Axis and Allies first turns - Germany

@ncscswitch:

You do not expect me to give away ALL of my tricks now do you?

:mrgreen:

Give meh teh trixies!

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It is obvious . . . you have come to fear Bristle Fendlestick.

Yes, it all seems so clear, and so pitiful, to me now!

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On the topic of G1 Sealion - MOST of the German fighters are out of range of London (remember they have to land), so you need to get Long Range Aircraft to get your air in range.  However, that ALSO means that you CANNOT be playing Larry Harris Tournament Rules (LHTR - which by the way ARE UNOFFICIAL  :-P even if they are used in the only tournament I know of with Wizards prize support . . . but I digress; LHTR delays tech from going into effect until the end of a country’s turn, so G1 Sea Lion doesn’t work under LHTR).

ANYWAYS - the cost for G1 SeaLion using Out of the Box Rules is pretty considerable.  First, it is assumed that Russia did NOT fly any fighters to London (which they SHOULD have if there was a risk of Sealion).  Second, it assumes that Germany does NOT blow a wad of IPCs on tech.  Third, the more Germany spends on tech rolls, the less units Germany can buy (so I advocate rolling only 6 dice at most, even though that DOES give approx 33.5% chane of failure, hence almost automatic loss in those cases against all but the worst Allied players).  Fourth, even if Germany succeeds, good AA rolls by UK can wipe out the German attack before it even gets started.  Fifth, even if THAT does not happen, Germany’s air is badly depleted.  Sixth, UK can retake on its turn with battleship support shot and E. Canada tank, while US reinforces on its turn with 2 inf 1 art 1 tank 1 bom 1 fighter, leaving Germany in poor position (usually) to secure London on G2.  Seventh, Russia will be very strong for at least a few turns, as there won’t be a lot of German units moving to Germany’s east front.

So - that is - it is pretty darn risky to run G1 Sea Lion, and even if Germany DOES make it, the Allies STILL have quite a decent game going on; if UK retakes London on its turn (very possible), it’s pretty much a case of Germany losing 3-6 fighters and possibly bomber for UK’s 30 IPC and London units.  Only if UK cannot retake on its turn is it really a great move for Germany, as UK stays down that 30 IPC, and the US cannot reinforce nearly as well on its turn, so Germany can possibly SECURE London on G2, assuming Germany had the IPC to buy an additional Baltic transport, so it can transport four units into UK on the next turn (hopefully six units with battleship support shot with the Mediterranean fleet).

Basically . . . G1 Sea Lion is not a solid move, IMHO.  It’s riskier than King’s Pawn Gambit, and has much less of a “solid” line of play.

@goldenbearflyer:

After further review, I wouldn’t use my valuable gaming hours trying SeaLion even in a casual game.  I used the frood.net simulator with the following units:

Attacker 2inf 6ftr 1bom (assuming tech rolls to get long-range aircraft, which would debilitate Germany anyway), Defender 2inf 1art 1arm 2ftr 1bom 1AA.  Based on Low Luck, the results of 1,000 battles were 67% of the time Germany loses everything and UK is left with 1ftr.  That’s horrendous.  Entertaining for the Allies, maybe, but seriously stupid! :lol:  Maybe everybody knew this already, but I thought it was interesting to check it out.

I’m still looking for a German strat I like…

Try using 1 inf 1 TANK 6 ftr 1 bom.

A survives 71.3; D survives 25, nobody survives 3.8.  I think I edited it to kill the UK bomber first.  Probably.

Sealion.  Rawr.

(edit) don’t forget, this battle comes AFTER rolling for tech.  And if you don’t make the tech roll, bleah.  Assuming you use 6 dice, you have a 66.5% chance of success.  So if you start off, roll six tech dice for LRA, then have the battle, you will only win - and remember, your German air force will be shot up - is really only like 47% overall.  Then you have to deal with the aftermath.  Of course, you could use 8 dice, but that’s pretty much a disaster because Germany can almost certainly not secure London.  On the other hand, if you use 8 dice, it could be a very sound plan for Germany - IF Germany had an extra Baltic sub. (/edit)

yey time to leave “work” . . . hohoho.

