Single Vector Stategies?

I do this “vector” attack once the Brits can land in Karelia consistently and push right up next to Berlin. Do you mean something else like push right from the start or something? I’m not sure if I’d do that because it’s inflexible and gives the Germans perhaps quite a few consistent and “free” IPCs (ukraine, karelia, archangel). Your spearhead is also going to meet very very strong resistance in Eastern Europe especially once the Germans see your stack in Belorussia. Do you also mean to ignore Belorussia in the first turn attack? It’s not a bad thing necessarily if you do, I’m just trying to figure out your strategy.

Giving Germany those IPCs could make a vector attack from the get-go very difficult. You’d be sending like 24 IPCs of trailing equipment versus ~40 IPCs of defense.

Yes.  As Japan.  Both Germany and I used this type of strat to drive toward Moscow.  Germany threw everything at Russia (primarily through Caucasus), while I went through BUR-YAK-ENO and CHI-SINK-NOV (your “northern and central prongs”, ncsc).  I dropped J1 factories in MAN & FIC, and started churning out tanks, concentrated fleet in SZ60 to protect trannies (UK didn’t pop the KWA tranny, and I bought one more on J2 for a total of 3), and ignored US/UK fleets (the UK fleet had escaped to Med on UK1 anyway).  I tried to get everything I could to Moscow as quickly as possible.

Germany concentrated every ground & air unit within range to hit CAU on G1, even the Med BB (his Med tranny carried a couple of units from SEU as well). Even with CAU relatively well defended, he was able to achieve nearly 3-to-1 superiority.  Russian got some good dice rolls, however, and my German compatriot lost more units than we predicted, even though he won.  GE then kept piling tanks into Russia, and attacked on a broader front in G2/G3 as well.

The good news is that we reduced USSR to a shambles, and, Moscow had to defend against two armor columns from both directions on G4 AND J4. Â

The bad news:  had flown a couple of fighters to Moscow, and these (along with another above-average set of rolls) provided just enough for him to hang on.  At the end of our attacks, there were still 2 Russian tanks and 1 fighter sitting in Moscow.

Well, at this point, I was still sitting in a decent position; still had my navy, had grabbed a nice pile of IPCs, was under no immediate threat (although US navy was becoming a concern), and had more avenues to continue expansion.  But you can imagine the precarious situation Germany was in.  UK/US had been left pretty much free to do as they pleased in the Atlantic.  US had taken Algeria/Libya, and had a nice invasion force ready to go for WEU or SEU (or even Balkans, for that matter).  UK had taken Norway and was ready to go into WEU or even GER itself.  And the whole continent was just an eggshell; Germany had put everything into schwacking Russia.  UK5 and US5 were going to be very ugly indeed.  Germany was spent, and could not remount an attack on the Russian capital from the west, as he was about to get crushed.  I could keep pressure up on my end, but I didn’t have enough to take Moscow on my own.  Our drive just petered out.

So…the strat was indeed quite flawed, and I don’t think I’d try it that way again (at least not on German side).  Our A&A group, however, is pretty green.  We started playing a couple of weeks ago, I think we’ve played 9 games altogether.  Prior to that, only a couple of us had played A&A classic (MANY years ago…like, in the '80s).  So, the focus, strength, and speed of our drive was quite the surprise to the Allies, and it took US/UK a couple of turns to adjust their plans…they really should have hit Europe at least a turn earlier, in my opinion. Â

If I were to try it again, I would probably play Japan very similarly, but would probably schwack the US Pearl Harbor fleet (the “light” method, w/o using the SZ60 BB) on J1.  For Germany, I’d say his biggest mistake (given that one pursues this sort of all-or-nothing approach in the first place) was in not taking Egypt and closing the Suez on G1, and at least getting a few IPCs (however temporarily) in G1.  I’d also probably adjust the German build, from strictly tanks to tanks + 1 fighter per turn).

In any case, it was fun, even though we lost.

Yeah, this kind of attack is somewhat more feasible with Japan beacuase they face no immediate threats (unless UK throws an IC in India on UK1 which will force Japan to deal with that and is more of a speed bump and free IC, but can take away from the speed getting to Moscow in any case).

With Germany, you had better have a very conservative Allied player or a beginner (taking into account Hoss1193 you did say your group was green) because otherwise UK/ US are going to be in Europe VERY soon, quite sooner than they were in your game, and with force.  It sounds like a fun strategy and who knows, with some good dice rolling you might be able to pull it off. But the odds can’t be that great to begin with and the potential downside is essentially that Germany is out of the game within a few turns. I’d pass in favour of an aggressive but more traditional approach with Germany, though I do find the 2 ICs on J1 an interesting move. BTW, the UK not whacking the Kwan transport on UK1 is a BAD move…

Sounds pretty much like a normal tactic, except are you at all trying to trade the territories that have like 1-2 German inf on them? I usually go spearing on like Round 3 or so as the Russians, but I really don’t like to let the Germans sit on those frontline territories for free. If I saw such a focused beam as Germany I would do the exact same thing in Eastern Europe except I’d be throwing some casual forces to take territories since you’re not diverting unless it’s a bigger force.

FWIW, we tried this same strategy again (I paired up with same buddy as Germany/Japan again).  He played Germany a little more conservatively, and used nearly identical strategy as Japan.  Our Allied foes were a little more aggressive this time (UK was anyway), but Germany got some great dice rolls and was able to put up a truly heroic defense of Europe against multiple invasion attempts.  I was able to smoke Moscow on J5.  USSR player put up as good a fight as he could, and the UK guy also did pretty decent (just got some horrible dice).  Their main downfall was that our US guy STILL hasn’t figured out the strategic aspects of the game, stayed wholly defensive in the Western Hemisphere, and just didn’t become a factor.  He finally came at me on US5 with a huge carrier fleet, but my entire game-start fleet was sitting intact in SZ60, and the fighter/carrier defense advantage came into play.  At the end of the naval bloodbath, there were still 2 Japanese battleships left as the only capital ships of any nation in entire Pacific/IO theater.  So with Axis ~95 IPC income, no immediate threats, and nearly all of US IPC investment on the ocean floor, Allies threw in the towel.