Soviet cons inot 120 mm spam

i have played 2 games against this tac and failed. First time i got walking stuka to counter 120 mm, but he rolled out t34\86 and won. Second time was somewhat closer but i still lost. i cant even hold middle or top VP, because 1200mm insane range. i have locked down map with mg,s against conscript blob, but still...by the time he rolled out t34s i had only panther...
The point is - he can bombard half the map just outside his base.

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  jond1

  Kristof

  Soviet cons into 120mm spam.

  by: DomenicAlecto map: Kholodny Ferma

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Before even watching the replay: you've got zero games as Soviet on your player card, and I suspect this has something do to with the problem. My instinct is that there's got to be something more to the strat than "Cons and 120mm mortars", because you should be able to roll right over his infantry line if that were the case.

Stream of consciousness review:

3:30, your whole army is basically turtled up instead of contesting the map. His conscripts are terrifying you, and you're letting his one engi squad cap the whole north unopposed.

3:30-8:00, you get pretty good map control; I think you're doing fine, except for running an MG34 in and taking some losses on the retreat

9:00, you've got a volks, a sturmpio, and an MG squad against 3+ conscript squads. I think you setup your MG very poorly, as a solid half of its firing arc is wasted on an approach there's no chance of them attacking on. You don't keep your volks & sturmpio squad in cover, and by the time you face your MG at the threat, they have to retreat. Your MG is a hero and saves your ass, though, turning what could've been a total loss of the north half of the map into a sort of contested standoff. You still bleed a lot more MP in the encounter than he does, though.

10:00 You're... barraging the spot where his infantry were suppressed? Did you expect him to just sit there under MG fire?

10:00 In the meantime, you assassinate his 120mm with Fall, good.

10:00 In the meantime, your ISG is almost assassinated by Guards. This is another MG facing issue, I feel, since you've got an MG34 in the same area, but it wasn't setup correctly to cover the gun crew.

12:00 So, his new 120mm forces your MG back, but your captured 120mm and ISG decrew his mortar and inflict manpower bleed on his blob. You're both floating a lot of fuel at this point.

13:00 You've got a ton of indirect fire after the action at 12:00 so I'm not sure why you aren't pushing the center and his cutoff. Without you pressuring him, he just recrews his mortar and barrages the last spot he saw your MG in the center which... is still faced back towards your base?

14:00 You call in another Fallschirmjaeger squad, even though you've had a full strength one back in your base for quite some time.

14:35 Again, you know this guy likes his mortars, yet you leave an MG34 idle in the same place he last saw it. Barrage incoming. This particular MG34 has a sturmpio squad with it, so you had a perfectly good push force together.

15:00 You have two Falls, three Volks, one Sturmpio, and an assortment of MGs and mortars. He's got five conscripts, one Guards, one flame engi, and three mortars. Your army is *massively* superior and you push him right off the middle, but I think you fail to capitalize by setting up your MG farther forward and your mortars in positions to bombard his base.

17:30 You keep bombarding his inexpensive infantry instead of his mortar. I think this is a poor choice because targeting his (stationary) mortar is more likely to result in hits, and any casualties inflicted would slow down the MP bleed his mortars inflict on you.

18:00 Yeah, like how his mortars are free to chew up the volks squad you finally send to cap the center.

19:00 He's shown no vehicles yet, much less any tanks, but I guess the panther is a reasonable buy as a precautionary measure, this late in the game.

20:14 He decrews one of your mortars. You still aren't inconveniencing his mortars.

21:00 He forces off another MG that's been in the same spot for way too long.

22:15 The bombardment of the flak HQ begins. This is my favorite part of any game against the OKW.

23:00 I can't say that 250munis to save your Flak HQ is a bad choice in context, but I can definitely say that having forced that context on you is a win for the enemy. Your ISG is way back by your base, so even though you could now setup a forward mortar position and inflict heavy MP bleed on his base, you miss the opportunity.

23:20 ZOMG T-34/85s. I think losing your panther is GG.


I summary, your one decisive win was assassinating and stealing a 120mm mortar, and if you'd played with that aggression throughout the match I think you'd have won. However, you didn't push up when you had the clear advantage, and you never used your indirect fire to attack his. The result was that you inflicted moderate MP bleed on his cheap infantry, and he inflicted heavy MP bleed on your expensive infantry and weapon crews. This really was a "Conscripts and mortars" strategy, but I only think it worked because he got inside your head and you didn't risk a decisive infantry push.

Please don't take the blunt criticism of your play as mean spirited or even a judgment that the other guy played better; I wasn't paying attention to whether he was making mistakes.

So, basically i havent done nothing wrong strategy-wise, but my micro and tactic are poor? The way i see the problem, is that i have no chance at all to compete with his artillery superiority, so i need to push him back and cap map.
Also, this was my second game against this guys, so i knew he was stalling for t34's, so i tried to get ahead of him by buying panther. Losing it was indeed too bad.

edit: thx for reply btw, really informative.

That's how I see it, though I'm not a top 100 player so someone better might come in and give you a whole different set of points.

One thing though: you say "his artillery superiority", but after you captured his first 120mm you had two heavy mortars (counting your own ISG) and he had none, which means that *you* had artillery superiority for a long time thereafter. Your thought process at that point might be:


1) He built a 360MP heavy mortar and I built a 420MP heavy mortar
2) I captured his mortar
3) We've had roughly even MP bleed so far, so our infantry armies should be about equal strength
4) Conclusion: I should push hard to force an even sided infantry battle, and use my two mortars to punish him.

Another example from later on:

1) I captured his first heavy mortar
2) We've had roughly even MP bleed otherwise
3) I now see that he's got two or three *more* heavy mortars (which costs 720MP or 1080MP)
4) Conclusion: I've got a bigger frontline infantry force than he does. I'll attack aggressively and push him off the map.


Staying calm and clear headed enough to do this is hard and I'm not terribly good at it myself, but it's pretty much what the top players talk about in streams and guides.

Bravo!