G1 Attack on Russia?

109–preventing a landing.

Well but that’s as many/more losses to the RAF.

Personally, I don’t like a G 1 attack on Russia. I usually wait until at least G 3. One reason is to get those 4 Bulgarian infantry up to the front, plus recall as much armor that survived the battle of France. If you attack G 1, you don’t even have Finland yet so you can’t hit them in the far north. I tried a G 1 attack on Russia once and it really went miserably. Germany didn’t get enough hardware into Russia and the Soviets were able to counter attack pretty thoroughly. I ended up pretty much stalled on the Eastern Front.

That being said, I like your idea of taking just a certain amount of Russian territory and creating a defensive perimiter rather than pushing for Moscow right away. That could lead to a longer game overall, but if you could keep funnelling infantry to build a good defensive wall along with some tanks for the hard hits, then you could pay more attention to the Western Allies for a while and simply keep Russia at bay. If you could get Japan to take a few of the far eastern territories, that would make it even easier for you to out-strip Russia in money. Meanwhile, you could probably pound Britain’s factories and do something to help Italy in the Med. Very interesting plan Grasshopper. I may have to try that out.

I would think that waiting for a counter may not happen as Moscow will be just as happy sitting there on its capital until the Germans have to divert their attention Westward into landings in Italy or France.

You’ll still need to take Egypt, and either Moscow or London for a VC win… so why wait for a counter when its counter-intuitive for the Reds to attack.

A G1 attack will lock you in Russia for the rest of the game, and with a big chunk of the UK Fleet alive, the allies will have an easy time opening up a second front fairly soon. The UK will not have to defend from sea-lion, so Italy will be dead. And because you are going for a long-term victory in the south, I think that the UK needs to be crippled for this to work effectively.

I would want to know what your G1 purchases are, but I have my doubts that anything can justify a G1 attack.

At first I voted “bad idea” but I am going to change my vote.

I like the idea of knocking out those 7 infantry right off the bat.  I think the key to it is if you can take Baltic states and Bessarabia with just infantry and planes, and save your armor for East Poland.  To counterattack East Poland all they will have will be 2 infantry and 1 artillery from Belarus and North Ukraine, plus their precious red air force which they don’t want to risk losing against armor.  So if they counterattack it will probably be against Baltic states and Bessarabia.

Now suppose you also NCM the 11 infantry and 3 artillery from Germany to Poland, and do a strafe/retreat from South Germany thru yugoslavia to Romania.  Anything that counterattacks will be in a bad trap (notice they don’t have an AA gun in Ukraine so you can use air against them without fear).

SO the “real” barbarossa starts G2 in Baltic states and Bessarabia, but you already took out the 7 infantry along the border and you also have a strong foothold in East Poland as of G1.

G1 Attack on Russia takes only 7 infantries, should lose about 2 infantries in the process.

Lose the NO, recover two for the territories and get exposed to counterattack.

So overall, the net gain is 4 infantries.

Biggest problem is that these attacks are a distraction / take too much away from the Western front.

I think you can do it, with some good rolls on some key battles early you could put Russia on its heels. Along with a Japanese 1st round punch could put them on the ropes.
The key is round 3-5 to take and keep control of the Atlantic. Do whatever you can to get Italy $ so they can….almost hold their own
Kind of reminds me of the Original when the Axis have to hit Russia on one and win key battles, Then defend really well.
Good luck this weekend Young Grasshopper,I hope you can work out any bugs in the plan.

IF your opponent is familiar with this website, I think he’ll be fairly confident about what the plan is.

Anyway since German goes first there is not much he can do about it!

Sounds like a coffee day.

@Young:

Thanks, I’m up against a great opponent who doesn’t know what I’m planning, so I will play my best in an attempt to see if this strategy is relevant or not.

5:00 AM
Awake

5:30 AM
Bus ride to the game, thought I would write a bit before I play.

After all the votes suggesting that this may not be a good  idea, I thought hard about the impact of a G2 attack on Russia, but my logic keeps bringing me back to G1 (either I’m on to something or I’m ilogical). Ever since I stared at the board after Larry’s last changes, I felt that a G1 attack on Russia was the next best thing to do as Germany (maybe I need to get my butt whopped today in order to forget it and move on).

I am glad so see at least one other member feel that I’m not crazy, and thanks to Kpn and SA for the support.

EVERY Day is a COFFEE day :P

@Gargantua:

EVERY Day is a COFFEE day :P

Of course!

Any opinion to share on my Bulgaria thread? Would be interested in your thoughts.

It’s an interesting idea.  But the NO swing seems to discourage it (-5 for G, +5 for R).

It sounds like you are taking and holding epl, but allowing Russia to counter you in bst and bess.  But I’m not sure how you hold epl without diverting some tanks (from the Fra battle) from South Germany.  Anyway, it’s difficult to offer an opinion without seeing your exact deployment.

Personally I wouldn’t want to divert any planes away from UK1 attacks, which leaves 3 planes leftover (since there’s no ac buy).  Normally one uses those in Fra or Yugo.

