UK Mediterranean fleet vs Sealion

If you pull off Sealion and the US isn’t in the war already or sitting on Gibraltar, they are at least 2 moves away from getting any kind of help to London. Italy should take Gibraltar if they can and block out the Mediterranean. Italy can move troops to the west coast and get into Syria and hopefully Iraq (if Russia hasn’t gotten their first) Then take over Africa. Build London up by 6-10 ipc’s per turn (now there are 6 of any kind of build you made, plus all your air units). US at that point needs to make a hard decision, liberate Europe or kill Japan.  Fact is they cant do both. Germany and Japan are making a combined 120-140 ipc’s at that point and Italy can make an easy 30+ with their NO’s running wild in Africa. $ wise, game over, and you didn’t even have to make a move on the US. Still a lot of factors have to be taken care of, like is there still an allied NAVY in the Mediterranean? Does Italy still have any NAVY left? What kind of landing force is left in London. And where is Russia? Can Japan put pressure on Russia? Is Japan bombing the heck out of Calcutta?

@SunTzu7:

Just wanted to check a sub rule. If a sub goes up against other non transport, non destroyer type ships (in this instance a damaged carrier and cruiser), can the sub keep doing a surprise attack till the opposition are destroyed without them firing back? That’s how my friend read the rules.

Like Brado explained, yes the sub gets a “surprise strike” each round.  But the defending carrier and cruiser do fire back every round provided it was not sunk by the sub surprise strike.

So in your example, if the sub hit, the defender would choose a casualty.  Whatever he chooses will not roll (will not fire back) but the other unit will fire back.
Subs get surprise strikes at the beginning of every single round of combat (the first round AFTER the last enemy destroyer is sunk), even when they are on defense.

If you read through Step 2 under General combat (Submarine Surprise Strike or Submerge), the rule book tells exactly how to handle sub combat and makes it very clear that surprise strike happens every round, and also how to handle surprise strike casualties.
One such sentence:
“As long as there are attacking and/or defending submarines and no opposing destroyers, this step is repeated during each round of combat.”

To be fair, this is why you never ever ever send carriers anywhere without a destroyer. The same problem happens if you send a carrier plus fighters to attack submarines. Since the carrier doesn’t roll attack dice and the fighters can’t hit the submarines, you just have infinite rounds of combat until the subs either sink the carrier or the units retreat.

This is also why it is recommend that when playing the pacific side as either Japan or the US, you purchase at least one sub for every carrier that the other side purchases.

You should also never tip your carriers on defense if you have no where for your planes to land, since the attacker will almost always retreat and watch your planes crash into the ocean for free.

@variance:

Use the second edition rules and setup.  You can download them here:

http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=28703.0

Here’s the history in case you care.  What happened was they released the first editions of 1940 Europe and Pacific a few years ago but then people immediately figured out that if you put those 2 together to make the global game it was hopelessly screwed up.  So for the next 2+ years all the experts played and played and talked and talked and talked and the company every so often put out new versions of the rules and setup that were called alpha 1, alpha 2, and so on until FINALLY they released the second edition, which is just about perfect.

"Thanx for the input, much easier to understand now  :-)  So I’ll use 2ed rules, but some of the player aides & charts for +3 & +3.9 look like an easier read & are cool.  So I’ll compare them to the 2ed rules & set-ups & should be able to use those ok.  Thanx again.

nah I always buy bombers usa 1 when germany buys naval r1. Japan usually DOWs J2. The only exception would be if japan opens with sino russia strategy, in which case I go full pacific buys rounds 1-4… if germany takes london then I can turn around and almost full atlantic (couples subs or dds for upkeep), because I secured the pacific theater with just those 4 rounds of buy (china, uk pac, and anzac can handle after that).

pretty much my allies strategy centers around uk sinking 97 and the spot below it in low luck games, for dice games it depends on what naval germany sunk…

Two different styles of germany, most do 110 and 111 and that dd transport off canada. others do the cruiser off gib, canada fleet, and either 110 or 111 or 109. If 110 is alive, yeah sure you can merge your fleet instead of doing 97 otherwise you pretty much have to sink 97, which kind of sucks because it is only 84% and not 94%

With the new alpha 3.9 its not as viable a strategy to assault london on G3 (this was the point of alpha 3.9)

My guess is sealion on G4 or no sealion at all

If you dont do sealion you still need to wipe out UKs fleet (in atlantic) by end of G2 and have subs in convoy zones to maximize IPC loss for UK.

Honestly if UK goes for a (atlantic) fleet build early then he is leaving London open to sealion on G3 or G4

@johnathanpb:

To sum up then, although the sub is a combat vessel, it cannot control an occupied sea zone on its own.

Correct.  Subs alone may nearly always be ignored.  The only exception is that unaccompanied transports may not conduct an amphibious assault if there are enemy subs in the sea zone.

@johnathanpb:

A german destroyer in the water here, however, would need to be engaged as entering the sea zone would then be a combat move. Do I have this right?

Yes.

It goes to the European economy.