How to take Karelia and keep it

[wodan46]

Attack Karelia with 3 Infantry, 1 Artillery, 3 Fighters, and 1 Cruiser (80% chance of at least 1 ground unit surviving)
Attack Baltic States with enough forces to kill it, but don’t use the tanks in West Poland
Attack Belorussia with 1 Fighter and 1 Bomber
During Noncombat phase, move the 2 Tanks in West Poland to Karelia

End Result(assuming you are in the 80%): You will have 2 Tanks, 1 Artillery, and 0-2 Infantry in Karelia.  Russia has 2 Infantry and 1 Tank able to counterattack, which is insufficient.

You will still have enough forces to take East Poland and Ukraine as well, especially if you use the Mediterranean transport.

If Russia loses Karelia first turn and can’t recapture it, they are VERY screwed, and will likely lose Archangel, Belorussia, and Northern Ukraine the following turn, while Italy will either recapture Ukraine or whittle Caucasus further on turns 1 and 2.

G1 should consist of 6 Tanks, G2, of 2 Tanks and 3 Bombers, of which all can hit Moscow on G3.

[atarihuana]

aa gun 3 hits at 1 :P

[Yoshi]

russia has four infantry (2 from belorussia and 2 from archangelsk) and one armor to counter attack. In most case, you have one artillery and 2 armors to defense, which is a 75% counterattack for russia.

But if germany has one more infantry in karelia (which means you are lucky), then odds are for germany, and they should keep the territory.

[wodan46]

@Yoshi:

russia has four infantry (2 from belorussia and 2 from archangelsk) and one armor to counter attack. In most case, you have one artillery and 2 armors to defense, which is a 75% counterattack for russia.

@wodan46:

Attack Belorussiawith 1 Fighter and 1 Bomber

Ahem, Russia does NOT have 2 guys in Belorussia.  They have 26% win chances assuming that only the Artillery survived the initial attack on Karelia.  Its an expensive gambit, but being able to produce out of Karelia and attack Archangel on the second turn makes it worth it.

[Yoshi]

sorry, I did not read well.

So this may work, but should cost most of the german planes. And moreover, the english navy will be bigger, and you just avoid russia to take it back, since you cannot kill the uk battleship with only two subs. Thus, UK can counter karelia, and with a russian build as 6 armors, they can take back karelia on turn 2 quite easily I think…

Yoshi

[wodan46]

@Yoshi:

sorry, I did not read well.

So this may work, but should cost most of the german planes. And moreover, the english navy will be bigger, and you just avoid russia to take it back, since you cannot kill the uk battleship with only two subs. Thus, UK can counter karelia, and with a russian build as 6 armors, they can take back karelia on turn 2 quite easily I think…

Yoshi

They can’t take back Karelia if Belorussia and Archangel are taken on G2.  Unless UK takes Karelia on B1, it will probably have 2 Tanks and a bunch of transported Infantry on it.

[Yoshi]

and why uk would not take it back ?

I mean : germany sacrifice most of its planes to keep karelia, and you can take it back quite easily. This done, you reduce the advantage of keeping karelia for germany, and now you do not have to consider the luftwaffe !

[Jennifer]

Germany should, if going this route, plan on taking fighter losses so they can have Infantry, Artillery survive the attack and NCM two armor through the newly conquered Baltic States.  They also need to kill off the British Battleship (easily done) in SZ 2 preventing a strafe by England. (Of course, they are more than welcome to send unescorted fighters and bombers to attack Karelia vs the defenders, but I don’t think they’ll do that.)

[wodan46]

@Yoshi:

and why uk would not take it back ?

The simplest way to block UK is to use the Sub fleet to kill the Destroyer so that the Cruiser can move to block a British invasion.  This will mean that Britain is limited to strafing Karelia, which can be reinforced next turn anyway by units from Norway, Baltic States, those produced by Karelia, and the transport if its still alive.

While destroying the Battleship/Transport would also work, all of your airforce is being used to take Karelia and strafe Belorussia, so all you have left to take out the Battleship/Transport is the Sub pair, leaving only 1 Sub leftover to deal with the Destroyer to allow for a Cruiser block.

[Jennifer]

You can’t hit Belarus in round 1, not with ground forces.

Yes, you could block the British Battleship, but round 1 is your only chance to sink it basically for free. (You’ll lose a submarine or two, but you would lose those anyway.)

[wodan46]

@Cmdr:

You can’t hit Belarus in round 1, not with ground forces.

But you can with your Bomber and a Fighter.  Strafe the Infantry to death and Russia has too little left to recapture Karelia.

@Cmdr:

Yes, you could block the British Battleship, but round 1 is your only chance to sink it basically for free. (You’ll lose a submarine or two, but you would lose those anyway.)

Which is why sending 2 Subs at it and the other at the Destroyer is risky but still doable.  So long as you sink one of them you are still fine.

[Umgar]

From my experience Germany can only do one of the following on G1 (it can attempt to do more of these, but typically will either outright fail or barely succeed; losing too many forces to actually hold newly acquired gains and then be back in the same boat on G2).

