Why is Taranto raid so popular?

@SuperbattleshipYamato said in Let's talk the Taranto raid.:

They’re a bit more useful in the Pacific depending on what the Japanese do and how much focus the US is putting there. A British fleet by itself cannot stand up to the Japanese.

Its funny because this is exactly the reasoning I had in my head on why I would keep the carrier alive. You’re definitely right that a British fleet alone can’t hope to fight Japan but its the presence of it that I’m backing. That is, should Japan want to sink it, they will have to commit a decent amount of resources to sinking a carrier - resources that will be pulled away from other critical areas of the map. That’s all theory though

@ShadowHAwk said in The Taranto Raid Fighter/Carrier Question:

Ofcourse if you take less then 2 hits in that combat its not the worst thing.

certainly not!

@Gamerman01:

I don’t think he’s saying he made the scramble decision after 111.  I think he’s saying they rolled 111, and it didn’t go well, and then rolled 110 which killed Germany and they started over.

Yes all scramble decisions are made before any dice

This is correct.  As I read what I wrote I can see that I wasn’t clear on it.  The initial scramble decision was made because Ike came in light, figuring I wouldn’t scramble because I never do.

The strength of the Taranto attack as Britain is that you have to basically bring as many planes to the fight as Italy has eligible to scramble in order to ensure “mutual destruction” odds.

Assuming you always destroy the Italian transport off of Malta, you will leave Italy with only a handful of boats and one lone transport. With only one transport it is very unlikely that Italy can effectively take Greece and Gibraltar on the first turn, meaning that you can deny them a valuable objective early on. Sending one transport either way means it will take at least another two turns to get to the other side. (The solution to this for the Axis is Germany taking Gibraltar for Italy).

With only one transport, Italy cannot effectively threaten Egypt, which gives Britain much-needed time to fortify it with troops from either India or S. Africa.

Even though the UK’s navy in the med faces almost assured destruction (if the Italian counterattack doesn’t finish it off somehow, German planes will), you are banking on the fact that you make almost triple Italy’s economy. Italy’s paltry 10 IPCs mean that rebuilding transports will take a huge portion of their income. Until Italy achieves it’s NO’s, building anything larger than destroyers and submarines will be impossible without saving up IPCs for 1-2 turns.

The other advantage of this strategy is that by destroying most of Italy’s navy early the US does not have to build as large a navy in the Atlantic, which is a massive benefit given the task of facing Japan in the Pacific.

The other popular UK opener is to pull your navy back into SZ81 and possibly join with the India navy (that might be running away from Japan) and build up a force too great for even Italy’s combined navy to defend against. Then the US and UK both hit the med on turn 4 in a 1-2 punch.

With the new setup, Italy can only do what the UK allows them to do, and with the pressure off sealion, it’s put squarely on Italy with the threat of an IC in Egypt UK1. Italy should have been given a tac bomber in northern Italy IMO.

@Dijitz:

G1 I SBR Britain with everything that can reach to open her up for a G2 Sealion. After that, I rarely SBR.

On G1 I prefer to sink SZ 106, SZ 110 and SZ 111 instead of hitting complexes.  When you hit complexes, you might lose aircraft, when you hit the sea zones, you probably won’t lose aircraft.  This is very beneficial, I feel, when attempting Sea Lion, as you need every plane you can get, in my opinion.

However, if I am NOT going Sea Lion, then starting on G2, I like to pummel England and build up some strat bombers. (I like to have 3, that means I should be doing 12 dmg if I dont lose any bombers, 8 with losing one.  Give or take.)

If I go Sea Lion, I still like to have 3 strategic bombers, but I pummel Russia with them instead.  Those pesky Russian’s can easily out number you, if you are not careful!

@MarkVIIIMarc:

Taranto steals a hit and a tac that defends at 3 from defense of London.  That Sealion thing is the biggest problem England has.

Also that destroyer has been used to block and attack the Denmark Straight in different games in my basement.

Really I sort of like the Taranto raid.  London just has to be made too expensive to take though so I usually don’t do it.

Anyway, I love it when my America takes Minor Complex having Rome while Italian Units are busy chasing the French around Central Africa

Problem is that G4 Sealion is unstoppable.

Get more Axis ships into the open waters of the Atlantic to at least stall the Americans.  Tighten the noose on England and hope that Japan is threatening the USA enough that they can’t afford tons of units for the Europe half.  Italy has always been the weak point to the Axis, hence why we took them out first in the real war.