Slaying the Bear

[catatonic]

Playing the GC-World 2000 scenerio as the U.S. (Capital-Allied Victory) I was dreading my inevitable encounter with the Russian "Bear". They would attack me with "Bear" bombers, super-fighter planes, submarines and probably Special Weapons - nukes.

In reality, things turned out a lot differently. In the year 2035 Russia is still deeply in debt to the tune of 10 times their treasury. Their GNP is just 40% of mine. Their tech level is just 106 ranking them as just 24th in the world.

They have just 78 aircraft in their entire inventory of which just 18 are combat aircraft. And these are dispersed across the huge region so they effectively have no air-power.

Their navy is small for a country of their size. That hardly matters when you are going after their land-locked Capital.

Only their land units and missiles are set to auto-build.

They have no space program.

Only six of their land launcher units are fully loaded, the rest are lightly or unloaded. The combat load-out of their launchers is heavy on anti-personnel missiles and light on anti-armor. Their launchers are loaded for sea as well as land targets, despite being hundreds of km from the sea. This further dilutes their effectiveness in a land war. Again these are dispersed across the region, the likelihood of facing a lot of anti-armor missiles in one particular threatre of operations is small. They have a reserve of just 36 anti-armor land-launched AS-20 Kayak missiles.

They have only 175 tanks in the entire region, many of which are in for repair due to Russia's on-going wars with neighboring regions. But they do have 350 tough bridging units (chuckle), since they have a land-fab or two that can't stop making them. I doubt the their AI even knows how to use a bridging unit.

On the bad side those anti-personnel missiles still have an impact on armor. I just don't know if their AI is smart enough to cross-target them. Smerch MRLS systems still have a default load of rockets with a range of 70 km, and there are a LOT of them. This means that whenever you have an artillery battle with them, they can hit you. They have 655 9K63 MLRS, 152 9K58-B MLRS and a ton of little field pieces.

They have a few nukes of each class, but I doubt that their AI knows how to arm and deploy them. If anyone has launched a nuclear strike on Russia before, please let me know what happened.

They also have 597 AA units (!) including the top-of-the-line SA-20 S-400 Triumf system with a range of 200 km. They also have 41 of the excellent SA-10B units with a range of 150 km. Both systems have high-air attack capabilities. So you want to be real careful about using air-power on the Russians.

Their moral and effeciency are both high.

Anyway, I arrived in Europe by taking Ireland, who refused to Ally with me. But I still needed a place to call home base on the European continent. Most of Western Europe has allied with me and I got transit rights all of the way to Russia. I selected ally Belarus as my new home-away-from-home due to its close proximity to Moscow. I then ruined my newly aquired diplomatic reputation by DOWing Belarus and later Russia - too bad.

I had been working for a year to move my CONUS East coast and Central American units to Europe. I maintain two armies in CONUS - one on the East coast and an entirely seperate one in reserve on the West coast for when I spread into the Pacific. Now I had all of my land units neatly sorted out in little Belarus, but I still had my aircraft and airborne divisions scattered like orphans in nearby Eastern European countries or tucked away in reserve in Ireland. If a region ever needed Lebensraum it was me in Europe, which is ironic for a world power with 1.5 trillion subjects. Sorry, of course I mean citizans.

I DOWed Russia before I was totally ready just to make some room for new air-fields on my own territory. This brought me a lot of new attention from "the Bear" who started trickling over units for me to smash with my huge army of 1700 units. No real serious response though since I had only taken a new strip of land on the Eastern Belarus border. I had a nice river protecting the Southern portion. The Bear was also busy warring with almost every other Eastern European region up and down the line.

As my new air-fields were under construction, I began to survey the Russian territory to the East. I spotted some nice air-fields there too. Since the Russian attacks had stopped and my new border was secure I started to send groups of units out to pick this tempting fruit. Again there was no large-scale response from the Bear, but resistance grew as I reached closer and closer to Moscow.

Before long I had doubled my territory and had finished my new air-fields. I also had new Russian air-fields and barracks too. My airborne and fighter bases were manned and ready. It was time for the big show - time to confront the Bear in its own den.

I chose the distant road leading into North-East Moscow as my approach because it was the least guarded. The N.E. side of the city itself was relatively open to the surrounding countryside there. Initially I envisioned all of my units rolling down this road to Moscow. That is not the way it turned out.

My simple fruit-gathering efforts made is possible for me to roll across country and actually take all of the territory surrounding the Western portion of Moscow. There were to serious engagements.

The first was when I assaulted a barracks/power plant complex mid-way between the former Belarus and Moscow. I had an insuffecient force in the complex when Russian tanks and engineers started rolling up from Moscow. Luckily I had done a good job of neutralizing the Russian AA in the vacinity so I was able to repel the attack with F-22, FB-22 and Terra Rover aircraft. I panicked and loaded them with missiles, which was a mistake. Although I sucessfully repelled the attack it used up every air missile and bomb in my inventory - probably at least two thousand missiles.

