German Blueprint: G1 Attack on Russia

Thanks grasshopper!
It might be cool if others have some G1 ideas and maybe a “playbook” like Cow’s can develop.

Here are a couple of FAQ items for my G1.

Taranto (edit)
Taranto scramble is situational.  If Russia doesn’t stack Belarus, then don’t scramble at Taranto; save the planes to clear z93 and z96 and let the Germans airstrike that carrier in z97.  But if Russia evacuates Baltic states and Novgorod to Belarus and reinforces with mobile units and planes (perhaps with a strafe of East Poland and retreat to Belarus), then DO go ahead and scramble at Taranto because in that case German planes will be busy attacking Belarus and killing off USSR’s most valuable units!  Either way, German planes land in East Poland with Romanians reinforcing.

Archangel
In my plan, anything in Novgorod eventually evacuates to Archangel or dies.  Whatever escapes to Archangel will be out of position to do much besides defend Moscow, and that includes any fighters that may come from Scotland.  They will never see Bryansk.  I want the Bolsheviks to accept reality and understand that any resistance in Bryansk is futile so I can get Ukraine and turn it into my artillery factory.  Once Moscow is under seige I can sneak down thru Rostov to the oilpatch and let Japan SBR them for a while before the final extermination.

The battle for France is a risky one, right out of the gate the game could be lost there. I would think the UK will be able to harass the Germans fairly easily if the Russian player is aggressive enough, forcing the Germans to bring air to the Eastern front.

As the UK seeing a G1, might as well Scramble and take out 2 planes in 111 and another 2 in 110. The surviving destroyer / transport from 109 lands 1 infantry / 1 artillery in Norway using zone 12, sinking the submarine in 125 with support from the strategic bomber. UK might as well land in Greece, they should be able to hold it and cause some damage.

The med navy would pound Italy. The Canadians have a good shot at surviving, in any case the newly built fleet in Canadian waters would help fortify Gibraltar starting in the second turn and deny Italian NOs from occurring.

This strategy seems to give way too much initiative to the Allies.

@Young:

Our plans are quite different, but the big strategical difference I see is that you go for Lenningrad and than Moscow mercilessly, where as I prefer a long game of attrition on the front. I’m more that happy taking the Russian Minor factories by building my own minor in Romania, and than forming a line while building units to reinforce that line. I’m really not interested in spreading Germany’s resourses thin by trying to take Moscow, my reason for attacking G1 is to cut the legs off Stalin and than beat him with them. That way I can give Italy lots of air support allowing them to come back to life and take Ciaro, and Japan plenty of time to get rich in the Pacific. So, even though I attack G1, all I want are the Lenningrad and Ukraine Factories and the territories between them, moving further east after that just depletes, thins, and risks units IMO. Finally: for the record, I have been an advocate for a G1 attack on Russia for a very long time now, in spite of all the suggestions that it is a bad idea, but I truly believe that the success of Cow’s J1 has given some validation for it, especially now that the allies are trying to use Russia to stop Japan.

I agree.  G1 is a good option if you are also doing J1 and not pretending to put up a sealion threat.  I also see value in taking Leningrad and East Poland and trading teritories to weaken them down rather than marching too far and spending all your money on expensive mobile units.  The trouble I have had with that is that I can never get Ukraine or past that point because of the big pile of Russians that always show up in Bryansk.  The weakness in my version will be that Italy is pretty useless and UK is very strong.  Eventually the allies will win but if both Japan and Germany are fast and aggressive maybe they can get enough momentum going before the allies have time to get their act together.

@Young:

@Omega1759:

The battle for France is a risky one, right out of the gate the game could be lost there. I would think the UK will be able to harass the Germans fairly easily if the Russian player is aggressive enough, forcing the Germans to bring air to the Eastern front.

France is fine, I will lose all my men and Mechs on a bad day, but the artillery and tanks are safe. I never send German planes to the Eastern front after G1 unless there is nothing for them to do, and even than its rare. German planes will be harassing the UK, if I know I will be trading planes for ships in an upcoming battle, I always buy more air units that same round.

It’s a 88% battle with 34 expected IPC lost (all the infantry + 3 out of 4 mech) is the expected outcome. All it takes is a bad first round of rolling and this battle can be very costly / lost

@Young:

@ Vance.

Don’t think that the Axis have to move fast to win, the economic long game is more viable than ever for the Axis powers. Don’t abandon Italy, they will be weak for the first 3 rounds, but by Germany giving them the Balkin territories including the neutrals in Bulgaria, and the right amount of Mediteranian support in navy and air force, they should start making a healthy $25 per turn.

I was thinking more along the lines of not sending good money after bad in Africa.  Let Italy have South France, Yugo, Bulgaria, then Greece.  Italy’s job is to stack a counterattack force of inf/arts in France.  The allies will be unstoppable once they get up to speed so I am hoping for the fast win.

