Map for 1941 axis strategy

@xlome_00 Sea Lion is one of those attacks where the threat is mightier than the execution. If you buy a carrier for the Baltic Fleet on G1, that’s a reasonable purchase anyway to protect your supply lines to Norway/Finland/Leningrad/Baltics. If you move the German Med transport to the central Med, it is protected by the Italian fleet and can reinforce Libya, which is a reasonable move anyway. If you then bring the Italian fleet to take Gibraltar and retake Morocco, that helps score your NOs, so that’s a normal attack. So all of these preparatory moves can be done with minimal cost to the standard Axis war effort.

But then the American bomber cannot sink the German transport without landing in either Egypt (where it will die on a G2 Egypt attack) or Caucasus (where it spoils the Russian NO.)

If they leave your Med transport alive, you move it to Western Med on G2 where Italian fleet protects it again, build a second transport in Baltic on G2 plus an extra plane, and now you are threatening UK with 3 inf, 3 tank, 1 CA, 4 ftr, 1 bmr on a hypothetical G3 sea lion.

UK can of course defend against this, but they will have to build a fat infantry stack in London instead of factories, ships, or air power. This could cost them the Atlantic fleet or at least force them to retreat it back to Canada; if they built a factory in Africa / India, they might lose it because they cannot afford to build units there on a critical turn. Meanwhile those infantry in London will just sit there inefficiently for several turns because there are not enough transports to ship them anywhere, and not enough warships to protect the Atlantic fleet in a forward position.

Your second Baltic transport is reasonably useful for shipping inf/art to Leningrad, and the extra fighter can of course be used for trading on the eastern front, defending France, etc. as usual.

So you never actually attack London in an AA50 game – you just quietly threaten to attack it, thereby forcing the Allies to waste much more money on defense than you spent on creating the threat.

I’ve changed my strategy!I hit egypt first round with germany.take out sz12 with 2 fighters and sub.sz2with fighter ,bomber suband now leave canadian trans alone.don’t want to spread out too much.lower all the risk a little and save a fighter hopefully.
I had a game yesterday where italy landed in london unopposed.how did this happen?when you bring in the jap navy into the mediterainan ?(2 carriers battlship 4 fighters)and combine this with the itallian fleet you can now almost destroy the allied convoy system and or make there purchases of navel units skyrocket.I’m planning next game to nip that in the bud.have the usa hold the jap fleet back in the pacific and destroy the itallian fleet round one or 2 befroe the japs get therewith british or american bombers and or navel units.I now play germany very defenceively,buying time for the the japs to come in.Seems like the allies should always win ,they should be able to counter anything with there vast resourses.It just a matter of catching the off guard.Do not do a german tank blits.Russians can just build infantry to soak them up and then you losse france to americans coming over from canada.
SIDEPOINT      ATTENTION hardcore  players.Something is bugging me……should not french madagascar be in german control because it was in december 1941 the british had to invade so it wasn’t in german control anylonger…what about french west africa too and also Italian east africa I think they all should be under axis control…what are your thoughts?

I have bought an AA gun for France on the second turn on many occasions. I am no advocate of an IC in France for Germany (or anywhere else - much too slow).

You never want to get into the situation of trading France with the allies (especially in a NO game) and an AA gun is often the trick for making such trading very inefficient for allies.

Yep, and it’s even more funny do it to the USA in a Polar Express campaign. Priceless

Also, western axis could make a try with SBRs on London if UK makes the error of not buying SAF IC. 16 damage on a country that is colecting about 25 or less? Deadly

Here’s the way I usually approach the Axis in the first AA.  I think it translates over into the 2nd AA as well.

1.  You start off poor so keep your expensive units.  Don’t throw them away for short term gains, because once they’re gone, they’re gone.  You can’t afford to rebuild them. 
2.  Take out the British Navy, all that’s possible without losing airforce… or if you do lose airforce, make sure that England is losing something like a battleship.  If they can keep the fleet they’ll be able to land all along the coast.  This is bad, and is pretty much the end of the game for germany.  It will mean you’ll need to defend along the coast, plus have either some airforce or tanks ready for a counter attack… because if they want something, they can take it with the RAF getting in the attack.
3.  Expand fast, but try to only lose infanty in battles.  If when you caluclate odds you’re calculating that you’ll lose tanks/fighters… it’s not worth it.
4.  With the new game, study the bonus production criteria… aim to take it away from your opponent.  It’s like a guide to what your opponent will do, plus it shows you how to stop them… for example…

Japan:  Has to take an English territory in it’s first turn or England gets extra production.
Germany:  It’s about either Karelia or Caucassus.  Take one or the other, but try to take one at all costs.
Italy:  Brazil is undefended and the USA gets extra production, if it’s available and undefended, might as well nab it.

I have no problem sending up to 5 infantry, 1 armor to China to stop Japan. (20 IPC) it only helps, however, if China can eek out at least one infantry a round themselves!

I do still find humorous the idea of sending 14 Russian Armor into China!  That would be a lark of epic proportions and I may actually do it one game just to see my opponent die of apoplectic shock at seeing the doors to Moscow open up to Germany by end round 3!

UK must build a fleet on UK 1… something to start the ball rolling and shuck men to Russia. Bombers attacking Italian fleets or bombing 10 IPC wont have an effect on 7+ tanks coming into Russia each turn, plus a few men. UK needs to land men directly in Karelia to beat the threat.

Bombers on UK 1 would be good for a type of game where Germany is not very aggressive and builds a fleet or builds mostly normal land purchases.

The Panzer roller is a race to Moscow and bombers are a strategic… ( long term strategy) solution for a longer game IMO.

thanks  for agreeing