The soviet ukrainian fronts faction design

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GENERAL INFORMATION

First. With the proposed faction design, I want to share MY point of view of a potential soviet(!) faction. Because of the current pollical situation and the barbaric Russian war of aggression against a sovereign state I want to please everyone within this thread to talk and use the word SOVIETS and not Russians. Russians were part of the “soviet state” but they ARENT the soviets. Furthermore, the faction is based on the soviet “Ukrainian fronts” armies, and these were a heavy mixed and sometimes Ukrainian dominated force. I have chosen these fronts because they were leading the push in southeast Europe. That is the main reason for my choice in terms of theatre and unit design. I would be happy when we could try to stick to the historical frame and try to talk about the “soviets” here or by using the “historical unit names” and not by referring to the ongoing conflict that is making the entire situation worse. 

So I have to thank you very much for your empathy and carefulness in the topic here. I hope that moderators will have an eye to the tone and language here and I will welcome a hard moderation when needed to keep the threat clean of any political problems. Thanks a lot to everyone.

Design questions

When u are interested in other proposals and when u are interested in the way I try to get into faction design feel free to watch these other posts first because they will offer u a better deep dive into my way of CoH faction design and my overall design goals and targets.

So have fun with the 

ITALIAN PROPOSAL (click here)

FREE FRENCH PROPOSAL (click here)

Thank you very much! U are welcome to leave a comment to the proposals! 

A short and very simplified background

In 1944 the war at the eastern front had changed. The days of large scale german counter offensives had ended. The days of desperate soviet counter attacks had ended too. With the iconic disaster of the german 6th Army (and the Romanian forces) at Stalingrad the war at the eastern front had turned in favour of the soviet armed forces. 1943 saw a mix of german actions with successful soviet counteractions. The battles of Kursk and Charkiv had depleted the refilled ranks of the german tank forces and the winter of 1943/44 and the first months of 1944 ended in a number of Pyrrhic victories or “Pyrrhic battles” for the red army that had cost both side many men and material but allowed the soviet forces to push the german to the Romanian boarder. 

And here the “front” calmed down. Both sides were taking time to “lick one's wounds”. The germans were building up a new defensive line with the rebuild of a new 6th army and the integration of more Romanian forces into the main defensive actions. The Hungarians were mobilising the reserve armies in the homeland to prepare a defensive line at the Carpathian Mountains. The soviets in their side were using the months to recruit new men from the liberation Ukrainian territory to refill the ranks of the soviet divisions in the area. Influenced by the victories from Stalingrad down to Odessa the red army was now planning for a large-scale summer offensive. Started by the central fronts the soviet Operation Bagration should end the german occupation of prewar soviet territories. The southern fronts – here the 2nd, 3rd and 4th Ukrainian fronts of the red army – should start a summer offensive to crush down the german eastern puppets of Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary. The overall goal was a push deep into the flank of the german forces and the defeat of the german allies. Perhaps Stalin even had hopes to get to his dreamed target of Greek coastline to establish soviet influence at the Mediterranean coast. 

These is now the “background” for my upcoming soviet red army proposal. It will be built around the “history” of the 3 Ukrainian fronts and its battles in the southeastern part of Europe and its push from Bucharest over Budapest and Belgrade to Vienna. 

The military situation

Red army

Before we have a look into the faction proposal, I want to use the space to get a look into the military situation. With Operation Bagration and D-Day dominating the history of ww2 for 1944 many people have forgotten that there were events somewhere else. To get a first feeling I want to show the “impact” of the chosen background here by having a look into military dimensions. So lets do a deep dive into the “soviet red army OOB” for the scenario.

Keep in mind that soviet naming convention doesn’t fit with western terms. We will have a look into it later on.

With the planed offensive against Romania the soviet forces have concentrated 3 fronts at the Romanian boarder. The 2nd, 3rd and 4th Ukrainian Fronts were veterans of the 1943-44 battles.

