Blunting Barbarossa

The front line should be as thin and short as possible to achieve it’s purpose. In practice, this means two steps per front line hex (to prevent overruns) and only in the hexes that are part of four Movement Point paths between the Axis line and your second line. The first two pictures show my Soviet deployment for Scenarios C1 and C2. The second two pictures illustrate how I would deploy with all the flexibility in a campaign game (i.e., where the only setup restrictions come from the Soviet Forward Policy rule). Note that my deployment only requires six steps north of the Pripiet Marshes; since the front line is going to die regardless of how much stuff you put in it. Compared to a conventional ‘continuous line defense,’ this is just like getting six free steps on your Summer ’41 card. In the south, you can save some more steps, but I’ll elaborate on that later in this article.

The second line can be as thin as you like, since it’s only purpose is to create a wall of ZOCs, but you’re going to have a lot of troops left over, and they might as well go here. The basic rule is: no second line unit should be closer than four hexes from any front line unit. That’s because the best combat results on the CRT give five "results." Since the frontline hexes each have two steps in them, that leaves three results that can become exploitation results. The first exploitation hex has to be the defender’s hex, remember, which means the Germans can only exploit into contact with a second line that is within three hexes of a Blitz-Combat Segment defender. By placing the second line out of reach, you deny the Germans half their Combat Segments (the Regular Combat Segment). In effect, this also has the result of denying them two out of their four movement opportunities. (The Axis will use their Reserve Movement Phase to pull up troops that didn’t exploit as far forward.)

Put in gross mathematical terms, Moscow is eleven hexes from the Axis starting line. Using this defense guarantees them only three hexes of advance per turn - no more and no less. Thus, you can guarantee that Moscow is not going to fall during the Summer Blitzing season if you repeat it on subsequent turns.

The problem is, doing so also guarantees that you won’t do anything to compete for the initiative. At some point, therefore, you’re going to have to abandon this hyper-defensive strategy for the hyper-aggressive ones discussed in other articles. If you’re the cautious type, though, you can wait until your Winter counteroffensive. On the other hand, as mentioned above, when you do decide to go toe-to-toe with the Wehrmacht, having used this defense for even one turn will ensure that you have an extra ten or so steps to do it with. Remember, using this strategy on the first turn of Barbarossa isn’t really giving much up because any skilled Axis player won’t leave opportunities on that turn.

All of this should give new Soviet players a good operational doctrine for positioning their troops defensively to trade space for a reduction in Red Army casualties. This should ensure that the Soviet Union won’t collapse (assuming an historical invasion).

But if you have your line setup in my suggested manner during Spring 1941 in a standard campaign game, The Axis player may scrap his plans for a Summer invasion and get the panzers rolling two turns early in the Spring. To avoid this, you should put a more traditional (i.e., "solid") frontline defense up for the turns following the fall of France.

Which brings up a final consideration about setting up the Barbarossa defense in a campaign game: the border wars. The moral of the story is, put as few steps as you can in Eastern Poland, because they’re all just red meat for the Wehrmacht on the first turn of Barbarossa. That’s a bit of a trick, since you don’t have any of your 3-3-2s for the first turn, so be sure to send in both armor steps - each one is buying you back five strength points of infantry that would otherwise die greeting the initial onslaught of Barbarossa! Even if you should find yourself exchanging infantry steps for armor from a Reserves Formed card (I never have), that’s still a great exchange rate.

A final rule to remember is this: a weak defense is worse than no defense at all. I’ve often been perfectly content to leave an eight-hex wide gaping hole in the middle of my line and just dare the Axis to run through it. I use the extra troops to mass up in front of Rostov and Moscow and then fight fang-and-claw for every inch, launching every 3-2 attack I can scratch up. If you string out a line of 3-3-2 one per hex without HQs, all you’re doing is feeding Barbarossa some tasty snacks.

On the other hand, be careful about this ‘Gaping Hole’ ploy because you can give the Axis a chance to thin out their middle and concentrate on the flanks back at you. The Axis are a lot better at concentrating than you are, too, so this could be a real bummer. Keep some maneuver units ready to threaten deep penetrations into the Axis rear areas; they can’t cope with that problem nearly as well as you can.