Later there was an especially tasty piece of fruit S.W. of the city - a big land-fab complex with a barracks filled with wounded Russian units. I gathered up all on my fruit-picking units and made a big exposed dash for it. This is when I got the second really big defensive response from the Capital.

I did take the complex, but then my guys got a face full of tanks and Engineers from Moscow. But as I retreated my group North over-land, un-expectedly my formation started lighting up with explosions. MY tight group of hundred of units were under attack and I could not see who or what was attacking it. Afterwards I figured the it was a missile attack from Moscow. I could not find any heavily damaged units but some may have been destroyed out-right. Or the AA that I had brought along may have been exploding the missiles. I still don't know. It turned out to be a scare but not a real set-back.

So here I was with my initial force located just out of artillery range, West of Moscow. Instead of plowing into the city with 1000 units I decided to construct an offensive arc of tanks and artillery in order to bleed the city of its defenders. It was a huge arc that dwarfed the city itself. I then began moving and tightening this arc - tanks followed by artillery. It worked splendidly. Moscow as beginning to appear less and less crowded with units.

With the arc in place I brought up my main force from Belarus - additional tanks, artillery, infantry and AA. About 500 units in all, in addition to the existing 300 in the arc. I parked them North-East of the city covering the access road that I discussed earlier.

Again I resisted my impulse to just calvery charge into Moscow and over-whelm it. That would be spectacular but costly in men and units. I like to take good care of my little guys so I decided to patiently dismantle the six garrisoned towns leading up to the capital. This took a long time due to poor supply at the front line. I had plenty of artillery there, but it would only fire infrequently.

Eventually I made it up to the actual city limits, but access to the Capital was still blocked by an adjoining town and a city on the two access roads to the N.W. I had to stand off two hexes because I was catching serious artillery fire from the city. The southern arm of my arc was blocked by a big, tough air-fab/barracks complex. Air-assault was still out of the question, due to Russia's still effective air-defenses. One of those SA-20 units can protect a vast chunk of air-space and Moscow still had many of these. These also served to deflect my missiles.

The two access roads to the city were crossed by a major river, so the bulk of my forces behind the arc would have to be funneled across two bridges to reach the Capital, or go around the river to the South. The widening of my territory near Moscow and the passing of time had improved my supply situation. My artillery was becoming more effecient. I worked more units across the river and placed them North of the Capital. As I closed in tighter, I began to take heavier artillery fire so I entrenched all of my arc units.

My objective was still formidable - Moscow itself plus three surroundeing protective towns - all fully garrisoned and filled with protective armor units. And additional units could funnel in from adjoining cities to the East of the Capital even as I destroyed the embedded protective armor on the West. Over two hundred well-supplied units defending Moscow, all entrenched in their protective cities and towns.

In addition, my fervent hope was that the Russians would not suddenly dispatch the huge christmas tree formation of 800 units surrounding the city of Nizhniy Novgorod to the East, to the defense of Moscow. True, most of these were bridging units and AA but there was also a lot of artillery there.

OK, time out. Let's think geo-politically for a moment. Russia just conquered Armenia. What will happen if I conquer Russia now? Will I get all 18 million square km of territory? Probably not. Will I get the fleet of 140 ships? Maybe. What about the Siberian oil fields and derricks and the ones on the Arctic Ocean? What about the Sakhalin Island oil fields North of Japan? Will I get the 500 bridging units? Probably. What will happen to Russian salad dressing?

It was likely that if I took the Capital then Russia would be divided between five regions - the U.S. (yea!), Ukraine, China (boo!), Japan and (wait for it) ... Kazakhstan. The distance between Ukrain and Kazakhstan was so vast that Ukrain would probably triple in size. Kazakhstan was nearly owned by Russia so that would have been a god-send for them. China would undoubtedly inherit Eastern Russia. That would make them very happy, although I doubt that their AI could exploit its oil reserves. China had already taken so much of Pacific Russia that Vladivostok was just an isolated Russian colony. About all that was left Russian was Sakhalin Island and the far Eastern Siberiaian archipelago including kamchatka. Japan would probably get the Island and its oil reserves.

What could I do about it? The Siberian and Arctic Ocean oil was inaccessable to me due to the Northern Russian fleet. China and Kazakhstan were inaccessable due to their distance. But I could delay taking Moscow, wait and bleed off more of its defenders. Secondly I could conquer Ukrain and eliminate the competition. I already had an air-borne base just eight hexes East of their Capital. Thirdly I could launch a fleet from the West coast of CONUS and take Sakhalin Island and its oil derricks before Japan did.

I ended up doing none of these things. Too much work for not enough gain. At Moscow I ordered a calvery charge - front line tanks and following artillery ordered to charge the city first in formation. Then I rubber-band selected the remaining 500 combat units and ordered them to Moscow. I divided them into two groups and had them attack to the North and South respectively. The resulting melee was both exciting and spectacular. The epic battle lasted for several days with the inevitable conclusion of a battle where 800 units meet 200 - I won.