Omega, in grasshoppers attack on Paris, 7 inf, 4 mech, 3 art, 3 armor versus the 6 inf, 2 art, 2 armor, 1 fighter and 1 AA the odds work out to 94% with 7 or 8 units surviving.  There is a typo above where it says 6 inf but he meant 7

@Vance:

@Young:

@ Vance.

Don’t think that the Axis have to move fast to win, the economic long game is more viable than ever for the Axis powers. Don’t abandon Italy, they will be weak for the first 3 rounds, but by Germany giving them the Balkin territories including the neutrals in Bulgaria, and the right amount of Mediteranian support in navy and air force, they should start making a healthy $25 per turn.

I was thinking more along the lines of not sending good money after bad in Africa.  Let Italy have South France, Yugo, Bulgaria, then Greece.  Italy’s job is to stack a counterattack force of inf/arts in France.  The allies will be unstoppable once they get up to speed so I am hoping for the fast win.

Omega, in grasshoppers attack on Paris, 7 inf, 4 mech, 3 art, 3 armor versus the 6 inf, 2 art, 2 armor, 1 fighter and 1 AA the odds work out to 94% with 7 or 8 units surviving.  There is a typo above where it says 6 inf but he meant 7

1 extra infantry helps quite a bit there.

The UK can merge the 91 cruiser + 96 units into 93, joining the French Cruiser / Destroyer there (after clearing a path in 96 with planes.) Removing this threat from the board will be extremely costly. The best I can see happening is the Italians making a strafe attack and letting the Germans finish the job on their round (more planes will be lost still)

That + a landing in Greece would be a hard one to crack for the Italians.

I might be missing something, but I don’t see how this puts the Axis in a strong position.

@Young:

You’re right, it’s 7 infantry in France (edited in post 1).

@Omega, I never said that this puts Germany in a strong position, I said it was a comfortable position while making Russia uncomfortable.

@Vance, Germany must take S.France in round 2 (not Italy) to make up for money lost in G1, and to build sea units in round 3.

Right, you said you wanted to drop a fleet into the med G3.  gotcha

Hey Grasshopper, I ran thru your G1 a couple times with TripleA and for what its worth this would be my response:

Build 3 art in Novgorod; 2 inf, 1 art in Ukraine; 1 inf, 3 mechs in Moscow
Strafe Baltic states with 7 inf, 1 art, 1 fighter, then retreat to Novgorod
Take Bessarabia with 4 inf, 1 fig, 1 tac

NCMs:
Land fighter in Novgorod and UK will send the Scotland fighter (UK will do Taranto)
6 inf from Vyborg/Karelia/Archangel to Novgorod

Land fighter, tac in Bryansk
1 inf, 1 art, 2 AA, 1 tank from Moscow to Bryansk

1 mech from Moscow to Ukraine
1 tank, 1 mech from Stalingrad to Ukraine
1 art from NorthWest Ukraine to Ukraine

Activate NorthWest Persia with 2 inf (R2 get Persia and land a plane in NW Persia)

all far east troops go to Buryatia

With my luck I would roll a bunch of 1s  :-)

I see something now that I would change too.  Bombers and tanks could hit Bryansk and Italian bomber could can opener any blockers so I guess I would have to leave inf/art/AA in Moscow and the tanks/mechs/fighter/tac go to Ukraine.

SZ#110 - 2 Submarines, 1 Battleship, 2 Fighters, 2 T.Bombers, 1 S.Bomber

Scramble=tempting.  13% chance of victory.  Tough call.

SZ#111 - 2 Submarines, 2 Fighters, 1 T.Bomber, 1 S.Bomber

Scramble alot less controversial here.  17% chance of victory.

France - 7 Infantry, 4 M.Infantry, 3 Artillery, 3 Tanks

93% chance of victory is alot.  But 100% (with the 6 tanks) is alot better.  On average, not having the 3 extra tanks will cost Germany an extra 2-3 art or mech to take it.  And then there’s the issue that 7% of the time you won’t win and it’s tough coming back from that.

I choose to leave Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, and Greece for Italy, to ensure their financial stability in future rounds.

What is the justification for giving the Bulgarian army to Italy?

This G1 does kill the 7 Russian inf.  But you lose an average of 3 inf in the process.  You lose the 2-3 art or mech in France.  You’re exposed to risk in 110/111 and in France.  Russia gets +5 and Germany doesn’t get +5.  There is no German fig on S. Italy.  Russia has an opportunity to make up to +7 per turn in the Middle East by R3.  And your G1 buy (which seems basically defensive) isn’t a great threat to the Soviets.

Great food for thought but I’m not seeing sufficient incentive to war with the Soviets early on.

We are going to test Vance’s strategy with a league game against me (first game online). We’ll see how it goes.