The UK raid on 37

@aardvarkpepper I think we’re talking about LH/3.0 setup with the 2-bomber india strat.

@dylan64 Yeah Larry Harris setup nerfs the German starting setup to the point where they can no longer consistently kill 100% on UK’s starting navy. That goes a long ways towards making life more manageable for them. Give it a try.

@jochen80 An escort fighter is an attacking fighter, escorting the bomber(s). So for the attacking player this is just a combat move. That is totally independent from the defending intercepting fighter, that we discussed before.

Rulebook says: “Escort fighters (those accompanying the attacking bombers) can escort and protect the bombers, and they can originate from any territory or sea zone, range permitting.”

@theskeindhu For the Pacific, what I like to do it bait out elements of the IJN by sending loaded transports at Borneo/DEI/Philippines on suicide missions. The TTs are going to die in all likelihood, but if the opponent overextends you can punish them for it, and if they lack TTs they won’t get the islands back right away, which gives you some healthy income/slows Japan down for a few turns. Even if they have TTs, you can usually sink them with your Carrier FTRs + 1-2 SUBs. This forces them to buy a few more TTs/spend effort cleaning up your SUBs, which distracts them from India/Moscow. Every small distraction helps. 1-2 INF can swing a battle’s odds dramatically in the favor of one side over the other.

DD is a Destoyer. Sorry for The confusion

It’s not exactly related to any strafe, but a move I sometimes enjoy is to hit sz61 and sink the destroyer there, then send your Aussie sub to sz37 and dive immediately (no combat). This can be annoying for Japan, especially if you put your bomber in range, and kept your fighters at the ready for a UK2 attack.

It’s not as painful as trying to kill a Japanese carrier in the first round, and it gives you some naval flexibility against the IJN in the second round, without requiring you to risk the destruction your own navy in the process. If no good attacks vs Japan present themselves, then your sub can bounce towards Suez and just hang out there until more British aircraft arrive to make it effective.
;)

If the Japanese destroyer in sz61 is sunk on UK1, there is no way for Japan to attack this sub, so it’s safe camped out in sz37 by the Japanese battleship/carrier group (going anywhere the Japanese can go) at least until J2, when it can either attack a target of opportunity or withdraw towards Africa.

I’m very wary of an opening move that leaves the second Japanese transport alive, because it allows Japan to bring their ground units into the fray much sooner. Not attacking sz61 would seem to be a requirement of the sz37 attack, whether you’re going all out or just trying some kind of strafe move. A British bid can change my outlook, another sub or destroyer or fighter bid to UK can make the sz37 trade much better, but OOB it still seems real dicey to me.

Yes, #1 is the optimal move in most games. Destroying the sz61 transport is essential for delaying Japan’s take of India. With the sz61 sunk, UK can hold out in India until R6 even with optimized Japan pressure. The carrier and transport can be reliably brought to UK by round 4 to start pressuring Germany.

#2 is very risky. The main problem with #2 is that it uses the entire UK pacific fleet to destroy some of Japan’s naval fleet. Unless the US follows up with a full pacific commitment, japan can use the extra transport and absence of UK naval pressure to aggressively pressure and take India by round 4-5.

A third option to consider is to move the india fleet into the Med if germany failed to deadzone the seazone next to egypt. This allows UK to destroy the med fleet R2 and allows the UK fleet to travel to UK as early as R3. Often, germany will sacrifice air to sink the UK ships in the Med which is also a good outcome for the allies. Overall, this provides the most possible pressure against germany. This is probably the best of the 3 options in my view, but is contingent on a Germany mistake of failing to deadzone sz15.

80+% of my games against good axis players, I do #1.

@empulliam:

New on the forum, just curious as to what you all think about an opening move I use with UK pretty often. On the first turn, build a factory in India. I consider the UK pacific fleet pretty much useless against Japan, I say let US deal with it since they have the money, so i abandon it in favor of a land based strategy. I’ve seen people try building a factory in India where they move the one inf over from persia and pull the plane in from the carrier and try and defend it. The problem with that strategy is that if Japan wants India bad enough on the first turn, the math says they can take it. (They will lose some fighters, but having a factory on the mainland seems like a worthwhile trade). Here are my moves (only on the Pacific side) for turn one.

1. send the carrier in India to get the unprotected transport by Kwangtung.
2. Send the Australian sub to get the Japanese sub
3. Put 2 inf from Australia onto a transport and attack New Guinea (Not a huge part of the plan, but technically the math is in my favor)
4. Move inf from Persia into India
5. (here’s where things get dicey) send everything in India, plus the fighter from the carrier, into southeast Asia. Unless the Japan player catches on to what I’m doing, the first two units he allows to be killed will be the infantry there. I don’t really care so much about getting the plane, so unless i’m doing really well I just retreat after I destroy the ground units. This way, Japan has no ground units in range to capture the factory, and next turn I can reinforce it with 3 tanks, and from there just send ground units up the coast until Japan is kicked out of mainland Asia. Then I would use the factory to reinforce Russia from the East.

On the 1st Edition of 1942 this is almost suicidal because the Japanese player should focus everything on preparing to attack India from J2 onwards and he’ll be able to do so unless you commit the Soviets to defend the IC. Which is almost suicidal as well because Germany should also be pushing hard into Russia and it will usually mean that the Soviets will lose Caucasus.
You’re also leaving Africa to Germany if you follow this.