Germany’s choices are:

• Take and hold Karelia

• Obliterate the UK Atlantic fleet

• Take and hold Egypt

To do any of these 3 things well, the German bomber must be committed. Otherwise the attacks are very risky. The Egypt attack is dicey even with the bomber but will usually succeed with at least 1 tank left, and arguably that’s all you need to roll most of Africa.

In any case… my point is if you want to take and hold Karelia on G1 - yes it can be done. However, in order to achieve this you must leave the UK Atlantic fleet partially intact and/or forget about taking Egypt on G1 (you might be able to soften it enough for Italy to finish the job… but it’s very risky leaving that UK fighter alive in Egypt).

So ultimately it comes down to what you think is the lesser of 3 evils. You can only do one of the 3 things above well.

[wodan46]

@Umgar:

From my experience Germany can only do one of the following on G1 (it can attempt to do more of these, but typically will either outright fail or barely succeed; losing too many forces to actually hold newly acquired gains and then be back in the same boat on G2).

Germany’s choices are:

• Take and hold Karelia

• Obliterate the UK Atlantic fleet

• Take and hold Egypt

To do any of these 3 things well, the German bomber must be committed. Otherwise the attacks are very risky. The Egypt attack is dicey even with the bomber but will usually succeed with at least 1 tank left, and arguably that’s all you need to roll most of Africa.

In any case… my point is if you want to take and hold Karelia on G1 - yes it can be done. However, in order to achieve this you must leave the UK Atlantic fleet partially intact and/or forget about taking Egypt on G1 (you might be able to soften it enough for Italy to finish the job… but it’s very risky leaving that UK fighter alive in Egypt).

So ultimately it comes down to what you think is the lesser of 3 evils. You can only do one of the 3 things above well.

Your analysis is correct.

Germany’s options are the following:
1. Take Karelia(and hold it), and possibly eliminate the Destroyer and/or Battleship-Transport group
2. Take Karelia(but fail to hold) and Egypt
3. Take Karelia(but fail to hold) and eliminate the Destroyer and either the Battleship-Transport group or the Destroyer-Cruiser group
4. Take Egypt and eliminate the Destroyer/Transport, Destroyer/Cruiser, and Destroyer groups
5. Eliminate the Destroyer, Battleship-Transport, and Destroyer/Cruiser groups.

In all options, Germany has enough forces to capture the 3 Russian territories closest to it.

[Yoshi]

@wodan46:

@Yoshi:

and why uk would not take it back ?

The simplest way to block UK is to use the Sub fleet to kill the Destroyer so that the Cruiser can move to block a British invasion.  This will mean that Britain is limited to strafing Karelia, which can be reinforced next turn anyway by units from Norway, Baltic States, those produced by Karelia, and the transport if its still alive.

but you have already use your cruiser for the attack in karelia. if you do not use that, you decrease your chance to take karelia (about 70% instead of 80%)

[wodan46]

@Yoshi:

@wodan46:

@Yoshi:

and why uk would not take it back ?

The simplest way to block UK is to use the Sub fleet to kill the Destroyer so that the Cruiser can move to block a British invasion.  This will mean that Britain is limited to strafing Karelia, which can be reinforced next turn anyway by units from Norway, Baltic States, those produced by Karelia, and the transport if its still alive.

but you have already use your cruiser for the attack in karelia. if you do not use that, you decrease your chance to take karelia (about 70% instead of 80%)

Then perhaps hitting the Battleship with 2 Subs is best, with the other Sub attacking the Destroyer.  I’m curious, could you resolve those battles before deciding whether or not the Cruiser bombards?’

Or you might just be stuck with the 70% win chance.

[Yoshi]

The choice of the bombardment must be done in the combat movement phase. Thus, you have to choose before.

[bugoo]

best way to take Karelia and keep it is the G1 6 tank buy honestly with Italy threatening a can opener on Moscow.

[wodan46]

That is a fairly effective strategy, though I think it doesn’t matter whether or not it takes Karelia G1 or G2.  The point would be that while Germany focuses its initial force north at Karelia/Belorussia/Archangel, Italy grabs Caucasus on I2 using 2 transports, which should be easy if the forces there attempted to recapture Ukraine or moves up to Moscow.  Then on G3, the 6 Tanks built on G1 can move into either Karelia OR the Caucasus, securing them as needed, and Russia is proper screwed.

[bugoo]

The only problem with that is the allies will probably start trading france on turn 2 and liberate africa as well. I really dont like Italy picking on Russia unless there is a really good opportunity, not to mention its easy for russia to have 10+ inf on caucaus on turn 2.

[a44bigdog]

And Germany is going to be in some seriously bad shape if those 2 infantry in Belorussia roll deuces.

Jenn’s plan for attacking Karelia round 1 and reinforcing with 2 tanks is about the best so far I have seen as far as Karelia. Russia does not have that good a chance of a round 1 liberation. However the loss of Karelia is not that huge of a blow to Russia. While there is an IC there it only produces 2 units without tech. Yes it does give Germany a 5 IPC NO but what I am saying is if you are playing Russia do not panic merely because Karelia is captured.