With a bid unit to Egypt, you had better just leave Egypt alone and hit the following:

sz2 use 1 ss, 1 fig, 1 bmb
sz6 use 1 ss, 1 fig (+ 1 ca if you feel like it)
sz12 use 1 ss, 2 fig
take Gibraltar with an infantry from France or Algeria to help Italy get its NO

on Italy 1, you can hit Egypt or Trj, whichever, or both if the UK pulled back to Sudan.  Just make sure to get both of your NO’s so as to get the money flowing.  If the UK pulled out of Egypt so that your Libyian troops can take it, you could even move the fleet to sz13, dropping off 1 inf, 1 arm in Algeria so that on Italy 2 you could take Brazil with the infantry unit if the US is headed to the Pacific, but the armor unit could still go to Egypt on Italy 2.

This should accomplish what you need to accomplish.

Also, you should buy at least 1 air unit on G1 (preferably a bomber), so as to keep the pressure up on the UK Atlantic fleet since you should have decimated it.

Yes.

As per AA 50 Rulebook:

"Phase 5: Noncombat Move

Sea Units: Sea units can move through any friendly sea zone. They cannot move through hostile sea zones."

“Sea Zones: Sea zones are either friendly or hostile. Friendly sea zones contain no enemy surface warships. Hostile sea zones contain enemy surface warships.”

Seems like you should be fine. SZ12 is not a hostile sea zone because it has no enemy ships in it and your bombardment does not make it a hostile zone so you should be good to move the destroyer anywhere you please. Intuitively, since there is no real “battle” taking place at sea, the ships would not have to be in formation and the destroyer may never even come in contact with the other ships. It would not need to be present for their bombardment so it should be free to travel wherever it is directed.

Hope that helps.

I just tried the build 2 factories UK in south africa and india.What a failure that was .It leaves russia wide open for a can opener italy so Germany wins right off the bat.Back to square one all you can do as the allies is KGF with tranny’s.I’m really kinda pissed off now.I think the the china’s representaion in this game is horrible.China had 3.8 million troops and if you think that the 5 divions represented is close your really wrong.Since your letting germany in this game just walk in to moscow the game shuld be balanced with a true representation of china and the 2 million in india.china should have like 12 troops right off the bat .now way would japan just walk on through china like a big joke.And then they should get a infantry for every territory.damn

If the bid is not used in Europe/Egy, in the long run it means that Germany/Italy will capture Moscow, and Japan will at least be able to defend itself against the US.

Hi, all!

Thanks to BigDog for great thinking outside of the box.

I had what was propably the best game so far yesterday. I wanted to apply this strategy, and did so with the US. Unfortunately, my co-player (UK & Russia) wanted to go a little more extreme into India, buying a factory and later 2 Battleships and 1Carrier. Ferrying the 2Fighters from London via Moscow to land on the Carrier. The Japanese player did not se this coming… He did manage the usual and occupy the entire Pacific, but being too spread out caught between the UK and US fleet he had  to retreat towards the mainland for naval reinforcements. Japan did not contribute towards capturing Moscow. The UK fleet was destroyed, with India being captured. But this allowed the US to retake all of the Islands and capture all Jap islands as well. Japan mainland was taken, and the fleet utterly destroyed when racing back to liberate Japan. The best naval battle ever!!  :mrgreen:
Unfortunately this led to Italy and Germany sharing Africa and the Russian territories after Italy had an income of 44 on its peak (34+2 nat obj) and Germany scoring around 60 - objectives included.
This led to a combined effort on London, I believe we held out 4 assaults before Germany finally succeded in occupying London.

So in retrospect i believe that this was a bit too much of an “all out” in the Pacific. Containing Japan led to Italy reaching new heights, and I believe that it is much better for the Allies to secure Africa and contain Italy. Also leaving a strong fleet in the Atlantic to be able to support Russia if need be. Either directly on Russian soil, or maintaining a possibillity to invade France/Italy. The US was not able to liberate Australia, Borneo and East Indies before Africa was totally occupied, leaving UK with a few rounds of very little income. Holding Africa with the intent of liberating India later on seems to me like a stronger option.

Finding the right moment to strike at Japan still eludes me, and I am very much looking forward to the next game where I will certainly try something else than a KGF.

@bugoo:

‘The problem is this sets up a deadly dance.’

:-o

I’ve changed my strategy!I hit egypt first round with germany.take out sz12 with 2 fighters and sub.sz2with fighter ,bomber suband now leave canadian trans alone.don’t want to spread out too much.lower all the risk a little and save a fighter hopefully.
I had a game yesterday where italy landed in london unopposed.how did this happen?when you bring in the jap navy into the mediterainan ?(2 carriers battlship 4 fighters)and combine this with the itallian fleet you can now almost destroy the allied convoy system and or make there purchases of navel units skyrocket.I’m planning next game to nip that in the bud.have the usa hold the jap fleet back in the pacific and destroy the itallian fleet round one or 2 befroe the japs get therewith british or american bombers and or navel units.I now play germany very defenceively,buying time for the the japs to come in.Seems like the allies should always win ,they should be able to counter anything with there vast resourses.It just a matter of catching the off guard.Do not do a german tank blits.Russians can just build infantry to soak them up and then you losse france to americans coming over from canada.
SIDEPOINT      ATTENTION hardcore  players.Something is bugging me……should not french madagascar be in german control because it was in december 1941 the british had to invade so it wasn’t in german control anylonger…what about french west africa too and also Italian east africa I think they all should be under axis control…what are your thoughts?