The final statistics: enemy units destroyed in the attack - 125. U.S. units lost - 33. U.S. casualties - 11,040. Russia fell and the Bear was consumed by all of the actors that I mentioned above except for Japan. Ukrain is now much larger. Kazakhstan is now a much larger desolate place, free of those pesky Russians. Sakhalin Island and the Siberian oil went to China. That's OK. I'll get it later.

I have most of European Russia and 350 bridging units. I am content. On to Kyyiv and then to Astana.

[Hullu Hevonen]

First from the title I thought you mean't California

[catatonic]

California is the "Bear Flag" state because it has a bear on its state flag.

[Gonzar]

... But they do have 350 tough bridging units (chuckle), since they have a land-fab or two that can't stop making them...

What the Russia AI was trying to build here, was transport units to supply their troops. Bridging units belong to the trasport class, and it just happened that one Bridging unit was the most advanced design the Russia AI had. You attacked in 2035, Russia has being at war since the first month of 2020. The 350 bridging units are the result of 15 years trying to build land supply transports.

I have reported this issue several times yet, in different threads, but BG considered it to not be an important issue. For me it is, they have wasted enormous amounts of resources and land fab slots to build this useless units. They keep paying their mantainance, what has surely help to put them in the bankrupcy you told about.
The last answer to this issue i got from Balthagor was "The following facts are debatable (Maybe AI should/should not do these".

Regarding the global situation you found in Russia it is easy to follow how it came to that status:
- 15 years of war, where tanks, infantry, Recs and antitanks have been killed in the front
- AA don't move, so 15 years AA build: your 597 units
- The ridiculous land fabrication capacity of the vanilla game, together with the build order (x% of each unit class), ensures that even the superpowers can not replace the in the front killed units. That is even worse in naval and air, where the only left units are those that don't move to the front: subs and transports in naval, chopters, bombers and awacs in airforce.

You will never face a challenge towards the AI with the vanilla SR 2020 settings if you don't attack in 2020 (or early years) or attack a country that hasn't been at war yet.
All countries that have been at war without pause are an easy pray, even if they are "superpowers". Even more, the longer you wait to do your attack. In 2035, after your build up, to conquer the world is just a question of the long game time it requires, but in no way difficult or a challenge.

[catatonic]

Thanks for the insight.

I neglected to mention that Russia did have a lot of tanks (and now I do too). As I said, they were actively building and replacing land units. I spent a lot of time before the actual Moscow assault killing the ones in my vacinity as they wondered over to my border. Most of them actually died as I destroyed their repair barracks.

As a follow-up - I did take Ukraine and Kazahkstan. China still ended up with a lot of those Russian Black Eagle tanks and is currently beating me up with them.

[Gonzar]

A good, but expensive, way to deal with high enemy tanks numbers is to use airforce with air-ground missiles. They will kill them very fast.

Also, another good way to defeat all those tanks is to make them fight against APC in cities. The best way to do it is using the terrain, for example, rivers, and let them attack the cities that are in between. Tanks are not amphibious and will try to cross the river through the city. But their main value is not in close combat. So a stack of 5-6 APC in a city will have great success defeating a high number of enemy tanks.

If they are backed with artillery, then things are even better. All indirect fire (artillery or missiles) will cause large damage to tank battaillons.

[catatonic]

A good, but expensive, way to deal with high enemy tanks numbers is to use airforce with air-ground missiles. They will kill them very fast.

I agree, but missiles are very expensive and take a long time to accumulate.

As I reported in my AAR, in just one engagement - just repelling one attack, I burned up ALL of my air-to-ground missiles and then dropped all of my modded bombs. That was over 2000 bombs and missiles just to repel ten or twenty attackers.

But the scale of this game confuses me - an attacker is about 54 vehicles and 540 personnel. When I expend 2000 weapons to neutralize 10-20 units it seems so disproportionate, but then I remind myself that it is 2000 missiles and bombs against 540-1080 attacking vehicles. When I have a stockpile of 32000 missiles I expect to be able to sling as many missiles as I want without worrying about running out - but this is just not the case.

I really enjoy building a battle group of five or so missile launchers and then using it to plink off attacking tanks. But it is like a guilty pleasure - I know that I will regret it in the morning when I discover that I have burned through all of my anti-armor missiles.

If they are backed with artillery, then things are even better. All indirect fire (artillery or missiles) will cause large damage to tank battaillons.

Yes and no - a tank's strongest defense is against indirect fire. But massed artillery protected by armor is devastating to any attacker.

I have modded most of my missiles so that they are direct fire.

[Gonzar]

Yeah, agree with you, missiles are really rare in this game and it shouldn't be that way. We are not talking about nuclear weapons, but "normal" air to ground and air to ship missiles, or even bombs.

Hehehe, can follow your feelings regarding the missiles launcher, but it is just fun to see them shoot all those missiles...

You are right that defense against indirect fire is their strongest one, but despite that, indirect fire cause them many casualties in this game. Is very effective as you already know.

[catatonic]

You are right that defense against indirect fire is their strongest one, but despite that, indirect fire cause them many casualties in this game. Is very effective as you already know.

That is why I am reluctant to wade it China with their massed artillery. And they have plenty of aircraft too.