The 2nd Ukrainian Front had 8 army commands and 22 corps commands of which 4 were mechanized commands and could be counted as “divisions” instead. The front had 34 infantry divisions of various conditions, 12 Guards infantry divisions, 3 cavalry divisions (2 guards), 7 guards airborne divisions and various smaller brigades and attachments. The front had the 5th Air army with its close air support assets of 4 bomber “divisions” (2 guards), 4 Sturmovik “divisions” (3 guards) and 6 fighter “divisions” (3 guards). The biggest “special” unit of the 2nd Ukrainian Front was the 1st Romanian Infantry Division, a volunteer formation that was formed from Romanian POWs to “show” the support of the Romanian soldiers for the liberation of their country from “fascist influence”. 

The 3rd Ukrainian Front had 5 armies with 12 corps commands of which a single corps was mechanized. The front could send in 20 infantry divisions, 14 guards infantry divisions and a guard’s airborne divisions plus some smaller brigades and combat formations. The Front was supported by 3 Air “Armies” that were only air corps in size with a total of 2 bomber divisions, 4 Sturmovik divisions (2 guards) and 4 fighter divisions (1 guard). 

On paper the 2 fronts could get additional troops by the “separated maritime army” that was formed during the liberation of the crimea and that was left behind to guard the peninsula. The army formed the pool and backbone of the new creation of the 2nd “4th Ukrainian Front” in August 1944 that was created to push through the Carpathian Mountains into the Hungarian heart land and from Slovakia into Czech territory. The “maritime army” had 3 corps commands, 7 infantry divisions, 3 mountain trained divisions and other brigade sized support elements. The army was later reenforced by units from the 2nd and 3rd Ukrainian fronts that were replacing their loses with new units formed from Romanian and Bulgarian forces. 

The 3 fronts had only limited armored support. Most of its armor was given to the central and northern fronts for their big summer offensive. To compensate the lack of armored “corps” the southern fronts had more SU-76 (and later ISU-122 and 152) “attachements” plus they could form armored units from the “liberated” Romania and Bulgaria. 

During the campaign the fronts were reinforced by additional corps and divisions sent from the STAVKA’s reserve (the red army high command) to the southern battlefields but with the limited resources and the manpower shortage the red army southern fronts were forced to recruit more and more local men and form “volunteer forces” to reinforce the soviet combat units. Furthermore, with the large number of german armor in Hungary the Red Army was forced so send “more armored units” to the battlefield to get an armored fist against the axis fortified frontlines forcing the red army to reposition some of its armored units. 

The axis forces

The axis forces weren’t lazy in 1944. The germans know that they had lost their best chances in the war for a decisive strike against the red army. They know that they are now in a war of attrition they cant win without defending vital key areas. One of these areas was seen at the Romanian oil center of Ploesti. Romanian oil made a large portion of the available oil sources for the german forces. Germany had tried to expand the natural oil sources as best as possible, but the Austrian and polish oil fields couldn’t produce as much oil as the Romanian oil fields. With the Baltics the germans were now losing their access to oil sand and with the growing attacks of the allied air forces against the german synthetic oil industry their “stop gap solution” based on the rich german coal sources was starting to dwindle. The silver lining on the horizon was the discovery of the Hungarian oil fields that start to produce fuel in bigger quantities in 1944. But these oil fields werent sufficient to compensate the Romanian oil at all. For that reason, the german army high command was convinced that the soviets would launch their summer offensive against Romania to cut off german oil supplies for once and for all. With these in mind the german forces had send its remaining reserved and best units down to the southern front lines. 

Separated by the Carpathian Mountains the german forces were split into the Heeresgruppe Nordukraine and Heeresgruppe Südukraine – Army group Northern Ukraine and Army group Southern Ukraine. Hrg. Nordukraine had 2 Panzer armies and the 1st Hungarian army under its command. All in all there were 7 Panzer-Divisions, 1 PzGrenadier-Division, 22 Infanterie-Divisionen, 1 “Ski Division”, 3 Jäger-Divisions, 1 Artillery-Division, 2 security divisions, 5 SS-Divisions (foreign infantry divisions) and 2 SS-Brigades in the command area plus 2 Korps-Abteilungen (Korps-Abteilungen were “corps” that were in command of the shattered remnants of former infantry divisions. On paper a Korps-Abteilung had the strength of a weak infantry division). The Hungarian army had only 6 weak infantry divisions and 2 mountain brigades in the frontline. 

