What about an American Battleship strategy?

[tenth8sphere]

I was interested in the bomber strategy put forward on this website, but thought it wouldn’t work out in most games (USA and possibly UK buying only bombers to economic strike at germany). The chance of bombers being shot down, and only hurting Germany’s money, not units, seemed to make it a low success option. While trying to play as America and come up with good non-shuck shuck moves, I started thinking about a couple things. America is probably the only country that is almost sure to have enough money to buy a battleship and some men each round.

So why not buy one battleship (and men with leftover) every turn. Shift the battleship to the waters around Britain and use a transport to grab one man from Canada, and drop them in western europe. Every turn make sure to build at least one infantry, and you get a free bombard for every ever ship in the water. Eventually you could get a second transport and leave it with a couple men in Britain. Then you could, on any turn, hit most of the european germany countries (and those they go through to get at Russia) and kill Half their stack for free. Especially if you can save the west coast battleship, you could be doing crippling damage to germany by turn 6, and only getting worse with each new turn.

It would slow the allies advance (you wouldn’t win as quick as with shuck shuck), I think, but once you got high enough (say, 10+ battleships), you could tear through Germany’s entire turn of cash, plus some with NO risk. No more dead infantry wasted. You trade a three dollar unit for 30 IPCs of Germany units! Count dropping UK men each turn like normal, and you could walk through germany if you lasted that long, there’d be nothing they could do to stop you.

I haven’t tried it, so I have no idea how to turns work out. But I’m looking for a new non-shuck shuck method of USA play, and had no success with ‘go for japan’ plans.

Thanks for input, I’d be interested on thoughts or suggestions!

[Jennifer]

That’s my brother’s strategy.  Problem is, a battleship can be sunk by a submarine before it gets a chance to shoot.

[tenth8sphere]

@Jennifer:

That’s my brother’s strategy.  Problem is, a battleship can be sunk by a submarine before it gets a chance to shoot.

Sure, I wouldn’t try it against Japan. But how many subs is Germany going to have? And are they going to be any danger against US ships sitting in the UK with all the UK transports? If they spent enough for a ‘real’ german navy, then Russia will have nothing to stop them. Is there some way for Germany to get enough subs to threaten the UK navy with US battleships behind it?

[Jennifer]

What’s the point against Germany???

[tenth8sphere]

@Jennifer:

What’s the point against Germany???

Just a non-shuck shuck method. Do you know any other good options I could look into?

[Jennifer]

Kill Japan First.

Russia 1:
Manchuria:

• 2 Infantry, Armor from SFE to Manchuria
• 3 Infantry from Yakut to Manchuria
• Fighter from Russia to Manchuria
  (Sub, Trn, Fig to Baltic Fleet)

England 1:
Kwangtung:

• 2 Infantry, Fighter from India to Kwangtung
• Transport from Indian Ocean to Kwangtung Sea Zone
  (Land in Norway or Algeria)

USA 1:
FIC:

• 2 INfantry from Sinkiang to FIC
• Infantry, Fighter from China to FIC
  (Build IC in Sinkiang, build carrier in WCO)

Try that out.  Should throw your opponent completely off his game!

[Jennifer]

It was his strategy in 1993-1995 (we haven’t played since) and he was 12-15 at the time, so yes, he was a teenager.

[Guest]

@nuno:

@Cmdr:

That’s my brother’s strategy.

Did he already reach a teen age?

Pretty smart ass comment for a guy who has yet to take a game with the Classic players we have here… or who has yet to actually offer anything resembling a strategy post of his own…

Oh, I know why you do not like a USA BB strategy… YOUR Strategy is to buy a BB’s as RUSSIA using a SFE IC that you build on R1!
:roll:

[Jennifer]

@ncscswitch:

@nuno:

@Cmdr:

That’s my brother’s strategy.

Did he already reach a teen age?

Pretty smart a** comment for a guy who has yet to take a game with the Classic players we have here… or who has yet to actually offer anything resembling a strategy post of his own…

Oh, I know why you do not like a USA BB strategy… YOUR Strategy is to buy a BB’s as RUSSIA using a SFE IC that you build on R1!
:roll:

Switch, I appreciate the assistance, but I think that’s a little slanderous a statement on your part.  Nuno is perfectly capable of sticking his own foot in his mouth without needing our assistance and if he wants our assistance, he can always ask us for a game of Classic or Revised. :)

[sprint]

ok, i have not played A&A in years because friends of mine started to drink, drugs and women and thought games were for kids.
anyway, how can you play over the net? i would love to!!!

[Jennifer]

Email your moves back and forth and get a neutral server to roll the dice.

DAAK.de has one
AAMC has one, forget if it’s an org, com or net.
We have one here, but you need to know the syntax to use it.

[Pervavita]

my first post hear… soo

@nuno: that was a vary in muture statment that you started with. enough said on that.

