So there I was on Discord, writing about problems with UK1 to sz37 - and I realized, I was writing a lot of core things I’d figured on putting in an article sometime but didn’t get to.
Eh, busy.
First, terms.
TIMING: A strategy built off calculations from a specific actual board state to accomplish a particular objective in a particular time frame.
Example: Before purchasing on G1, G calculates maximum expected Allied defense of W Rus. If it is expected Allies cannot hold against maximum Axis pressure, G1 builds tanks, G2 builds air, for G3 pressure against West Russia, which hits before (if J does not hit US fleet at Hawaiian Islands) US1 to East Australia, US2 3 x fighters to India, US3 3 x fighters to West Russia.
(If it is expected Allies can hold without making significant sacrifice elsewhere, then Axis don’t do that, of course.)
Non-Example: G pushes to Ukraine, pressuring Allies at both West Russia and Caucasus. This is not a timing, this is a tactic based on board properties.
PSEUDOTIMING: Not a full strategy, but a combination of factors that meshes together nicely to create or relieve pressure, typically with some concept of the passage of time.
Example: As above example, but G2 air and J2 air moves to Ukraine. Typically this comes before the Allies have really built up much fleet in Atlantic, so any Allied drops to Karelia are disrupted. (If the Allies push fleet, both G3 and J3 air can hit, so UK cannot move then US simply reinforce as J could hit before reinforcement, nor can US drop then UK reinforce as G could hit.
Unlike G3 W Rus pressure, here the Axis are not trying to pressure a position through brute force. The Axis do not “force” anything; they simply offer Allies a choice; send underdefended fleet and offer Axis an advantaged battle, in exchange relieving some pressure against Moscow, or hold off for safety, in exchange allowing Axis to proceed unhindered. The Allies could even do something else entirely. The Axis are simply shoving units into the area, at a time Allied responses are still pretty limited, in the hope that Axis counterpressure may be useful.
PRESSURE
People are not “forced,” it is not “they had no choice”. People have a choice, but may be pressured to do things they would otherwise be not inclined to do.
COUNTERPRESSURE
Merely focusing on stack battles or even net IPC expectations misses the point.
Suppose the Allies have weak fleet in range of G air. If G does not attack, Allies can land, which then denies G income unless G deals with the landing. If G deals with the landing, that bleeds G resources away from eastern Europe.
But if G attacks to prevent Allied landing, G bleeds its air against UK/US, which also bleeds G resources.
Stacking is a brute force deterrent, but “bleeding” the strength of a stack is usually about applying and using counterpressure in calculated ways.
UK1 TO SZ37, BASE CHARACTERISTICS
First, the base calculations for the outcome. For any battle with no good contingencies in case of failure, where a variable outcome can sharply define the position for following turns, mere IPC calculation is insufficient. Rather, the exact expectation of units should be used.
Note the order of loss, which is not a safe assumption. Attacker pips combine to 15; defense pips combine to 14; if attacker gets few hits and defender gets two hits, what is the attacker to do? It’s a high-stakes battle with bad outcomes in case of failure, and the attacking carrier is weakest on attack. So the carrier may be lost.
On the other hand, if the attacker gets 4 hits and the defender gets 1 hit, the attacker may try to preserve the attacking carrier, as it can be a real bother for Axis to deal with.
So we really can’t safely say the attacker loses a carrier first, no no. But I leave out the rest for simplicity.
Skelly’s tool only runs perhaps a thousand calculations I think, so has some variance. But accepting the figures I’m looking at, which look roughly correct to me, the attackers win 62.9%, of that losing all units 32.8%, retaining one fighter 12.7%, one fighter one sub 1%, two fighters 16.6%.
Defenders are characterized as winning 31.1%, but of that losing all units 68.6%. It is characterized as a “win” because the attackers do not “capture” the sea zone, I imagine.
62.9% + (31.1% * 68.6%) = 84.2%. That is, 84.2% the J fleet gets wiped. There are some disturbing possibilities outside that, like J battleship and fighters surviving, and again, UK options after UK1 to sz37 failure are often not good. But I leave that aside.
When attacking, UK can expect to lose everything or retain just one fighter about half of the time. A bit of luck, or a lot of luck, changes the effective outcome a lot.
I’ve mentioned elsewhere the baseline an attacker wants is 85%, with good contingencies in case of bad dice. Players often cite 62.9% (or thereabouts) which is what calculators report as the failure percentage for UK1 to sz37. But actually, we see if the tactical objective is to destroy J’s fleet, UK’s success rate is much higher.
OPPORTUNITY COST
If UK is sending all that to hit sz37, it is not sending that elsewhere - particularly, the G Med fleet is not accounted for.
Core Axis strategy is typically to overwhelm Moscow, whether through raw aggression, aggression/control, or some balance of slow pushing and fending off Allied counterpressure.
Especially for fast Axis, a G Med fleet can be a problem, especially if the Axis did certain things.
G1 POSSIBILITIES
G1 Tank Dash
Following bad R1 dice off 12 W Rus / 9 Ukr, G strafed W Rus, stacked Ukraine, captured Karelia. Now if R recaptures Karelia to disrupt production, it loses most or all of its remaining ground attack units (artillery and tank). Stacking W Rus deals with some issues, but W Rus is not necessarily safe, particularly if R1 purchased 4 inf 2 tanks, as unit count will be low.
G1 Ukr Stack
Contrary to some descriptions of G1 Ukr hold attempt executed regardless of board state, I say it’s best done only where R2 Ukr strafe is not favored considering not net IPC change, but the strategic and tactical situation.