The second large axis formation was the Heeresgruppe Südukraine. The Army group was in command of 3 german armies and 2 romanian armies. The german forces had 6 Panzer-Divisions (one was the elite Großdeutschland-Division), 1 PzGrenDiv, 20 Infantry-Divisions, 2 Korps-Abteilungen, 1 training division, 1 infantry brigade, 1 SS PzDivision, 2 mountain divisions and 2 Jäger divisions. Romania send its 3rd and 4th Army. They had the “elite Romanian Guards-Division”, 1 armored division, 2 semi motorized cavalry divisions, 3 mountain divisions and 12 infantry division. The 1st Romanian Army defend the flank to the north with its 7 infantry, 3 cavalry and 1 mountain division but it wasn’t involved into the active defense.

One big issue of the axis defence in the area was the ongoing Romanian-hungarian disputes. Both sides were keeping army sized units back at the Hungarian-romanian boarder to be prepared against a move of the other side. 

The axis on their side had only limited aerial support by the weakened german and Romanian air forces. 

With the soviets breaking through they would later engage additional axis units in form of the german Heeresgruppe E in Greece and the Heeresgruppe F in former Yugoslavia. Both “Heeresgruppen” were weak and armed by secondary units that were tasked in coastal defence and anti-partisan missions. Both army groups together could field 3 weak mechanized divisions, 2 fortress divisions, 1 airlanding division, 3 Jäger-Division, 1 SS cavalry division, 1 cavalry division, 1 mountain division, 3 SS divisions, 7 infantry divisions and several auxiliary units like the Cossacks cavalry division or other “liberation corps”.

Organisation is everything

With the numbers done its useful to have a look into military naming and the so called “Tables of Organisation” (TOE aka KStN for the germans here ?).

The red army was separated into Fronts, Armies, Corps and the tactical manoeuvre elements like Divisions and Brigades. 

By looking at the names they are the same to the western armies like the germans with “Heeresgruppen” (army groups), Armeen (armies), Korps (corps) and Divisionen and Brigaden. The same can be said for the western allies with allied army groups, armies, corps and the manoeuvre units. The game gets spicy when looking in the TOEs.

When the war started the soviets had a typical rifle division strength of up 18.000 men. A typical red army cavalry division had 9.200 men and a soviet tank division had 11.000 men. These numbers are close to the western counter parts of the time. The system is falling apart when the Axis invade the USSR. With the catastrophic loses of 1941 and 1942 soviets started to adjust their TOEs. The end of 1941 saw the dissolving of the “tank divisions”. In 1942 the red army realised that they were in need for armored manoeuvrer elements so they formed new armored brigades and put them under an “armored corps command”. The soviet armored corps of 1942 had an all-time low of 5.600 men with 100 tanks. The number get back to 12.000 men and 208 tanks for a tank corps in 1944. The soviet cavalry dropped from the 9000+ men to an all-time low of 2.800 men resulting in the “concentration” of cavalry divisions into “cavalry corps”. In 1944 the soviet cavalry-mechanized corps had a TOE strength of 21.000 men. With organic tanks, spgs and rocket artillery the mechanized cavalry corps of 1944 formed remarkable combined arms units with impressive manoeuvrability and superior firepower. The infantry saw the biggest changes. The 18.000 men dropped to 14.000 for 1942 and 9.400 men in late 1942. It was down to half of its prewar strength. With the rising infantry loses the red army installed a new system. In 1944 the red army had an authorised rifle division strength of 11.000 men. But when a division dropped under a certain level of manpower the division adopted a new “reduced strength TOE” that was limited to 8.000 or 6.000 or even 4.000 men. When a division was now reinforced the division only got to its “new level TOE”. A 6.000 men division would only get replacements to get back to its 6.000 men TOE and not to its starting 10.000+ TOE. With the reduced TOE adjustments these divisions saw adjustments in support units by reducing support units and indirect fire units to get more men for the rifle units. So a reduced strength division was always less capable in terms of its military potential compared to the “bigger TOEs”. In July 1943 the red army had 381 rifle divisions at the frontline. Out of the 381 division only 75 division had more than 8.000 men. 239 divisions had 6.000 to 7.999 men AND 67 divisions were below 5.999 men with 4 divisions with a TOE limited to 4.000 men only. 

