Long campain for russian - first impression
 

Campain start with invasion to Poland, meeting engament. There is a plenty of russian equipment to choose from - all the staff that was lost/phased out later, including pretty weird like airborne shoulder fired 76mm recoiless. I shose two infantry company, engy company, mtocicler company, T35 company configurd for infantry support, BT company, 2 platoon of flame tanks and some arty.I though Poland should be walk over, with poland army busy with fighting nazi, but unexpectedly I got poland tanks spearhed, and suffered heavy losses. Minor victory. Next - Winter war with Finland. Damn, I never expected finns have so much aviation! I had no AA whtasoever. Finns Fokkers pretty much flattened my artillery. Vikers I'd expected and can deal with, but those damn palnes...I'll see how it'll turn out.

Re: Long campain for russian - first impression
 

Minor victory too. If I had some AA guns I may score major victory. Probaly should play with 1000 points start. I'm playing now 1750 start points (have more than 2100 worth force now) and it's regimental scale. I prefer battalion scale.

Re: Lo song campain for russian - first impression
 

Here some preliminarey thought about russian campain in WinSPWW2(and some compartion with SPWAW).
Small nations and russia fare a lot better in the beginning in the WinSPWW2. Russians are not routed by single shot. Their eqipment seems better and more varied. They have sniper rifles in squads, a lot of rifle grenades, really good SP Guns. They also have range two flame tanks from the start.
Tanks are not so important as in the WinSPMBT and SPWAW. Their fire is less effective. Though it could be only early tanks.
Artillery rule the field in the WinSPWW2. It's more precise and more deadly. Light tanks killed by 152mm howitzers or 107mm mortars very often.
Heavy machineguns are not so effective as in the SPWAW. Flamethrowers seems about the same.
Heavy tanks vs light tanks: Heavy tanks absolutely rule. I have T35 company, and despite thin 4-3 armor hadn't lost any in the second battle. BT-7 could only go as support of heavy tanks or infantry. They can not be spearhead of the breakthrough as heavy tanks. Armored cars can compete with them, not like as in SPWAW, where armored cars near useless.
AI seems very good. In the second battle it seems tried to flank me. Don't remeber if AI tried to flank in the WinSPMBT. Same as in WInSPMBT AI soot on the smoked areas, trying to suppress enemy artillery.

Re: Lo song campain for russian - first impression
 

once you get 75mm type guns in your tanks, the effect is more noticeable on infantry as they have a blast radius extending into the next hex, unlike 37mm/45mm/57mm pop-guns. (if you bought the BT coys, then you should find the 76mm SP support tanks at CHQ useful as grunt-botherers http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

Use these tanks to target infantry which have "neighbours" and the next door folks will get some supression, pull backs, or even casualties from time to time, in preference to isolated sections with no next-door neighbours.

BTW - I debugged the Finnish air points for the Winter War, and these were inside the expected limits. Finland can generate up to 4 flights if lucky (and the USSR at that time can as well - they have air equality).

However this investigation has revealed a small buglet in the USSR WW2 LC. Unfortunately, the code to advance the campaign clock to Barbarossa at the end of the Winter War at dates > 3/40 was borked. Result is that you will have to fight a few more battles V finland thab you should before barbarossa, unfortunaltely. (Or fortunately - your core will therefore have better experience etc on entering the GPW ! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif. How many depends on how many battles you had the LC set for.

Therefore, for now - you may want to restart any USSR WW2 LC in the GPW period, if not wanting to deal with a Finland that refuses to give up!.

Now fixed in the code, and will be in the first bug fix release (date not yet determined).

Cheers
Andy

BTW - the comment on Polish tank numbers - have you checked that the "AI tank Heavy" option is set to OFF in preferences?.

Re: Lo song campain for russian - first impression
 

I wasn't telling that I don't like Polish tanks, or Finnish air. That just was unexpected. And I won anyway http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif . I have whole company of T35 with 76mm guns. I'll check it for slash damge effect.

Re: Lo song campain for russian - first impression
 

Equal does not seem historicaly right. Russians used some 3800 airplanes of all types in winterwar while the finns had only about 100 (most of which were fighters). A finnish aircraft flying a ground attack mission was wery rare compared to the russians.

Heres a link about the russian airforce in winterwar:
http://www.winterwar.com/forces/SAF.htm
And the Finnish airforce:
http://www.winterwar.com/forces/FINairdefence.htm

Re: Lo song campain for russian - first impression
 

mostly city-bashing on the Russian side really, and defensive fighting for the Finns against that, so the tactical strike numbers (which SP air is) for both could be justified as being reduced to lower values.

Cheers
Andy