Super Stack or Stupid Stack?

Except early Red Navy build is a wasted buy. The only reason why I would do it is if Germany went all in on Sea Lion and it failed so your army is equal to theirs and even then the Kreigsmarine is never a serious threat so unless USSR red navy is going for Italy or he is going to send them against Japan, it was a stupid buy.

If the Germans have a fleet, they can attack up north from SZ 112 (threatening Karelia, Novo, Arch, Nemestia), there has to be a specific LZ for the fighters to cross which you can threaten or deny as long as you have attacked them on G2 or G1.    Fighters crossing the med have a slow time of it.    Maybe some help can come in the form of making it more inconvenient for the UK fighters to get into Russia in the first place?

I also dislike blowing the Russian NO by having allies hanging out in Russia before its abs necessary, but that could be pretty early in the game.

“Sea Lion”  if the USSR has a fleet and Novogrod, they can keep this threat alive for a long time.  No matter what I want to do with UK, I usually end up buying 6+1 and bringing as many Canadians across as I can.  If I lose any significant ## of fighters, UK has to continue to worry that Germany can bring wave after wave of attackers, which keeps me conservative.  This is why the Gibraltar air base or crossing to Russia early would be difficult;  I don’t have enough fighters to protect UK and project threat.  Once they cross to Russia, they cant cross back…

“Get Cairo”  That sounds awesome but with a UK bid of 10, its not going to happen.  If Germany and Italy build/rebuild navy and try to control the Med, that’s a subtle win for the Allies.  Navy is resource intensive and takes away the armor punch described by the other posters.  Without an added commit, I just don’t see how the Axis can take Egypt at all, there are just too many UK pieces around there.  Germany can fly or bring ships down there but its a 1 way trip, into a dead end trap, and its away from the critical path (Russia)

“Tan Skies”  you are on the right track;  if UK has 6+ fighters it is kicking butt, if not, it feels cornered and powerless.  The key for the axis is to do the strongest opener that doesn’t invite any scrambles, then the UK navy is dead and Germany has most of its air left.  The UK also doesn’t need to lose any (many) fighters during its opener, other stuff can take the casualties.  Its especially good if the airforce from Taranto lives to fight another day (by avoiding the Italian counterstrike, we hope 1 sb 1 French inf 1 tac 1 fighter on Syria?)

I don’t see a flight path on the map that would be shortened by being able to fly over the Pripet Marshes, so I suppose that it’s not particularly relevant from an A&A perspective whether or not planes can fly over them.

Russians need only ATTACK Korea.  They don’t have to take.

Having Mongolia in play can be just as good for Japan as Russia.  Units can cross from Russia to China freely, and you can duck out of North China at any time and be immune to the Chinese

That’s what I thought.

Haha Cyanight I like your new avatar. Squirrels in Lightsaber-fight :-).
Damn I cannot check if I got that right (avatars disappear while typing). Let’s just add the famous IIRC!

About the breakdown,
Yeah I love ‘breakdowns’ (as long as they are not ‘nervous’). They speed up the game because otherwise you may be busy entering units in a Battle Calculator a lot of times and that will take time.

The complete breakdown as I wrote it in my list of quick reminders:
Moscow SURVIVES ASSAULT (with ~18 units) IF allies have >7 units more than GER, and DF(RU/UK) >= AF(GE).

If allies have no more than 8DF < AF(GER): all RAF(UK) should survive the assault (6 to 12 aircraft).

If allies have no more than 14DF < AF(GER): the borderline. (LL system) both sides end the assault with 0 units.

In case you wonder what this all means:
DF = Defense Factors, the total sum of defense values of all defending units.
AF = You guessed right ;-).

Note that all my reminders and breakdowns are based on the LL-calculator. I find that a good system to base a strategy on, because rolling dice will only produce as much hits as in LL if you are rolling above average. As this works for both sides, over time (on average) the LL-calculator gets it right.
I, for one, will play on and not attack Moscow with my big German stack if the LL-calculator tells me Russia will win that battle with ~18 units. Would you attack? Or play on and try to squeeze russian production untill the odds are more in favor of your German attackers?
And where would the turning point be. For me I will only attack a place such as Moscow if the calculator tells me I will win with the number of units I want to win with (which may vary).

@oztea:

Dooming moscow is not a gamebreaker in this edition
It opens the possibility of getting france back in the game, if the Allies can push past normandy

At 17 if it controls all but FIC, it is a power that is near Russia’s IPC stockpile when it fell.

This is interesting, trade Russia for France (at some point). The axis strengthen would be way out of range unless most of it was lost in the battle for Moscow (make them pay). The US swoops in to destroy Italy and you now have 3 allies all in western Europe (knocking at Germany’s front door), instead of two coming from the west, and Russia in the east. If Italy does fall the 3 allied powers will have back to back turns (ooch).

In my experience so far a good Russian player playing conservatively can make Moscow close to impossible to take.   The way Russian territories are set up allows them to fall back and shadow any approaching German army until the Russians have reinforced their stack to the point where it can turn around and chase out or destroy the invaders.  There’s no real downside to this vs standing and fighting as you’re only giving up 1-2 ipc provinces as you fall back and you’re continuing to preserve and grow your Russian stack at a rate faster than the Germans can hope to reinforce theirs (assuming, of course, that GB and the US are putting any sort of pressure on the other side of Europe).  I’ve pretty much given up going for it and instead have resolved to find some way to take Leningrad and Stalingrad.  I’ll admit that Germany and Italy, given free reign to attack Russia can eventually bring them down if they focus all their strength on it but how are they doing this while preventing or counter-attacking allied landings?  There’s just not enough IPC’s available for them to effectively do both.