Other Totaler Krieg! Players Respond:

There is a chance to gain a four hex advance when attacking this line in Poland, but it would take some luck. You would set up an attack on one of the end units, with the only path of retreat being to stack with the center unit. You have to get a result that inflicts a combination of 3 steps/retreats. That leaves one step in the center hex which can be attacked in the same blitz segment at 9:1. Then you have a 50% chance for a 4 hex advance. (Combined odds, probably about 25%). But a four hex advance would probably still result in a poor chance to attack the second line.

Strategically, I think the plan is sound, but it may not be such a sure thing. The Soviets are allowing the Axis to get good, surrounded attacks on 9 steps in the north alone -- and with a minimal commitment. German support units will be available for other adventures. How many throwaway units are needed to accomplish the delay thing in July and August?

In all of my many opportunities to lose TK!, I've seldom seen Moscow fall during the Barbarossa offensive. More commonly, it happens sometime in '42. What happens in our games is the destruction of the border armies followed by a Soviet runaway. So, we see little combat during the second summer turn. With this defense, I think we're stretching out the border slaughter over two or three turns. It will be interesting to compare losses with the two defenses.

Jim Moir

Such a skimpy defense is not going to cost the Germans many panzer step losses due to attrition. Why should the Axis commit their panzers at all if exploiting units can't come to grips with the second line anyway?

I think the Soviets are better utilized setting up strongpoints at key road hex junctions, places the Germans cannot ignore. By forcing him to use his big panzer armies and support units to get decent odds attacks you will start wearing away at these potent combat arms.

Other poster's points about the Soviets eventually running out of space and being forced to make a stand and the Germans being able to conserve their Support Units for later attacks are well taken. I don't see this as being a "perfect defense." Certainly not one I would consider using.

If I saw this defense I would follow up Barbarossa with another Blitz card for the Autumn. My express goal would be the capture of Moscow in 1941 and then I would worry about taking as many other objectives as possible to improve the chances of a Soviet Collapse. Probably Minsk and Kiev could be taken on the fly, as the Soviets backpedaled. I would probably try to pick up Leningrad as well, depending on how well defended it was.

If the Soviet player tried to stop the Axis from taking Moscow, then the Axis player would have the same killing fields set up that he didn't have in Poland. Preserving the Soviet army in the short term is counterproductive if you end up losing it all anyway in a Soviet Collapse.

    Mack Draper

It seems to me that the author's two main principles:

A front line that makes it impossible for the Axis to get into contact with the second line during either Combat Segment.

A second line that features a continuous line of Soviet ZOCs to halt Axis Reserve Movement.

would be something that most grognards would pick up on just from an initial study of the Eastern Front. Also, the clustering in front of Moscow and Rostov sounds like standard operation procedure to me -- at least that's what I thought.

As the Axis player, I wouldn't be afraid of facing this defense. Why? Because it's nearly identical to my own Barbarossa defense -- at least for the opening turn. I've set it up and attacked it many times in solitaire play. However, I've found that it's far from invincible.

This strategy seems a fine way to minimize casualties and guarantee that Moscow won't fall during the initial Summer. It seems to me that it preserves the German army as much as it preserves the Soviet army, however. The Axis have no worries about panzer losses and no need to spend Air Support units, so they will have them all when the Soviet player finally has to stop and fight.

Sure, preserving Soviet steps is useful, but the Soviets only have so many steps in their Force Pool. I've played multiple games where Barbarossa was a bust, either because it was launched with lousy timing, because the Russians had no purges and had the Romanov Line up in force, or because the Germans were trying to invade from Prussia and Hungary so they could activate Poland from the Barbarossa Conditional Event. In many of these games, the Soviets hit their Force Pool limit (i.e., ran out of steps in it to take as replacements). In all of them, the Russians eventually suffered a severe rupture. Now I admit that in some of these games the rupture was caused by the Russian player screwing up, but still...

I strongly suspect that the defense Quentin put up would suffer real problems during Case Blue [the Axis Summer '42 offensive] if not before. For one thing, it gives the Axis player no reason not to throw the kitchen sink at Leningrad. And once Leningrad falls, it is near impossible to throw Army Group North out of supply....

