Soviet union vs germany

[Kako's Uso]

in the patch i feel the soviets lose every single time against Germany is there a reason and are others having this problem lmk.

[Primigenia]

It's been a while, they tried to give flavor to the soviets with no step back and they instead nerfed them into the ground

[Ryan]

You're supposed to save the SU from Germany. It's by design.

[drewbstar]

Originally posted by Ryan:

You're supposed to save the SU from Germany. It's by design.

^
If the game was realistic then most nations would be boring to play or have no agency at all. If France or the Soviet Union could easily beat Germany then there would be basically nothing for the rest of the Allies to do.

[Dominian]

AI Soviets vs AI Germany should always lose.
Historically the Soviet Union was saved by the Allied nations opening a second front in the European Theater and kept in the fight by the materials sent in accordance with the USA's Lend-Lease Act.

[mk11]

Originally posted by Dominian:

AI Soviets vs AI Germany should always lose.
Historically the Soviet Union was saved by the Allied nations opening a second front in the European Theater and kept in the fight by the materials sent in accordance with the USA's Lend-Lease Act.

Doubtful. The USSR had already stopped the Germans by July 1943 so the 2nd front wasn't relevant. The Lend-Lease from the UK may have helped save Moscow in 1941, the USA lend-lease may have helped in 1942 but didn't really get rolling until 1943 when it certainly sped up the USSR attacks on Germany.

A bigger contribution may have been from the bombing of Germany. Not because of the damage it did but instead from the use of most of the best fighters and a lot of large barrelled cannons in defence against it.

[trooperrob]

An often forgotten contribution, the continued fight by the British Empire (at that time) in blockading Germany and choking its resource flow. If Germany was able to import the materials it needed for its war material, there might have been a lot more pressure on the Eastern front.
Having an American leader who understood the danger of an evil dictator gaining power in Europe was valuable, even if he didn't realise the threat from russia.
If Germany had attacked a month or two earlier....

Another contribution was the inefficiency of the German industry, the industrial contribution by occupied Europe to German war efforts was pathetic, thanks to non cooperation, sabotage and German ineptitude.
I think the bombing of Germany was helpful, but the critical period was over by the time that started having a serious impact, although I am sure it helped reduce the material going East.

[drewbstar]

I think one of the biggest issues when it comes to alt-history debates is how sandboxed and simplified HOI4 makes extremely complex things. Setting up a puppet government takes more than a day. Annexing entire countries is not a simple task. So when people say things like, “Here is how Germany can beat the USSR” they ignore that IRL it might have been possible for them to e.g take Moscow… they’re not taking every square mile all the way to Vladivostok.

So even if Germany “won” in HOI4 terms by capping most of the major cities, IRL this wouldn’t be enough to make them surrender and all the Soviets would have to do is either wait until D-Day to mount a counter offensive… or the USA demonstates the Manhattan Project on Berlin.