A: SZ battle goes better than expected (or just as expected) for Germany. Germany beats UK navy and still has some naval units left. What then? These are then unprotected and thus picked off, but even if they aren’t, what is Germany going to do with them? Invade UK after G2?
I never said Germany was meant to be naval power; the whole point of the Baltic fleet is to be suicidal and to delay. For the price of 16 IPCs this is well worth it.
A: SZ battle goes better than expected (or just as expected) for Germany. Germany beats UK navy and still has some naval units left. What then? These are then unprotected and thus picked off, but even if they aren’t, what is Germany going to do with them? Invade UK after G2? That’s not going to happen. Link up with the Med. navy? Well if that’s what you wanted to do then why didn’t Germany just place the G1 naval units in Med. to begin with? Bottom line: Win for Germany doesn’t help much (even though it is the most probable outcome, not much help is still not much help).
You can
a) Buy nothing for it, and lose it to 2 fighters/1bomber and the UK will likely only lose 1 fighter.
or
b) Use 16 IPCs on it, and cash in your entire baltic navy for the UK’s 2 fighters, battleship, 2 transports, destroyer, and carrier (if the UK is so stupid to try to block the link on UK1).
Hmmm……that’s really not favorable to the UK you know. Losing the battleship means no more shore bombardments, and even more reliance on the US to shield you. The UK also has to rebuild transports…and no more fighters to help out either…
If I had some naval units left, great! They’ll just straggle around waiting to die, hopefully claiming 1 or 2 US/UK fighters since they still have to be put down. I only think you should spend 16 IPCs for a carrier and nothing further if you don’t like the idea of 3 transports.
B. SZ battle goes worse than expected for Germany. Some the UK’s navy survived and/or some of the Luftwaffe has been destroyed. This is not likely but UK can capitalize on this win a lot more than Germany can with their win. UK and US get an unexpected head start into Europe.
It’d have to swing pretty heavily…. a group of 6 fighters + 1 bomber + 1 trans + 2 subs + 1 carrier + 1 destroyer will win 98% of the time against a battleship, fully loaded carrier, destroyer, and 2 transports. You would expect 5 hits on average from the German force in the first turn, and barely over 3 hits for the UK in the first turn…very most likely the both navies will be toast next turn with 1 and usually none of the airforce dead.
For 16 German IPCs spent, you have toasted not just the 28 IPCs that the UK spent to block your fleet in SZ6, but also claimed his battleship, 2 transports, and 2 fighters in the deal. You have also forgone the need to siphon extra defensive troops into Western Europe this turn, which can easily be worth the 16 IPCs you spend on a carrier in the first turn. You still have your full airforce intact a large amount of the time, as well.
Morever, the Med fleet is still alive and is more than free to go back to Africa now that it has nothing to link with.
