Here was the G1/I1 Plan:
G1: 1 CV, 2 TT
Take Paris, Normandy, Strafe Yugo - Retreat to Romania.
Hit SZ111 and SZ110 with Aircraft and SS (BB hits SZ111). Hit SZ106 with 1 SS.
Fly 1 Ftr from Eastern Europe to S.Italy to scramble against UK hitting Italian ships in SZ97.
Take Finland via TT from Poland
I1: Buy Nothing
Finish off and take Yugo with Arm from Albania and N.Italy, plus TT across 4 Inf from Rome.
Take S.France, Tunisia, Sudan, Kenya.
Hit UK ships in the Med, else clear French ships if they retreated.
Here’s what happened: (Realize US1 was able to DOW due to the J1 attack)
G1/I1 Purchases were the same.
G1 got lucky rolls from Inf and ended up having to take Yugo - 3 Arm, lots of German Inf stuck in Yugo.
G1 cleared the North Atlantic of ships, losing 2 Ftr and 1 Tac.
Paris fell, Arm and Art survived.
Normandy fell, no losses.
US1 was a full atlantic purchase that was primarily TT with units to fill them as able. Flew its Bomber to London, Ftr to Iceland. Used its starting TT to open up Brazil.
UK1 moved a Ftr/Tac from Calcutta to Jordan
UK staged its Med fleet in SZ96 taking out the Italian DD and TT there.
UK took Greece with 1 Inf, 1 Arm from Alexandria, left its TT exposed.
With US in the war, UK bought Ftr for London - probably should have Sea Lioned.
I1 took everything it planned to, sunk the UK fleet with tough losses. Except instead of TTing 4 Inf across to Yugo, it sent 2 Arm/Inf down to Jordan to remove the UK aircraft and shut off the Suez (which ended up saving the TT). Egypt fell on I3, but was lost to the Allies on I4.
G2 included 10 Inf purchase, 1 AB (Norway - because I wanted to test its effectiveness and UK went aggressive), and the rest went to two Tac (to support Arm moving to strike Russia on G3). Staged units in Romania from Yugo, but left behind 2 Inf, 1 Art to assist Italy in removing the 6 Inf, 1 Arm that was likely going to take Albania on UK2. Moved 2 Inf, 2 Art from Poland to Finland to bring Finland up to 10 Inf, 3 Art and 3 Tac staged on an AB in Norway.
US2 sent its first TT landing to Morocco, with only 1 CR for defense. It was able to also bring units in from Brazil that it opened on US1. The US Ftr landed in London.
UK2 took out the Italian Arm from Egypt and left only the Anzac Inf there. It had the Canadian units on Morocco from UK1 move to support Algeria and the Italian advance was stopped dead in its tracks. UK2 included a CV amongst other things, and the UK has the beginnings of TT units staged in SZ91 supporting a threat against N.Italy if N.Italy didn’t buy Inf on I2. UK also moved its units from Greece to Albania. UK2 also took an empty Holland with a TT supported by a CV plus 5 total possible scrambling Ftr (1 US).
I2 had something along the lines of 24 IPC to spend, so it bought a CV and DD. Italy was going to have a hard time stopping the Allies from advancing on Rome by I4 (US1 purchase was full Atlantic TT + units to fill them). Italy moved to Greece and took Egypt from Alexandria and Egypt. This activated a NO for Italy. With Algeria blocked from any Italian advance, it sat tight there. The 2 TT off Egypt had no units to move, so it went back to Rome. S.France had 2 Art, so they went to N.Italy. Italy was able to send its Bomber to SZ91 and take out the DD and CR that defended the UK/US TT’s. This bought the Axis at least another 1-2 rounds. Not much else Italy could do, so it placed its units and collected IPC.
G3 was now in position to advance on Russia. G3 was 10 more Inf, plus the remaining IPC spent on Art in W.Germany. With Bessarabia sitting with a strong 50-50 split of Inf and Art (something like 5 of each), the German units in Romania struck there and took tough losses, although the Arm survived with 4 or so Inf. E.Poland was hit with tanks from Berlin and the 11 Inf from Poland. Russia had 4-5 Inf there and Germany took as many losses as it inflicted. Aircraft was split between the two battles, with Tac aircraft landing on Romania and Bombers landing in Poland. The 10 Inf from G2 moved into Poland on NCM to deter Russia from advancing there. Finland units took Kariela, and a token small contingent of 2-3 Inf supported with aircraft took Vyborg’s 2 Inf. The Tac from that battle landed back on Norway to provide scrambles. G3 also removed the UK presence in Holland with the remaining units that had staged in France as well as the units in W.Germany. Lastly, G3 hit the UK units in Albania with 2 Inf, 1 Art, taking out 3 Inf. This made it manageable for Italy to remove the UK threat on I3.
R3, now at war, counter attacked all German advances. The Southern front was cleared out and Bessarabia was reclaimed. E.Poland Armor from German survived, but not before Russia had removed all the Inf there before withdrawing.
US3 included 9 more TT purchased, UK3 included a second CV and now there were 4 Ftr on CV, 3 to scramble. US3 removed the Italian bomber that landed in S.France and there was no more threat to TT in SZ91 unless Germany flew its bombers to Paris, so the US reinforced its ground units in Morocco and landed a larger contingent than the first wave.
UkK3 - With a second CV and aircraft to support it, UK added TT and Arm to begin landing every turn on Normandy, Holland, or Norway. It also took back Egypt.
I3 was in a tough spot. There were plenty of TT that could shoot straight into S.France or N.Italy. Italy did have a DD and TT, so it took Gib (to replace Egypt for the NO) to block some movement into the Med. It staged its CV in SZ95 and bought full Inf so it could get units into Rome to defend it. The remaining Inf from taking out the UK units in Albania were NCM across to Rome as reinforcements (All 2 of them).
As you can see, by turn 4 the Allies were going to be landing in full force on Normandy. With the US landing first, the British could land to reinforce it with multiple Ftr and ground units of their own. There was no kicking the Allies out of Europe at this point.
What I’m trying to illustrate, is that with a J1 attack (and no lucky Italian Bomber run in SZ91 that I had) gets the Allies landing on Normandy by round 3, and even if kicked out, will land a bigger force there on round 4. There is no way Germany can take Russia in that timeframe, meaning a J1 attack on the Allies creates a situation where even Germany gains minimal advancement in Russia before Paris is setup to fall. More importantly, Italy is setup to fail. The only legitimate situation I can think of is for the Axis to play full defensive in Europe while you hope the Japanese player rocks the Pacific hard and goes for a VC victory there. Of course, you negate two of the three axis powers by doing so. Of course if Germany Sea Lions, its possible to take the UK out of Europe.
I am supposing the pairing of J1 attack plus G3 Sea Lion is a legitimate option, but I don’t know how effective Germany can be at fighting Russia in the East, pushing it back while fending off US liberation attempts in Paris or shutting down Rome.