The idea is worth considering but seems a bit dicey.  You are exposed to dice in bst and bess in addition to yugo.  And finally Epl could be countered if you get diced.  And if you divert tanks/planes from Fra to the eastern front you could end up getting diced in Fra too.

I said not ready to be judged in the poll, mainly because I haven’t seen a G1 Russia assault, and don’t have the board set up to check it out (in the middle of a game).

My first though is it would be nice to kill off the 7 Russian inf, but you would probably get stalled early on (not enough strength, and Italy would have a hard time catching up). As Russia I would probably send a small force into the Mid East R1 to grab Persia, and make a play for Iraq (Russian NO), to offset my early tt losses. From there I might even try to get a mech or tank to Egypt to claim some Italian tt in Africa if opportunity arises for more NO bonuses. You may even see Russia try to hit Finland at some point depending on if your Germany does any Naval builds.

Very interesting, will stay posted to see how things went.

I looked into this more closely and I am starting to like Grasshopper’s idea a lot.  They way I would do it is to send the tanks from Poland and South Germany to East Poland and hit z111 instead of z110 to free up air units for France.  The 4 mechs from West Germany will NCM to Hungary and Italy takes South France.  Normandy stays French so allies can’t use the IC later.

Even if dice are unfavorable, Baltic states and Bessarabia are being attacked by the same number of infantry as they have (plus 1 fig, 1 tac each) so even if they all hit the planes are safe.  The goal is to kill the Russian infantry so it’s OK if Bal and Bes are cleared but not taken.  If the Yugo strafe goes bad (ie you lose a lot or you actually win and get stuck there) you have the mechs in Hungary as reserve.  The tank from Romania goes to Yugo (and back), the tank from Hungary activates Bulgaria.  France gets 7 inf, 3 art, 3 armor, 3 tac, 1 bomber. z111 gets a sub, a battleship, 3 fig, 1 bomber.  z125 gets a sub to deny Russia the Murmansk NO for the first turn.  I would build a sub, destroyer, 1 mech, 2 armor.  So that’s my take on it.

In my prior analysis, forgot to consider the Russian NO:

Kill 7 infantry, but lose 2 (maybe more), net gain of 5.

Gain 2 IPC, but lose 5, Russia lose 2 IPC (assuming no counter) and gains 5.

So the net infantry gain is 3 / 9 IPC.

Now, you’ll make me believe that the use of these planes can’t make you gain more than 9 IPC somewhere else? 9 IPC is one fighter you lose or 1 extra fighter you kill.

As mentioned, Russians can move in middle east , take persia and Iraq on R2. Take Iraq with 1 tank, 2 infantry, 1 tac. Take persia with 1 mech from the initial setup.

On R3, the mechanized units are back to Caucasus and back into the action for R4 (unless Germany went North). Persia, Iraq and the NO are + 7 of income. The two infantries from Persia replace the infantries lost in Iraq.

If someone attacks G1, I would likely retake baltic using my air power / cheap units in order to protect my North flank. Since I would have more money to spend in the long run, would likely go for a more offensive force (more planes and artillery than normal).

A Sea Lion will most likely be off the map with this tactic, so RAF / UK buys can be a bit more agressive.

The Russian sub would go convoy Raid Norway also…

It would be a fun game to play ;)

@Vance:

I looked into this more closely and I am starting to like Grasshopper’s idea a lot.  They way I would do it is to send the tanks from Poland and South Germany to East Poland and hit z111 instead of z110 to free up air units for France.  The 4 mechs from West Germany will NCM to Hungary and Italy takes South France.  Normandy stays French so allies can’t use the IC later.

Even if dice are unfavorable, Baltic states and Bessarabia are being attacked by the same number of infantry as they have (plus 1 fig, 1 tac each) so even if they all hit the planes are safe.  The goal is to kill the Russian infantry so it’s OK if Bal and Bes are cleared but not taken.  If the Yugo strafe goes bad (ie you lose a lot or you actually win and get stuck there) you have the mechs in Hungary as reserve.  The tank from Romania goes to Yugo (and back), the tank from Hungary activates Bulgaria.  France gets 7 inf, 3 art, 3 armor, 3 tac, 1 bomber. z111 gets a sub, a battleship, 3 fig, 1 bomber.  z125 gets a sub to deny Russia the Murmansk NO for the first turn.  I would build a sub, destroyer, 1 mech, 2 armor.  So that’s my take on it.

leaving 110 alone seems like a great way to shoot italy in the foot.  that UK fleet left alive can slip into the med, causing some real headaches for the axis early on, plus leaving a sub off norway to deny the russian objective is only good if you’ve taken out the DDs is 109 and 111 (6ipc unit to deny a 5ipc NO for 1 turn only: BAD) seems like there are too many bases to cover than germany can handle for a g1 russia.  harassing uk and getting italy setup seem like better uses of g1 moves

that being said, i am intrigued by the idea, and it would if done “correctly” change the game up, throw the allies off balance