Ansbach is (as happens so often) correct. If you might indulge me a tad…
One year ago: I was our group’s worst USSR player. But as is so often the case, I became super-interested in USSR and stared at the board for hours trying to come up with the ultimate USSR strategy.
What I came up with was the ultimate “worst case scenario” strategy for T1 that enabled me under virtually ANY circumstances to live for at least 3 turns–if BOTH Japan & Germany attacked on T1 w/ everything they had. My strategy was based on judicious counterattacks to set the enemies back just long enough for a massive USA force to come charging in to the rescue.
The 1st (and only) game I tried this strategy, the Axis didn’t attack me from 2 sides T1–in fact, neither of them strongly attacked me T1 at all. Now I had this massive “counterattack” force just sitting there useless.
So I attacked Japan T2.
Needless to say, Germany swamped me T2 with massive forces and Japan (after defeating my “1-shot”) attack, came in T3. My reputation as the group’s worst USSR player was secure. :o
Since then USSR has become only my 2nd-worst country (after USA). But also since then I have learned the cardinal rule of Naval Combat (and by extension, any combat):
Never prepare for what you think the enemy WILL do. Rather–prepare for what the enemy COULD do…
Ozone27