How to save Italian fleet

[cyanight]

Yes Jen I believe your ahead with Italy if the British fleet in the Med is destroyed.  If they run away you may have problems later as others have stated.  Even if Italy loses their fleet you can always save money from I2 and buy a CV, and 2TR or TR and DD on I3.  I think getting UK to send their planes from the capital is the key.  It makes Sealion so much easier.  You only need 4-5 TR for a good Sealion.  Buy 2 on TR on G1 and 3 more on G2.  On G2 Take Scotland with 6 inf.  UK is in no position to attack it if they only bought 6inf and a fighter which is the usual buy for UK suspecting Sealion. If they scrambled their fighters or moved them to Italy and have only 1-2 plus the French fighter then Sealion is a 100% go.  This threat of Sealion is what saves the Italian fleet but to ignore the Italian fleet completely is a failure IMO. You have to try to take out the DD and TR, that’s easy but if Germany is preparing a sealion you cant send the fighters from London.  Without those fighters Italy and Germany can scramble and save the BB and TR.

[ItIsILeClerc]

@cyanight:

Yes Jen I believe your ahead with Italy if the British fleet in the Med is destroyed.  If they run away you may have problems later as others have stated.  Even if Italy loses their fleet you can always save money from I2 and buy a CV, and 2TR or TR and DD on I3.  I think getting UK to send their planes from the capital is the key.  It makes Sealion so much easier.  You only need 4-5 TR for a good Sealion.  Buy 2 on TR on G1 and 3 more on G2.  On G2 Take Scotland with 6 inf.  UK is in no position to attack it if they only bought 6inf and a fighter which is the usual buy for UK suspecting Sealion. If they scrambled their fighters or moved them to Italy and have only 1-2 plus the French fighter then Sealion is a 100% go.   This threat of Sealion is what saves the Italian fleet but to ignore the Italian fleet completely is a failure IMO. You have to try to take out the DD and TR, that’s easy but if Germany is preparing a sealion you cant send the fighters from London.  Without those fighters Italy and Germany can scramble and save the BB and TR.

Cyan, according to my battle calculator 4-5 TRS ain’t enough :-(
It will give you a decent shot at London, but only 5 German units will survive the battle for London on average. I found out (the hard way) that the dice can easily make GE loose that battle with this prediction, and winning it with 5 units is also bad news because it makes London very easily liberated by USA. Plus, buying fleet protection GE1 and also loosing 2/3 of the Luftwaffe in London is a disaster for Germany’s defenses against Russia.

In order for Sea Lion to be a success, GE must ‘plan’ to win London with about 18units surviving. Usually this means attacking London by surprise, or the UK-player to be, hmmm, sleeping  :evil:

[cyanight]

ItIsILeClerc - I don’t think I ever had more than 5 units taking London.  If your taking London with 18 units who is playing UK?  Is it the AI. lol.  I know what you mean though and I tend to agree.  I have yet to play a game after taking London.  Players usually quit after that in my experience.  What it does do though is give Japan a good shot at taking India once and for all.  UK-Europe will not be around to liberate it which means all Japan has to do is sack Anzac or Hawaii and its the game.  But how is USA going to protect Hawaii and Anzac if they are liberating London?  Only recently with the step approach of doing a Sealion in stages with 2 CVs do you stand a chance of holding back USA or making them spend more to liberate London.  Russia is strong but I am gambling they cannot take Berlin before Japan takes Anzac or Hawaii.

[ItIsILeClerc]

Lol, I hope my previous opponents will not read your post as this is exactly what happened to them  :-D.
They 100% believed we went for Barbarossa and this is what the Uk did:

*1DD (from sz109) + CA (sz91) 1FTR (London) -> sz106, attacked 2GE subs there
*2FTR (London, Malta) + 1STR (London) 1TAC (CV) + CA + DD + CV -> Attacked Taranto
*1FTR (Gibraltar) -> attacked sz96.

UK placed a TRS in Canada, a FTR + MECH in South Africa and 2inf in London. 2 ‘Original’ FTR remained in London (including the French). All the rest really doesnt matter, GE took London with 19 survivors…. We even did not bomb anything in London. At all.

The number I mentioned is a calculation of what GE needs against what I know the US can come up with as a liberation force US3 without building anything else in Europe in later turns. The number of German units  surviving may vary a bit according to what the US is doing (or can do, given that Japan is also doing evil deeds). If the US cannot mount a large liberation force, 13 German survivors may be enough. If the US can, 15 to 18 German survivors are needed to keep the USA out.