Oh wow I overlooked that :-o and will definitely remember that from now on.  My group and I never played it correctly then even though it probably would have only mattered like twice.  Usually we had allied units in originally controlled Russian territory then it was obvious.  Thanks for the heads up.

Yep, there has to be a unit with combat value with a combat round, to kill them.

Example 1 - Let’s say I attack your 2 subs and 2 transports with 2 loaded transports (intending to amphibious assault, but I decide to attack, and not ignore your subs), a destroyer and 2 fighters.

I get three hits, and you roll snake eyes and get two hits.

You lose both subs and both transports (my surviving 2 fighters sink your two transports) but I lose the destroyer and a loaded transport (I have to assign your two hits, and my fighters cannot be hit).

Example 2 - I attack your 2 subs and 2 transports with 2 loaded transports and 2 destroyers.  We both knock each other out in the same round.  Like Yoshi said, no transports on either side would be sunk, because there are no units with combat value on either side to sink them.  The amphibious assault would proceed, because there’s no unit to stop it.

HOWEVER, if I decide to attack your subs that I could have ignored, and I lose (your sub survives, my destroyers are destroyed) I must retreat my loaded transports, and I cannot unload them this turn.  That’s the risk of a combined naval battle/amphibious assault.

Now having played these two games for several more rounds there do appear to be some disadvantages.

Sacrificing german planes to take CAU, or Italian troops on a first-round assault to help the Germans take it, combined with placing fewer troops in Africa - can make it so that the Axis has less of a fighting force, and might also be making less money than otherwise possible.

Italy is likely to lose its NO(s) in Africa faster.  Germany gets the CAU NO, but if it is possible to get this by trading KAR, then that might be a lot easier.

Germany loses a lot of flexibility by being tied into sending armor to CAU (either to reinforce it, or to take MOS). Also fighters can get tied up too, making atlantic Allied convoys easier and facilitating the US going for Japan.

Plusses: if you can get Italy to fight your Russian territory border skirmishes and to build infantry to defend ITA, FRA, and GER against the Allies amphibious assaults - then Germany can build up much faster than Russia and ultimately take Moscow with a stack of armor (possibly reinforced by a buy of all bombers, the turn before the assault - as they can fly from GER to MOS is one turn).

Having Italy use its infantry for cannon fodder is much better than having Italy attack MOS to soften up the defenses before the German attack, as Italy will typically lose all its units on the first round of fighting (thus it costs 10 IPC to kill a single defending Russian infantry - by buying 2 arm, or 10.5 with inf/art).  Italy can also intentionally escalate in border countries (stack an empty country with 2 inf, instead of 1) to bleed off more Russian units.

Of course, I’m not saying that those armor HAVE to head down there, but it DOES give the Japanese a second thought, especially with an American fleet proceeding into their home waters.

Unless a destroyer is present, a sub may always just choose to submerge in the opening fire round.

I always felt allies were stronger in both scenario. You just have to know how to play Russia agressively.

Definitely not. Allies are at a huge disadvantage in 41. Although Axis is at a huge disadvantage in 42. Its unfortunate that neither scenario is balanced.

We leave the rules alone, the Dardanelles is open.  Though we have on occasion played with some modified Neutrality rules which effect it.

If Italy can take Africa for IPCs and keep its fleet intact for 4-5 turns Italy can start doing good.  One game Germany launched an unsucssesful invasion of UK.  Then Italy came out of nowhere and took the UK with one tank left and the US fleet was 3 sz away.  Game ending move.  Italy has potential.

Germany because, espacally if they hit Russia hard, Russia is stuffed aginst a full blown Germany.
But 1 bombing round aginst Italy can really catch them off balance and make it hard for them.

One of the big questions is “How Easy is it to Hold France”?

@Flying:

Doing this leaves Africa to the Allies doesn’t it? Can a lower income Italy do this? What do you do, stack up tanks and infantry for 4 rounds then attack Russian territories? I can definately see this working though seems like a more risky strategy than going for africa/middle east.

When I say using Germany to let Italy have a crack at Russia I mean the Caucus not the Russian capital.

You can do both.  You don’t need many italian tanks to open a hole in a wall of inf that is only 1 or 2 inf.

and, yes Germany can can opener the Caucasus for italy, but we find it’s better to have Germany (or even Japan) to take the caucasus over Italy.  They could make better use of the IC with 4 unit capability.

@Zhukov44:

The nice thing is…if Germany sees it coming and acts preemptively (like say landing its figs in France) there is an opportunity cost involved…  Given normal G1 attacks, those figs won’t be able to attack anything useful G2 and still land in France.  Plus, as you note, the Allies can still adapt their tactics and buy another AC UK2.

So each side giving up a round of ‘tempo’ help who more?

that answer depends allot on what’s happening on the Russian front as well as Africa.

I will usually only build extra naval units with Germany if there is some sort of core to build them around. Be that a surviving cruiser or battleship. If I still have one of these in turn two or three I might build some subs or even a destroyer. Also the casualty rate on the Eastern Front cant be too high, because then I will buy extra land units instead.

So basically, it depends on how well the Allies play and how well my navy holds up. Its a opportunistic investment at best and I never considered it a feasible strategy for Germany really.