Posts made by 221B Baker Street

Falk,

I like your optimistic view on how things will turn out, and hopefully this will result in better leadership for Germany. We will have to see what happens.

CC: I get it, I didn’t understand this was intended to help an amphibious invasion of Alaska. Thought you were using just the bomber.

Jen,

Not sure if you will be able to respond, but here goes:

With an American fleet the Germans have no chance of sinking British fleets for a couple of turns

With good play and without strange dice, the Germans have no chance of sinking anything in the Atlantic after UK2 anyway (G1 both navies destroyed and UK rebuilds - a good move, G2 UK rebuild navy destroyed and Germany aircraft destroyed - perhaps not as good of a move). This is well before the US Pacific will reach the Atlantic. If Germany doesn’t attack on G1 or G2, the Allies will just have a stronger navy there (more transports for cheap defense) and it becomes even harder for Germany to do anything.

Falk does have a point, that UK doesn’t need to necessarily buy its navy on UK1. But I think (and maybe I’m wrong here) this will slow down the Allied reinforcement into Russia too much, this play being an advantage to the Axis.

CC:

just to annoy the US with bombing runs to ALA.

Do you strafe the forces (such as a single infantry) located there? Other than an iritant, not much would be gained here as the single inf. could shoot down the bomber. The odds here seems to be about a breakeven to me (without doing any calculations).

i can not understand this bizaare interplay between federalism and what-ever-you-call-it.

Part of this interplay is that the United States was never intended, by design 200+ year ago, to be a single nation. Rather, 13 seperate nations which are independent, but still loosely joined together. For this reason, the constitution does restrict the federal government in many ways - the use of resources being one of the ways.

After 200 years, it almost never appears that way to outsiders or citizens since the federal gevernment has found ways to impose its desire upon the states. The primary way it does this is through the money - the federal funding for many things such as roads, are tied to specific policies. The state legislatures then decide they want (or need) the money more than NOT having a matching policy. Additionally, the federal courts haven’t always respected states rights, using a very liberal (no politics are intended with the word “liberal” here) interpretation of the powers the constitution does give the federal government.

From the news article, it seems that Germany is having difficulty bringing a coalition together:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050923/ap_on_re_eu/germany_election;_ylt=AihBkZ8R2oYVJEx4n7cdSTJ0bBAF;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl

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BERLIN - Germany’s Greens rejected coalition talks with opposition leader Angela Merkel on Friday, leaving conservatives with only Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder’s party as an awkward partner for a new government.

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The failure raised the pressure on Merkel and Schroeder to resolve their rival claims to the chancellorship and end the political drift threatening Europe’s most populous country, just as it grapples with economic stagnation and mass unemployment.

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I kinda curious as to what the Germans here think will happen or should happen.

My (uneducated, uninformed) guess is that eventually an uneasy coalition will develop, but I think it will be weak enough that Germany’s government will have difficulty doing anything.

I don’t think this is a good think for either Germany or the world considering the delicate negotiations going on regarding Iran (can Europe do a better job here than the US has done in Iraq? maybe, but only time will tell) with Turkeys application to the EU, with Germanys internal problems, and so forth. But again, I’d like other viewpoints here.

Maybe this is the best thing that will happen to Germany? Many Americans prefer governmental gridlock, so that the government is unable to screw anything else up :lol:
:wink:

I agree with AAF.

Axis and Allies is a team effort - all players have to do their part. Without cooperation within the team, that side will likely lose.

Now having said that, I think some positions are more important than others. For example, in baseball I would rather have a great pitcher and a poor center fielder than vice versa. Likewise in AnA, I think for the Allies, you above all, want Russia to be played well (UK and US are secondary as long as they try). For the Axis, I would say Germany needs to be played well. In both cases, if that country falls, its quite likely the game is over.

In a previous thread (now I think, gone :( ) I had asked the best location for the Allied bombers (baring unusual circumstances that dictate a change in this overall strategy). The best choice seemed to be Novo as this allowed the Allied to strat bomb Germany, any Jap IC on the Asian mainland, and pick off any stray Jap transport. But now I ask, what is the best location for the German and Japanese bombers?

My preference would be the following:

Germany: Keep in W. Europe. Here you can strat bomb both UK and USSR and pick off any stray Allied transports.

Japan: Keep in Manch. Here you can strat bomb USSR, and use to help the inf. push towards moscow.

Of course, there could be reasons to change this, for example the US trying something in the Pacific … making the move of the bomber to perhaps the Phillipines desirable for a turn. But then I did not think of Novo before my post, beleiving Karelia to be the best location…and learned something. What do you think?

Mary,

Fair enough with the links, however they also provide caveats such as:

While officials said that Louisiana and Mississippi would need help from out-of-state Guard units even if their home militias were still there, the majority of the units that are coming to the Gulf Coast will take far longer to get to the disaster scene

and

Pentagon says it can handle both the disaster and Iraq war

so I find the claim that the Iraq war cost lives while not entirely convincing… certainly compelling … so I’ll concede that without the Iraq war, the recovery efforts would probably have been more efficient. However it is clear that the resources that were available were very poorly handled, so how much help would these additional resources have been? We can estimate like has been done in your sources, but we will never know for certain.

This doesn’t make the Iraq efforts necessarily wrong. For example, would the disasters that happened in WWII make that war effort wrong? Of course not. The validity of the Iraq war is the topic for another thread however.

As far as criminal neglegence, no charges will ever be brought against Bush… there is no smoking gun. But more importantly, there are people who are far more responsible for this debacle (mayor Nagin for example) who will see to it that this doesn’t happen for no other reason than to protect themselves.