To compensate the rifle division problem the soviets formed the guard’s division. To become a guard’s men a soviet soldier had to fight for a certain time in battle. With its combat experience he would have the chance to get the guard’s title. Often soviet division that had shown their potential in combat were honoured by getting the guard’s title. With the guards’ title the divisions got higher priority in terms of supplies and reinforcements. Often guards units were reinforced by self-propelled gun battalions with SU 76 (or bigger) SPGs. Guard’s corps were often reinforced by guards rocket launcher units or guards artillery units. So in terms of firepower and combined-arms potential these units were always in favour compared to regular “rifle divisions”.

To compare the numbers: The Wehrmacht had an authorised Infantry division strength in 1942 of 16.500 men. Even with the adoption of the binary system the Wehrmacht Infantry division had 12.400 men. A Volksgrenadier-Division had 10.000 men and an “Infanterie-Division neuer Art” (Infantry division new type) had 12.000 men. Sure, the chance of a full manned german division in 1944 was low but unlike to the soviets the german were still trying to concentrate their men and material. An US ID (infantry division) had 14.000 men in 1944 and the British send in 18.500 men with its infantry division. Same story can be seen with the armored division; with a soviet tank corps in 1944 with 12.000 men and the mentioned 208 tanks faced a german division with 16.000 down to 14.000 men and 191 armored vehicles (160 tanks + 31 tank destroyers). The Allied had a regular strength of 10.000 (US tank division) up to 15.000 men (British division) with 251 tanks (US) or 309 tanks (UK). 

So by looking at the numbers u can see the problem: A soviet tank corps hitting a german tank division in battle could be at the same level of strength and capabilities. The problem is rising with the infantry where a soviet rifle division corps could have the same strength of a german triangular infantry division. With these in minds soviet numbers are getting a new dimension. On paper the soviets overwhelmed the axis with many armies and corps. In reality the real combat strength was “lower” compared to the impression created by the “big names” of the units thrown into combat by the red army. 

Perspectives

With the numbers and frame done it is time to have a look into the historical red armed forces in the selected theatre. What was their combat doctrine or tactics. What could be used for a CoH game faction. With that in mind I wont focus on all elements here because it would end another large wall of text. But to get the idea done I will start with a different approach here – a view that is easier for me to get because its done in my mother tongue; I will start by looking into the german point of view.

The red wave is coming!

To be honest the perspective of the red army is often dominated by the german sources. With the cold war the access to soviet documents was limited and german memories and war documents were a welcome addition in western military studies to get a “perspective of the bad and stupide enemy”. That is one of the places where many misconceptions and false expectations were born – ideas and “memes” that still dominate the common idea of the red armed forces in ww2. 

With these in mind many concepts are dominated by the german onslaught of 1941 and 1942. Ideas of the red army’s human wave attacks and headless front assault are rooted in these days when many bad trained and unprepared red army soldiers were overrun by the battle hardened german forces. Encircled and with limited heavy weapons and a bad organised officer’s corps massed frontal assault were often the only way out of a situation because they were easy to organise and don’t need that sort of organisation compared to combined arms operations. 

The idea sticked to the red army in the next years but the german side changed. In 1943 and 1944 the germans were more and more overwhelmed by the red army’s wave attacks. Nowadays people think that the red army kept the human wave alive but that is not true. In 1944 the red army had learned that a massed industrialised attack and a “Schwerpunkt” concept (centre of gravity – here a point of high military focus) would be more in favour with the red army’s offensive approach. Furthermore, the officer’s corps was now more experienced, and the moral was boosted by successful campaigns. 

In german documents a typical soviet attack in 1944 would start with a short but massive artillery barrage with gun artillery and rocket artillery. In support the battlefield was swarmed by the “black death” – der Schwarze Tot (or Betonflugzeug – concrete airplane or Eiserner Gustav – iron Gustav) – the Il-2 Sturmoviks, to support the massive fire operation. After the barrage the soviet T-34s would storm the battlefield with the tank riding soviet infantry followed by an endless wave of men crying “Hurra” (or by german sources “Uraaaaa”). The tank riders and their PPsH SMGs would lay down a hell of gun fire. The gun blazing T-34s were just running straight in on direction with firing round by round. It’s a nice and impressive picture but it’s a simple picture and its heavy influenced by the fact that the german side had changed. 

