Allied Playbook - G40 Collection of Essays - Compiled by jacobgeo24 Nov 18-19 2023

Bear in mind, the land units on the transport only act on their Turn.

@panther I did not know this, thank you

There is an A&A game with similar rules. Axis & Allies Europe (the original one, not the Europe 1940 games) gave Germany 12 IPCs at the very beginning of the game, to spend as Germany saw fit. Then the Allied powers were given 12 IPCs to spend as the Allies saw fit. Then the rest of the game commenced.

So, I would guess you are suggested something like that for G40, with an Allied bid to go on top of the extra Allied money. If I were to do something like that, I would have the Allies go first, then the Axis, then the Allied bid. It would make for a wild setup, that’s for sure.

-Midnight_Reaper

Ok there is some merit to building an AB for Gib UK1, and merging all available ships to sz92. The ability to send the UK Med navy to the Atlantic will most likely table a German Sea Lion buy for G2 w/o dropping a bunch of inf on London. As others pointed out an AB at Gib is also very helpful in staging allied fleet in sz91 as the game goes on. You would defiantly need to take into account what Germany bought G1 though. A loaded carrier, cruiser, damaged BB (that will auto fix on Germany’s turn) and a couple transports sitting in sz112 is a real threat to your new Gib base with only air. In this scenario you should be looking at using the Med transport to bring over an inf and the Malta AAA gun to protect your ftrs, but that weakens Egypt.

Many people are in the camp of forgoing Taranto, to spare the UK Med fleet. Sometimes they pull back into the Red Sea (sz81), or make a stand in sz92 (as AldoRaine posted) and bringing in the India fleet in is also an option. The point is that the Italian navy will eventually come out to play and it is easier to kill it when they don’t have the support of the Rome AB. Plus as others pointed out the Italians might add to their toy boats which means fewer units heading to Russia.

The thing is that if you do merge all available UK ships to sz92, and build an AB for Gib you really don’t want to get double hit by the Italians then the Germans play mop-up w/o taking heavy losses. eames57 took the words right out of my mouth, you have to block out the Italian navy by placing a dd in sz94 (the French in sz93 completes the block).

You still run the risk of getting hit by the Luftwaffe, but that would also cripple the German air force so IMO it would be worth it. It’s better to take out German planes over Italian navy especially early in the game. At some point (maybe later when the US comes over) the Italian navy will be at the bottom of the Med, where the Luftwaffe is essential on all fronts through out the game. So in retrospect it isn’t in Germany’s best long term interest to attack you in sz92, so there is a good chance they won’t.

Going through the med is just impossible in pretty much any game. Either Italy or Germany is going to sink that transport with planes.

So with that reasoning, you must hope for a J1 declaration of war on the US, and then you could do this:

US 1: Buy 5 fighters. Sail your single atlantic transport 1/4th toward Saudi (SZ 87)
US 2: Buy 5-6 bombers. Sail transport 2/4ths to Saudi (SZ 82 or 69). US 1 fighters to French West Africa.
US 3: Transport now 3/4ths to saudi (SZ 71). US 1 fighters to Egypt. US 2 bombers to French Equatorial Africa.
US 4: Go time.

Hit Saudi with your transport. Send in 5 fighters and 5-6 bombers from Africa, taking bomber losses.

US 5: Build factory (and an air base couldn’t hurt), land your planes on it or near it. If Iraq/Persia are still available, take those if possible.
US 6: First turn you can purchase units in Saudi Arabia. Buy factories in other middle east countries, if available.

This is about the time Moscow has gone to hell or the Germans are coming into the middle east. Not enough time to really get any ground units over there. But you could build fighters on US 3 and 4 that would arrive US 5 and 6 for a respectable plane stack. With a bit of UK help, probably enough to shut down any hope of Moscow or the middle east being seriously threatened. A huge problem with this is that you’d have +8 Germans or Italians coming from Turkey.

This is a 100% Atlantic buy for the first 2 turns turns and a significant drain for US 3, 4, and 5 as well. Very dangerous. Japan is going to go nuts because, remember, they J1’d you.

Seems like a crazy damn idea–one that is too crazy to work well, probably. Not only that, but it’s completely obvious what you’re up to. However, I think it’d be pretty easy to have UK prevent Japan from killing/blocking your transport J3. And if Japan invested too much in the Indian ocean to stop you for sure, then they’re ruining some of their J1 momentum, so maybe that’s not entirely awful.

edit-
I guess you could also send your pacific transports through the panama canal, building a naval base there. This would give you four more units in the middle east shortly after your first transport arrived.

Better alternative, with nearly the same effect:
Don’t do Saudi, just have UK save you Persia/Iraq. This saves you from having to violate neutrality, and both are reachable on the same turn as Saudi. If you do hit Saudi, do it the next turn, saving the neutrality violation for one round later.

i would also rather fight on his turf where i get income generating for as long as possible. once you have to back down that’s when you are basically saying, “I lose moscow sooner or later.”

@real-life-rorschach
I played about 6 games, 1 Axis win, the others Allied. The main deciding factors were bad G1 dice in all of the games, the Soviets being almost impossible to defeat in time (the one time the Axis won, the U.S. and Britain were about to take Berlin/Warsaw on the next turn), and the Americans sending strategic bombers to Europe and crippling the German factory production while still being able to fight Japan.