I agree because of the Tripartite Pact (Sep 27th 1940) that the axis would be all for one, and one for all w/US, if brought into the war. In my mind by time the Pacific side rolls around it would be entering the fall anyway. If we are working on aprox 6 month windows (per rd), any thing that happened in that time could be reflected in the game even in a slightly different order.
As you Flash, I think Hitler grossly under estimated the fact that we would commit more resources to the Euro side, then the Pacific. Its also worth noting that Japan thought that by destroying the bulk of the US fleet, that it could push the US out of the Pacific, maybe forcing an armistices of some kind. They also grossly under estimated our resolve (and the fact we could read their codes didn’t hurt). The comment about Japan knowing Stalin would not attack, in fear of a German reprisal is a good point, but at that time Stalin thought he was going to be part of the Tripartite pact. The fact that Japan also sought a NAP w/Russia shows how fearful they were, or they had a feeling Germany would turn on Russia at some point, or vise/versa.
I think its nearly comical that neither Germany or Japan got what they expected from the Tripartite Pact. Hitler wanted Japan to engage Russia from Manchuria (didn’t happen Japan signed NAP 6 months later). He also had a plan for a German/Japanese attack on India (bringing both power together), w/both taking tt along the way (both faltered on this plan). Much of India was was anti British, parts of its armed forces defected to the axis in N Africa. Axis control of the Indian ocean and the Suez would have cut off the Med from the east. Would have meant no aid to Russia through Persia. It would have also given Hitler a southern attack route on the Caucasus, as well as the oil that both nations desperately needed. Instead Japan chose to go after DEI and invite the US into the war, much earlier then Hitler would have wanted IMO, although as said before he thought the US focal point would be Japan. He did however fulfill his obligations and declare war on the US.
There was also a joint adventure planned later for the Vichy French Madagascar, to again gain control of the Indian ocean. The Japanese army actually sent an invasion force that it recalled because of infighting between its army/navy and a different use for those forces. The Germans I believe had sent subs to the area to aid in the takeover and was pressuring the VF government. Germany also sent a lot of tech, many of the Jap planes had German engineered engines and so on. IMO, Japan time after time fell a little short with its axis commitments, somewhat like Italy. There were talks and plans involving the original members of the Tripartite Pact, they just kept screwing each other. :-D
TL;DR…Just roll the dice have fun. maybe take england and ignore russia till turn 3
TL;DR…Just roll the dice have fun. maybe take england and ignore russia till turn 3
When you started this thread you wanted to attack Russia and not France. And now you want to attack England and not Russia?
well now that i think about it england is smaller…its only two territories. With the bottom half containing most of the military. Russia is HUGE in this game I mean its going to be at least 20 territories…Yes i thought hitting russia first would be smarter…but its six territores from berlin to moscow. Even if you win EVERY battle its going to take 3 turns minimum to get to russias capitol.
I believe we already have an Operation Sea Lion thread somewhere. Let me see if I can dig it up.
LOL, now you’re wanting to go attack England now instead of Russia (before or after finishing off France?). There was some other thread about dividing up England during Sealion since it will be two territories now:
http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=16471.0
I still think Sealion is an utter waste of time most games, but if you can catch unexperienced Allied players off guard it can be successful (i.e., this only works ONCE on the beginning players, I’m sure an exp. UK player can see it coming a mile away). Perhaps if Russia is prevented from invading Germany till Round 3, (with a reduced income rule like the US as a neutral before entering the war) could this be possible, and it would still be incredibly risky so early in the game. You would probably only get one shot at it by building all trans and a carrier in the Baltic round 1, with the invasion on round 2 before England can really build enough land units to make it completely improbable (also before the US enters the war/has reinforcements in range). I’m guessing 3 loaded transports, with 4 planes and a bomber as air cover would be all Germany would be capable of Round 2, IF Britain hasn’t already damaged/sunk the Baltic fleet and/or blocked the Channel with a sizeable navy stack. Even if Britain went 100% ground defense instead (4-5 inf, 3 arm, 1 fig build on round 1), I’m sure the defending army will be at least equal in number to the invading units Germany has, with odds AND AA gun hits in its favor.
Bah, forget it, you will see the same dillema the OKW came to when Sealion became a possibility after the Fall of France, its just not worth risking all the war material when there are easier fish to fry in Europe. Better to isolate and destroy British holdings elsewhere to weaken it to a surrender-able level.
