@surfer thank you.

Another strategy many Allied players of fond of using is the more recent strategy known as the Floating Bridge done and performed by the United States player in a game of Global 40’.

To summarize this strategy, the American player uses the concept of making the game long and drawn out to their advantage to which they eventually build a link of transports together to cross the Atlantic Ocean preferably into North Africa and then into Southern France/Italy with a built up navy over the course of 5-7 rounds.

The Floating Bridge technique is often the go-to for the United States frankly because there really isn’t much else they can be doing other than sending men to die in Europe, which makes for a problem to the German player and the Axis as a whole, since Germany should be the ones to hold the team on their shoulders, being the leader of the Axis.

There isn’t much the Germans can do to stop the Americans from building their floating bridge initially, but there are methods of delaying it.

One thing that should be prioritized is keeping the Americans out of the war.

To put simply, Japan should NOT do a J1 attack, being as it is quite the unstoppable opening for the Japanese player, it’s not often seen as beneficial to the Germans for having brought the Americans into the war on the first turn, allowing them to gain more income, and most importantly a free window to move into Africa at any point, with Germany only being capable of sending a couple U-Boats to fight a 2 boats which doesn’t seem very cost effective to me since every German U-Boat should be fighting the British Navy in some sort of fashion.

Not doing a J1 attack will already set the Americans back and limiting them to their only 2 Sea zones that border their Eastern US territories, as well as delay them into building up their navy sufficiently without the bonus 20 IPC’s.

Though this will delay the Americans, it won’t stop the sleeping giant completely. Which is why it’s imperative to do one of two things as the German player. 1) Build a formidably sized Luftwaffe to fight off the American landing or 2) Building a formidably sized Kriegsmarine to size up the American navy.

In this scenario, the latter works better, though how would you do that with such little time to build up until Barbarossa is implemented?

With a simple strategy called Afrika Korps that General Hand Grenade had previously made.

Granted having tried this strategy myself, building a mobilizing a German Navy and sending it to the Med Sea is without a doubt the best way to go, seeing as you’ll have the 3 turns of not being at war to make it into the Mediterranean and to help the Italians grow their navy to a size at which it can and should protect itself.

There is no telling how big the Americans will want to make their navy in the Atlantic, and it isn’t cost effective for the German player to continually size up the American Navy by building more ships than them, but rather build the occasional ship here and there, and compensate with the assistance of the Luftwaffe. (With that, bringing down the 3 transports with 6 guys to make landings in Gibraltar and Morocco, as well as 6 more guys from Southern France).

Having done this and helped the Italians build up their navy, the Americans have 2 options.

Risk everything they have to go in to try to sink your navy or 2) Not move in to attack the German fleet, to which as I stated, the American player should not be of someone to take risks.

For the American Fleet and amphibious assault of operation flashlight to be beaten back by the Germans and Italians has a lot more significance and sway in the war effort than others might think, because it’s not as simple as just ‘rebuilding and trying again’.

The Americans can’t afford to try again if they do not succeed, they have one shot, one opportunity to make it into Africa and then Europe, and if that opportunity even has the slightest chance of being withered away, then a proper American player shouldn’t even take the slightest risk in attempting a landing and take over of the Med sea, which is exactly what the axis should be looking to have happen.

To summarize, the longer the Axis can stall the Americans from landing in Europe, the more the war effort sways in their favor, since the German War Machine will be grinding against the Soviet Meat in the Eastern Front. And all said is done, it doesn’t end there.

I feel that the statement of ‘not letting Japan take Honolulu or Sydney’ is an incredibly significant overstatement due to the fact that once Japan cleans up in the Pacific, YES they will take Sydney, YES they will take Honolulu, because unlike in the other games such as 1942 second edition, 1941, and Anniversary edition, Japan as the complete capability to win the war completely for the Axis powers by controlling 6 victory cities. Being that the Americans and British cannot ignore the Japanese any longer. Which is the exact role that Japan plays in all of this, playing a big enough threat to the Americans and British to the point at which they MUST act upon stopping them at all costs.

Having done this, follow it by the letter, and you will have a swift victory as the Axis powers, unfortunately there is no real magic bullet or secret method to completely defeating the Americans, but with stalling and waiting them out, will you find success in your efforts to winning World War 2.

@jscam74

This would be a fantastic tactic to use in a game, if only it allowed for Germany to spend their IPC’s accordingly on a proper Sea Lion invasion.

To put simply, the UK reacts to whatever Germany does. If Germany goes for London, then the UK prioritizes London. If Germany goes for Africa, then the UK prioritizes Africa.

All it would take for me to get you to pull out EVERY single unit from London would be to employ a fake Sealion attack of mobilizing the classic Sealion build of an aircraft carrier and 2 transports, because this build screams Sealion at the UK player, I’ve pretty much just told you I’m going to do Sealion. You pull out of London without Germany even having spent the 49 IPC’s on 7 transports to bring units onto London, only having to take 3 transports worth of units to secure London and Scotland, not spend anything to do it, and keep all their said units alive for Barbarossa and potentially Afrika Korps.

This wouldn’t be cost effective even the slightest, the British really can’t afford to hand London to Germany like this because frankly, even if you get the German player to spend those 49 IPC’s on a bunch of transports they won’t end up using, the whole key factor of defending London is to make sure Germany at the very least has to fight for it, giving up something to compensate for another factor whilst not taking away from the preexisting German army just is not a cost-effective method, each player of the Allied team should be doing absolutely everything in their power to whittle away the German War Machine as much as possible. It’s their duty to make sure that whatever strategy the German player attempts to employ that the Allies should make damn well assure that Germany costs dearly in another aspect to which they did not do.

