Soviet Union

The Soviet Union is one of the playable factions in Men of War and its other WWII cousins

History
In August 1939, Stalin accepted Hitler's proposal into a non-aggression pact with Germany, negotiated by the foreign ministers Vyacheslav Molotov for the Soviets and Joachim von Ribbentrop for the Germans.[6] Officially a non-aggression treaty only, an appended secret protocol,[citation needed] also reached on 23 August, divided the whole of eastern Europe into German and Soviet spheres of influence.[7][8] The USSR was promised the eastern part of Poland, then primarily populated by Ukrainians and Belarusians, in case of its dissolution, and Germany recognised Latvia, Estonia and Finland as parts of the Soviet sphere of influence,[8] with Lithuania added in a second secret protocol in September 1939.[9] Another clause of the treaty was that Bessarabia, then part of Romania, was to be joined to the Moldovan SSR, and become the Moldovan SSR under control of Moscow.[8]

The pact was reached two days after the breakdown of Soviet military talks with British and French representatives in August 1939 over a potential Franco-Anglo-Soviet alliance.[10][11] Political discussions had been suspended on 2 August, when Molotov stated that they could not be resumed until progress was made in military talks late in August,[12] after the talks had stalled over guarantees for the Baltic states,[13][14] while the military talks upon which Molotov insisted[13] started on 11 August.[10][15] At the same time, Germany—with whom the Soviets had started secret negotiations on 29 July[6][16][17][18][19] – argued that it could offer the Soviets better terms than Britain and France, with Ribbentrop insisting, "there was no problem between the Baltic and the Black Sea that could not be solved between the two of us."[10][20][21] German officials stated that, unlike Britain, Germany could permit the Soviets to continue their developments unmolested, and that "there is one common element in the ideology of Germany, Italy and the Soviet Union: opposition to the capitalist democracies of the West".[20][22] By that time, Molotov had obtained information regarding Anglo-German negotiations and a pessimistic report from the Soviet ambassador in France.[16]

The Turning Point of the Front

While the Germans made huge advances in 1941, killing millions of Soviet soldiers, at Stalin's direction the Red Army directed sizable resources to prevent the Germans from achieving one of their key strategic goals, the attempted capture of Leningrad. They held the city at the cost of more than a million Soviet soldiers in the region and more than a million civilians, many of whom died from starvation.[71]

While the Germans pressed forward, Stalin was confident of an eventual Allied victory over Germany. In September 1941, Stalin told British diplomats that he wanted two agreements: (1) a mutual assistance/aid pact and (2) a recognition that, after the war, the Soviet Union would gain the territories in countries that it had taken pursuant to its division of Eastern Europe with Hitler in the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact.[72] The British agreed to assistance but refused to agree to the territorial gains, which Stalin accepted months later as the military situation had deteriorated somewhat by mid-1942.[72] On 6 November 1941, Stalin rallied his generals in a speech given underground in Moscow, telling them that the German blitzkrieg would fail because of weaknesses in the German rear in Nazi-occupied Europe and the underestimation of the strength of the Red Army, and that the German war effort would crumble against the Anglo-American-Soviet "war engine".[73]

Correctly calculating that Hitler would direct efforts to capture Moscow, Stalin concentrated his forces to defend the city, including numerous divisions transferred from Soviet eastern sectors after he determined that Japan would not attempt an attack in those areas.[74] By December, Hitler's troops had advanced to within 25 kilometres (16 mi) of the Kremlin in Moscow.[75] On 5 December, the Soviets launched a counteroffensive, pushing German troops back c. 80 kilometres (50 mi) from Moscow in what was the first major defeat of the Wehrmacht in the war.[75]

In early 1942, the Soviets began a series of offensives labelled "Stalin's First Strategic Offensives". The counteroffensive bogged down, in part due to mud from rain in the spring of 1942.[69] Stalin's attempt to retake Kharkov in the Ukraine ended in the disastrous encirclement of Soviet forces, with over 200,000 Soviet casualties suffered.[76] Stalin attacked the competence of the generals involved.[77] General Georgy Zhukov and others subsequently revealed that some of those generals had wished to remain in a defensive posture in the region, but Stalin and others had pushed for the offensive. Some historians have doubted Zhukov's account.[77]

At the same time, Hitler was worried about American popular support after the U.S. entry into the war following the Attack on Pearl Harbor, and a potential Anglo-American invasion on the Western Front in 1942 (which did not occur until the summer of 1944). He changed his primary goal from an immediate victory in the East, to the more long-term goal of securing the southern Soviet Union to protect oil fields vital to the long-term German war effort.[78] While Red Army generals correctly judged the evidence that Hitler would shift his efforts south, Stalin thought it a flanking move in the German attempt to take Moscow.[77]