@i:
i agree normally in aar its impossible like one time germany had 15tanks and15 inf 10ftr and 10 bombers
but i had 4x as many inf tank and ftr then germany i won evan after 25 attacks still had all my tts!!!but in e40 i say turn 1 attacks posible. you will have a huge nave to start with and to show the brit retret they should have 4 inf on transports in the chanel 1 on england and scotland and thats it german will have a nouf to take that!!!
Heh, that’d be awesome, the Brits start will all their infantry loaded onto the starting transports… that’d be perfect in representing the evacuation at Dunkirk. Goering can have another shot at preventing their getaway round 1!
I keep coming back to the problem of land movement. If Germany commits to Sealion, how can it possibly guard against a Soviet attack?
It takes far too long for the infantry to yomp over to the Eastern front from Western Europe (8 turns?), when in reality it would take just one turn by train.
Only if the Soviets are “frozen” and unable to build or move anything until officially at war could they be held in check. Or are they simply not allowed to attack Germany until Hitler is good and ready for them?
Heh, that’d be awesome, the Brits start will all their infantry loaded onto the starting transports… that’d be perfect in representing the evacuation at Dunkirk. Goering can have another shot at preventing their getaway round 1!
It should be a duck shoot.
The boats should have some escort, so Germ has to choose between using the airpower on the transports or on crushing the hell out of France.
The boats should have some escort, so Germ has to choose between using the airpower on the transports or on crushing the hell out of France.
Heh, France can only build infantry, right? You KO the brit transports and France isn’t getting any reinforcements anyway.
Soviet counterattack? With what? I’m guessing game will start with Russia having units like in AA50-41… pretty damn sparse. Russia is probably going to go after Germany’s turn, so Germany should get at least one turn to build a defense in the capital.
Hell, if the Baltic SZ is only 1-2 SZs across anyway, building a bunch of transports for Sealion may be the best option for moving troops around back from France > Britain > Germany in a single turn. Otherwise, looks like the troops in France may just be stuck mopping up and the new builds in Germany will be the offensive force against Russia.
Hell, with a Baltic full of German transports, you could invade Karelia on G2-3 and avoid walking through 4-5 of the territories on the way to Moscow. Reinforcing them would still be a mess, and Britain could always start dropping troops in Archangel, if not blow up the fleet in the Baltic and counter from there. But it would definitely be a viable alternative, as Baltic navy builds in other AA games have shown.
Hell, with a Baltic full of German transports, you could invade Karelia on G2-3 and avoid walking through 4-5 of the territories on the way to Moscow. Reinforcing them would still be a mess, and Britain could always start dropping troops in Archangel, if not blow up the fleet in the Baltic and counter from there. But it would definitely be a viable alternative, as Baltic navy builds in other AA games have shown.
And how do you plan on defending these German transports from the RAF?
And how do you plan on defending these German transports from the RAF?
Extra SZs.
Meh, more like a few carriers with planes from the mainland; otherwise RAF gonna be all over those transports like a spider-monkey.
Although, we have scrambling rules now– can planes in Denmark or Germany scramble to defend the SZ if there is an aircraft based attack? Or can they join the naval battle if there are ships present? It would be nice if building the carriers for defense is unnecessary (little bit more historically accurate). If this is unbalanced I’m sure there’s opportunities for Britain to do the same with its fleet off England.
Also, how many SZs are we talking about? It is at least 3 SZs to reach Germany from Britain? So there is at least some downtime between Baltic SZ shucks or time for a counterattack?
Seriously though, are there any plans for making naval unit entry into (or exit from) the Baltic SZ impassable if either Axis or Allies control both norway and denmark (northwestern europe)? The Baltic straits are only like 20 km at their widest point and there are tons of bottlenecks, couldn’t we make them like the Suez and the Panama Canal, where control of the nearby territories gives access? It would make more sense because in real life Germany wasn’t hampered by 50 British Dieppe raids through the Baltic, which occur in 95% of our games, (sometimes really early in the game too). Hell, the Allies didn’t even have a major port in Northern Europe until 1945, since the harbors were mined too well. Germany wouldn’t be forced to keep a large part of its army back to defend from ahistorical British/US raids into Berlin. The Allies would have to come through France (or Norway) for a reason.
