Russian Forces
Strength: Infantry
Motto: “Power In Unity”
Most Appropriate For: Intermediate and Advanced Skill Levels

Red Army Infantry
Cost: $100
Army Points: 1
Hit Points: 60

How many men could the Soviets deploy into battle? Consider this: by December 1, 1941, the Russians suffered between four and five million casualties — but after all that they managed to have 280 rifle and cavalry divisions and 44 tank or mechanized brigades in the field for a counterattack. About 500,000 men a month were drafted into the war until its end.

Pros: There’s nothing that elevates these troopers over the Allied and German soldiers, but they’re produced slightly more quickly — and when you’re producing a lot, “slightly” matters.

Cons: The same as with any infantry unit: they’re fodder for armored units and practically useless against buildings.

Bottom Line: Red Army Infantry can prove useful throughout a battle because they can capture buildings and vehicles, and they are the only ground troops available for paratroop drops.

Molotov Infantry
Cost: $150
Army Points: 1
Hit Points: 70

Ironically, Molotov Cocktails were first used by the forces of Francisco Franco’s forces in the Spanish Civil War—forces supported by Nazi Germany. Their next major role came in the Russo-Finnish war when they were used not by the Russians, but by the Finns: they sarcastically nicknamed the homemade petrol bombs “Molotov Cocktails” because Soviet politician Vyacheslav Molotov claimed the Russian planes dropping bombs were really dispensing food.

Pros: They cost 50% more than Red Army infantry units, but do considerably more damage against any type of vehicle or building they attack.

Cons: None.

Bottom Line: Consider these lowly soldiers an integral part of your strategy — even one can do significant damage before being killed.

Red Army Medic
Cost: $250
Army Points: 2
Hit Points: 50

The Soviets immediately termed the war against the German invaders as a “Great Patriotic War,” and despite years of oppression and brutality the vast majority of the Russian people chose their Motherland over collusion with the Nazis—not knowing the Nazis would have killed them regardless. Huge numbers of volunteers, many of them women, tended the Soviet wounded, and fighting such a brutal war on their own soil provided the Red Army troops a bit of reassurance their Nazi counterparts could never hope for.

Pros: Medic units automatically heal wounded units in their vicinity, which means they survive and advance in experience level—making them even more deadly to the enemy.

Cons: They’re doctors, not soldiers, damn it—which is a Star Trek way of saying they have no offensive capabilities whatsoever. You also have to reach Tech Level 2 to train them.

Bottom Line: Expensive for infantry units, but you should definitely produce several to accompany soldiers you send into battle.

Komissar
Cost: $210
Army Points: 1
Hit Points: 75

Although some Soviet apologists will argue the specifics, the fact remains: komissars were often positioned near the front line to ensure Soviet troops didn’t desert. Their deterrent? An execution on the spot. In one recorded incident, a divisional commander at Stalingrad gathered his men, gave a speech on the need for courage—then walked down the front line of the formation and shot every tenth man in the head. Now that’s motivation!

Pros: His pistol deals a great deal of damage, and boosts the rate of fire of troops around him.

Cons: Slightly expensive.

Bottom Line: The Soviet army kept them with their troops, and look at the results. Do the same.

Partisans
Cost: $1500 ($300 per Partisan)
Army Points: 5
Hit Points: 50

[Note: Partisans are not produced at installations, but we include them here because they are infantry units.]

The Nazis assumed the Soviet people would rise in revolt against a regime that brutally oppressed them. That assumption would have been correct if the Nazis hadn’t brutalized the Russians on an even more barbaric scale, and the role partisans played in the defeat of the German invaders can hardly be understated.

Pros: Partisans can appear anywhere on the map...even in places where the “fog of war” is still in place and you have no intelligence about what’s there.

Cons: You can’t produce them one at a time, so if you’re short of resources you might have to wait for the opportunity to insert these guerilla warriors behind enemy lines.

Bottom Line: Consider yourself lucky: the Allies and Germans have nothing that matches the stealth ability of these freedom fighters!

Vodka Dealer
Cost: $330
Army Points: 2
Hit Points: 50

First things first: there were no “vodka dealers” per se in the Soviet Army. But Red Army soldiers did have a penchant for the clear liquor, and as anyone who’s imbibed more than a moderate amount knows, it does give you a feeling of invincibility.

Pros: Doesn’t get much better than this: any infantry unit in the Vodka Dealer’s radius cannot be killed.

Cons: Relatively low hit points…perhaps he should drink some of his own stock!

Bottom Line: Like the Medic and Komissar, consider the Vodka Dealer an essential part of any infantry squad you send into battle.

The Zis 42 was a half-track vehicle typically used in a cargo-transportation role in World War II.

Pros: Highly effective against infantry, and its troop-carrying capacity (12) gives it added value.

Cons: Very light armor, especially compared to enemy APCs.

Bottom Line: There are probably better units you can spend resources on than this one.

APC Mole
Cost: $1350
Army Points: 3
Hit Points: 250

The term “mole” usually applies to a spy, but in this case the term is literal: the APC mole burrows underground and digs a tunnel to the target destination. Needless to say, this technology did not exist in World War II—or if it did, someone really dropped the ball on using it.

Pros: Carries up to 10 troops and can pop up anywhere on the map.

Cons: The vehicle itself is defenseless.

Bottom Line: Coordinate an attack with an APC Mole filled with Molotov Infantry, Komissars, and Vodka dealers along with Partisans, and you’ve caused a major headache for the enemy.

T-70
Cost: $360
Army Points: 3
Hit Points: 180

If the Sherman was the K car of World War II tanks, the T-70 was the Mini-Cooper: fast but undergunned, it still served a role in the Soviet war effort because it was easy to produce. The success of the T-34—and the way that tank warfare evolved to encompass many more tank-on-tank battles—spelled the demise of this little spitfire.

