I’ve set up the board and I’ve been looking at it for a while. Played the original edition lots, and Global even more.
With the Cruiser in the Baltic now instead of the destroyer, doesn’t it make sense for Germany to launch a Sea Lion, even at bad odds?
If, by chance, the anti-aircraft gun misses all 3 shots (bringing in a bomber and 2 fighters, along with a tank and infantry on the transport), and the Cruiser bombard hits, it’s only 5 units against 7.
Assuming Great Britain is expecting to win, they would probably take an infantry as a bombard casualty, and aim to preserve the bomber for it’s next turn.
1 inf, 1 art, 1 tank, 2 figs, and a bomber left in England. I threw the dice 20 times, and 8 of those times I was able to take the territory with a Tank. 3 times everyone died. 9 times it failed.
On the ones I lost, I had still battered England down to only a plane or two left. The only planes capable of reinforcing England next turn are Russian Fighters or the American Bomber.
Send 3 subs to the North Sea fleet, one to the Eastern Canada convoy, and GB is out of transports and naval capacity in the North Atlantic
Mediterranean Battleship and transport attack GB cruiser in SZ 14. This positions them for a G2 drop in Britain, especially if America moves its Destroyer/transports to the North Atlantic in an attempt to reinforce or take back Britain.
Gear the G1 purchase to supplement the invasion, 2 transports, 1 destroyer, and a bomber. Move the two surviving German fighters to to France or another coastal NW territory.
It’s risky, but even if you don’t gear your purchase to back it up, you’ve really only sacrificed a bomber and 2 planes in valuables. The risk/reward seems worth it
Does anyone do this? It looks like Russia is almost the exact same setup except the Karelian factory and 2 extra infantry, so 1st edition German strategy against them should carryover.
Thanks everyone!
OP mentioned playing original and Global. But there’s been rules changes since then. (Even for Global, there’s been second editions for both Europe and Pacific - I think they introduced mechanized infantry with the second editions? among other rule changes?)
Under 1942 Second Edition rules, antiaircraft guns fire up to three shots once, and can be assigned as casualties. Naval bombardment casualties fire back before being removed as casualties. There are other rules changes, but both of those in particular apply to G1 Sealion.
Using OOB setup and rules as written, evaluating the scenario as described using
https://www.aatoolkit.com/conflict
shows around 6% on the high side with attackers of cruiser, infantry, tank, two fighters, bomber, versus defenders of two infantry, artillery, antiaircraft gun, tank, two fighters, bomber. It only uses 1000 runs (unlike aacalc) but it does allow allocation of hits to AA guns, and 6% is not great. (Defender OOL is AA gun first then bomber, attacker OOL is tank last.)
Again, that’s under the OOB scenario and if USSR doesn’t move its Karelia fighter to London on R1. If you’re using LHTR setup (which I recommend anyways) and/or move the Karelia fighter, then the odds on G1 Sealion drop well below even 6% projected.
@aardvarkpepper Bombard casualties fire back eh? I see that in the rulebook now. That drops the probability down too far for me. Thanks for pointing that out