    Jay Muchnij

There's one thing that I'm surprised I haven't seen anyone bring up about this "perfect defense." It assumes that the Axis haven't deployed substantial forces into Hungary and, more importantly, Rumania. If you're taking a historical approach, The Axis get both of these as Allies in late 1940 and has time to put some German steps into them. Sure, they can't form multi-step German units until the turn of Barbarossa without triggering Occupation, but they can do it on the turn of invasion so long as those big German units move out on that same turn. I'll refer to the second set of pictures, which are assuming a campaign game in progress.

That's exactly what I would do against this defense. Blast the two armies in the rough hex NW of Odessa with an 8-6-4, a 6-6-3, a 4-4-3 HQ, some odd Rumanians, and maybe an air unit (not sure off the top of my head if you get 9-1 without the air - I think not, so make sure the HQ is formed close enough to let you place it). The first two move across the mountain hexside; the HQ is probably between the target and Bucharest but may need to be in northern Rumania - just make sure it's in support range of the target and can be moved out of Rumania in Reserve Movement. Exploitation and Reserve Movement completely unhinges the southern flank - you should be up to or (more likely) past Dnepropetrovsk. Making matters worse, there's no city - the Russians MUST retreat, giving you another shot at the survivors in the regular combat phase.

Now, it may be possible to shift some of the northern force down to help cover this (an army in Dnepropetrovsk would help a lot), but I still don't like the look of that southern flank. I'd go for Rostov and Sevastopol, and since I haven't needed to use much air I might still get a good crack at Leningrad, depending on how things develop in the north (will the Soviets be able to back up Leningrad with an HQ?). I'd definitely hold off on trying to collapse Russia until '42 - but trying to fit in some other Limited War Blitz (an Ultimatum, perhaps? I can't recall what other choices there might be) in the Autumn of '41 would most likely be the way to go - though it would be interesting to try the New World Order Treaty as the "wild card" to bring in Turkey (preferably in the Spring) to keep the Russians from figuring out what's up in time to do anything about it, and then go all-out for Baku and the Middle East with Case Blue.

Also, it seems that this defense is predicated on the assumption that the Axis will not generate any Dr3 0/1 (or 1/1) results against non-city hexes, leaving a step which can be attacked for further gain in the regular combat phase. I think that's a big assumption. I don't have the Combat Results Table memorized (shame on me!), but I'd seriously consider taking an attack on a lower column just to try to get one if necessary - but I don't think it is.

    Doug DeMoss

And the Author, Quentin G. Cantrell, Responds Back:

My proffered system for defending against a historical (or near-historical) Barbarossa virtually guarantees that the Red Army will ultimately sack of the German heartland. Conversely, compared to their historical performance, there isn’t much more the Axis can expect to achieve in the Soviet Union when confronting this defense (short of a Soviet Collapse). It’s a long way to that ninth Allied Strategic Hex and the Axis Tide 3 Box once the Soviets dig in around Moscow and Leningrad. Failing that, the one important thing for the Axis to do is to retain the initiative for as long as possible. In practice that means killing enough of the Red Army, consistently enough, to maintain a favorable balance of power in the East. Once again, the fulcrum of the War in the East is the rate of Soviet losses-to-replacements; the Axis must halt the "snowball effect" of a growing Red Army as soon as possible and for as long as possible. The underlying assertion driving this defensive strategy is that having an extra dozen or so Soviet steps or to confront that last turn of the initial Axis Blitzkrieg is just the tonic the Soviets need to stop the invaders where they were stopped historically for the Winter ’41 counteroffensive.

Regarding an Axis Autumn Blitz, who would ever dream of doing anything else? Any Axis player who trades in a glorious extra Blitz Combat Segment at the very moment when the Soviets are on the ropes for, say, a pair of armor steps (that's what you get if you play the historical War Production card instead of the last Ultimatum card) is deeply mistaken about something. Just so we're all clear, I fully anticipate that there will be four turns of an Axis Blitzing in the campaign game.

Many of the above comments indicate that the Soviets are just delaying the inevitable confrontation with the Germans. That is true, and it's the whole point of the defense! Given that the Axis are going to advance every turn that they are not stopped, the Soviets are going to have to fight them after a certain number of turns no matter what. The idea is to pick the best turns rather than simply to fight them until the Red Army is bled dry. For the reasons I explained, I'd rather stand and fight on the third turn of Barbarossa than the first one.

