Taranto Fail… What next in the Med?

@hengst

This only works if there are only Italian aricraft scrambling. I usually use two fighters from the United Kingdom terirtory, and the fighter from Malta-the fighter from Girbraltar should be used along with the cruiser off of Girbraltar (it takes three submarines to have more than an 80% chance to kill it, my normal standard to win a battle, so the submarines are usually used for easier prey in the north, especially if Germany attacks the Soviet Union in the first turn, which will nessecitate one submarine in sea zone 125) to destroy the Italian navy off of Malta. If a German aircraft lands in Southern Italy, I usually will call of the attack, as there is a less than 80% chance to win. All of this assumes Germany invades the Soviet Union in the first turn.

@hengst

Awesome that the Axis won! I have np advice, but I always love seeing game reports! Keep up the good work!

The Allies certainly have the option for waiting until turn 2 before stacking Yunnan if Japan fails on J1.  The Chinese will easily have enough units to retake the territory and likely will just use minimal forces if Japan did not issue a DOW on J2.  at the end of their Chi2 turn, they easily could have 14 infantry + 6 art + 1 fighter stacked in Szechwan.  That is an impressive army against the weak Axis forces in Asia.

If this is a no-bid / non-mod game, the Axis still can come back to win the game by capturing Moscow or heading down into the oilfields.  I don’t think that I could come back for a win with BM rules.

I feel like the “3rd” option is stacking UK navy in 92 and building an air base in Gibraltar UK1.  Same risk of Sea Lion as building the IC in Egypt UK1 tho.  This requires “breaking out” by attacking the Italian Destroyer in 96 with air power (bomber from London and Fighter from Malta).  I would also recommend an attack on Ethiopia via India support combined with the Tac and TT with 2 units from egypt, then consolidating Alex/Egypt forces in Egypt.  If, for whatever reason, UK navy in 110 was avoided, send them to 92 as well.

Just another option to consider with lots of “ifs”.  Germany’s opening move should dictate your options rather than have a hard and fast “this is what the UK MUST DO”.

One thing worth mentioning here is that Africa is essentially a trap for the Axis.   Whether the Italian fleet survives or not, it is very hard to make much of an income difference or gain any NOs before America enters the war and takes it back, or without compromising some other more critical front. Â

Italy only risks 2 IPCs by losing Africa.   In our Game 92 on Saturday, I had the entire Italian navy survive because my opponent did exactly what you suggested, and attacked Tobruk rather than Taranto.   The counter is quite favorable to the Italians, to send in their entire fleet on the attack and clear the med for your NO.   Even with the gigantic navy, I was still boxed in as I couldn’t control either Gibraltar or Egypt in the long term though I took both of them once.   Â

Buying more ships is a trap, and you can’t really hold Gibraltar.   I spent all my $$ on strategic bombers and mechs to help Germany on the eastern front and using Italy to protect the Atlantic Wall or help leapfrog Germany in the East is stronger than trying to take the Maghreb or the Levant.  If you keep any transports, the most effective thing to do with those is threaten/cover/block/rush out of Gibraltar but its going to be hard…

One of my buddies said that far from wanting to reinforce the Italian stack on Tobruk, he wanted to evacuate it from Africa.  Its ineffective and trapped on a good day and easy to annihilate on a bad one.

Also, unless you declare war on the allies on turn 2 on your plan, india will block you anyway so he really wont need to turtle.  The idea is to trick the allies in that it is business as usual.  If japan got straight for india turn 2, then it becomes 100% clear that Japan is giving up the pac and so the US will start dumping in the atlantic while UK turtles egypt harder.

I usually never can~~'t~~ afford that much stuff in SA or an airbase because of the sealion threat (for the first two rounds at least).  Gotta buy either 9 Inf or 6 Inf/1 Ftr in London turn 1.  I mentioned fast units in SA after the Sealion threat is waned to get units to Cairo ASAP.

Typical German turn leaves all UK ships save 1 DD, 1 TT in SZ 109 and 1 CRU off Spain left.  Most German players I play buy at least a TT and a SS as part of their first turn buy, which leaves a Sealion visable with a 9-10 TT buy turn 2.

retreating from the med isn’t good.  ur basically saying “here ya go dude. do whatever you want.”  the biggest thing holding italy back is the time it takes to secure the med.  pulling back speeds up the process.

let america/anzac deal w/ japan.