G1 Total BLITZKRIEG.

[Jennifer]

@Cow:

Are you trolling Jen? The topic is about Germany going hard on russia R1.

So which naval battles are we skipping? and you still doing france right?

No, not trolling.  I was just thinking it would be better to not go hard on Russia and instead hit England.  Let me tell you why:

• Generally Germany has 4 Mech, 4 Arm left in Paris after round 1.  At times I have some artillery left, at times I only have some armor left, but it seems logical to have these 8 units left.
• SZ 111 has to be cleared at the very least.  You cannot allow England to have 2 battleships.  Personally, with the scramble rules changed, I still want to see if it is possible to sink both Battleships without expending too many Aircraft. (by that I mean losing them as casualties.)
• The NO for having Russia at peace is permanent for rounds 1-4 if you do not attack Russia, that’s a guarenteed 20 IPC you will lose if you attack Russia and push in hard.  Can you recover it?  Sure, could your dice suck?  Sure.  The question is, do you want to gamble it?
  *  Sea Lion is a certainty. (well, the probability of success is virtually 100%, I guess I could go check on a calculator, but you have 11 infantry, 3 artillery, 8 armor and aircraft to attack with, England has about 16 infantry and 4 fighters to defend with, give or take.  Feel free to run the numbers, I am just making a guess here.  That of course assumes England blocks and stops Germany from bombarding with a cruiser and a battleship as well.
• England is going to yield at least 20 IPC, probably 26-30 IPC + it is also a NO for 5 IPC a round AND it is hard to liberate.
• Your 11 transports can be used to keep Norway/Finland in German hands instead of losing them and the NO to Russia.

It is my humble opinion, that it is wiser to hit England than to hit Russia, financially.

I don’t know.  Perhaps I missed discussion on why this was a better tactic than Sea Lion.  I will admit that they will fix England so Sea Lion is not so assured of success and then the experience of attacking Russia will put those of you who do this ahead of those of us who do not, probably.

[majikforce]

Just played a game where the axis attacked turn 1.  It was great for Japan.  But attacking Russia first didn’t work out well.  The weak point was actually Italy.  The US just crushed them.  I think they need a couple turns to get established.  Plus Germany gives up that NO $,  it really made a difference in our game.  Now the German player made a couple tactical errors and with some tweaking might clean up the strategy a little bit but in my opinion it seems like attacking Russia turn 1 is a mistake

[Jennifer]

The question is, can America exploit Italy without handing Japan the win.  Without VCs I would say sure!  Of course, without VCs why care about Japan at all?

I tend to agree on attacking Russia 1 being a less than ideal situation.  I would have to see and play a few games before I could say conclusively however.

[poloplayer15]

i tried the strategy last night in alpha 2. it worked. the red army couldn’t contain my panzer groups. turn 2 Ukraine was mine. turn three Leningrad. we stopped after that because the red army was never going to stop us.it was too weak to mount any counter offensive, or even defend Moscow. and the far east troops were too far away. Italy took Egypt and part of Africa. japan had the DEI and almost all of china. America was just coming into the war and Britain was struggling to keep Africa. France was dead and ANZAC had only built a battleship.

[Jennifer]

Polo,

Could we get a rough sketch of what you accomplished with Germany and Italy per round?  (I am assuming Japan did not attack Russia, if they did, what they accomplished would also be helpful.)

I am curious as to what, if any, attacks you made against France and England specifically, as well as what you purchased during those rounds.  I don’t need exact numbers, of course, just guesstimate.  Like, if you attacked Normandy/France on R1, then Germany should have about 70 IPC, so maybe you fleshed out Mechanized Infantry until you had 1:1 with your armor then bought armor+mechanized until out of cash? (Armored + Mechanized = 10 IPC, a cute and easy number to work with! lol.)

[poloplayer15]

sure Cmdr Jennifer. i played Germany and Italy while my friend played Japan.
Germany:
round 1: buy 1 major factory for Romania. attacked Normandy, France, Baltic states, east Poland, bessarabia, and the transports off of Canada and England, the cruiser in 91 and the 2 cruisers off Denmark. i activated Finland and Bulgaria.

round 2: buy 10 tanks. moved 5 armor from France to greater south Germany. took my armor and attacked eastern Ukraine and just built up defenses/forces for a major push into Ukraine, Belarus, Novgorod, and took vyborg with 1 inf.

Round 3: 4 tanks 4 mech 1 sub. launched a major offensive in USSR. took both parts of the Ukraine, Belarus, Novgorod. by now the Russian army was dead after costly counterattacks that failed. their was 2 inf in karelia, 2 inf in Rostov, and 8 inf in Russia. the 18 border inf were too far away to get their in time. USSR was now part of the 3rd Reich.

Italy
round 1: Buy 1 destroyer. loaded 2 tanks on 2 trans and took Egypt. sank french navy with 1 cruiser 2 fighters 1 tac bomber. grouped navy off of southern Italy.

round 2: buy 2 trans 1 inf. sank British med fleet with few casualties. took Alexandria, Sudan, and Kenya. also took Syria.

Round three: buy 1 cruiser 1 artillery. took back Egypt, and expanded in Africa and activated Iraq.

Japan

Round 1: took parts of china, french indo china, and built up for DEI conquest/india.

Round 2: took more of china. took shan state, borneo, java. built up fleet for clash with the yankees.

