@SuperbattleshipYamato said in Units, Mechanics, etc.:
if America is focusing more on delivering troops to Europe directly via transports (rather than your strategy of moving through North Africa to the Eastern Front), artillery could still be valuable to provide more cost-effective firepower, since Western Europe is so dense that 2-space-movers aren’t very useful.
My general ethos as the US is to dump everything in Morocco; after that, any tanks drive towards the middle east, while any infantry then hop onto a 2nd set of transports, either landing in Greece or further up the Atlantic coast. I’m using carrier aircraft for the bulk of my offense as the US, rather than tanks (in fact I recently did a test of just spamming out carriers and fighters with no destroyers.)
The sweet spot for the “floating bridge” seems to be 4 transport loads, and I skew more towards 8 inf for that; due to using more transports to ship infantry farther, my deviations from 8 inf tend to be 2 arm+6 inf or 4 arm+4 inf, rather than mixing in odd numbers – but it really comes down to what else I’m buying, as I tend to “spend it all” most of the time.
I’ve had a couple games recently where the Axis declared war on the neutrals. Where this really causes problems for the US is that it extends the reach of Axis aircraft in France, to be able to hit the SZ west of Gibraltar; otherwise, you can usually get away with leaving transports there undefended. That being said, I’m generally of the opinion that any SZs where you’re keeping transports need at least 2 destroyers, 1 carrier, and 2 fighters.
As I’ve mentioned, I’ve recently experimented with using battleships or carriers in place of destroyers. I’d say both have their merits, although once you make landfall and have someplace to park your planes, you don’t really need more than 2ish carriers per SZ that you’re defending. It seems like you can essentially do something where you churn out fighters and leapfrog them towards the front line.
@SuperbattleshipYamato said in Units, Mechanics, etc.:
(though not the UK-if you’re doing “Middle Earth”, where you dump a bunch of minor industrial complexes in the Middle East and Egypt and mass produce ground units and march them up to the Soviet Union, they’ll be cash-strapped enough to need artillery, and the Middle East to the Eastern Front isn’t terribly far)
I should mention here that as a general observation, I don’t build a ton of infrastructure. I’ve used the “Middle Earth” tactic of putting a factory in Persia, and it’s… fine? But as you point out, the investment cost is pretty high. What I generally do is either rotate 2 transports between South Africa and Egypt, or 3 transports in rotation to supply Eastern Persia en route to Novosibirsk. I also tend to produce a tank (in addition to whatever I’m shipping) in South Africa and drive that northward, on basically any turn that I’m not putting down a transport there.
I’ve mostly always shipped 2 infantry using this route, although I’ve recently experimented with 1 inf + 1 arm – cost doesn’t seem to be an issue, when you’re not buying multiple factories. But I still think I prefer using 2 inf.
I think a factory in Greece is handy once you get there, and it can work for either the US or the UK. A harbor in Persia works if you’re pot-committed to that tactic, but I find using the 3rd transport instead (in addition to being cheaper) gives you that flexibility to pivot towards the Med.
Other than that, I find a harbor in Norway is useful if you’re wanting to pressure Western Germany and Denmark, or resupply the USSR via the northern route (although I find this to be pretty slow-going, unless/until you slap down a factory in Finland – which gets into the issue of the USSR wanting to have those territories more than letting the other Allies take them…)
A harbor in Greece is handy because it covers multiple sea zones:
one set of transports in SZ92 swaps places with another set, either in SZ97 or SZ99, paired with additional sets of transports ferrying between the US east coast and SZ91
So in 3 turns, you can get from the US to Yugoslavia, Albania, Greece, or Syria. IMO it really comes down to whether you want the US and UK to focus on this route, or on the Atlantic, or to split their focuses.
Early on, I attempted the more traditional/“Classic” tactic, of having the US march their guys up to Canada, and then ship to SZ109 to land in the UK; this might be useful to defend against a Sea Lion threat, but it takes just as long as going to Morocco/Gibraltar first, with the latter having the added benefit of putting units actually into front line action, instead of… being in Canada. This is why I’m of the opinion that the harbor in Gibraltar is possibly the only worthwhile bombing target (other than factories) although I’m also starting to come around on bombing coastal airfields, in particular Southern Italy.
@SuperbattleshipYamato said in Units, Mechanics, etc.:
Your view of mechanized infantry is mostly correct. I do think Germany isn’t as hard-pressed as you think and can afford them (and they’re an absolute must if you’re preparing a giant assault on Moscow on a specific turn).
I don’t have a lot of Axis games under my belt, but Germany feels really cash-poor, all the time. Like, maybe it’s a case of me needing to figure out how to attack every territory on my borders on the first turn to get my income up…? I find myself putting out roughly 13 units a turn (off the top of my head) and it feels like nowhere near enough to take a meaningful shot at Moscow before turn 7 or 8 – never mind having anything in reserve to fend off landings in/around France. (And I’m not even talking expensive units, just a mix of inf and mechs.) Because realistically, the USSR should be able to still crank out something like 9 inf per round, even into the first round where they’re at war – and possibly longer. That’s a pretty steep hill for Germany to climb, particularly since they’re getting comparatively no help from N.O.'s compared to the USSR, once the war kicks off.
The strain seems to be that you have to pressure the north, just to not lose Finland and Norway… But realistically, the German N.O.'s seem to be pushing you towards Volgograd/Caucasus and the middle east. I’m not sure if most allied players wait for Archangel to fall before they start sending supplies to the USSR, but I think this is actually designed/intended to dissuade the Germans from taking the northern route. Maybe it’s the case that you just have to bomb Novgorod into submission, rather than trying to attack it directly?
It does seem to me like Germany could afford to pull back even as far as leaving Poland empty, as long as they’re still sending waves through Slovakia-Hungary into Eastern Poland. If most of your production is being placed into Germany every turn, it basically makes Poland a deadzone for the USSR to even attempt taking. Again, it would depend on coming up with an answer for how to defend Norway and Finland, while maintaining a steady drive towards the southern front.
