Overview
Guide made specifically for the PFU mod. Assumes worst case scenario with uncooperative allies that are unwilling to trade with you.This guide should net you more than 200 civilian factories and 200 military factories at the time of war declaration. Due to the very nature of how planning bonus works we will have to commit most of our forces to the front line against the Germans. The Pinsk marshes will form the division between the northern and southern fronts and offer the Germans as well as the Soviets a focal point for encirclement. In PFU it is either almost impossible or difficult to gain air superiority over the Axis forces considering the bonuses that Germany gets to its planes with the Messerschmidt company and Aviation + Blitzkrieg bonuses to agility and attack. For this reason we must focus HEAVILY on anti-air to nullify or at least minimize the impact that air superiority will have on our divisions. To do this we must make lots and I mean LOTS of SPAA. Why SPAA? Because we can upgrade the anti-aircraft armament to nearly double its stock value with +5 through the variant system. We will put SPAA in all of our divisions, armored and unarmored. For our tank divisions we will not be building any SPGs, rather we will use Katyushas for their more efficient IC-Soft attack ratio which will help us standardize our production and create effective motorized divisions. With this guide, CAS will be a negligible threat as our divisions will have 150+ air attack. For this reason we will not focus that heavily on aircraft production.
General Strategy
If the allies are willing to buy factories from you, all the better and you will be able to build far more factories and gear up for war in a shorter amount of time. However this guide assumes that you receive little to no industrial assistance from the allies.
Due to how PFU buffs German Aircraft, it is safe to say that the Soviets will never have air superiority without heavily neglecting your infantry and tank forces. Because of this we will make extensive use of SPAA and minimize the movement and combat penalties from that loss of air control. Buffed to +5 Anti-Aircraft we can reach a huge air attack of 240 in our infantry divisions.
We will still make fighters of course, but we will not put them up in the initial conflict until the officers purged debuff is removed. We will make a general front line along the entire Axis-Soviet border with several defensive lines make fallback easier. Planning bonus is essential to proper use of armor, so make sure to make a long offensive plan with your tanks (spread out) to build that bonus. We can cancel it and relocate the tanks once the war starts in proper.
We will research Anti-Tank and Motorized Rocket Artillery for the piercing and soft attack values. Do not produce Anti-Tank until you research the 1940 variant.
We will be able to put out at least twenty 40 width armored divisions in 1941.
Here is what our defense lines would look like:
Division Composition
Soft attack is the most important statistic in a division. If an attacking division’s breakthrough is greater than the defending divisions soft-attack it will take FAR LESS damage and even LESS SO when your divisions are unable to pierce them.
Each attack has the potential to be a hit or miss, where hits would cause HP and organization damage to the enemy unit. After each attack, the defending unit removes one defense (if it has some left) and the actual chance to hit depends on if the defender has defenses left or not. The base chance to avoid hit when unit has defenses left is 90%. If the defending unit has exhausted all of its defenses, the chance to avoid hits drops to 60%.
The amount of possible damage done is random, where a “dice” is used to randomly choose the amount of damage done. For HP damage the size of the dice is 2 and for organization damage it is 4. The exact amount of damage done to HP and organization is calculated by multiplying the obtained random integers by modifiers before applying the damage to the units.
When armored units are in combat against targets with lower piercing, the organization dice size is increased to 6 representing the ability of the armored unit to deal more damage.
The damage done to unit’s HP reduces the attack and defense stats. (Copy-pasted from the Hoi4 Wiki)
Because of this it is necessary that our own armored divisions have enough soft-attack to quickly kill enemy infantry and armor. We will use Katyushas (MRART) to generate our soft attack for our armor divisions as they are far more IC-efficient than SPGS as our armor variants do not receive the production cost reduction like our regular armor does. Additionally, Katyushas are affected by the rocketry techs which we can use from our Closed City Network focus.
Our infantry will use anti-tank to enable us to pierce some of Germany’s armor if they do not focus on upgrading armor on their tanks. We will only produce 1940 Anti-Tank because producing earlier versions will just decrease our piercing average.
Our whole army will make use of the Logistics and Flamethrower companies as with the -30% from Deep Battle and the -20% from Zhukov we will be able to as high as a -75% reduction of supply consumption enabling us to fight in the low infrastructure areas without taking attrition.
Our infantry will have 3 SPAA with Anti-Air upgraded to the max so we can effectively ignore air-superiority penalties on the offense and defense as well as shoot down hordes of CAS.
Organization is not that important for our armored divisions. What is important is breakthrough and soft-attack which will determine how quickly the enemies will lose organization and strength to our attacks. The quicker the battle is over, the less organization matters. For this reason we include 2 SPAA and 2 MRART for their offensive and defensive capabilities. Our tanks are upgraded to +5 Reliability and +5 Gun or +5 Anti-Air.
Since the reinforcement events operate by template name, we should keep our elite mechanized formations in Mechanivoisky Korpus template to ensure we get them as Veteran divisions.
