Strelkovy – Infantry
During the early/mid war in Flames of War the Soviet infantry are conscripts and perform rather poorly in small numbers. They have been rushed into battle to fill in for their countrymen killed in combat. The Soviet infantry is numerous, but they need that mass to be effective. Their lack of training means they need to maximise their units in order to be able to kill anything. If you have enough people shooting you’re bound to hit something. This doesn’t mean they are useless though, quite the contrary.
When taking Soviet infantry it is always a good idea to take the maximum size of company available. The reason behind this is twofold. Since during the early to mid war they have a skill rating of conscript, they will get shot very easily. If there aren’t sufficient bodies to soak up the damage they tend to get scared and run away. Remember that if your company drops below half strength this forces a morale check. With only 2 platoons in an infantry company and the conscript level of training, wiping out a platoon isn’t terribly hard to do. Increasing the number of platoons in a company to 3 means that the enemy must destroy 2 of them before a company morale check is forced.
The second reason to take full companies is to put enough fire on the enemy to cause some damage. When fighting against highly trained troops the Soviets will need a large volume of fire to take down the enemy. A veteran unit that is concealed and gone to the ground is only hit on a 6 while the equivalent Soviet is hit on a 4. The soviets need to keep up their volume of fire to inflict damage or they will find they are dying and running away much faster than they can kill the enemy.
Soviets are strong when they have the numbers but their effectiveness quickly drops off as they take losses. They need to act while they still have critical mass, for everything else is stacked against them.
It is worth noting that the Soviets become trained in the late war. This opens up a lot of flexibity since their troops become a lot harder to hit.
