@knp7765:
I kind of like the new style of AA guns. I like that they have a limit of only 3 shots or number of planes if that is less. I didn’t like the idea that a single AA gun could fire at all your planes no matter how many you sent over. Also, I disagree that it is pointless to stack up AA guns, especially because of this limit and the growing stack of bombers that one will use in this new strategy.
Say London only has 1 AA gun and Germany sends over 15 bombers. UK only gets to shoot at 3 of those bombers leaving 12 unworried. However, if UK stacks up 5 AA guns and Germany attacks with 15 bombers, all of those bombers will get a shot at them.
Interesting ideas with the Italian units in Russia. I have heard of strategies with the Italians can opening in Russia for the Germans, but never understood just how they could do that with so little available. I guess if you send everything that Italy has and just leave whatever troops are left in Africa to suffer the mercy of the British, then maybe you could do some good in Russia. One thing that probably leads to my confusion is when we play, usually whomever plays Russia tends to stack pretty heavy along the border. While Germany can usually defeat the Russian defenses when they decide to attack, Italy usually doesn’t have enough men and equipment available to even take on one of Russia’s border territories, much less drive toward Moscow.
You mentioned earlier about a stack of German bombers deployed in Asia to help the Japanese. Do you consider, as Germany, those bombers to be pretty much sacrificed? For example, say Japan has a few tanks and mechs in Yunnan. India is lightly defended but they have a stack of 10 infantry in Burma. Now suppose Germany has sent over 8 or 9 bombers. On Germany’s turn, those bombers could blast that stack of men in Burma and totally clear it. Then on Japan’s turn, their tanks and mechs simply blitz through Burma and take India.
That would be a great help to Japan obviously. However, in attacking those 10 infantry with 8 or 9 bombers, if the UK gets some lucky rolls, you could lose as many as 6 or 7 of those bombers. Would that be a good sacrifice for Germany?
They are not sacrificed as they can still hit Russia when needed, but they also provide a headache for the allies in the Pacific.
In my test game, I sent 3 bombers (I knew I could spare them as Moscow was falling Italy turn 4 or Germany turn 5) over to Asia, the reason: How many destroyers do the allies need to “block” Japan’s navy, if you have 3 “4’s” rolling against them?
4 Destroyers? or 5? I think 3 destroyers would not be a “good” block as they will hit 1 bomber round 1, the bombers will hit 2 of them, then second round they are “cleared”. If you use 4 and the destroyers only hit once, as long as the 3 bombers hit twice, it is 2 bombers vs 2 destroyers and mutual annihilation “clears” the sea zone for Japan. So 5 would be needed and even then if the bombers got “lucky” and hit 3 times round 1, you had better hit twice with those 5 destroyers….that’s a lot of destroyers to throw away “blocking”. What do they do if they must block 2 or 3 zones? I argue, They can’t!
This is helpful for 2 reasons:
- it can be used to attack India with Japan or the allied fleet after Germany clears the “blockers”
- If the allies leave 4-5 destroyers, you simply don’t attack with Germany, instead use Japanese air and navy to “1 shot” those 4-5 destroyers at a cost of 1 or 2 subs/dds. This forces trades against the allies favor and the bombers remain as “threat”…never used, but remain there to keep the allies “honest”
Note: for land battles, infantry and destroyers hit the same, so this holds true on land as well, to “block” japan’s blitzers, India or China need 4-5 infantry against 3 bombers to keep Japan at bay. (Since Russia goes between both axis players, they can still get by with 1 unit, but they seldom have navy in the pacific to block with so the devastation is still true in the sea).