@tenth8sphere: i know what you are saying and i personally hate playing USA, they are my least fav, but i do play Japan and have used this stratagy on a smaller scale with them for my conquest of the pacific rim in USSR, India, and USA. Japan may not have the economy that US has early on, but they start with the navy to pull it off against smaller fries (India factory, USSR supply lines to the East [if they even try], or Alaska supply lines). now this isn’t what your saying exactly and i know that. BUT i think it is a valid stratagy and i think you don’t need to get up to 10 Battle Ships, but could do it with say 5, a few Destroyers as Sub deturents and then the UK builds up there Infantry/transport numbers and sends supplies in the form of Infantry to USSR via Norway (US can clear it and it’s supply line the turn before, to get rid of heavy resistance and reinforcments) then march east to build a secure supply line. then as the US ships clear the German lines the Germans will divert the majority of there troop production in Italy to keep the troops alive for a few turns. this leaves France and Germany clear for the taking. if the German player focusus on deffending Germany then they lose troops each turn at low US cost and the USSR can push slow into Germanys East front and then the UK can supply there deffences for counter strikes, or even become the leader and leap frog to Germany. after a few turn UK should have a Transport fleet there capable of landing a large force. they do so, Germany retaliates or just takes the lose of France, ether way it’s end game for Germany.
i think this will work, it’s a long game, but should be fun and diffrent… i hate Bomber runs and my friends and i come up with any way to get around using them as a desisive stratagy.

[frood]

Each BB you buy will have a 4/6 chance of killing a defending Inf each round - so it can net you on average 2 IPCs damage on the enemy each round.

At that rate it will take you 12 rounds to have each BB pay for itself. In the meantime, you have no ground forces to help keep territory from the enemy.

I’s a neat concept but not economical.

If DD’s could bombard by default, then it might be closer to being worth it.

[Bashir]

You don’t have DD’s in Classic!

[Pervavita]

the idea is not for the US to gain the territories early, it allows the UK to build a supply chain of just Transports with no real threat to them and with say 4 BB’s you are forcing Germany to keep Infantry back allong the north Europe coast. they leave France with a small force then the US bombards it and then Germany has to pull more men that way then from the USSR front to keep the UK from landing there. the Germans also have to be carfull of luck by the US, they can’t leave just 1 guy over what the US has in battle ships as if the US gets lucky and hits with 100% and then lands with there solo infantry (or if the US has more there and feels like being lucky they try to go with more) and gets a hit with that infantry then Germany is cripled. should the Allies count on that happening? no, but Germany has to be carfull that it dosn’t happen so they got to have atleast 2 more units in the teritory then the US has BB’s. and all that will be Infantry as who wants to lose tanks, or fighters to bombardment. so not only are you keeping extra Germans from the front line, you are also killing men, and giving the UK a safe resupply rout to the USSR.
i think the next time i’m an Allie i will try this just becouse i think it has lots of potental.

[Bashir]

I pretty much thought this whole US BB strat was just bogus, but people start to get serious with this… I will give my 2 cents.

1. It takes too long before the bb’s are in Europe to be any kind of a threat. Meanwhile you are literally giving away lands and put unnessecary pressure on the USSR.
2. It takes a long time before you have your BB back with German inf. I saw that almost everybody thought ‘I have 6 bb’s => 6 less Ger inf’ which is quiet wrong, because you only hit 2/3 of the time… So 1 BB costs around 12 rounds to win your BB back… By then the game is over, because you let Japan cruise over Asia…
3. Without inf support and shuck shuck, the us can’t simply invade, they don’t have a 1-2 punch with the UK, so you are pretty much wasting your recourses!!!
4. To get a substantial amount of bb’s takes time, time you don’t have at the start of the game as allies… by turn 5 Asia is lost, Africa is propably partly in German hands and the USSR is as good as dead…

=> Waste of time for the allies in my book.

[losttribe04]

I have to agree with Bashir. There are cheaper and faster options at your disposal for the US. Depending if you want an offensive navy I would use FTR’s and maybe a few BMR’s. Per say you wouldn’t need to engage them at all.

Most Navy conflicts are dancing around the other Navy because it costs way to much to support one and owning an ocean territory at the end of a turn doesn’t pay any thing.

So just having an intimidating Air Force in range could be a deterrent.

I know some of you are going to explain how now the US will leave its TRN’s open for the picking but a BB’s is not the unit you would want taking the hits in that scenario either.

[Pervavita]

as i said, i would try it the next time i was Allies.
my results were not as good as i had hoped, the results from the battle ships were good, they just took to long to arive with any real force. i did not go with one ship per turn, i stoped after 2 as i saw the need to start ammasing for a landing.
i’m not sure if it’s because i’m not the best US player, or what, but it won’t be something i do again…. atleast for a long time.

[Jennifer]

Bashir:

The BB strat is more for Killing Japan, then Europe.  And you’re right, Carriers + Fighters are more effective unless you turn on 2 hit battleships, then battleships become kings at sea again (still need carrier/fighters! but a few battleships sprinkled in can really turn the tides on a japan only producing submarines to counter you.)

Anyway, for revised I’ve started going heavy battleships again.  They can take a beating and keep sailing saving money over the life of the game (since you don’t have to replace units.)

[Bashir]

vs Japan it is still kinda useless,because Japs can just build a 1 round full Sub build and eliminate the BB threat… If you see the USA buy BB’s you are stupid if you don’t think ahead and buy a sub or maybe even 2 for each BB. Fun fact is that on avarage you need only 2 subs (16) for every BB (24 ipc’s) => Still a waste of money and time…