Allied play in Europe 1940

[The Janus]

Re: France's role in Global 1940 SE @FranceNeedsMorePower
@Cornwallis said in France's role in Global 1940 SE:

@FranceNeedsMorePower

This is a wild idea i want to try:

https://youtu.be/ZQDC0iGa7UY?feature=shared

To avoid derailing the France thread, I’m making a new topic here.

I think this is an interesting idea, insofar as it does keep the US fleet in a relatively safer position. You end up 1 turn behind (essentially the turn you’d spend moving units to Mexico) compared to something that just relies on going from port to port.

But you have also hit on something that I noticed as well: the pathing from West Africa to Egypt is much shorter than going through North Africa. (6 spaces from Morocco to Egypt vs. 4 spaces from West Africa to Egypt)

The other thing that it immediately makes me think is, “Well, this is just like walking guys up to Canada and shucking them over to the UK.” The difference being that we’re assuming a strong German air/naval force in that region, thus making the southern route more desirable. But the upshot of any tactic that lands extra US forces in the UK is that it safeguards against a sealion attempt.

This video also made me realize (unintuitively) that the J1 attack makes the Europe game much easier for the Allies; getting the Americans in early can be a huge swing, but there’s basically no incentive for Germany/Italy to ever do it (maybe if you really wanted to take a shot at the US’s fledgling navy? maybe? I guess…?)

[FranceNeedsMorePower]

@The-Janus Lol I never thought the France thread would get so much attention. It’s like 4 pages long now.

[SuperbattleshipYamato]

@The-Janus

I’ll definitely try the “Sahara Express” in the future.

I’m not sure how much of an advantage J1 is for the Allies. Sure, the US can enter the war earlier, but at the cost of letting Japan roam pretty freely, and given the imbalance over there, the situation isn’t too bright.

Since this is in the Europe category though, I’ll ask AndrewAAGamer to explain the merits of the Gibastion strategy. I know this is Europe 1940, but my experience suggests that the effects of Gibastion should be similar to Global 1940.

So, @AndrewAAGamer can you please explain why you like the Gibastion strategy (assuming you do)? Thank you!

[AndrewAAGamer]

@SuperbattleshipYamato said in Allied play in Europe 1940:

Since this is in the Europe category though, I’ll ask AndrewAAGamer to explain the merits of the Gibastion strategy. I know this is Europe 1940, but my experience suggests that the effects of Gibastion should be similar to Global 1940.

So, @AndrewAAGamer can you please explain why you like the Gibastion strategy (assuming you do)? Thank you!

First off, I am no expert when it comes to Europe 1940 OOB. I have only played it once face to face and after the game was over we realized we used the wrong National Objectives. Therefore, I cannot say if Gibastion works the same in Global as it does in only Europe.

As far as OOB goes the two main reasons people use Gibastion is 1) it saves the British fleet units in the long run and 2) it removes Sealion off the table immediately. Italy gets some extra money but, hopefully, not enough to compensate for the sea/air unit savings the Allies achieve. My guess is most people do it to remove Sealion but I can’t guarantee that as I have never taken a poll regarding this subject.

[The Janus]

@Cornwallis said in France's role in Global 1940 SE:

The time i would see use in it is when you activily try to hunt the luftwaffe.

I’ve theorized that this needs to be the crux of Allied thinking.

To wit, when playing against the Ai, the builds for the western Allies are sort of focused around having a strong enough escort fleet to either soak or deter a kamikaze-style attack by the Luftwaffe, in order to protect your supply chain of transports.

There’s a few issues, that you have to try and balance with that:

1. Deterring the attack vs. baiting it out and making actual kills. It seems like the only ways to achieve the latter is with some combination of scrambling and bombing/escorting.
2. Soaking hits with your navy vs. having meaningful attack power on land. An escort fleet heavy on destroyers does the former very well, but for making landfall in Europe, you need a stronger contingent of carriers+aircraft, with maybe some battleships for a mix of soaking hits and adding offense.
3. Spending too much on fleets vs. not enough on ground troops. If every SZ you need to meaningfully defend requires something like 40+ IPCs of escort ships, I can’t see how the British alone (or the US waiting until round 3/4) can meet that demand while still making any meaningful inroads militarily against the Axis.

I think these last 2 points in particular are why I’ve always found myself pulling the UK fleet behind the Suez canal, rather than sending those ships on a suicidal Taranto attack. But, to the 1st point, is part of the Taranto move an attempt to bait/kill German planes, too?

What I’ve found in games where the Ai does go after an allied fleet with the Luftwaffe (beyond the 1st round) is that the result is a much shorter game overall (i.e. the Axis lose faster.) So I can only assume the competent Axis players have taken this into account, and just won’t ever make this sort of move. Again, this brings us back to the 1st point, about how do we bait an attack from the Germans.

[Cornwallis]

@The-Janus you are right about destroying the luftwaffe. But losing a fleet on the cheap, especially the UK fleet in the med early on will back fire. If you have 8 ships and Germany can attzck with 8 air units then you have several rounds of combat in which he will pay in fighters.

For now, I also retreat through the Suez and add my Pac fighter/tac Bomb to the carrier. So i can come back in the Med UK2 and construct an airbase in egypt on UK2. A video will follow next week.

[SuperbattleshipYamato]

@The-Janus

I think Cornwallis replied with some good ideas.

I’ll also add that in another thread he said that moving the British fleet into sea zone 93 is another way of baiting the Lufwaffe.

Note that if baiting the Lufwaffe is an objective you should obviously scramble if Germany attacks the fleets in 110 and 111. The trouble is that I’ve seen some Axis players don’t do that and instead just sort of strafe 111 by taking the hits on the battleship and submarines, so they don’t lose any aircraft.

Personally I don’t really put much weight into strategies that require “baiting”, given its unpredictability. The best bet for minimizing the Luftwaffe is to make the Eastern Front so hard that the Germans either need the air force (providing some breathing room for the Western Allies), or that the Axis can’t advance out west.

While I’m not sure how to do this, I feel this might be an easier objective and puzzle to solve.