Posts made by Blitzkrieg

I doubt that the Germans could have defeated England by invasion for one reason: the Royal Navy would have smashed up any invasion fleet the germans could have mustered for the attack. The Germans didn’t have anywhere near enough naval power to sustain an invasion. If the Germans had simply fought a war of attrition they may have been able to starve the British into submission with their U-Boats but this is doubltful too. Most of the new developments in ASW during the war were British in origin so the Brits would have gotten very good at hunting down U-Boats and would probably been able to keep the sea lanes open on their own. America was also providing destroyers to the Brits to help in this area. The Luftwaffe simply wasn’t a match for the RAF as was proven during the Battle Of Britain. The Germans would have probably done lots of damage to southern England but they would have taken huge losses in doing it and we all know that there was no way in hell the Brits would ever just quit.

One major mistake made by Admiral Lutjens was not refueling when he put in in Norway before heading out to raid convoys. One of the main rules of naval warfare is never, ever pass up a chance to refuel when you can. Had he had the Bismarcks fuel bunkers topped off when he had the chance he may not have had to worry about his fuel situation and be forced to turn for France. One other thing, even if the Bismarck HAD attempted to run the English Channel, she may have made it. The Scharnhorst and Gniesenau ran the Channel in broad daylight and got through without a scratch.

I played a game once with Russia unable to attack on the first turn and Japan and Russia not at war. Russia was only able to attack Japan if Germany was defeated and for Japan to attack Russia they had to capture Sinkiang, China, India, and Australia. It didn’t really seem to even things up too much for the Axis as it eliminated any realistic chance for an IPC victory.

Yeah the AI is pretty mronic on Iron Blitz…although the AI on most games is pretty stupid. Every year Madden is supposed to have “the smartest AI ever” yet you can still run the same offensive plays and blitz packages repeatedly against the AI.

I usually see the U.S.S.R. attack the German fleet (such as it is) in the North Sea on their first turn with the sub and transport they have. Usually when the Russian sub hits the German player takes the transport as his casualty, then the Russian loses his transport then the two subes keep rolling until one of them is gone. But no matter who wins the German transport is usually lost.

I have played Fortress America and Conquest Of The Empire both…but not for years. I own them but just haven’t really been into them for a long time.

Has anybody played The American Civil War by Eagle games? I was looking at it the other day and it looks pretty good. If I get some good responses maybe I’ll pick it up.

Try playing Risk drunk with five or six people, then it gets pretty interesting. Risk + Skyy Vodka = A great time!

The defender can only pay what he has…if you cant pay for all of the cost of the raid you just pay whatever you have, the unpaid amount doesn’t carry over to your next turn.
One other thing…it really doesn’t matter if you spend all of your IPC’s on a turn or not because you’re going to receive more at the end of your turn therefore you will have IPC’s for your enemies to target.

I just played A&A Europe for the first time. Here’s my take on the game afterward. I don’t think the game is unbalanced toward Germany. I think the Allies do need to be a bit more creative in how the go about defeating the Germans. First I think in this game unlike the original the Battle of The Atlantic will actually have some bearing on the other parts of the game. Second the allies need to send as much equipment to Russia as quickly as possible which is what I was trying to do, unfortunately for me a major convoy got smashed by the German air force and this seriously hampered my attempts to help the Russians build up their army. Third as well as sending ground units to Russia you have to send them bombers and fighters to support their own attacks with. As Russia build infantry and artillery…their cheap and you can amass a decent force pretty quickly. You have to pick and chose your battles, deciding when to attack and when to fortify. (I tend to be a bit more aggressive.)What doomed me in my first game was the attack on that convoy and one key battle for Belorussia where my opponent got some seriously lucky rollls. Against a convoy of four U.S. transports and two British (totalling eight infantry units and two armored units) as well as two British DD’s he sent a bomber and a fighter…and destroyed every single stinking ship! He didn’t even lose a plane! In Belorussia he had ten armored units defending against my forces and on his first defense roll scored seven hits. I think that this strategy would work eventually as i get better at this particular game and I don’t have such rancid luck.