The point is that the basic idea is quite close to a typical soviet assault in 1944 but the effect is “overrated” by the germans here because unlike 1941 concentrated and well-equipped soviet forces met depleted german units that were desperate in holding a line by all costs until the always expected german Panzers arrive to save the day…

The point is that the germans were under the impression of soviet massed waved attacked because their own ranks were depleted and unlike 1941 they were now on the receiving end... 

Red Army assaults

The soviets on their side had learned their lessons. The soviets learned that a massed and centralised assault by overwhelming fire would do the trick. The artillery was now the best weapon in the arsenal. The red army realised that soldiers were a short resource and they needed men to keep the production numbers high. With that in mind the red army started to “invest” into an offensive by spending shells and weapons. For a large assault the red army would concentrate its artillery – often concentrated in artillery brigades and rocket launcher battalions – to a sector for a sort of saturation bombardment. With that bombardment it was the time of the soviet tanks. The soviets tended to “expand” tanks like ammunition; throw them in battle once and its fine. Any additional battle is a win from the tank production (and crew) side. These strategies weren’t intended but with the limited tank maintaining capabilities the result was often in this direction. One problem in soviet offensive operations was the lack of an APC or IFV for accompanying infantry. For that reason, the soviet tank riders were borne. The soviets add grips to the tanks to allow infantry to use the tank “to ride into battle”. These tank riders were often armed with SMGs to give them the most possible amount of firepower as possible and because of the fact that the soviets cant move or pull other weapons like heavy MGs or heavy guns into battle. The downside of the tank rider concept was the result of loses of these men because of incoming fire from axis forces that focus fired tanks and tank riders to stop an attack before it could get into close combat range. When such an attack was broken by fire before they could reach the “close combat range” the chances were good that the soviets would stop the attack and reorganise for a new run or different approach. 

Often these massive and direct approaches are kept in mind when people talk about the soviet army offensives in 44 and 45 and the high casualties of the direct approach. On the other side the tactics were supported by the Guards men and their experience. When the red army wasn’t in a full head on assault the red army men showed their skills and the lessons they have learned. Small assault teams for aggressive scouting were testing german and axis lines for weakpoints. Attacks were often launched at frontline sectors were german divisional boarders were found because these links were often weak and could create a natural crack in a defensive line. These small infiltration units were often supported by one of the most important weapons of the red army; the 120mm PM-38 and its lighter replacement, the PM-43 mortars. These mortars were often placed in forward positions to allow for fire support for infiltration teams. When axis strongpoints like MG nests were spotted the 120mm mortar was called in to end the threat. With this combination the red army created a tactic of small pinprick like harassments. The idea was to exhaust the enemy by wearing. When there was no large scall attack the axis units had to be kept on alert against the raiding parties all the time. The mortars and soviet MGs were harassing all targets whenever possible. The entire system of terror and wearing was completed by the famous Po-2 night bomber attacks. The germans called them “Rollbahnhuren” – road whores (sry for the wording but it’s a historical term) because these aircrafts were always in the air. The Po-2 soon turned into the terror of the night. Protected by the night Po-2 units were flying over axis territories. Whenever they thought they would have found something they turned off the engine and started to glide to drop the light bombs in silence. At the end it wasn’t important to destroy military targets or kill enemies. They were the night dominating element of the terror and wearing campaign. Axis soldiers were always on the run, and they were terrified by soviet raiders or the night witches (the night bombers). U can see the effect by the fact that the germans copy-pasted the concept in 1944 with the “Nachtschlachtgruppen” – night combat air groups. 

The last element within the reign of wearing and terror were the Guards. These men had seen battles, so they were familiar with axis tactics, and they can’t be shocked that easy. These men were veterans and they preferred more complicated missions like flanking manoeuvres or coordinated assaults from multiple angles. Guards were often following tank assaults because the guard’s units would keep up the assault when the artillery was out of range and the tanks out of fuel and ammo. These men get into the conquered positions and assault isolated strongpoints because they know how to deal with these situations. 

Historical lessons for a game faction

With that preset done its time to talk about the two central elements of my proposed red army faction. One element is stress – a new combat modifier that is a soviet system to supress infantry targets. Another element is the guards veteran status – a new vet level that is somewhere on top of regular vet3 for other factions.

