Necessity of Attacking Ukraine (R1)

@Mallery29:

E.Europe as the territory, not as a whole

Let me rephrase: Allies control E. Europe, they control the entire Eastern front and deny its income to Germany and secure it to themselves. Let Japan have Africa (and divert units away from Russia).

Lads and Lasses,

First time on the the site, but I’ve loved what I’ve seen so far! There is a lot of great strategic advice, especially at the beginning of the game.

I was wondering if anyone had an picture of the game with all of the pieces placed prior to the first turn.  It would be great to be able to see the board and pieces in place, so I can envision the moves and see what the opposing players might try.  Maybe it’s because I’m a noob, but  I haven’t been able to memorize the board at the start yet.

Any help would be much appreciated!  Thanks in advance!

@Bunnies:

@BigPapaSmurf:

Send 5 inf from Kar/Arch, 1 Artillery and two fighters to West russia and stack everything else in Cauc. Leave one Inf in Lenningrad and do your standard moves on the east end.

Don’t you run into Germany taking Karelia and West Russia, and establishing a strong center position from which Russia cannot reclaim Karelia income?

Bunnies is correct. G takes West Russia with units from BR/Ukr. Russia can retake West Russia but will only earn 27 IPC, not being able to contest Belorussia and Karelia. Germany meanwhile can build 5 inf, 5 arm on G1 and put some serious pressure to prevent Russia from stacking West Russia on turn 2.

The main goal of the Ukr attack is IMHO to get the fighter,

Cutting most of Germany’s ability to attack Caucasus is another big big plus.  If Russia lucks out on the Ukraine attack, Germany may either risk fighters on G1 on other targets to send a fighter to Ukraine, or may send valuable tanks to reclaim Ukraine.  Or if Russia lucks out at Ukraine, Russia may retreat to Caucasus to preserve its tanks/artillery.

As equally as important as the fighter is to protect the Russian units on West Russia from being destroyed on G1. If you lose them, you lose any chance of contesting Karelia/Belorussia. Germany may also stack Ukraine like you mentioned, cutting off 3 IPC to Russia (plus the 2 from Belorussia) and both sides get into a war of positions that doesn’t favor Russia (i.e. the Allies better get quickly to help).

@Advosan:

Which makes the AES Gambit (all rights reserved by B.P.Wrath:)) safer for Russia.

Oo no.  I am not that baby daddy.

Here’s the options for R1, as I see them.

1.  Belorussia/West Russia.  Wipes out forward German infantry, preventing a strong G1 attack against Russian-held West Russia, and keeps Russian tanks at West Russia, where they’re safe.

2.  Ukraine/West Russia.  Wipes out forward German infantry, preventing a strong G1 attack against Russian-held West Russia.  Destroys a German fighter, tank, and artillery.  The German fighter is VERY valuable.  But Russian tanks need to be committed to Ukraine, and will be destroyed in the German counterattack.

2A.  Ukr/WR with 2 Russian tanks / 2 Russian fighters.  There’s about a 19% chance that the Russians will lose one or both fighters on the attack.  There’s about a 12% chance that the Russians will keep both fighters, destroy all German units on Ukraine, but fail to capture Ukraine.  That leaves about a 69% chance of claiming Ukraine with at least one Russian tank.

2B.  Ukr/WR with 3 Russian tanks / 2 Russian fighters.  About a 4% chance the Russians lose both fighters, 2% of losing one fighter, 5% of both fighters surviving but losing everything else. That leaves about a 89% chance of claiming Ukraine with at least one Russian tank.

3.  Norway/West Russia.  Attacking with 2 fighters preserves the UK battleship, but leaves the German infantry at Belorussia and Ukraine intact, allowing the Germans to hit West Russia very hard on G1, and the Russian fighter is lost.  Not discussed in my earlier poll regarding Norway/West Russia was the German fighter depletion strategy.

4.  West Russia/Ukraine/Norway.  Russia attacks at three territories.  Making three attacks instead of two means Russia has to split its forces more, meaning increased casualties when attacking, and leaving the dispersed forces vulnerable to counterattack.  Or, Germany could take advantage of Russia’s weak position by immediately trying to establish a secure forward position, from which it cannot easily be dislodged as Russia’s attacking forces are so weak.  This attack CAN kill 2 German fighters, though, but odds are good that at least one survives.

Let’s elaborate on 4) a bit.

