The Allies may indeed have problems getting numbers of units into Europe and Asia, but the whole reason they need to do this in the first place is because Russia has such woefully inadequate starting attack power!
The Soviets can barely trade with Germany or Japan for 2 territories a turn, before they start hemorrhaging ground units in the process, forced to make terrible trades at a loss just to prevent Axis blitz paths or landing spots. This means that the Germans can advanced along a broad front, with only modest sized stacks, and Russia is totally unable to contest them.
Instead, because they cant attack on their own, the Soviets are almost completely reliant on UK/USA to run direct counter attacks for them, against a relentless Axis advance. And this all happens in their own backyard, right in their own core Russian territories!
And its not as if Russia collapses only when they receive zero aid from the West (which might be understandable) but they collapse when they don’t receive the full maximum aid. Like literally almost all the UK/US ipcs from the early rounds dedicated just to holding the center.
The western Allies routinely send dozens of fighters and as many ground units as they can to prop up Moscow. And even then Moscow gets hammered.
Honestly if I was designing this thing from the ground up, I’d give Russia an airforce on par with the other powers. Like 3 fighters AND a bomber. Or hell even 4 fighters AND a bomber!
They’d still have the weakest starting airforce on the board.
I just think its rather lame, that the Russians are so nerfed in A&A. It feels totally ahistorical.
They had superior tanks to the Germans, even by the time this game is supposed to start, and yet it is the Germans who always tank drive. They had some the best fighter aircraft in the world by the time this game is supposed to start, and yet it is the Luftwaffe that always crushes. They had the numbers, and yet it is Germany who always pushes the massive ground stacks.
It just doesn’t look like World War 2.
The way the Royal Air Force is always camped out in Russia, and Monty is taking his tank columns on escapades through the Caucasus. For real?
If you want their income so low, they should have starting TUV. Or conversely, if you want them to have low starting TUV, then give them more income. But if you shaft them in both areas, then the game turns into this weird deal, with the western Allies running the show in Red territories.
The Russia design is just silly OOB. They have low income and as such will buy infantry and artillery as a matter of course, almost exclusively. They don’t need more inf, what they need is air power, so they can trade that infantry effectively, the way the other player nations do.
I think a single additional Russian bomber is a decidedly modest expansion compared to what they should really have, if you want to reflect their historical position during this period.
