Any spring 42 strategies?

@Uncrustable:

@Hobbes:

@Uncrustable:

The one thing i generally dont know when to do is build ICs in India and/or FIC .?
And what is the best way to move air from japan to germany? Carriers in the indian ocean ? Or FIC -> Egypt -> Europe. Most of my games Germany is not yet prepared to hold Ukraine on G3 so japan cant land its fighters there.

IC on FIC is less efficient than getting 4 transports for J to maximize usage of Japan’s starting IC and using 2 of those transports to bring units from Japan to FIC. 2 transports cost 14 IPC, carry 4 units, 1 IC costs 15 builds only 3.
India on the other hand should have a Japanese IC as quickly as possible, but without risking it to fall to an early Allied (Soviet) attack from Caucasus.
Air, depends on the situation. If you keep a carrier on SZ60 and another off Egypt you can move newly build fighters to Europe in 2 rounds. Bombers can be sent through Egypt or India (and if you build an IC on India then any J bombers built there can hit SZ5 on the next round), fighters India can reach Balkans or E. Europe  - really depends on the situation.

Yeah i agree. Thanks for all your help Hobbes ;)

Something else I remembered. Sometimes an IC on FIC is a good option if the Allies go KJF.
If the UK has built 1 IC on India on UK1 then Japan needs to focus everything on conquering it and it is a quicker way to place units on FIC than shipping them from Japan. However, there’s a risk that the Allies may conquer FIC instead and then its former IC will be used against Japan.
If the US go with a Pacific strat an IC on FIC may also be a good option since it allows to add additional ships/ground units for Japan away from the main battle.

Thanks!

@Herr:

@jiman79:

Well basically a UK bomber can hit its target in 1 round a US bomber is active one round later. Whereas US navy at least can do something usefull on their first round (unload in Africa). So I am not sure I follow your long range vs short range perspective for the air units.

You’re right about that, but I don’t think that buying bombers for the explicit purpose of doing strategic bombing raids is a good plan at all. It’s just that if I would do that, I’d do it with the US rather than with the UK. And I’d do the sneaky thing by building them in the Western US (from where they can still land in Britain) to make Japan feel uneasy - at the very least they need to be careful if they plan to unload troops in Buryatia.

As for the UK naval strategy, I generally agree that it’s a better choice than bombers, but I don’t see a specific reason to wait for the US navy to arrive first. The UK can afford to build, say, an aircraft carrier and a destroyer, and put a few planes on the carrier - or land US planes on it. Put it all in SZ2 and it’s basically out of reach for Germany. Or put it in SZ8 and add the US cruiser to it.

I totally agree in all you said.
The standard opening for UK is to buy AC+2dstr and place them in a safe position according to the G air and navy positioning. Retake Egypt and kill the baltic dstr+trnsp.
Besides fom this I think the best location for an allied bomber (UK or US) is in caucasus.

I think it also needs to be mentioned that Algeria and SZ17 are not adjacent.  The map, as printed, suggests that they are.

Yes, one per land unit.

Sorry friend, I am here only occationally (vacations etc) and I am really not a frequent player. I do not have time to play-test in any other way then in TripleA. You can find me there from time to time as Granada but I cannot host now.

Regarding the Russian sub, you are correct. I have not inculded it because it survives only if you decide to submerge it during the R1 attack of German sub, fig and bomb on SZ2 before the fight. But it further diminishes the likelihood of the success in this particular battle. You cannot take the potential hit by the sub on it, which is good because it gives your battleship good chance to get at least one plane. If you keep the Russian sub in the fight the likelihood it would survive is about 60 %.

If you include the sub to the R2 battle calculations in the SZ8, you are correct that it changes the odds for the defender in case of 2subs plus four planes on the German side. In case attacker has built a bomber R1 and still has three figs to hit you, the odds for him to win remain 66% with 1,7 units left.

The fact is that the Germans must build a bomber R1 if they want keep the likelihood of Allies merging in SZ 8 with stronger fleet under 50%. R2 you really can prevent them to merge there and R3 you cannot perhaps prevent them to land some troops somewhere. You are perhaps right in that respect.

Still the question whether the Germans will not get their planes to the point when they will sink some of your fleets especially if you decide to split it will be omnipresent and the dynamics of the sea battles in the Atlantic have definitely changed in their favour.

Thanks for sharing. Going to use this tonight.  :-)

With Germany, I will be attacking the USA atl fleet first turn with a submarine.  I will be positioning my air force to ensure that the allies can not land in Europe or Africa the first turn (easy to do this time, since i will only need 1bomber and 3fighters in range to wipe out any first turn joint allied fleet that decides to move to africa).
With USA and UK, I will be buying shit tons of Fleet Defense, which will delay my landings by 1 full turn.  Russia is going to be in a tight squeeze because of this.

Russia and Japan will be played pretty much the same, except that russia can count on any support through africa being 1 turn late.