The German southern campaign began with a push to capture the Crimea, which ended in disaster for the Red Army. Stalin publicly criticised his generals' leadership.[76] In their southern campaigns, the Germans took 625,000 Red Army prisoners in July and August 1942 alone.[79] At the same time, in a meeting in Moscow, Churchill privately told Stalin that the British and Americans were not yet prepared to make an amphibious landing against a fortified Nazi-held French coast in 1942, and would direct their efforts to invading German-held North Africa. He pledged a campaign of massive strategic bombing, to include German civilian targets.[80]

Estimating that the Russians were "finished," the Germans began another southern operation in the autumn of 1942, the Battle of Stalingrad.[79] Hitler insisted upon splitting German southern forces in a simultaneous siege of Stalingrad and an offensive against Baku on the Caspian Sea.[81] Stalin directed his generals to spare no effort to defend Stalingrad.[82] Although the Soviets suffered in excess of more than 2 million casualties at Stalingrad,[83] their victory over German forces, including the encirclement of 290,000 Axis troops, marked a turning point in the war.[84]

Within a year after Barbarossa, Stalin reopened the churches in the Soviet Union. He may have wanted to motivate the majority of the population who had Christian beliefs. By changing the official policy of the party and the state towards religion, he could engage the Church and its clergy in mobilising the war effort. On 4 September 1943, Stalin invited the metropolitans Sergius, Alexy and Nikolay to the Kremlin. He proposed to reestablish the Moscow Patriarchate, which had been suspended since 1925, and elect the Patriarch. On 8 September 1943, Metropolitan Sergius was elected Patriarch. One account said that Stalin's reversal followed a sign that he supposedly received from heaven

Stalin personally told a Polish general requesting information about missing Polish officers that all of the Poles were freed, and that not all could be accounted because the Soviets "lost track" of them in Manchuria.[133][134][135] After Polish railroad workers found the mass grave,[136] the Nazis used the massacre to attempt to drive a wedge between Stalin and the other Allies,[137] including bringing in a European commission of investigators from twelve countries to examine the graves.[138] In 1943, as the Soviets prepared to retake Poland, Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels correctly guessed that Stalin would attempt to falsely claim that the Germans massacred the victims.[139] As Goebbels predicted, the Soviets had a "commission" investigate the matter, falsely concluding that the Germans had killed the PoWs.[39] The Soviets did not admit responsibility until 1990.[140]

In 1943, Stalin ceded to his generals' call for the Soviet Union to take a defensive stance because of disappointing losses after Stalingrad, a lack of reserves for offensive measures and a prediction that the Germans would likely next attack a bulge in the Soviet front at Kursk such that defensive preparations there would more efficiently use resources.[141] The Germans did attempt an encirclement attack at Kursk, which was successfully repulsed by the Soviets[141] after Hitler cancelled the offensive, in part, because of the Allied invasion of Sicily,[142] though the Soviets suffered over 800,000 casualties.[143] Kursk also marked the beginning of a period where Stalin became more willing to listen to the advice of his generals.[144]

By the end of 1943, the Soviets occupied half of the territory taken by the Germans from 1941–42.[144] Soviet military industrial output also had increased substantially from late 1941 to early 1943 after Stalin had moved factories well to the East of the front, safe from German invasion and air attack.[145] The strategy paid off, as such industrial increases were able to occur even while the Germans in late 1942 occupied more than half of European Russia, including 40 percent (80 million) of its population, and approximately 2,500,000 square kilometres (970,000 sq mi) of Soviet territory.[145] The Soviets had also prepared for war for more than a decade, including preparing 14 million civilians with some military training.[145] Accordingly, while almost all of the original 5 million men of the Soviet army had been wiped out by the end of 1941, the Soviet military had swelled to 8 million members by the end of that year.[145] Despite substantial losses in 1942 far in excess of German losses, Red Army size grew even further, to 11 million.[145] While there is substantial debate whether Stalin helped or hindered these industrial and manpower efforts, Stalin left most economic wartime management decisions in the hands of his economic experts.[146] While some scholars claim that evidence suggests that Stalin considered, and even attempted, negotiating peace with Germany in 1941 and 1942, others find this evidence unconvincing and even fabricated.[147]

Final Victory:

By April 1945 Nazi Germany faced its last days, with 1.9 million German soldiers in the East fighting 6.4 million Red Army soldiers while 1 million German soldiers in the West battled 4 million Western Allied soldiers.[164] While initial talk postulated a race to Berlin by the Allies, after Stalin successfully lobbied for Eastern Germany to fall within the Soviet "sphere of influence" at Yalta in February 1945, the Western Allies made no plans to seize the city by a ground operation.[165][166] Stalin remained suspicious that western Allied forces holding at the Elbe River might move on the German capital and, even in the last days, that the Americans might employ their two airborne divisions to capture the city.[167]

