You need the carrier to do the Iraq attack or else land your planes in Transjordan or Syria. You could still do z97 but those planes would be left very exposed. I really don’t like the Taranto attack because everytime I’ve done it I lost London but that’s probably just me
The SZ97 attack seems like a must, otherwise the combined Italian fleets will have no trouble sinking whatever you left in SZ98. If you hide in the Red Sea instead, then you’ve ceded them the Control of the Med NO for free and they will have no problems shucking more men into the Middle East than you, especially if you have to split your purchases with further reinforcement to London. Even if you are leaving planes behind to cover London it is still probably worth the 97 attack since Italy is more likely to scramble, which will allow you to kill their Fighters.
Ceding a 5 IPC bonus on I1 to save your fleet is not necessarily a bad idea. It’s better than getting your ships sunk in the first round.
You prevent the Italians from activating it.
Kill the pro-Axis infantry while there are only 3 of them.
Opens up flight possibilities over the middle east quicker
That’s true. If an Italian takeover is imminent and Russia isn’t able to attack neutrals yet, it makes sense to kill those troops.
I still don’t see the benefit of attacking it on UK1 (unless your opponent likes to land in Syria on I1?).
Yeah, I know.
I normally drill Ethiopia, often with both loaded transports and both cruisers.
I’m not sold on ALWAYS attacking an Italian fleet right away, though pasting Z95 fleets netted me 2 easy wins (but I got really luck dice both times)
I just attacked Iraq on UK1 for the first time vs. Allweneed. In hindsight it was brilliant, because the Iraqis never killed a single man - it was like Desert Storm, I guess. :evil:
I’m not sure what circumstances led me to do that - mainly a J1 attack, I think. Then you have 2 transports 2 spaces from reinforcing India on UK2 if necessary. You can’t say that about most other UK deployments.
