Ok, i found the solution myself:
You have to buy units from the US/UK. In my game, I bought about two stacks of infantry, a stack recon and a stack tanks from the UK. Then I bought a stack of special forces, a stack of artillery, a stack of tactBombers and a stack of capital ships from the US.
I placed the stack of ships at the northern baltic coast to prevent amphibious operations, the artillery in Kiel to give the ships additional support. The infantry went to Lübeck as I knew from my previous attempt, that the first wave of assault would come there. The recon went to Hannover, the spec forces to Fulda and the tanks somewhere in the Munich area.
Needless to say that you have to set max garrisons immediately for all cities/complexes as you have to stall every attempt to capture cities.
After roughly one month in the game the wardec came and the first assault happened in West Berlin (which was the only city I forgot to set up a garrison
). After that most of the forces already present tried to invade the area between Hannover and Lübeck. A lot of transport ships were landing in Rostock and land units were driving near the coast line which was an easy shooting for the ships. The initial forces ratio was roughly 4:1 in favor of the USSR. I had to use the TactBombers to finish of units as they would retreat for repairs.
As soon as the north became quiet, the next wave was coming in southern direction, approximately the line Fulda-Passau. Here I faced even more enemy units. I'd say the forces ratio spiked up to 8:1 as the USSR got additional help from the other Warsaw-Pact-Countries. I was fighting East german, polish, hungarian, czech and romanian units as well. On my side the US and UK came with some units and helped defending. It was a very intense fight as I were slowly losing units and had to buy additional units from the US. I checked the clock, the battle went on for like 3 hours (on normal) with the USSR slowly gaining ground and finally capturing Regensburg.
I was pushed back down close to Munich, were the assault came to a stop as the USSR went low on military goods and I was brining the first units of my own infantry. While pushing them back to the former border between West and East Germany, the USSR wardec'd Austria and a another stream of enemy units came through the Alpes attacking from south.
Up to this point the USSR lost about 1300 units in total while I lost around 100 - mostly garrisons, infantry, tanks and a stack of tactBombers due to enemy fighters and AAA in the area around Linz. The current comparison of fabrication plants between West Germany and USSR: 2/0/0/0 vs. 53/40/27/10
After playing additional two hours, the enemy forces were pushed out of the area which once was Austria, East Germany and western part of Czechoslovakia, raising my production facilities to approx. 5/5/0/0. Considering the performance of my troops so far, I think the next ingame years will be a piece of cake.
I try to add some screenshots from the autosaves next weekend.
Some rules of engagement I learned since SR2020 and used successfully in this scenario:
- always put your infantry in "close-combat" hexes/choose your infantry by comparing its "close combat" value. This one is quite self-explanatory when you consider that the wars are won by capturing cities and cities always are "close-combat"-hexes.
- use tanks in open hexes to destroy enemy ground units, but do not park and/or forget them there, as they become easy targets for enemy bombers. This one is important as tanks are expensive and bombers have an easy going against them because of the low AA-value of tanks and high hard-attack of bombers
- use bombers to finish off enemy units which are damaged/threaten critical points in your defense line. This is the "bread and butter" of the whole strategy. As soon as the enemy starts concentrating forces - e.g. the USSR creates 12-18 unit-superstacks for city assaults - send in the bombers to damage units and their morale. In most cases the enemy units disperse and the pressure on your defense is lowered. Do not stay too long in one area as the enemy retaliates with fighters/interceptors and AAA-units
- use recon units to quickly capture smaller cities or cities without infrastructure. This one is self-explanatory, but you have to consider using a similar approach as with the infantry: put the recons into close-combat hexes as it greatly improves their survivability. In this game I moved the stack of recons from Hannover eastwards and captured Magdeburg. After 2-3 attempts to retake the city, the computer gave up as the recons were sitting in a close combat hex and the single enemy infantries/engineers lost the fights.
- use artillery units in areas with a lot of enemy traffic. When the assault from the south came, i captured Salzburg and stationed a two-hex-firing artillery there. While the artillery was not strong enough to outright destroy enemy units, it had its usefulness in damaging units up to the point were they had to return for repairs, thus greatly reducing the amount of units which where threatening Munich from the south.
- defend your barracks: very important, as all units in repair are thrown out as soon as the enemy captures an adjacent hex. The strategy here is not to allow the enemy to come that close. On the other side you can use the same strategy to prevent repairs on enemy units. This strategy is very risky, as you will face enemy super-stacks in locations, where a lot of units are under repairs. On the other hand - when you prepare your assault carefully - you will get a lot of easy-to-kill targets for shooting practice. Another important thing with barracks, air fields and seaports is: the further away the next one is, the longer the unit will stay away from the front line as its travel time to and from the facility will add to its repair time. By denying barracks you keep the pressure on your units low.
@Mods: please move this thread to AAR, if it is ok for you.