Unrelated question: I hear a lot of comments such as

Well, I guess we won’t see Bush in cuffs

. Considering the cost of Nixon’s (soon to be) and Clinton’s impeachment on their ability to handle world affairs, would anyone really want Bush to have to deal with a similar issue and cause similar distractions from real problems?

There is also the fact that Iraq stripped us of resources we could have used for Katrina.

I was unaware that there was insufficient resources - can you provide a link regarding this? After all 50,000 tons is a lot of food and water. And even if there were insufficient resources, can you provide evidence that this is directly caused by the Iraq war? I had thought the problem was a very inefficient use of resouces, not a lack of them.

As far as Bush being to blame - you are right. But there is plenty of blame to go around for everyone. Moreover, there are certainly people who deserve the blame more than Bush as they are more responsible for the catastrophe than he - Bush is just where the Buck Stops as a former President once said. But is there any evidence yet of criminal negligence? I haven’t seen any.

Also for board games I really like BattleCry. But I don’t know of any PC Civil War game that I would recommend.

Well, let me give a (somewhat belated as I have been out travelling lately) congrats to you as well DM!

Besides, who you THINK you are totally and completely changes after marriage, again after childbirth and I’m sure again after your children leave for college, get married themselves and have babies.

Without a doubt!

Exactly, especially if that fleet then moves into the Atlantic

I still don’t see what this fleet gains the Allies in the Atlantic by the time it arrives. The Allies should already dominate the Atlantic and have taken (or should be taking) Africa back by then.

221B Baker Street wrote:

Having said that, we are both in our 30’s. I really think the older you are, the more you know yourself and the less time it takes to know whether you are making the right decision.

I think you might have a point there. As you get older you start to see your life pass before you, and if you want something, you see that you have less and less time to get it.

No, you missed my point. My point is that when you are older you know who you are better than you did when you were younger. At 18, I was still growing up and I am not now the person I was then. It would certainly have been more difficult had I been married then as I was changing and still growing up at that time.

As far as less and less time to get what I want, well, I still think I have plenty of time to get everything I want (that I haven’t gotten yet :wink: ).

what happens to Europe if the US has an AC and a BB starting from round 1?

By the time the Pacific fleet can get to the Atlantic, the Allies will have full control of the Atlantic. The only advantage to a second (or more) capital ship is that the Allies could split their forces, perhaps sending some to Africa and some to Norway. But the Allies do not need more than one capital ship in the Atlantic (if that) for defense from the German fighters because there won’t be any German navy at this point, nor should Germany be able to afford any more navy or even additional fighters (at least in a no bid game).

The only thing to watch out for would be if Japan tries to send its navy to the Atlantic to disrupt the “shuck-shuck” of Allied forces to Europe. But the Allies should see this coming for several turns and be able to either build sufficient capital ships, or sink that navy with bombers and fighters before it can do any serious damage.

suppose you do go strong in IND - what would you expect Japan to do/what would you do as Japan?
What would the pros and cons for the US be in terms of their movement in this regard?

I would think Japan has a couple of options:

1. Ignore the IC and pound on Russia as usual, only suppling enough forces to keep any serious attack from the IC at bay. The advantage of this for the Axis is that any forces in India are not being used to protect Russia or threaten Germany so more early pressure is on Russia.

2. Work to take the IC. Regardless of how the Allies try, Japan can take the IC if it wants by J3. The advantage for the Axis here is that the $ spent by the Allies on India have not produced a lasting effect, other than some additional time granted to Russia. Also, the IC in India does enable Japan to easily send more forces to Asia, Africa, or even Caucasus.

Either approach seems to be reasonable to me, but I would probably take the IC as Japan.

The United States on US1 also has a couple options, assuming the IC remains in Allied hands at that time and that Japan has not taken all US territory in Asia.

1. The US could also build a factory, perhaps in Sinkang.
2. The Asian forces could be moved to India to help protect it.
3. The US forces could be retreated to Russia to help protect Russia from Japanese attacks.

The choices here are really dependant on what Japan did/seems to be trying to do.

If Japan is going hard for Russia, then as the US I would send the forces to Russia to aid in defense there. If Japan is going hard for the India IC, then I would send the reinforcements there if I thought the IC could hold out for a couple of turns, otherwise I would again retreat to Russia. If Japan appears to be trying to both take the IC and Russia, then I might build the IC which would have the effect of slowing Japan down further.

With Regards to the remaining naval forces in Pacific, if Japan left Pearl alone, I would consolidate the navy and go to Australia or Island hop to the India IC again depending on whether or not I thought the IC would hold out for a while. If Japan did attack Pearl and was successful, I would probably send the remaining forces to Europe.

These are just my thoughts on what I would do, certainly there are lots of possibilities out there and I’m sure I am missing some good options for both Japan and US.

There are others around RI as well – Guerrilla Guy has it on his profile. I believe Yanny is in college here.

Whether or not I roll for tech depends on how the game is going. Usually I will only do it when desperate or when trying to quickly finish a game I have already won but my opponent won’t concede.

But if my opponent starts to roll for tech, I might follow suit depending on my assessment of the situation.

Well keep in mind that the decision is more than just to attack pearl harbor or not. You can do what is called a Pearl light (with most but not all your navy) and still do other things with the remaining forces.

Still, I can’t remember the last time I didn’t do some sort of attack on Pearl Harbor as Japan - its just to tempting to me to not attack the US navy there on J1. Also, the US can be dangerous in the Pacific if allowed to consolidate their navy - and this doesn’t have to distract too much from their shipping of forces to Europe as well.

As a minimum, I would bring to Pearl at least two capital ships (BBs or BB and carrier) fighters (with carrier) and submarine. If I have just the BB’s, I will also send the bomber. I will generally only do without the carrier if playing 2 hit BB’s as I want some defensive muscle against a retaliation by the US.