That or were wondering why the Soviets were in Africa, and why it looked somewhat like Western Europe anyway..


A reasonably "by the numbers" game for Bolokov, one large Strelkovy Battalion infiltrated by scouts towards an objective while another moved towards the other as a combination of diversion and back up plan. Not used to facing effective artillery so took heavy casualties on the way in, including the scout unit which at only three teams is somewhat fragile.

Managed to make contact and damage an armoured artillery force trying to hold an objective alone near a built up area, followed by an assault through some buildings limiting options to defend against it and allowing the artillery to be defeated in a short but bloody assault, the objective secured quickly due to overly cautious American reinforcements concerned about getting into assault range of the weakened but still large infantry battalion with a second one rapidly approaching.

Fun game though, Bolokov always seems to surprise people who expect that horde of infantry to sit back and bubblewrap objectives and find the aggressive advance hard to deal with.

Think under V4 they will be much, much more dangerous, here they passed a few break tests, under V4 they wouldn't even have been testing, they would have also assaulted a turn sooner and the second assault would have followed shortly after.


Had the US deployed both infantry units, with every dismounted .50 cal they could find and dug in they could have had a better chance but would have been too weak after to counter attack back (probably).

Weakness of this list is actually getting the critical assault to go in, its only 10 hits to bounce them, being conscripts thats generally 12 shots which most infantry units can manage even when pinned