(I ask for work, I really do.  But they don’t want to give me any, they’re like “rawr”.  What can I do?)

@ncscswitch:

OK, you asked…

Here is ONE way to crack the Med early and permanently…

UK1:  Buy an AC
US1:  Buy an AC
US2:  Buy a BB

I’ll let you work out the details from there…

(pat pat) sure u will lolz.

@ncscswitch:

OK, you asked…

Here is ONE way to crack the Med early and permanently…

UK1:  Buy an AC
US1:  Buy an AC
US2:  Buy a BB

I’ll let you work out the details from there…

BTW, with all the IPC you spend on there, supplementing Russia through Norway/Karelia/Archangel or Eastern Europe, and sending in ground units to invade Africa, will take some time.

I do not debate that the UK and US CAN dominate the Atlantic and Mediterranean early.  However, I do not believe that it is possible for the Allies to dominate the Mediterranean AND send heavy ground reinforcements to Africa and/or Europe early.

@froodster:

@General_D.Fox:

@polywog:

Yeah, agreed - hopefully his new gig’s in a similar line of work.

Back to sealion. I think a G1 sealion is a nice parlor trick, but be careful not to lose to many of those fighters - you may regret it later. However, I’ve been the allies in a game with a 3 transport buy for the baltic on G1. It definitely makes the UK player start the game pretty defensively.

What happened to Dan? Did he get a new job or what?  Is he still around?

Aww, it’s so nice to be remembered - yes, I got a job! But it does not affect me being around here. I’ve just been laying low. Still checking in, but not feeling as motivated to post my responses. Come to think of it, I have been totally absent from the strategy threads. It’s those general/political threads that were just getting me down.

So I’m going to read this thread a bit more and maybe post some thoughts. Bet you all can’t wait! 8-)

Yes, I approve of Satchel.

@goldenbearflyer:

@newpaintbrush:

@ncscswitch:

OK, you asked…

Here is ONE way to crack the Med early and permanently…

UK1:  Buy an AC
US1:  Buy an AC
US2:  Buy a BB

I’ll let you work out the details from there…

BTW, with all the IPC you spend on there, supplementing Russia through Norway/Karelia/Archangel or Eastern Europe, and sending in ground units to invade Africa, will take some time.

I do not debate that the UK and US CAN dominate the Atlantic and Mediterranean early. However, I do not believe that it is possible for the Allies to dominate the Mediterranean AND send heavy ground reinforcements to Africa and/or Europe early.

I concur, but if Germany has 4-5ftr in WEur and a sizable naval presence (which I do in my current game) ncscswitch is correct; the build order has to start with big ships for protection, doesn’t it?  Because if you try to build trannies first and start moving ground troops, the Germans will simply sink the trannies.  And slowing down the trannie shuttles plays into the German strategy, even if the Kriegsmarine ultimately gets blown out of the water.

The build order starts with big ships if you’re going KJF.  Japan probably blew up the carrier at Hawaii, and it is almost unthinkable to conduct a naval battle without fighters.  So you need to build the carrier(s).  And since you have to contend with Japan’s gigantic fleet, which should almost certainly consist of 2 battleships, 2 carriers, 5 transports, 6 fighters, 1 bomber - at the very LEAST, you MUST have ships for KJF.  (remember, Japan hasn’t even really done anything to defend itself with that listed navy/air force - it’s just building what it ALWAYS should build, IMHO at least)

But I do not believe that big ships are always necessary for KGF.

My thought is - if I build big ships in the Atlantic, I can dominate the German navy.  But I do not care about the German navy.  What I want is to protect Moscow, and that usually means destroying the German army.

Germany can retreat from battleships and carriers.  If Germany retreats, the Allies must either stand off (in which case that big navy does nothing), or press inwards, in which case the Allied navy is vulnerable to Germany navy AND air.  So if I move in with a few ships, the German Luftwaffe blows them up.  If I move in with a LOT of ships, the German navy and Luftwaffe blows them up.