Stress

Soviets had a problem with mobile MG fire support. The classic soviet MG, the Maxim MG, was mounted to a heavy wheel carriage. The MG PM1910 on the carriage was clumsy and with 66kg not a mobile support weapon that could follow advancing infantry. For that reason, the soviets started the development of new MGs before the war. MGs like the DP MG were light but couldnt support infantry with long fire bursts. MGs like the DShK offered more firepower compared to the Maxim but the weapon was heavier compared to the Maxim versions. And MGs like the new SG-43 arrived too late in too small numbers to replace the Maxims. 

So with the limitations of the soviet MGs the soviets were looking for mobile fire support to suppress enemies in combat. The result of the problem was a soviet obsession with submachine guns. The PPsh started after the soviet-finnish winter war where soviets encountered finnish SMGs in combat. Impressed by the firepower and close combat capabilities the soviets build a low weight easy to build and operate version; the PPSh. In combat the firepower of the PPSh was used to lay down a constant rain of bullets to enemy’s positions. Hitting targets wasn’t the main task here. With the amount of bullets the enemy had to keep his head down and when the soviets were close enough hitting wont be the problem with a bullet spamming SMG.

With that in mind stress is a new combat modifier to compensate the lack of the classic CoH Blob control MGs. With the soviet faction all small arms can create stress depending on the fire speed of the weapon. Carbines and rifles are less ideal to laydown a constant stream of bullets. Semiautomatic rifles are better but not as ideal as the famous soviet SMGs. At the end all soviet weapons can create stress at the enemy. When a maximum level of stress is gained the unit hit by the soviet rifle fire is suppressed – like it would have been suppressed by normal MG fire. 

Within that system SMGs are ideal to stress blobs or enemies in mid to close range. Light MGs or combined rifle and semi auto rifle fire is ideal to pin down selected single units. The effect is that soviets are the best close combat monsters and should be focused fired or fought by mid to long range weapons.

I can see the danger here that with the ability of all soviet weapons to lay down “stressing fire” people could consider the system to be broken from the get-go. But on the other side I think it would be a balance question depending on the amount of stress each rifle type can create to a single selected unit or to a blob or units. In my “head” the concept would only allow rifle and semiauto rifles to pin down handselected single squads when fire supremacy is achieved. The SMGs – and here the 6men PPsgh merged squad OR a LMG unit with a 3men PPsh squad could create a blob control deny zone. When it wont work at all the faction would need a classic tier MG. For the moment I will keep classic heavy MGs in the Battlegroups to give players a sort of choice or sort of gameplay element they can chose from (like: u want to play classic MG? Okay. U have to take BG A or B with all its “downsides”).

Merge

To get the best out the stress system the basic soviet infantry squad is just 3-men strong squads. To get the ideal firepower and to minimize micromanagement soviets can merge 3-men squads into 6-men standard squads. With these system soviets can build squads depending on their needs and combat situations. When soviets are in need for a close combat suppressing unit the soviets can merge 2x 3-men PPsh-Squads to get a full 6-men armed SMG team for fast suppressing firepower. The other side is a more balanced light MG or semiauto rifle squad that can work for selected unit pin down fire on longer ranges or to keep german units at range. 

The merge system can be used on the other side to protect viable field support units and protect them in combat against snipers or against squad vibes. With the idea that healing and repairing is limited to a specialised squad these squads are vital to keep your army alive. So these units would be key targets for the enemy and to protect these key units merge could be used to protect these men with the downside investing more popcap to boost the viability of the healing and repair squad.

As long as a squad isn’t merged the squad will always reinforce to 3 men at the HQ with out reinforcement. When 2 squads were merged the squad will form a new 6-men unit that will be reinforced to 6-men strength when they have lost men in combat.

With the merge system BG based infantry can be another interesting choice to get working infantry to the field faster or to ignore merge questions when combining your army to counter specific combinations of the enemy.

Guards veteran status

The biggest deal in the soviet gameplay system is the soviet veterancy system. Unlike to other factions’ soviets can’t gain vet 3 in combat by default. Standard unit can earn vet 2 only. 

The deal is that vet2 unit can be promoted to guard units by “buying” the vet upgrade. A squad promoted to guards status have vet3 like combat stats and they have access to selected upgrades that will enforce the combat performance of the unit. 

