The most effective russian players I’ve encountered are the ones that are able to build up a force that is able to threaten a counter on a german stack. If a good german player wants to go for Moscow they are able to get it, however I’ve seen plenty games where the UK/USA are putting enough pressure on the German player for him to stop just in front of Moscow. If the Russian player only has bought inf at this point there is not much of a threat for the German player to keep russia contained and slowly kill it economically. However if there is a stack of paired inf/art the pushback power is a lot bigger and thus Germany can be challenged and Russia may be able to break the German wall.
Best response to a determined Sea Lion
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Thanks for your thoughts. The scramble is very tempting (probably trading 3 ftrs for 2 ftrs and 2 tac). If I keep the bomber in the UK and bring the fighter up from Gibraltar, it will stop him from landing the 10 units in Scotland on G2, but then with two less ftrs in the UK he is much more likely to just land 26 units on G3, particularly if he can pick up a bomber in the process (rather than land the 26 in Scotland and completing the job on G4, which is much better for the Pacific and the Russians, not to mention the better attacks that can be made in the Med). It is the Americans that I am still puzzling over. Should I make the 3+ Atlantic naval builds necessary to take London back without losing it again (meaning that the Pacific only gets one naval build) or should I just forget about London and focus on the Pacific and do enough in the Atlantic so the US can provide some assistance to the Med. Is there something that can be done with a US bomber build that would help London or sink his invasion fleet after the fact?
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Curious, where are those 4 G1 TT being placed? Inside the Straights of Denmark?
Where does the BB and CR end up on G1?
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Is there something that can be done with a US bomber build that would help London or sink his invasion fleet after the fact?
The only thing you could really do (preventative) with the US is purchase 4 bombers on US1, and then if a J2 declaration brings US into the war you could land 5 bombers on London on US2. But that hinges on a J2 or early DOW. If Japan does J1 DOW then you are really set to go as US.
After-the-fact you could really only hit a German fleet in 111 with bombers and only if you had them stationed in Iceland. You would do Iceland->123->119->111->125->126->127-> Land in Russia. Once London has fallen Russia will be in the war so they will be a valid landing point. The only other real landing points will be Normandy or Southern France and those aren’t very attractive options.
If UK or Scotland aren’t taken yet, you can fly bombers from EUS and hit fleets in various places around the UK and still land. Ff the US were in the war, a G2 landing party in scotland would not be safe since American bombers can hit Scotland and land in the UK. You would only be able to send 5-6 bombers though against infantry. You would probably win but it would be ugly. Sadly the German fleet in 111 would be safe because Scotland is the only landing zone for the US if you bomb there… unless as US you buy an Airbase for Greenland and station your bombers there, but the earliest you could hit would be US3.
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My point behind the questioning is two fold:
First an opportunity to trade your fighters, a CR and DD for the German BB, CR and fighters that would likely scramble. Its something of a 50-50 shot that you’d get to sink the TT as well if those TT are put outside of the straights and not inside.
Further, if those ships are put inside, you have an opportunity to block the G2 landing on Scotland by moving a CR or DD outside the straights to prevent the combat move. This would limit the ferrying back and forth of units from those first 5 TT.
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On the question of the inside or outside the Denmark straits, he puts them inside the straights on G1, and if he is not landing them in Scotland on G2 he will move them outside the straits on G2 (along with the carrier, battleship, cruiser, and the 8 newly built transports). In terms of blocking the straits on UK1, he would use the Italian air force on Italian1 (1 bomber and 2 ftrs) to clear 112.
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This might work
UK builds 3 submarines and rest infantry during turns 1 and 2, turn 3 is all infantry. Should end up with 28 infantry in London plus whatever you can move over from Canada.
Save the cruiser from SZ 91 plus either of the two Atlantic destroyers, hide them in sea zone 119
Let Scotland be invaded. Hit the German fleet in 111 with the one or two destroyers, 1 cruiser, 3 submarines, 4 fighters, and 1 bomber. Land the surviving aircraft in London. The odds favor you sinking the fleet in 111 and then London winning. Russia should be able to roll over an exhausted Germany at that point. -
You really should try to hold London if at all possible and only use the knock out of the German navy as a fall back.
Bring the med fleet including the transport carrying 2 inf or at least 1 inf 1 aa gun to gibraltar with the intent of landing troops back in the UK and stationing the consolidated fleet in 110. If the Canadian navy survives, that’s two more troops that can reinforce.
The Germans will need to hit your fleet on the same turn that they invade or else they will lose their navy the next round when you counter attack it. If nothing else, the threat of the scramble defense will force the germans to assign some luftwaffe units to the sea rather than the land, and this boosts your defensive odds. You also cancel the bombardment shots.