Actually, the original plan for the Bismarck’s deployment (Operation Rhein) was to include the Tirpitz, the battlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau and the Prinz Eugen as well. The Tirpitz wasn’t finished on time and both of the battlecruisers were damaged at the time.That force of ships would have been extremely deadly to any force the Brits could have thrown against it considering how spread out their fleet was at the time. So the original plan wasn’t all that suicidal, however it should have been changed once all of the ships weren’t available for the operation. Imagine if Hitler had waited for his Plan Z navy to be completed, how different would the war at sea been then?
I do agree that the Iowas were the best battleships built…my vote for the worst…the Kongos, converted battlecruisers that had no business going up against modern battleships as the Washington showed when it demolished the Kirishima in Ironbottom Sound.

This has been my strategy with the U.K/U.S when I have ended up controling them. Take Manchuria on U.S.S.R. round one, using the armor and infantry units from Soviet far East and Yakut. Throw in the fighter from Russia to tilt it in your favor a little more. This forces the Japanese player to retake Manchuria on his turn which helps U.K. Build the IC in India, move the transport to Indochina to prevent an amphibious attack from the Phillipines. Then on non-combat move one or both of your two fighters in England to Russia, then into India on your next non-combat movement. You can then build units in India to fight Japan there or send to Russia. One other thing, if Japan really has a tough time retaking Manchuria or fails somehow to take China, build an American IC in Ssinkiang and start churning out fighters to help in the defense of Asia, this usually works pretty well, but it still all hinges on what Russia does against Germany. If they fall, forget it the Allies are finished.

Just thought it would be interesting to discuss the warships of WW2. There always seems to be more discussion of tanks and aircraft. My friends and I debate this kind of stuff a lot while playing A&A. What do you think were the best…and worst of each type? For example I think the Japanese wasted way too much money, time, and steel on the Yamatos for very little return. They would have been better served building a few more Shokakus, the Yamato class was a colossal waste of time and money.

How can a guy like that spout off about hating whites….but if a white guy said he hated blacks he’d be crucified. Double standards suck!

Thanks for the tips, but where can I find revised rules? What about a non-aggression pact between Japan and the U.S.S.R.? What the hell is a bid? LOL The group I play with has considered a few rule changes in the past to balance things out a bit but since we play so infrequently no one has taken much time to think them out. If I can find some rules someplace it would be a bit easier.

I have been debating this with my brother-in-law for a while now. He feels that a defensive strategy with the Soviets works best. I feel otherwise simply because the Germans can outspend them for the fist few turns therefore building up an army large enough to smash through the Soviet defenses. I think the Soviets HAVE to attack and be aggressive simply because the Soviets don’t have all that much territory to trade for time. I think it’s a foolish strategy to allow the German army to get overly powerful while the Soviet army just sits there and does nothing. The Soviets have to whittle the Germans down in a war of attrition while the other allies build up forces powerful enough to take Western Europe. Another thing we disagree on: I think the British should build an industrial complex in India on the first turn. If the Soviet player is aggressive and take Manchuria on the first turn (I usually do this with the forces in the Soviet Far East and Yakut S.S.R. augmented with one fighter from Russia, this is almost a sure victory for the Soviets) then Japan has to focus on retaking Manchuria and this diverts forces away from possible attacks into Sinkiang and India. I sometimes will also build an industrial complex in China for the U.S. too if Japan builds one in Kwangtung on their turn. This may constitute a beat Japan first strategy but it usually works, even when the Japanese bulid a factory in Kwangtung. My brother-in-law insists this won’t work but I think if the Japanese have to retake Manchuria on Turn One then it’s very difficult to take India unless the Japanese player wants to fight on equal terms which is actually at his disadvantage since the infantry and fighter there defend at higher rolls than the attacking Japanese forces. In Europe I keep building transports and attacking Western Europe to distract German forces from the Russian front. This strategy might not seem very good to more experienced players (I only get to play once a month at best and went almost five years without playing at all) but it works a lot of the time unless i get some bad rolls in key battles. My brother-in-law plays constantly but I think I can beat him doing this…well I’ll find out next week when I visit him in Tennessee. I’m not sure what his strategy is, but I do know that I almost beat him the one time we did play, but this was before I came up with this strategy…tell me what you think.

Just happened to stumble across it at a store when I was about ten or eleven and it looked interesting…and I’ve been addicted ever since, although I only get time to play once a month or so. I also got hooked on Fortress America and Conquest Of The Empire too.