Pros: Cheap, cheap, cheap.

Cons: You get what you pay for: the T-70 has the lowest hit points of any Tech Level 1 Tank.

Bottom Line: You might need to build some, but don’t get carried away and build too many just because you haven’t hit Tech Level 2 yet.

T-34
Cost: $760
Army Points: 4
Hit Points: 270

When the Germans invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, the last thing they expected was a tank that not only matched their finest armored beast, but also surpassed it in every way. Some German tanks at the end of the war might have outgunned the T-34, but for the bulk of the conflict it was the standard by which all medium tanks were judged.

Pros: An inexpensive tank that can square off with anything the enemy forces can throw at it.

Cons: The cheap resource price comes at the expense of one extra Army Point over enemy equivalents. It doesn’t sound like much, but it can add up if you’re cranking them out for a big armored assault.

Bottom Line: At this price, you can afford to make them and say to hell with the extra Army Point.

Ice Spitter
Cost: $960
Army Points: 4
Hit Points: 250

We are all familiar with “dry ice,” a substance cold enough to cause frostbite on contact with skin. Given the incentive to create new superweapons that could turn the tide of war—coupled with the Russian weather—would it be surprising to see a weapon that pushes dry ice from the realm of commercial use into the role of an offensive weapon?

Pros: When an Ice Spitter attacks, everyone stops to take notice—because they can’t move even if they wanted to. Works on buildings as well as vehicles.

Cons: Aside from freezing objects in place, the Ice Spitter does no damage.

Bottom Line: Use it in conjunction with even weak units like the T-70 tank, the Zis 42, or Molotov Infantry: once an object is frozen, it tends to break up easily when hot lead hits it!

IS-3 Stalin
Cost: $1152
Army Points: 6
Hit Points: 400

When the Soviets saw the new Panther and Tiger tanks deployed by the Germans at the Battle of Kursk in 1943, they knew they needed something with greater firepower and more armor than the T-34. This eventually led to the development of the “Iosif Stalin tank,” or IS series. The IS-2 saw action in World War II, while the IS-3—with its trademark rounded turret and angled front hull—was first shown to western observers at the Allied Victory Parade in Berlin in September, 1945.

Pros:  Much heavier armor gives the IS 3 greater survivability than the Tiger, and its gun deals out a lot more damage.

Cons: Slower than the T-34, and you must upgrade your War Factories to produce them.

Bottom Line: An essential unit once the enemy is able to produce heavy tanks.

Kharkov Rampager
Cost: $1600
Army Points: 7
Hit Points: 1800

As the German situation grew more desperate and the Nazis were constantly on the defensive, they turned to ever-larger vehicles wielding massive guns and sporting amazingly thick armor in the hopes they could stand up to the Russian onslaught. The Kharkov Rampager is a hypothetical response to German prototypes like the Maus: its stupendously thick armor means it can absorb incredible amounts of punishment and still continue to knock out enemy tanks and artillery.

Pros: The armor is so thick, you can pretty much send this behemoth straight into enemy fire and know it will take down more than its share of enemies before it’s destroyed. Use the Rampage skill to increase its killing capacity even more (best utilized when the tank is dug in).

Cons: Slow movement and turning means more nimble units can get in many hits before the Rampager is able to respond.

Bottom Line: German and Allied commanders will curse when they see this giant lumbering toward their forces.

ZSU-37
Cost: $480
Army Points: 2
Hit Points: 190

Talk about a second-hand design: the Zsu 37 was built using the SU-76 chassis, which in turn was built using a lengthened T-70 chassis. Developed late in the war, when German air superiority had flagged.

Pros: Like many Soviet units, it’s cheaper than its Allied and German cousins, and it performs better than the Bofors.

Cons: Thin armor makes it more vulnerable to enemy fire.

Bottom Line: An inexpensive, quick way to provide stopgap AA defense at a base, and a crucial part of any armored battalion.

Katyusha
Cost: $640
Army Points: 3
Hit Points: 150

Perhaps no images are more associated with Soviet firepower in World War II than footage of rockets screaming from Katyusha launchers. The Germans nicknamed them the Katyusha the “Stalin Organ,” and the rocket-launcher assembly itself could be mounted on almost anything: tractors, flatbed trucks, and even gunboats.

Pros: The Katyusha is quickly produced and boasts an amazingly long range, allowing you to drop fire on distant enemy vehicles and fortifications. It also has a surprisingly fast rate of fire.

Cons: Flatbed trucks are great for hauling stuff, but they don’t hold up too well when fired upon: it only takes one or two hits from a tank or several Bazookas/Panzerfausts to finish them off.

Bottom Line: It’s difficult to imagine this much firepower for such a low cost. You’ll still be producing this Tech Level 1 unit at the end of even very long battles.

Moving Giant Turret
Cost: $1600
Army Points: 6
Hit Points: 1300

There is quite possibly nothing as unnerving to an enemy as a long-range artillery attack. One moment, troops and tanks are moving into position; the next they lay broken and shattered, crushed without warning.

Pros: The range of the Moving Giant Turret is simply mind-boggling, which means it can take your opponent quite a while just to figure out where the barrage is originating from—and then he has to figure out how to get units there to stop it.

Cons: This long-range deathbringer moves even more slowly than the Kharkov Rampager, and it must stop in order to fire. Particularly vulnerable to anti-tank infantry or light, speedy vehicles like the Flammwagen or Halftrack.

Bottom Line: As a Soviet commander, you have no better tool than this for bringing down important enemy structures.