Activate Ireland with your mech inf round 1 to create another landing spot for US bombers.
Obviously max infantry builds with UK for R1 and R2.
Get 1 or 2 american carriers stationed in SZ 102 on R2 so that you can hit the German fleet with bombers and ftrs/tacs after the invasion.
Yes, the best way to liberate the UK is to take care of that massive german transport fleet first. If you don’t take care of it, Germany might get to take UK twice, which is a disaster.
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Good ideas, thank you
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make sure that you land the carrier planes on London. They are more flexible as a scramble threat than on the decks of the carrier.
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all available planes that can reach by R2 are headed back to London, landing on the carrier R1. Make sure that the Italians can’t realistically hit the fleet by using a block.
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be sure to have at least 1 dd defending those us carriers.
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On the question of the inside or outside the Denmark straits, he puts them inside the straights on G1, and if he is not landing them in Scotland on G2 he will move them outside the straits on G2 (along with the carrier, battleship, cruiser, and the 8 newly built transports).� In terms of blocking the straits on UK1, he would use the Italian air force on Italian1 (1 bomber and 2 ftrs) to clear 112.
So the Italians don’t scramble to protect their ships in the Med? That sort of spells disaster for Italy getting started, but your point holds true in the respect to blocking and 2 Ftr and 1 Bomber vs a DD and CR isn’t exactly a good fight for either side. On the bright side, the Italians will have had to make their decision to scramble before you NCM those ships in. You MAY be able to lure his scramble with a weaker attack against Italy than an all-in crush against their BB.
I’ve also considered the opportunity to just build subs for the UK in an attempt to sink the German fleet in the Channel if Sea Lion goes off as expected. Unfortunately, a G3 build would possibly include a DD or two placed in the Channel from Normandy which negates much of the SS en masse advantage. Still it goes a long way if you force Germany to spend on a DD or two instead of units to protect Berlin from the Russian advance.
Sometimes if you can’t stop it on your own, providing an ally with an advantage (such as less units on Europe or stranded units on London) is your next best option.
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In the sea lion counter, the UK doesn’t hit the Italian navy where it can scramble, instead - it clears the path to gib by taking out the block at malta, and then leaves a blocker to prevent the italians from counter attacking the UK navy.
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You really should try to hold London if at all possible and only use the knock out of the German navy as a fall back.
Bring the med fleet including the transport carrying 2 inf or at least 1 inf 1 aa gun to gibraltar with the intent of landing troops back in the UK and stationing the consolidated fleet in 110. If the Canadian navy survives, that’s two more troops that can reinforce.Â
The Germans will need to hit your fleet on the same turn that they invade or else they will lose their navy the next round when you counter attack it. If nothing else, the threat of the scramble defense will force the germans to assign some luftwaffe units to the sea rather than the land, and this boosts your defensive odds. You also cancel the bombardment shots.
Activate Ireland with your mech inf round 1 to create another landing spot for US bombers.
Obviously max infantry builds with UK for R1 and R2.
Get 1 or 2 american carriers stationed in SZ 102 on R2 so that you can hit the German fleet with bombers and ftrs/tacs after the invasion.
Yes, the best way to liberate the UK is to take care of that massive german transport fleet first. If you don’t take care of it, Germany might get to take UK twice, which is a disaster.
Voila!
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In the sea lion counter, the UK doesn’t hit the Italian navy where it can scramble, instead - it clears the path to gib by taking out the block at malta, and then leaves a blocker to prevent the italians from counter attacking the UK navy.
What if the Allies only have the ships in SZ98 left (Cruiser at Gibraltar is sunk too)?
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Well if I saw 4 transports bought on round 1. I would not scramble. I would buy all inf for uk. Fighters would not leave uk. The bomber would not leave either. I would get my med fleet behind egypt, probably take persia round 1. I would not risk losing an air unit to sink dd transport by italy… I’d cruiser or dd along with my air.
If Germany wants london he can get it, but it will be on round 4 and it will cost him.
With russia I like to buy at least 4 mech round 1 if I see naval dropped by germany. That is pretty standard.
I mean you can’t really stop germany from taking london on round 4, but you can make it painful as hell for him. Once you see Germany round 2s massive naval buy Russia starts mobilizing hard.
Also the 18 inf in siberia with 2 aa guns should keep siberia safe.
~Also you can screw Japan’s plans pretty hard with USA. 3 naval off of hollywood. A few bombers for east USA if necessary (if Japan goes to war round 2, that is more units in london for germany to battle through, may delay Japan till round 3).
For sure take sumatra and java round 1 with uk pacific and anzac. The rest of that whole area depends on your play style / what japan does.
