Soviet Red Army: Starting unit - Combat Engineers
The Soviet early game reflects a Soviet Rifle Battalion in 1942, but as they tech up, the Soviets gradually gain more and more combined arms capability that, through modernization, more accurately reflect a 1944 Infantry Division. The Soviets have versatile units with lots of utility, but as a result have many overlapping roles and therefore fewer unique, specialized units than most other factions. However, Soviet officers can participate in combat roles, and have more powerful abilities than other factions.
Battalion Field Headquarters
The Battalion Field Headquarters is the primary command structure of the Soviet Red Army. Requisition officers, engineers, and basic infantry here.
Produces Combat Engineers, Conscripts, ZiS-6 Trucks, and Commissars.Establish Field Hospital: Spawns 4 Medics to heal nearby injured troops at HQ.Special Rifle Command
Specialized and man-portable light weapon teams essential for supporting all infantry-based operations can be trained at the Special Rifle Command.
Produces Scout Sniper Teams, Tank Hunter Teams (4-man PTRS squad), PM-M1910 Heavy Machine Gun Teams, and 82-PM-41 Battalion Field Mortar Teams.
Infantry Modernization: Unlocks all basic infantry weapon upgrades. Unlocks DP-28 rack and lend-lease rations stockpile.Divisional Motor Command
The introductory step into armored warfare: towed anti-tank guns and infantry support vehicles are requisitioned at the Divisional Motor Command.
Produces M-42 Light Anti-Tank Guns and T-70 Light Tanks. When upgraded, produces ZiS-3 Divisional Field Guns and SU-76 Assault Guns. Existing M-42s and T-70s can be upgraded into Zis-3s and SU-76s.
Support Modernization:Unlocks ZiS-3 and the SU-76. Unlocks the ZiS-6 supply truck upgrade. This upgrade is required to call in the doctrinal DShK and HM-38.Tankoviy Battalion Command
Access the divisionâs independent tank battalion here; Soviet medium and heavy armor can act as a force multiplier to almost any attack or defense.
Produces T-34 Medium Tanks and KV-1 Heavy Tanks. When upgraded, produces T-34-85 Medium Tanks and IS-2 Heavy Tanks. Existing T-34s and KV-1s can be upgraded into T-34-85s and IS-2s.
Armor Modernization: Unlocks the T-34/85 and the IS-2. T-34/76 and KV-1s can individually be upgraded with radios to improve combat effectiveness when close to other vehicles with radios.
---------------------Additional Notes---------------------
-In my mod, every faction has access to a non-doctrinal officer with several support abilities. USF has multiple weaker officers.
- Soviet officers have a single-squad targeted Inspire ability that makes the unit ignore suppression and suppress nearby enemies. They can 'deploy' like the major to call in coordinated artillery strikes like the vanilla Ostheer artillery officer. At higher veterancy the officer gets a PPSh and can act as a retreat point when deployed.
- CEngies start with PPShs and have access to a flamethrower or a sweeper upgrade, which allows them to either throw smoke grenades or cut wire.
- Conscripts start with 1 SVT + 5 Mosins, but can upgrade to 6x PPSh non-doctrinally. They have 5 veterancy levels; before vet 3, each model only has 64 health vs mostly everyone else's 80.
- There is a DP-28 rack at base unlocked with tech, but instead of the Western Allies' AT weapon rack, there's a campfire which acts as a 'weapon rack' for Lend-Lease rations for 30mu. These give several small buffs over a long period of time (3 minutes), including a tiny bit more exp gain and slow passive healing out of combat. Obviously these rations cannot stack.
- A unique quirk with the Soviets is that they can upgrade their early-mid game units into more powerful later game units, similar to CoH3 Wehrmacht's Gren upgrades, which allows them to never have to worry about delaying their timings. Likewise, their weakness is a relatively small core roster of jack of all trades, master of none units when compared to other factions.
- Cannons with effective/widely-used HE shells all have generalist damage profiles. I've found USF shell switching to be clunky and ill-fitting in such a fast-paced game. This means ZiS-3 and SU-76 AOE profiles are effective against infantry as well.
- Team weapons cost munitions to train and vehicles have fuel upkeep, divided by weight class, to reduce spam. Soviet team weapons are all 4-man.
- A semi-realistic penetration system is in place. Given that all combat is within 100m, T-34s with the 76mm can still penetrate Tiger Is somewhat similar to vanilla rates, but cannot penetrate Panthers and KTs unless ramming/attacking from rear. However, there is some minor deflection damage according to gun caliber, and guns bigger than 76mm (like 77mm 17lb, 85mm, 88mm etc) will daze on deflection.
- I've grouped most of the Soviet units not listed here as doctrinal units, including Penals, the SU-85 and Katyusha. The mod has 3 'armies' which function as doctrines with split paths, these being Shock, Guards, and NKVD. They each have a unique elite infantry unit (Shocks, Guards, and Penals respectively) as well as unique artillery unit (B4, ML-20, and Katyusha respectively). Each army is given an additional choice of the remaining abilities; for example, Shock Army can choose 'Mobile Assault' to gain access to 120mm Mortar, IL-2 PTAB Bombs, and KV-2, OR they can choose 'Meat Grinder' to gain access to Rapid Conscription, IL-2 50kg Bombs, and ISU-152 instead.
- To give you an idea of how I handled Penals, I've made them a clone of Conscripts stat-wise (6 men with Conscript Mosins) with flamer upgrade and some engineering duties, like structure repair, field defenses like sandbags, trenches, caches, the ability to Merge at vet 3 (relieved of penal duty) and an ability to draw fire on themselves. The Draw Fire ability costs nothing but gives them higher received accuracy, higher target priority (like Sturmofficer Mark Target), but gives them better vet gain and damage reduction for the duration. In the end, even though stat-wise they are similar, they are a unique utility unit with its own niche of abilities that can function as Conscripts in a pinch but neither unit can 'replace' the other's abilities-wise.
- I've spent A LOT of time going over TO&Es and doctrines to arrive at a balance between historical authenticity, thematics, and gameplay, but ultimately it's not a competitively balanced mod and I'm okay with that (as well as you it seems!
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United States
China
Relic Entertainment
Oziligath 
T.R. Sidewinder 