Vet3 guards upgrades are limited in numbers to reduce the advantage of the buyable vet and to allow the scaling of the effect to add additional ingame resource costs to the upgrade by forcing the players to upgrade soviet team buildings with the guards upgrade to get more vet3 guards units. The soviet HQ can support 2 guards units by default. Each building can be upgraded to get access to 2 additional guards units. In total soviets can promote 10 units to guards status. The number can be adjusted. The “small” number is set here because it is forcing players to think about what unit they will promote. 

To get a lategame counter effect soviets can upgrade units without vet 2 into guards when all guard upgrades in all buildings are unlocked. That mechanic will allow soviets to counter lategame casualties by saving resources for replacements. 

To compensate the guards structure some battlegroups are offering access to regular units that can earn regular vet3 by combat without getting counted to the guards limit. These doctrines and their callins could be interesting for players who want to spend their munition and fuel to unit abilities and early tank callins. In its extreme version a soviet player could just use callin units to play with combat earned vet and to save the vet upgrades for selected units like heavy weapons or vehicles.

To get a sort of balance into the system the “guards stats” would be a bit superior to the vet stats adjustments the other faction will get with vet3 levels. On the other side with the remaining soviet units limited to vet2 only OR by forcing soviets into playing a certain BG with a standard vet3-capable unit could be utilized to balance the effect of having a small number of “better performing” high priority target units. 

I know that “buyable vet” isn’t well liked by players. CoH1 had the Wehrmacht with full buyable vet and with CoH2 we had commanders with buyable vet options plus a faction that could get 2 additional vet levels (King Tiger with vet5; oh boi… that was nasty). CoH3 had now BGs with abilities that will boost starting units to vet1 or buyable vet1 in a faction. So the overall concept of buyable veterancy isn’t new and the proposed system is just a new iteration of systems we have already seen In the history of CoH faction design. It should be able to be balanced because the system of balancing these “buyable vet levels” are already well established. 

Tier structure

To get a sort of balance into the tier structure the soviet forces can start with a  tier 1 or tier 2 opening. In combination both tiers offer the base units needed to get into the mid game. The alternative is a tier 1 or tier 2 opening with a tier 3 or tier 4 addition. To get tier 3 or tier 4 on of the previous 2 tier building must be build before. The Tier 3-4 option is offering more specialised compared to the more generic Tier 1 and tier 2 unit pool but on the other side the Tier 3 and tier 4 will offer more punch. At the long run it is recommended to get all 4 tiers because u need them to get more Guards units and to get access to the SU 100 and T-34/85 to deal with axis armor. To add a layer of resource addition and timing element the “mid game arsenal” and the “late game” arsenal is locked behind CoH1 Wehrmacht liked “battle phase upgrades”. These upgrades are needed to prevent a sort of resource saving gameplay. U should build the soviet tiers and u shouldn’t be rewarded for skipping tiers just to rush to a weapon at the end of one of these tiers. 

Battlegroups

To get bigger images; right click and open in a new tab!

Summary

And with all that said its time to get to an end here now. The proposed soviet army is a wild mix of lighter weapon designs, high gameplay flexibility and certain balance design decisions. The proposed army is cheap to buy but expansive to upgrade and maintain. Without the classic MG the faction is forced into some workarounds by focus firing on certain damage dealing enemies or by SMGs gameplay for massive stressing firing. Both ways are allowing the enemy to counter these threats by focusing to ranged combat or by invest into early armor. Guards upgrades and the unit upgrades locked behind the guards level will force soviet players to think about resource investment and unit preservation. Keeping units alive and save ammunition and fuel for vital upgrades will be key for the soviet gameplay. Light team weapons and light vehicles will compensate the lack of an APC/IFV within the faction. Tank riding infantry will allow for unit transportation on larger maps. The gameplay elements of stress and guards upgrades offering a unique new addition to the existing CoH3 factions and could be interesting for Pvp players who will look for a dynamic and flexible faction gameplay that will need a sort of situation awareness to get the most out of the new elements. 

And with all that said and done have fun with the design proposal. U are welcome to leave a comment and share the concept or to use elements to work on your own proposals. Feel free to add ideas or comments here. And keep in mind that it is just the first iteration and not a fully worked out design. Its more or less a “proof of concept” design that such a faction could work and would be interesting to play with. 

Have fun!

Rommel