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The basic idea behind the determined Sea Lion is to drop 20+ units in Scotland on G3 and then hit London with those plus another 20+ drop so that London falls with Germany losing alot of infantry but retaining all his tanks and much of the arty depending on die rolls and only AA loses to the air units. Then take the 90+ ipc gain to buy a huge amount of land units to first defend Berlin, then take the offensive against Russia. With all the transports Germany can threaten to out flank the Russians by dropping 20+ units into Leningard. Because UK is so focused on London (as they should be) this also means the Italians are doing well in the Med. The opening can be done as shown above or with the more traditional first build of 1 carrier and 2 transports. The downside for the Axis is that Russia is building up and can get all the frontier territories when London falls. Also Japan cannot be unleached until J4 (assuming US has done a couple naval builds in the Atlantic).
Cow, I like your Japan Playbook, and I am curious to hear your thoughts (and those of any other experienced players) on the best way to play the US in Pacific (along with the obvious seize the island moves by UK and Anzac) given the delayed Japanese start. At the moment my plan is build 2 carriers and 1 battleship in the pacific on US1 and go to Queensland with the US fleet on US3. The US2 and US3 builds would be in the Atlantic.
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I like to spend round 1 on europe with USA, then full speed pacific after that. Either bombers or hard naval (anything but transports) for europe.
The pacific side, I either do the carrier fighter thing… or I make an attack oriented fleet.
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The basic idea behind the determined Sea Lion is to drop 20+ units in Scotland on G3 and then hit London with those plus another 20+ drop so that London falls with Germany losing alot of infantry but retaining all his tanks and much of the arty depending on die rolls and only AA loses to the air units. Then take the 90+ ipc gain to buy a huge amount of land units to first defend Berlin, then take the offensive against Russia. With all the transports Germany can threaten to out flank the Russians by dropping 20+ units into Leningard. Because UK is so focused on London (as they should be) this also means the Italians are doing well in the Med. The opening can be done as shown above or with the more traditional first build of 1 carrier and 2 transports. The downside for the Axis is that Russia is building up and can get all the frontier territories when London falls. Also Japan cannot be unleached until J4 (assuming US has done a couple naval builds in the Atlantic).
Cow, I like your Japan Playbook, and I am curious to hear your thoughts (and those of any other experienced players) on the best way to play the US in Pacific (along with the obvious seize the island moves by UK and Anzac) given the delayed Japanese start. At the moment my plan is build 2 carriers and 1 battleship in the pacific on US1 and go to Queensland with the US fleet on US3. The US2 and US3 builds would be in the Atlantic.
what you put in so far, 40+ units + 10 new trannies = 130+70 IPC = 200 IPC
you take 2 ftrs as loss in london, before combat = 20
also add the extra ships you built; 30 IPCtotal nonlandunits = 250
so from you start you gotten 30+75+50 = 150.
so total you are down 100 IPC from your start landunits army 383 IPC value + minors = 407.
minus whatever you have taken in losses, lets say that is 40 IPC when taking france and yugo and uk fleet.
then you should be at about 260 IPC landarmy, then you buy 90 ipc worth in G4.lets see what ussr has;
start 164 IPC (exluding far east)
USSR has collected and built for 111 IPC, and have an army of 275 IPC, they declare on USSR4 and hit finland, rumania yugoslavia and west poland, hopefully being strong enough to hold one of them. they then can collect 37 + 22 for europe, and if they get iraq with british help, they get +5 there, collecting a total of 64 IPC.at the same time US has built a transport fleet ready to hit uk, it is difficult to say how much has survived the the battle in london.
since you didn’t hit until turn 4, usa is probably at war, and might have landed fighters there, or at least put a fleet strong enough to kill your fleet, so you have to spend on 2 carriers to make it survive.
this is not good, and a reason why sealion is for turn 3, not for turn 4 :) IMO
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In a determined Sea Lion, the Japs do not attack the UK/Anzac until London is taken (in the meantime they work on China and Russian far east). So the US will not have any planes in London helping the UK defend London and the only way to attack the German navy in 110 after the landing is with carrier planes launched from 102 on US4 (bombers won’t be able to help because they will have no place to land - - Germans will hold Scotland and if necessary Erie). So the Germans do not usually need to build an additional carrier to defend the transports in 110. That said, Kruezfeld’s IPC analysis certainly demonstrates a downside to the G4 sea lion. The German player that uses it would argue that keeping the UK out of the game for a prolonged period, the extra income from London/Scotland and the ability to use the transports to drop 20+ units into Leningrad more than compensates for what you initially give the Russians. The best direct response that I have been able to come up with, is to try to have as many UK planes and ships available to destroy the German landing fleet in 111 on G3 when they make the Scotland landing so they cannot go back and get the 2nd wave of troops (while maintaining enough strength in London to prevent a direct assualt on G3) a tough balancing act for the UK.
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