Russia has 2 fighters that can be assigned anywhere, as needed.  Assigning both to Norway means at least one will die, either on the attack, or to the G1 attack on Karelia, where the second Russian fighter must land.

Germans defend Norway with 3 infantry 1 fighter; Russia can hit with 3 infantry 1 tank.  At LEAST one Russian fighter should be committed for this attack to have any chance of real success; 1 Russian fighter leaves about a 60% chance the Russian fighter survives and the German fighter dies.  2 Russian fighters leave about a 89% chance of one Russian fighter surviving (again, even if both Russian fighters survive the initial battle, one dies in the German counterattack).

Germans defend Ukraine with 3 infantry, 1 artillery, 1 tank, 1 fighter; Russia can hit with 3 infantry, 1 artillery, 3 tanks.  Russia has a 62% chance of killing the German fighter even without any Russian fighter.  Adding a Russian fighter brings the odds to about 81% that the Russian fighter survives and the German fighter dies; if the Russian fighter is expendable, it’s about 87% chance the German fighter goes down.  (For this reason, I think when trying to deplete the German air force, it’s better to hit Norway with 1 fighter and Ukraine with 1 fighter, than to send both to Norway).

Germans defend West Russia with 3 infantry, 1 artillery, 1 tank.  Russia can hit with 6 infantry 1 artillery.  Without going into it, this spends a lot of Russian blood, with a success rate of about 63% - and usually even if winning, just one or two Russian units are left.  That’s why a lot of players opt to use the second fighter not at Ukraine, but at West Russia, bringing the odds of success to about 90% and an average of about 3 Russian units surviving.

With 60/60/90 attacks, there’s a 64% chance of failure at at least one of the important German-fighter battles.  Germany can rush tanks east and create an early strong position.  However, Germany cannot grab Caucasus early, and with West Russia in Russian hands, Germany doesn’t have the power to smash into Moscow immediately.

It’s also possible to hit Ukr/Norway only, instead of draining Russia’s attack power to try to take West Russia, The Germans can grab a lot of territory on G1, but they can’t hold most of it.  The problem with that is lousy position at the start of R2; Russia doesn’t have any territories to trade.

Comment - Ukraine with 3 tanks/2 fighters has about a 4% “total failure” rate, losing both Russian fighters, with 2% loss of one Russian fighter, and 5% of both Russian fighters surviving, leaving about 89% chance of one German fighter going down.  Compare to Russia committing both fighters to Ukr/Norway (either doing Ukr/Norway alone, or Ukr/Norway/West Russia) with a 8% chance of total failure, not killing any German fighters, 44% chance to bag 1 German fighter, and a 48% chance of whacking both German fighters - but BOTH Russian fighters survive.

Comment 2 - the loss of Russian tanks hurts a lot.  Russian tanks can threaten a lot of different territories, and can dash back and forth between the German and Japanese fronts as necessary.  It’s not that they DO dash back and forth; it’s just the THREAT they pose that’s so nasty.  But losing German fighters hurts Germany a lot too, so it’s a bit of a toss-up.

thank you for your answers, this helps alot

I would say no for this version of the game… but there are some house rules out there and some other tournament games where it is allowed, check those.  in this version its probably too complicated, We have used the Joint Strike Advantage in thos game where US uses both his and UK’s units in an attack, works ok as a one time option… but the rules state it must be declared during russia turn so Germany gets to prepare for it.

@Fleetwood:

As a side note, not attacking z2 doesn’t mean the Allies get a totally free pass in the Atlantic. Say Germany commits a sub and 2-3 fighters to the Med cruiser. 2/3 of the time the sub lives. If Germany builds a bomber G1 and the med sub lives and the Baltic subs escape, they will still be able to kill a round one Allied move to z8 2/3 of the time. That’s 3 subs, 4 fighters, 2 bombers vs 2 destroyers, 1 sub, 1 carrier, 2 fighters, 1 cruiser, and 4 transports using this calculator. http://www.dskelly.com/misc/aa/aasim.html

Are you saying that Germany should buy a cruiser and a destroyer for the Med on G1, and not use the Z8 sub to splash the Canadian transport, but retreat it into the Med (Z13 is as far as it can reach)? This takes away half of Germany’s income, which means it can only commit 20 IPCs to the land battle with Russia, and allows UK to retain both of its Atlantic transports. I don’t know if that is a good move…