That’s the whole idea of Sealion, when Germany sends 10 infantry and 10 armory and a crap ton of the Luftwaffe to the British Isles they are doing so at the cost of really setting themselves back with the inevitable invasion of the Soviet Union, let alone the fact that the Soviet Union will be put in the position of going on the offensive.

Just my thoughts though, personally I’m not one to give something up without a fight as the Allied player, since being able to cut away from the inevitable Axis success is always the #1 priority as of early-mid game.

@marshmallowofwar thanks to both you and @AndrewAAGamer for clarifying. Thought I had a sneaky way to slow him down, but will have to give it some more thought!

@colt45554

Thanks so much for clearing that up!

If you do go down to Italian Somaliland with that transport, you could bring the transport from India with two units to help. That and the bombardment is usually successful.

***I think this is maybe posted in the Europe 40 group and my comment would only apply to Global.

Yes, they can do that even if the powers are at war. The presence of a sub belonging to an enemy power does not block movement.

Marsh

Each unit with a combat value would get one die. One attacking infantry would roll one die(scoring a hit on a “1”) and the defending infantry+artillery rolls 2 dice(scoring a hit for each die showing “1” or “2”). This continues each round until combat is resolved or attacker retreats

Any special rules in dealing with french controlled north africa

1940 europe

@Eisenhower

Hey man, with the Naval Base on America’s Eastern USA territory, you can reach Sea Zone 91, bordering Gibraltar and Morocco. You can drop troops in either. Note that your ships can only pass through into the Mediterranean if the Allies control Gibraltar.

You can also get back in one turn via the Naval Base there.

If Germany is building an air fleet, make sure the UK puts an Air Base in Gibraltar for scrambling.

This works better in the Global game because the ships that begin off the coast of India aren’t going to be there in the Europe only game. As mentioned in this thread Italy could also take either or both of the territories required to use the Suez Canal. And remember in the rules that if Italy took either T-J or Egypt, and you manage to control both territories on your 2nd turn, and Italy does not take either of those territories, ships cannot pass through the canal until your 3rd turn because canals are only usable if they were friendly at the beginning of your turn, not at the non-combat phase.

It could work, and you would be able to add a destroyer (that starts the game in SZ 71) and a few extra fighters to your attacking force but an Italy player will be able to send a ship as a blocker if they see it coming (like their destroyer). A drawback is you’re giving Italy at best 1 turn, and at worst 3 turns, to use the ships that begin the game in 97 to do things in the Mediterranean. Allowing the Italian Navy to mass their ships is not as bad as Moltke suggests because the UK still needs to attack SZ 96 (I would suggest using the cruiser at 91 if it is there on your first turn, and the fighter in Gibraltar), and Italy needs to be attacking the French ships that begin the game in 93 and they might take 1-2 losses while doing so. But for your SZ 96 attack on Turn 1, if the destroyer lands a hit, take the loss for the cruiser and not the fighter. Not only is Italy in a better position to get the NO for no Allied surface ships in the Med, but the fighter that went to attack SZ 96 from Gibraltar could be used again for when you do finally go and attack the Italian Navy.

@Suppressmeajumma @Gentlegamer

Thanks for the advice, he made the mistake of leaving all of his transports with a weak fleet made of carriers And planes. I attacked and when I had Damaged the carriers I retreated, so his planes crashed. I Appear to be winning and the Italians have no more opposition in Africa, thanks a lot for advice.

That make sense, the result is no amphibious assault can take place.

You get to spend all of your starting money at the start of your first turn. At the end of your first turn you get the IPC value of all of the territories you control (plus the value of every National Objective met). That money from the end of your first turn will be your starting money at the start of your second turn. Continue until game ends.

-Midnight_Reaper

Magro,

You are correct about that Persian air distance, my mistake. I had been looking at the Caucasus routing not realizing that the Caspian Sea-Kazakhstan route cut off a space. That saves half a turn’s worth of UK income.

That last game I had hopped an Africa fighter over and shuffled a mech in, but didn’t do a fighter build in the Persia IC because of the miscount. I had tried “overworking” the German air and main thrust by pincering two infantry forces through Bessarabia and Baltic States, and a Brit landing in Norway under cover of the surviving half of the Home Fleet (SZ 106 transport had survived G1 but went to Britain because I wanted to force Germany to buy defensive forces.) However, I found I still had enough German air plus late arriving mech/tanks along with a portion of the spearhead infantry to handle these, take Western Ukraine, retake Norway, while still continuing the spearhead to Belarus next to the main Soviet stack with mech/tanks, etc. in Bryansk. And the Scandinavian infantry took Leningrad/Novgorod.

R3 counterattack odds were very poor for Russia and were going to leave a tank stack that would still have enough mech/tanks reaching it the next turn to be unstoppable. So the retreat to Moscow was made on R3.

On G4 I strat bombed Moscow’s IC with three bombers. I decided not to scramble the two Russian fighters for this as I needed their defense as badly as the IPC’s. I figured the ~50% chance of losing one of two fighters outweighed the lower chance of clipping a bomber at ~33%. The IC’s AAA missed and the bombers inflicted enough damage that I had to spend several infantry’s worth to repair for a final infantry build there on R4, which was mostly a waste as calcs showed it would not hold even with some UK help. But I stayed and was bludgeoned. German tanks reached the Caucasus on G6 and would have been unstoppable. US landing and Brit round 5 stacks/w UK fighters reinforcing in Normandy were crushed on the counterattack that turn. It would have been much better to do a fighting withdrawal toward Persia, maintaining a threat to keep German support forces in theater, rather than be unceremoniously swept away.

@jejedada Merci pour le travail !