Cyka to Stalin! I'm trying to learn SU 1v1.

I'm starting a new regular series where I'm trying to learn Soviet 1v1 to a decent standard, I'll be doing some replay analysis and looking at my own games in a cut down format to focus in on the big strategic or tactical decisions and key points of micro.

https://youtu.be/EbeLeGh8aEI

I'm interested to know if I'm looking at and taking the right thing away from the replays and if people can spot any glaring mistakes and offer tips. Hopefully it'll grow into a useful resource for new players looking to learn Soviets.

Disclaimer: My playercard record is nowhere near stellar. Take my strategies and advice with a pinch of salt. As you do with anything on the internet really.

About the third replay you showed in this video,
With a penal and conscripts build, you generally would choose a doctrine with PPSH cons so your PTRS penals and cons make a great balance of AT and AI.

I think it was a mistake to start making guards after kitting out your penals with AT weapons since upgraded penals sacrifice quite a bit of AI (How much AI is exactly lost I'm not sure), and guards require a lot of munitions to be effective against infantry with those LMGs.

I agreed that getting the SU-76 against the flak would've been a better play.

And you need to panick less. I don't think your micro is bad just because it is. Had you kept a calm head during those intense engagements, you would've picked a better doctrine and probably won more overall engagements.

Also, despite what I just said about your micro, micro and your build order, which you mentioned in your video, were the key factors in your defeat.

Some finer points on micro (sorry for the walls of text)
That early game wipe on the sturms showed that you have some good micro skills, but you are getting way to close to those short ranged units. At some points in the replay, you charged your bolt action rifle squads right next to those STG44s, you didn't seem to get punished as much as you could have, but it might have gone much, much worse with sturm DPS.

That first penal engagement with the sturm probably could've gone better had you soft retreated to the green cover truck behind you instead of advancing toward the sturms.

You would've taken less damage and less model drops and would give your units at the base more time to heal and push out.
Also, the nerf to accuracy you get on moving squads is 50% as bad on penals compared to other units. So charging the enemy or changing cover is less punishing with penals.

I saw that during the engagement where you lost your first T-70, you kinda waited for the satchel charge to explode. Had you been faster with your retreats instead of staying quite still for those one or two seconds things might've gone very differently.

16:36 shook me to my soul, all those units blobbing across negative cover and coming up against a tank with ok AOE is an absolute no no. Nothing came of it, probably because you spooked him with the AT and the mark target, but try to avoid that.

Some finer points on micro (sorry for the walls of text)
That early game wipe on the sturms showed that you have some good micro skills, but you are getting way to close to those short ranged units. At some points in the replay, you charged your bolt action rifle squads right next to those STG44s, you didn't seem to get punished as much as you could have, but it might have gone much, much worse with sturm DPS.

That first penal engagement with the sturm probably could've gone better had you soft retreated to the green cover truck behind you instead of advancing toward the sturms.

You would've taken less damage and less model drops and would give your units at the base more time to heal and push out.
Also, the nerf to accuracy you get on moving squads is 50% as bad on penals compared to other units. So charging the enemy or changing cover is less punishing with penals.

I saw that during the engagement where you lost your first T-70, you kinda waited for the satchel charge to explode. Had you been faster with your retreats instead of staying quite still for those one or two seconds things might've gone very differently.

16:36 shook me to my soul, all those units blobbing across negative cover and coming up against a tank with ok AOE is an absolute no no. Nothing came of it, probably because you spooked him with the AT and the mark target, but try to avoid that.

Thanks for the pointers man, there was a lot of stuff that went pretty horribly in that game, but it's kind of a nice spot to be in because its so easy to make improvements. That was one of my first games after not playing CoH or any RTS in ages. I was definitely in full panic mode and not making decisions based on good judgements of the situation.

I've played a few games since and done much better, so I'll feature those in the next episode. I really need to work on my T70 micro, they're hell on wheels for burning through enemy infantry but they're so fragile! I might toy around with just going for the Su76 and skipping the Zis gun so i can spend that manpower on another MG or infantry squad of some sort.

The T-70 has been my MVP unit for a lot of games. At a lot of lower levels, they don't bother putting defensive mines to prevent base rushes. I'm not sure what rank you're at, but if you're at lower levels, you can be really be really brave with that thing if you get it early.


a few tips about the T-70:
Keep it alive, even lategame it's useful as a spotter for commander abilities and long range weaponry with it's recon mode. You can probably use it like a kubel and just harass the enemy's capping points.

Microing the T-70 gets a bit easier as it gets vet because a three star light tank is going to be moving at light speed so it can avoid the late game threats a lot easier.

The reverse key is your friend, it will probably save more tanks than an AT gun. If you can, when you see a threat, try to reverse behind a house or a high piece of cover, even pros make the mistake of reversing in a straight line from the enemy instead of breaking line of sight.
Of course, your best bet is to push forward with infantry to look for AT weapons so you don't get any surprises, but it isn't always possible.

With your AT guns, put them on vehicle only mode, I've probably been saved from losing a valuable tank countless times because the AT gun exposed itself by shooting at infantry.