Round 3: china down to 5 territories. sank 1 cruiser, 5 trans off of us coast. lost 1 fighter.

by the end of round 3 Russia was dead, Britain was bleeding income, Anzac was not doing anything significant, the us was pumping out units in the pacific and not the Atlantic, japan was becoming a power house, Italy was the new ruler of Africa, and china was dead a long with France.

[Jennifer]

Thanks, Polo.

It appears you went with a Germany 2 blitzkrieg of Russia and that is understandable.  I was attempting to point out earlier that a round 1 all out assault on Russia didn’t seem “wise” to me, primarily because you want to kill France and weaken the British navy. (Presumably you are not doing Sea Lion so you can attack Russia - unless I am mistaken.)

I like the idea of your Romania complex and I suppose it really is the only option, unless you want Norway, for a Major Complex in a usable location for Germany. Too bad it does not have access to the Med. (Sure, I suppose you don’t really NEED access, I just like having options.)  However, I am curious:

Why did you buy a Major IC?  On Round 2 you went Armor and on Round 3 you went Mechanized Infantry and Armor and neither with enough quantity to over stress the Major IC in E. Germany.  Unless you just wanted to put them closer to Stalingrad?  I am unsure, since you said your attacks were all in the north, implying that you drove your tanks up through E. Poland.

[poloplayer15]

im sorry but i dont know what your asking or implying.

[Jennifer]

@poloplayer15:

im sorry but i dont know what your asking or implying.

Wondering what your usage was of the M-IC in Romania since you went with blitzing units.

[poloplayer15]

it allowed me to have a sizable force in the south. for most of my games, the north is the focus of Germany, mainly because i can get units their faster. with the major ic, it allows more units to be deployed. also i believe in fast hard attacks. blitzing units are the only way to achieve this.

[Jennifer]

So you wanted to put the blitzing units in Romania because it was one turn closer to Moscow than Berlin is?  (Getting from E. Germany to Russia takes 1 turn longer than from Romania to Russia.)

I can see putting 10 infantry into Romania quickly would be a large boon to the Germans, but you did not say you built any infantry, thus it is I assume the purpose is to get your blitzing units one round closer to Russia.

[Piet Hein]

I like to build a major IC in Rom too. That way, if on G2 you attack Bessarabia and W-Ukr and build 10 tanks/mech infs in Rom, you can then on G3 attack the IC in Ukraine with all the troops from Bessarabia and W-Ukr AND the 10 tanks/mechs. On G3 you build 10 tanks/mechs on Rom again, so on G4, those 10 tanks/mechs can head for Bryansk with all the guys from W-Ukr. On G5 you now have a superior attack force on Bryansk, supported by air and by the 3 tanks you built on G4 in Ukraine, and you take Moscow on G5. You can even shortcut by not taking Ukr, and take Moscow on G4.

[94Canuck]

In my current Europe game this has worked very well.  G3 just ended, Leningrad is taken, Ukraine is done next turn, and then onto Moscow.  By G5/6 Russia should be gone.

Russia however took an offensive role rather than a full turtle.  It thinned the Germans out a lot, but not enough.

Seems to be a very good strat for Germany as opposed to UK.

[Gargantua]

Interesting results.

I’ll have to try this out in my next game.

[Graunie]

So how do you handle the Brits with a mostly intact navy?  I would think they are going to UK1 clear out the German navy and place TT’s and ground troops for a UK2/UK3 invasion.

Would it be too late for the Brits and just leaving a few German INF behind to slow them down would work until you could recall from the eastern front?

[poloplayer15]

i attacked the transports. that ensures the brits have to spend at least one turn building transports. it gives you an extra turn.

[Jennifer]

I think the bigger issue is, how do you take out SZ 110 and SZ 111 as well as France, Normandy and Yugoslavia?  Yugoslavia isn’t the issue, but the rest are.  It would be ill-advised, IMHO, to let France go free and you really need to kill that British fighter in Normandy too, if only to weaken England enough to allow the invasion of Russia to be successful, I would think.

Since I do not think this is statistically reliable, some attack has to go unfullfilled so leaving them with most of a Navy is pretty much all you can hope for, ya know?  I’d still go for SZ 106 with 1 submarine and SZ 91 with 2 submarines, if only because you have the submarines and round 1 is the only time the Royal Navy is exposed as it is.

[Piet Hein]

With the Baltic strait closed, no TT and hardly any ground troops, what is the UK gonna do for the first few rounds? & the US can only land US5.

As Germany, you need to take advantage of that timeframe by taking Moscow.

I rather not take Yugoslavia and/or SZ 111/110 than delay barbarossa

[Graunie]

@Piet:

With the Baltic strait closed, no TT and hardly any ground troops, what is the UK gonna do for the first few rounds? & the US can only land US5.

As Germany, you need to take advantage of that timeframe by taking Moscow.

I rather not take Yugoslavia and/or SZ 111/110 than delay barbarossa

I just realized that the Baltic strait is a strait so if you fortify Denmark and W.Ger they will have to land at Normandy or Holland UK3 at the soonest with US right behind.

Sounds like if you don’t have Russia on the ropes by G4 you are going to have a very difficult time responding to the invasion.  Maybe Italy can help out here a bit

[Jennifer]

Graunie, they could land in Denmark too.

Piet,

So you do no attacks against the Royal Navy?  Isn’t that leaving them entirely too strong?  Or are you using the fleet to sink the Russian BB and open a path to Saint Petersburg?