On the other hand, if the Allies build transports, the Allies can stay at the fringes of German territory, transporting troops in.  If the German navy gets in range, the German navy risks getting blown up by the ALLIES combined navy/air.

To give an example - let us say that I have the UK battleship, the US destroyer from the Atlantic, the US destroyer from Panama, 4 UK transports, and 3 US transports.  That is a considerable fleet, yes?  Now, for various reasons, we can assume that the Germans can only attack with 5 fighters 1 bomber.  This does NOT assume that the Germans lost a fighter with a R1 Ukraine attack.  It is simply likely that not all of Germany’s air will be in place to attack the Allied fleet at one time (since Germany may want to threaten other sea zones, and/or trade territory with Russia).  Without going into details, I can say it’s a pretty safe bet that if Germany decides to do that attack, Germany will probably lose big time.  The Allies get a free hit on their battleship, then they trade 8 IPC transports for 10 IPC fighters.  After the attack, the Allies will probably be able to rebuild their fleet EXTREMELY fast, because really, there’s not much else for the Allies to spend IPCs on (usually no threat to London or Washington, unless Germany or Japan spent IPCs to make it so, and that has its own set of drawbacks for the Axis).

The primary zones to offload are the sea zone west of Algeria, and the sea zone northwest of Norway, and the sea zone adjacent to Archangel.  Those are the Big Ones.

Now - assuming that the Germans have a Baltic fleet and a Mediterranean fleet - (if the Germans look like they’re going for a combined fleet, the Allies should build fighters and defend London)

WHAT if the Allies offload in the sea zone west of Algeria?  If the German battleship/transport are near Anglo-Egypt or Caucasus (the latter, if the battleship were used for support shot vs Ukraine or Caucasus), then the German battleship and transport will NOT be in range, so the Germans must attack with air only, very likely leading to the already described.

WHAT if the German battleship/transport are at S. Europe?  Then the Germans can potentially destroy a considerably larger Allied fleet, but if the Germans do NOT retreat, the German battleship will be lost next turn to Allied air.  If the Germans DO retreat, the UK will keep its battleship.

And of course, if the Germans do NOT attack the Allied fleet, the Allies can keep dumping units into Algeria.

WHAT if a German fleet is in the Baltic?  If so, the Allies can transport to the sea zone north of Archangel; if the Baltic fleet moves to block at the sea zone northwest of Norway, the Allied navy and air can attack the German navy.  (Because of the overwhelming numerical advantage, and the ability of UK to build a carrier in that sea zone, any German air counter on the following turn may very well not work).  If the Baltic fleet runs to W. Europe, the Allies can keep transporting units into Archangel.

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Of course, the key is controlling the northeast, so the Allies can continue funnelling infantry into Archangel.  That really stops the Axis.

The simplest Allied plan is to unite early in the sea zone west of Algeria, dump enough infantry and units to secure Africa (unless Japan really goes nuts trying to grab Africa, but that is pretty expensive for Japan considering the number of transports needed, and the units that are pulled away from the march to Moscow).  It is expensive for the Germans to try to stop those transports.

The Allies can follow up with a move to the Baltic; during the turns in which they are moving the Allied fleet from Africa to Norway, the Allies can get extra transports for naval insurance, extra fighters for air insurance, etc.  It is more than just “expensive” for Germany to try to stop the Baltic navy.

Basically - start with transports to force the issue of Africa early, and to keep up a steady threat.  You don’t need more ships than what you start with, just to operate on the fringe of Germany.

To my thinking, starting with capital ships for the Allies in the Atlantic is like winding up for a haymaker.  If and when it hits, Germany’s in trouble.  But if it doesn’t land in time, the Allies will be in trouble instead.

I prefer to start with transports.  You start out with jabs, and you build up for the knockout (i.e. massive numbers of infantry and transports all over the place)