Hey

[Frederich Barbarossa]

Question. Whats your fav strategy when being attacked or attacking the uSSR. I've only dealt with attacking them, but never being attacked by them.

[Poach]

My only experience combating a Russian invasion is with Romania.

A few provinces behind your border with the USSR is a riverline, 9 provinces long, that runs the length of your country. I simply dug in there with a division or two in each province with a mobile reserve to run up and down the line assisting where necessary. I was able to easily hold back the Russian tide until the Germans invaded and annihilated them.

[Frederich Barbarossa]

We'll the situation seems good. I landed around 60k paratroopers near Polish-Romanian-Russian border. I have mobilized all my armies to blitz around 400k while 200k are in the interior creating a defensive line in warsawa just in case. My plan is to concentrate those 400k in that little border to link up with my fallschirmjager which only paratrooped 50 km into enemy lines to not risk being encircled, etc. So far we've taken 1 province. Though my fallschirmjager are being slightly pushed back because of Russian madness!~ if you must know the polish border with russia is controlled by hungary they have around 500k soldiers and its just a stalemate.

[Tankfriend]

A stalemate is a good basis to build a creative offensive plan on, especially against the SU.
In any case, here's what factors can generally be important for setting up a defensive line (not a specific example, the factors work for all cases):

- Try to place your defensive line through favourable terrain: forests, jungles, swamps, hills, mountains.
- Try to place the appropriate type of specialized infantry in the respective provinces: marines in swamp and forest/jungle areas and mountaineers in hills and mountains. They are more expensive compared to standard infantry, but they will outperform it in most cases given the right terrain.
- Try to place your defensive line along rivers in such a way, that the river is between your own and the enemy forces. That way, your enemy has to attack across the river, which incurs a noticeable combat penalty.
- Try to incorporate cities in your defensive line where possible/necessary. They don't give any bonus, but they severely slow down combat, giving you more time to bring in additional forces.
- Try to build (coastal) fortifications, radar stations and AA guns to add various advantages to land combat defense, air defense and coastal assault defense. Only do this if you have the time and ressources to prepare beforehand - these things usually take too long and use up too many IC to be built during periods of extensive fighting (except AA, which is usually produced very fast).
- If fighting in a coastal area, try to have a fleet at the ready to provide coastal bombardment on the province your enemy is attacking from. The fleet can also protect you against naval assaults or the enemy fleet.
- Try to have interceptors/fighters around to protect your frontline against the enemy airforce. Ideally have a couple of large airfields close to your frontline so your airforce is always operating at maximum efficiency.
- Try to have your units commanded by officers with the "defensive doctrine" specialty. Specialist infantry divisions also profit from the "commando" specialty.
- Try to have a major port in one province of the front line if you have coastal access. That way, you can always ferry in supplies to the front line and your fleet can be repaired directly at the front, even if the enemy should somehow cut off your direct land connection. (normally not necessary - the AI is too stupid to do anything that creative most of the time)

The general picture of your troop placement would be something like this: 1 corps of 3 infantry divisions (preferably with added artillery brigades for extra firepower) in each province of the front line, larger corps of highly mobile troops (motorized/mechanized infantry and armour) in the provinces behind the front that act as reserves to support the front wherever necessary. If you can, also make sure that every province of the front is covered by at least 1 HQ commanded by a general or field marshal (an HQ covers all the provinces bordering the province it is in). That's about the most you can put into the field if you really want to make an effort to hold the line. Naturally, you can increase the number of your troops any time, but that's normally not necessary - not against the AI, at least.

If you want to apply pressure on your enemy as well:
- Bring in your offensive airforces for ground attacks, interdictions and strategic bombardments as well as some fighters to secure air superiority.
- Try to harass your enemy wherever possible. Have some mobile forces near your frontline to exploit any weaknesses in your enemy's positions. If you have the fleet to support it, try a naval assault far behind the enemy front. Also try to use the paratroopers you mentioned, they are excellent for harassments.

In general, try everything possible to get troops around the front line and to hit your enemy where he is weakest. Cut off his supply lines, encircle troops, capture provinces that are important for your enemy's war effort (ports, airfields, highly industrialized areas) etc. - as long as you make life difficult for your enemy and force him to divert some of his troops to combat the new threat, you are making progress.
Just make sure that you don't pull these things off as "one-time measures" - do not waste the troops you use for these missions. If things get hairy, pull your troops out again, if possible. Especially against an enemy like the SU, every division counts.