Attacking into forests, mountains, or rivers will result in less than stellar performance. However it will usually be more than enough to overpower infantry.
Here we can see the awesome power of a veteran mechanized armored division with planning bonus unhindered by terrain.
Here is a possible German division.
Focus Order
Stalin Constitution
Positive Heroism
Progress Cult
Socialist Science
Extra Research Slot
Finish the Five Year Plan
Armament Effort
Improve Railway Network
Socialist Realism
Transpolar Flights
The Great Purge
(Get rid of Khrushchev, Tuchakevsky, as well as Army and Air force)
An Oceangoing Navy
Vyacheslav Molotov
NKVD Primacy
NKVD Divisions
(Once Molotov Ribbentrop Pact is signed justify on your claims and war with one of the Baltic countries or Finland to unlock Lessons of War and Research City Experiment)
Anti Capitalist Diplomacy
Expand the Red Fleet
Anti-Fascist Diplomacy
Improve the Stalin Line
Then go for Air Production or don’t pick a focus to generate political power until you are declared on.
Take Move Industry to the Urals once you are at war and beeline straight for Defense of Moscow. (With Total Mobilization and Great Patriotic War you have 0% consumer goods)
War Propaganda
Operation Countenance
And if the situation is dire enough to give you access to Battle for Stalingrad, take it.
Build Up
Build level 10 infrastructure in Moscow, Kharkov, Stalingrad, and Ufa. Build only civilian factories in these provinces. Whenever you research a new level of concentrated industry, make sure to fill in any new slots that you get.
When you complete the Infrastructure focus make sure to upgrade those provinces to level 10 infrastructure and fill them up with civilian factories. Once you have filled up these provinces, start building military factories. You shouldn’t waste time on upgrading infrastructure that much for mils, rather you should only build at the most 1 level of infrastructure as by then you will be on war economy which will make infrastructure less efficient even with the increased building slots.
When you move industry to the Urals, you will have opened up numerous slots in Moscow. You can build more Civilian factories there to enable you to trade more if you are able to. If not, (no convoys or raiding) just go to closed or limited exports and build military factories everywhere between Moscow and the Urals.
Don’t build directly in or around the Urals as you will get lots of military factories there from the Ural focus (perhaps 20-40 of them).
In most cases, you generally won’t be building Military industry until the Molotov Ribbentrop Pact happens. Take the factories that you gain from the land annexations and put 30 on building your upgraded Medium IIs, then another 30 on building upgrading SPAA II. 15 Factories on mechanized is a must if you want to produce a better armored division. Likewise, at least 10 factories on Motorized Rocket Artillery is necessary for your mobile divisions.
You can use the rest of the factories on producing Fighter IIs with the Yak design company and perhaps Heavy Tank Destroyer IIs if you believe Germany is focusing on heavy armor. You may want some more factories on support equipment and Anti-Tank because you will lose a decent amount to combat.
Political Power Usage
You will always spend your first 150 PP on getting Partial Mobilization. Afterwards get the Captain of Industry and Industry Design Company. Switch to Free Trade and then get the Land Theorist.
After this prioritize getting War Economy and the Morozov Design Bureau when you research your Medium Tank II. From here on out, it is all up to personal research preference but I would advise lowering your economy laws if you are spending too many factories importing allied resources when you are not receiving anything in return.
Research
Always research the Industry techs when they are on time. Concentrated Industry is the priority tech as it will immediately boost your equipment production and factory slots. Construction is more important than Production Efficiency until you research the 1941 and 1943 Industry Tech.
Research Logistics Company and Flamethrower Company when you have nothing better to research (probably in 1937/38ish)
You don’t need to research Radio at all.
Take Mass Assault down the Deep Battle research path. We will want that supply reduction and have the ability to go on the offensive.
Operational Integrity all the way to the +20% Agility boost for Fighters is all the doctrine for air that we need.
Research Heavy Tank Destroyer II and put it in your tanks if you think Germany is producing Heavy Armor.
You shouldn’t research Fighter II until you are ready to start putting factories on fighters. Don’t forget to upgrade the Engine to +5 as well as the Range and Reliability.
Engineers at level 3 is very important. Just like researching Anti-Tank II. Research Rocket Artillery and the upgrade to boost the firepower of your Katyushas.
Barbarossa
When the war starts, it is imperative that you maintain a working front line until around November when the Russian Winter hits in full force. The weather penalties will slow down the German divisions by at least 50% and lower attack by at least 30%.
When the Defense of Moscow national focus completes, we will be better equipped to go on the offensive than the Germans are. Our weather penalties will be halved. Unfortunately, weather does not seem to affect Defense or Breakthrough (It really should by the way) which means that German tanks will still be a threat. They will just de-org your infantry more slowly.
Because we focused so heavily on SPAA, air superiority penalties are negligible.
Take great care to prevent your army from being encircled near the Pinsk marshes or up to Riga. You will want to make defensive fallback lines along the critical rivers of the Dniepr and Odessa areas.