Having said that, I believe one point of clarification is in order. On the second turn of the Axis invasion, there is no need to build a "front line" at all. That’s because you no longer need to have units trapped by the Soviet’s "Forward Defense Policy." Thus, you need not spread out your usual losses over a couple of turns, so the steps you save are a real increase to the Red army on the turn you do choose to stand and fight. Simply pick up everybody and run backwards so that none of the German 6-6-3’s can move into contact during the Axis Operational Movement Phase. With all the extra steps you saved in the first turn, you should have everything you need to put up a defensive "line" that will thwart any attacks by the few lone panzer armies and a handful of infantry corps that can reach it. Don’t be afraid to voluntarily destroy any stray corps that somehow got stranded if you can’t move them far enough east to keep them from being a danger to your main line. Remember: a weak defense is worse than no defense at all!

Some people rely on the Axis loosing enough panzer steps in their attacks to halt their own offensive. This is insanity! [Exception: If Sal Vasta is playing the Axis, this plan could work with his luck.] I concede that the Axis need not use any panzers on the first turn of their invasion of Russia against my defense plan. So what? The Axis usually only have to make four attacks in the Blitz Combat Segment with armor, and maybe a couple more in the Regular Combat Segment, and most of them are at 9-1 odds. That's going to cost the Germans, what? Two panzer steps, on average, plus another infantry step or two from other attacks? Big deal.

Attacker attrition is a poor way to try to stop the Axis player, analogous to beating up his fist with your face. Attacking at good odds costs 1/3 of a panzer step, or 1/6 on the 9-1. Assuming there are only two steps in the hex to kill, that gives an exchange rate of 6-1 in favor of the Germans, or 12-1 for 9-1 attacks. I can tell you, as the Axis player, I'd be quite eager to trade away my armor at that rate! That's especially true because as soon as the Soviets stop running they're going to be trading their tanks away at 1-1 rate with a host of 3-2 attacks.

In fact, on the occasions when the Axis player does roll a ‘5,’ don’t think you "won" that round? The overall replacement rate during the period from the commencement of Total War (May-June ’41) until about the end of 1943 gives the Axis a little more than half the number of replacement steps that the Soviets get. If you just consider German panzer steps, in scenarios C1 and C2 they start Barbarossa with 9 (counting the conditional replacement on the first turn) get 9 more through the Summer ’42. How many of these do you want to kill if each German panzer loss costs you an average of 9 Soviet infantry steps?

Furthermore, because attacker attrition results are always dicey, you could go the whole Summer without seeing one. I have. If that’s what you’re betting the Motherland on, you could be very disappointed.

There are a few tricks the Axis player can try to get around the basic elements of this defense, but I’ll leave those for you to figure out. One thing that can happen, though: the Dr3-0/1 result defeats the theoretical parameters of this defense (because it leaves a Soviet one-step unit alive to be pounded during the Axis Regular Combat Segment). I left this combat result out of my presentation of this plan because I was aiming more to give some direction to new players who were discovering that the Soviet Union didn’t seem as tough as they expected.

In truth, even Dr3-0/1 results are not a big problem for the Soviets, although they do make it mathematically possible to get exploitation for a few units past the second line. There are a couple of reasons for this. First, by definition, they function by permitting the Axis to attack a left over step from the front line during the Regular Combat Segment. That means the Soviets aren’t loosing any additional steps – the Axis is just mopping up what he should have killed during his Blitz Combat Segment in the first place (complete with a new chance to loose more steps, for the fans of attacker attrition out there).

Second, because one odd retreat through your second line doesn’t disrupt the wall of ZOCs, regardless of how you set it up, the Axis player can’t reserve move anybody up to support them. Just don’t retreat along the roads, so he’ll be exploiting out of supply. The Axis player is going to have to be pretty gutsy to exploit his panzers out of supply, where he can’t reserve move any other units up to support them; you might see your first best opportunity for a counterattack if the Axis does act this boldly.

When my gaming group first developed this defense, we tried all of these tricks to try to break it down. Note of them worked in practice against this defensive plan. I prefer to do what some others have suggested and decline to use my panzers in the opening attacks, so that I can take infantry losses instead of panzers should a ‘5’ rear its ugly head. If the Axis player does that, he can’t exploit after retreating survivors anyway. When I play against this defense as the Axis, therefore, I use my panzers to loop around the back of what Soviet front line there is, cut off its retreat routes, and make sure I kill everything the Soviets have given me.