How to save Italian fleet

@taamvan:

Thanks for going to the rulebook, the old rules I think said 3 squares (how boring)

1st edition of Global 1940 had 3 spaces for rockets, indeed.

@Maddog77:

…
All other A&A games I own, the xport can at least defend with a roll of 1.

Yes, this has changed starting from Anniversary Edition.

This is one of the rare topics that everyone seems to agree upon, because its pretty theoretical rather than applied.

Cruisers and Battleships are too expensive, use the ones you already have but build more sparingly if at all.  The bombardment shots are too easy to block and are not first-strike.

Carriers are awesome, the only drawback is that they can take hits (esp from kamikazes and subs) which would render them unable to support planes.  Carriers cannot attack but they can permit you to shuttle-stage your fliers (so as many as 4 planes can actually use the carriers on a single turn).  The fact that US, UK, Japan and Germany start with copious numbers of planes contributes to this belief.  It is actually a good idea to build even more carriers than you can fill with planes, because they can soak hits and provide free landing spaces for non coms and allied fighters.

Destroyers are too pricey, but they are the only cheap ship that blocks movement and sub ambushes.  This means you can’t live without them, but that you cannot build your stack out of them either

Subs are tempting, they are the best unit for the price until you consider that their special rules require that you must also have a traditional fleet to support your sub strikeforce, they can never really operate on their own unless your opponent is already suppressed.

Transports full of attack teams cost 14 IPCs, so they are almost as expensive as any two small units or a carrier, highlighting the challenge of playing the US.

Any time
Always fun to think and talk about A&A strategy, and tell others about what’s been learned from experience
Happy gaming to you and your buddies

Thanks, at least someone appreciates the work I put into those.
I have a whole bunch more to do now with the new sculpts from '41 and '42.2.

Darn it - someone has correctly pointed out that the bombers in central US could hit z109 but they could not hit z110!

So I recalculated a couple of these and adding 1 carrier with 2 fighters landed on it gets the odds of an Allies win down from 100% to 70.2%; adding 2 carriers with 3 fig and 1 tac gets it down to 7.1%.  So it seems that 2 carriers would probably do the job most of the time, but that’s still an awful lot for Germany to spend.

Apologies for my oversight.

Yes, we have yet to run out of the blue pieces for Italy.  Italy might run out of aircraft if you bought lots of them, but otherwise one set is fine.

I have been thinking about adding the Japanese from A&AP for the Russians(they’re red) but there’s no mech/CA/or Tac bombers.

I also have been thinking of using the Russians from A&AE, they are more red then the new ones.  Still no mechs or Tac bombers:(

well, italy runnign wild is EASILY made up by the fact that germany made 70+ ipcs worth of transports that will hardly do anything to help him vs russia besides threatening Novgorod.
With US entering the war soon, italy will be beaten, you would just need to conserve your afircan forces and try to slow down or contain italian advances.  You dont need to hold egypt, you just need to prevent him from getting too much more.  Usually of germany tries to sealion, Japan does not bother you on J2 to prvent US from entering earlier.  The extra money you wil collect from controling your stuff in the pacific can be used to make stuff than can reinforce persia.  Eventually when germany is going full bore on russia, you can just leave a strong garrison on uk and start wearing italy down and investing your money into africa/persia from the europe side.