In the same manner, could control of Gibraltar and French Morocco be necessary to send naval units through the straits of Gibraltar? They’re only like 9 miles across at their widest point, it would be hard to sneak a battleship through that without some warning being sent to the enemy navy/airforce to pick it off. Would force a little historical accuracy and make invading Spain or Gibraltar a necessity to get units from Italy into the Atlantic. Same goes for Allies getting into the Med. A force in Spain retaking Gibraltar every turn could make the Med impassable.
For obvious reasons, submarines would not be beholden to such impassable SZ rules, though a canal with water locks would still stop them in their tracks.
UK planes can land in Karelia after sinking the German fleet.
If Germany is going to use the Baltic as a RATS between the fronts (rather than, for example, it’s excellent rail network), then it needs a carrier or two there, and can Germany really afford this sort of luxury before it’s eaten up half of Russia?
UK planes can land in Karelia after sinking the German fleet.
If Germany is going to use the Baltic as a RATS between the fronts (rather than, for example, it’s excellent rail network), then it needs a carrier or two there, and can Germany really afford this sort of luxury before it’s eaten up half of Russia?
Yeah, at some point your fleet is going to be put at risk and require a carrier for protection. If there’s some way to have fighters scramble from land zones nearby when its moved within the Baltic, that’d be cool but probably not enough at some point in the game. Baltic fleet at any point is a gamble that you’re going to get more out of it reinforcing Norway and Finland, and threatening and invading Britain and Russia, than the Allies will get destroying it or taking advantage of your weakened land forces.
Its an expensive proposition, and usually gets destroyed by combined British and US attacks, but if it buys Germany 2-3 more turns it can give plenty of time for Japan to finish things off in Russia. It usually does a good job focusing the Allies on Europe since it can threaten many fronts, but the downside to any big fleet is that Russia is going to get huge in the short term. If Russia gets reduced income like the US before war is allowed or has severely reduced units at game start then that may not be a problem.
If Germany spends too much on its navy, then Russia will crush them.
This may all depend (in the long term) on the matter of UK/US units being allowed on Soviet soil. If yes, as soon as Russia IS at war then the old Karelia strategy will be the obvious Allied approach, and it’ll just become a superstack race. Why have idle units stacked in England waiting to risk a D-Day crossing when you can constantly feed them into Karelia/Poland and have them fighting Germans every turn as well as reinforcing the Soviets and setting up a 3 vs 1 (or maybe 3 vs 2) push on Berlin?
If no, then the WA will need to protect those 3 vital convoy routes into Russia to keep Stalin afloat. Personally I much prefer this rule, especially if there is a sensible restriction on Japanese routes to Moscow, removing the need for the WA to push maximum units into Russia in order to balance the JTDTM.
In other words the restriction on Japanese progress through Siberia is balanced by the fact that the WA are restricted to a (limited) cash aid program for Russia and can concentrate their military focus on more historical objectives in WE and the Med.
Yeah, I know, Britain + Russia superstack in the north isn’t very fun for the Axis. Karelia is a nice NO to have but its just too vulnerable with Britain dropping off troops + bombard shots every turn. It does do a great job of focusing the Brits attention up north rather than sending troops to Africa, however, so Italy might get some short term benefit out of it. There’s a very good reason the Germans went through the Causcasus to attack Russia, you don’t have to worry about England dropping troops on your head. But giving up Norway and Finland so early in the game kinda sucks for the Axis.
If you DO build a fleet, you’re going to have to sacrifice it to kill the British naval stack or cut it off from Britain for a few turns, but nobody said naval supremacy was easy. A lot of people just build a bomber or a fighter or two a turn and bide their time until the Allies finally split their fleet out of overconfidence or necessity and send Britain’s naval stack to the bottom. You do this at the right time, you have a decent shot at winning the game. Playing defensively as the Axis with infantry from the get-go gives the Allies too much initiative. Make them fight for it.
@i:
wont germany get a ton of naval troops in e40 because the normal baltic fleet plus the bismark and some crusiers??
Yeah hopefully the Baltic fleet will be better represented this time around. I liked the battleship inclusion of Bismark in Pact Of Steel games, let you actually run the fleet out off France without it being totally suicidal. (Though most games it was).