Mostly I hear this involves moving G transport to Ukraine and G btl to UK destroyer. If R2 plans to strafe all-out against Ukraine, then UK can still hit the G trn with a bomber, which leaves it vulnerable to G’s counterattack into Caucasus as G retains control of Ukraine and R is pressured into stacking all defense on W Rus to preserve logistics from London to W Rus to India.
Depending on the situation, R may choose to stack Caucasus, but I cannot completely recommend this. The intent of stacking R2 W Rus if possible is to render G’s infantry on Karelia less relevant, unable to move to develop pressure. Meanwhile, with G’s forward reserves of infantry at Ukr depleted, any R counters against G aggression will be costly to Axis, as they pay with expensive tanks and J fighters, or perhaps a few remaining G infantry. Stacking Caucasus allows G to press into W Rus with fodder infantry, possibly backed by J fighters, making the G pressure more relevant - and though a R counter may be favored, abandoning W Rus should not be the default considering the disruption to Allied London-W Rus-India fighters.
G1 Mass Tanks into Probably G2 Ukr Stack
G1 should really try to stack Ukraine, but sometimes the numbers just aren’t there. It is very difficult to stop G2 Ukr stack off G1 mass tank buy though.
I use this with G2 air build in some games, particularly with a G bomber.
G1 Mass Infantry
I think this is played enough that I shall not detail it here.
G MED FLEET REVISITED
Only G1 Ukr stack (which, again, I say should only be used after weak R1 dice, unless a player wants to try a switchup for funsies) - leaves the G fleet where its transport can be stripped, and even then a G2 transport build threatens to accelerate matters in the Med - though I’d say the Allies can handle that, so I’m not particularly concerned and will not detail that further here.
The rest of the lines are free to do G1 to Trans-Jordan, which pulls units away from Persia, Africa, and India.
G may choose to stack remaining Africa ground units on Libya. If the Allies destroy the G Med fleet with UK 2 fighters and bomber, they have little to deal with Trans-Jordan; not dealing with Trans-Jordan leaves G with more pressure into Egypt.
The Allies may stack Egypt depending on outcomes after destroying G’s Med fleet, or abandon - but all of that is if UK1 hits the G Med fleet.
Since we’re looking at UK1 to sz37, why is this relevant? Because of the development into later board states.
I’ll often see G1 abandon Libya, perhaps reasoning UK can hit Libya (which they can) with good outcomes. But if UK hits Libya with enough to get good odds, then the G Med fleet survives. Even if G has no units at Italy ready for pickup, the G Med fleet quickly becomes a problem - especially if G units pushed towards Egypt pressure the Allies, preventing fighters from landing there, leaving Allies with few good options to take out the G Med fleet on later turns. If UK1 doesn’t destroy the G Med fleet, it might be at least a couple turns, by which time G might have gotten some good usage out of the situation.
Imagine, then, that G1 has hit Trans-Jordan and left Libya with 2 inf 1 art 1 tank. Even without G air threatening Africa (remember the possibility of G1 bomber buy or fighters being sent to Africa, each of which has drawbacks but nevertheless) - that’s the situation UK1 may be looking at.
UK1 TO SZ37 REVISITED - OPPORTUNITY COSTS
UK1 will not send a fighter to Szechwan, typically meaning 2-3 ground and 1 US fighter are at risk.
UK1 will not hit the G Med fleet, which may mean leaving the G transport alone.
UK1 will not land fighters on Egypt, on many boards meaning G2 can advance into Egypt often without any Allied counterpressure.
UK1 will not hit the Kwangtung destroyer/transport, making J1’s open faster on the ground, opening up “Turbo Burma” lines.
Explicitly, J1 drop to Burma leaves up to 7 ground on Burma, while Malaya infantry and East Indies ground filling 3 spots on those same transports next turn, along with potentially J1 bombers buy, for 17 dice attack on India (10 ground,4 fighter, 3 bomber, never mind bombards) - this is especially the case if UK1 committed to building sea units on India and/or did not fly London fighters to W Rus. An alternate line uses J1 dump to Burma with J1 transport build; the J1 mobilized transports dump to Burma on J2 along with either the original transports pulling 3 infantry off, or picking up and dumping from the coast which didn’t necessarily advance inwards towards China, to Buryatia / etc to stabilize the coast as needed.
I’ve written elsewhere that J1 response to UK1 builds a carrier, but that is the passive simply explained line that players can naturally use for defense and offense. Turbo Burma is flatly preferred, as if J secures India, J can just build a carrier there if need be. The usual problem with anti-KJF is J cannot capture India quickly; when India can be captured quickly, the entire nature of anti-KJF changes too.
I’m not saying Turbo Burma is infallible, there’s a lot of breaking points - for example, J1 to Burma sea zone is not necessarily safe. It’s an opportunistic attack, but the possibility should not be ignored.
Strategically, UK1 to sz37 opens up a lot of options for Allies to bleed out to J, which leaves G less opposition to deal with in Europe. This is hardly fatal, but it’s not something the Allies can afford to ignore either.
UK1 TO SZ37, CONDITIONAL
So you see where instead of saying UK1 to sz37 is generally a good move, I push towards defining what exactly is good about it, when the good is maximized, what is bad, what exactly is bad, which in turn pushes towards instead of executing UK1 to sz37 on all boards, only executing in certain positions.
Particularly, if G1 built all infantry so will not progress quickly; if G1 lost its battleship to bad dice against UK destroyer, if G sent its Med fleet west where UK couldn’t use its Africa / Indian Ocean fighters against it anyways, if G was a bit timid and did not stack Libya, that sort of thing.
Any proper strategy should not only account not only for a plan to win, but also a plan to stop an opponent’s plan.