After the capture of Berlin:

☀On 9 August 1945 the Soviet Union invaded Japanese-controlled Manchukuo and declared war on Japan. Battle-hardened Soviet troops and their experienced commanders rapidly conquered Japanese-held territories in Manchuria, southern Sakhalin (11-25 August 1945), the Kuril Islands (18 August to 1 September 1945) and parts of Korea (14 August 1945 to 24 August 1945). The Imperial Japanese government, vacillating following the bombing of Hiroshima (6 August 1945) and Nagasaki (9 August 1945), but faced with Soviet forces fast approaching the core Japanese homeland, announced its effective surrender to the Allies on 15 August 1945 and formally capitulated on 2 September 1945.

In June 1945 the Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union conferred on Stalin for his role in the Soviet victory the newly-invented rank of Generalissimus of the Soviet Union, which became the country's highest military rank (superior to Marshal). Stalin's "cult of personality" emphasised his personal military leadership after the enumeration of "Stalin's ten victories" - extracted from Stalin's 6 November 1944 speech "27th anniversary of the Great October socialist revolution" (Russian: «27-я годовщина Великой Октябрьской социалистической революции») during the 1944 meeting of the Moscow Soviet of People's Deputies.

Tactics
True to history, you use the "human wave" tactic, which is an offensive infantry tactic in which an attacker conducts an unprotected frontal assault with densely concentrated infantry formations against the enemy line, intended to overrun the defenders by engaging in melee combat. You literally throw a massive number of men at the enemy. But remember to take note of enemy machine gun positions and take them out with artillery or armor or the attack would only be mass slaughter.

Soviet T-34 tanks are reliable and mobile so use them to your advantage but remember to always look out for enemy artillery and armor.

The Soviets place a heavy emphasis on artillery. The 203mm B-4 howitzer and the BM-13 Katyusha are powerful artillery pieces. Take care.

Soviet missions

 * Baptism by Fire
 * Evacuation
 * Prisoners of War
 * Moscow is behind us!
 * Penal unit
 * The ultimate battle.
 * Behind enemy lines
 * Following shadows
 * The flying Dutchman

Pros
+ Good Heavy tanks with thick armor but with a slow reload rate.

+ Katyusha rocket launchers are effective artillery pieces

+ PPSH infantry under direct control can take out a huge defensive infantry line.

Cons
- Rather inaccurate rifle infantry

- All tanks are inaccurate at long distant engagements

- Over reliance on the PPSH

Infantry Squads

 * Partisan
 * Assault Infantry
 * Regular Infantry
 * Marines
 * Red Guards
 * Mechanized Red Guards
 * Combat Engineers (AP Mines)
 * Combat Engineers (AT Mines)
 * Mine Disposal Experts

Specialized Soldiers

 * Rifleman
 * SMG
 * Machine Gunner
 * AT Rifle Infantry
 * AT Infantry
 * Tank Crew
 * Flamethrower Infantry
 * Sniper
 * Officer

Transport And Procurement

 * M-72
 * GAZ-67B
 * M5A1
 * ZiS-5

Artillery

 * Heavy MG
 * DShK Heavy MG
 * BM-37 Mortar
 * M-37
 * ZiS-3
 * ZiS-2
 * 61-K M1939
 * M-30
 * D1
 * SU-122
 * ISU-152
 * BM-13 Katyusha

Support Weaponry

 * BA-64
 * BA-11
 * T-26
 * T-60
 * T-70
 * ZSU-37
 * T-34 Sapper

Tank Support

 * BT-7a
 * T-34/76
 * T-34/76
 * T-34/57
 * KV-1
 * T-34/85
 * KV-85
 * IS-1
 * IS-2
 * IS-3

Tank Destroyers

 * SU-76
 * ZiS-30
 * SU-85
 * ISU-122
 * SU-100

Special Units

 * Spetsnaz
 * Shock Infantry
 * Guards Sniper
 * Guards Rifle
 * Charge!
 * Black Coats
 * BS-3
 * Radio Operator
 * KV-2
 * BM-8 24
 * Assault Troops
 * 203mm B-4M

Armoured Vehicle

 * T-20 Tractor

Car

 * GAZ-67
 * M-72

Men of War: Red Tide

 * O-38
 * T-26
 * I3L
 * NI-1
 * T-60
 * T-70
 * T-34 Sapper
 * T-34 Towing Vehicle