If Japan goes for India, the USA has an easy job. It needs 2 turns to form a good liberation taskforce, but it needs elements of the pacific fleet for it. With Japan bullying India this is NP. The trick is, USA must spend (near) 100% of its income from turn 3/4 and on in the Pacific again, untill able to defend Hawai/Sydney. The hard part for the USA may be when Japan goes for Hawai and Sydney right away, somewhat ignoring India. But can the Japanese take both Hawai and Sydney and hold it, when USA starts 100% Japan from turn 3/4 and on? Japanese income should be a lot lower than usual in this approach (with Hawai taken, that of the USA is also a bit lower) but India + China are having a good time and cannot be ignored for long (Japan must hold its VCs there as well).
Russia cannot take Berlin indeed (unless GE spent too much on ships!), but it can grow so strong that it can hold off GE + IT a very long time before it gets in danger (giving the USA, say, 10+ turns, a lot of time). If GE lost a lot of Luftwaffe in London, Russia may even never need to retreat anymore… It can also at the same time liberate China if need be.

[cyanight]

Hopefully I will get an opponent that will want to play it out someday. :)

[ItIsILeClerc]

Yeah,
I have found out that against any strong, working axis strategy it is hard to find allied players that ‘want to play it out’.
A lot of allied players (that I know personally) want to defeat the axis in 7 to 9 turns max. If they can’t, they loose hope and give up.
I can rave about that for quite a while as I believe it takes at least 14 turns to get an idea who will win the game, longer if you want a clear, undisputable victor :roll:. I think most people here on the forum more or less agree with me on this one so I won’t  :wink:.

[Jennifer]

Depending on WHEN you take London with 5 German units, you can just dedicate the treasury and a couple more transport runs to make it defensible…obviously you have the transports.

[knp7765]

@Cmdr:

Depending on WHEN you take London with 5 German units, you can just dedicate the treasury and a couple more transport runs to make it defensible…obviously you have the transports.

And don’t forget the London IC. That’s an extra 3 units per round Germany can drop there just for defense.

@ItIsILeClerc:

Yeah,
I have found out that against any strong, working axis strategy it is hard to find allied players that ‘want to play it out’.
A lot of allied players (that I know personally) want to defeat the axis in 7 to 9 turns max. If they can’t, they loose hope and give up.
I can rave about that for quite a while as I believe it takes at least 14 turns to get an idea who will win the game, longer if you want a clear, undisputable victor :roll:. I think most people here on the forum more or less agree with me on this one so I won’t  :wink:.

We almost always play the game out, unless it is absurdly obvious who is going to win. I have mentioned this before – in most of our games, Axis victories tend to be shorter games, around 8-10 rounds. Allied victories tend to take longer, around 12-15 rounds.
If you have the same people playing the same countries, I could see why they might not want to see it to the end. That’s one reason we rotate countries. At the setup, we use the FMG combat dice and take one for each major nation. We then take turns rolling them all and whichever dice come up with the national symbol, the person rolling gets that country. If more than one comes up, then that person gets to choose. The last one will get whatever country is left.
So, one person could be Russia this game and get beaten up by Germany. Next game they might end up being Germany and get to do some of the beating.
If all 6 of us get together, then the players are: USA/France, USSR/China, UK/ANZAC, Germany, Japan and Italy. If there are less of us, then of course more countries need to be combined. Sometimes Germany and Italy will be paired up. One time we had one player playing USA/China/France/ANZAC. That player seemed to be constantly busy.

[ItIsILeClerc]

Agree with you, knp!
Though in our group there’s usually some people that want to try some sort of strategy and they want to play a certain group of major powers. The rest just fills in the empty spots.

Truth be told, in our group I see the axis always win when it is a team versus team game (so far).
Playing 1v1 against the strongest players in our group though, I’ d say the allies have a better bargain than the axis, no matter who plays what. From my personal experience.

Looks like even the smallest mismatch in strategies will have the allies loose <–So easily achieved in a team…

But allright… how to save the Italian fleet?
I’ll keep saying it: it cannot be saved if Italy wants to do something with it, other than cowering in Taranto’s air umbrella. At least not without bleeding too badly somewhere else. Axis make your choice  :wink:.

[ChocolatePancake]

Well, if you are lucky enough to keep the 97 fleet, even if you have to keep all your fleet hiding in 97 under air cover, at least then you aren’t getting convoy raided to death there. So that’s something useful they are doing at least :)

[knp7765]

I have found usually if UK doesn’t do a Taranto raid, the Axis usually have the Med cleared of Allied ships by round 2. Whatever ships survive clearing out Allied ships will usually get sunk by RAF units in the next couple of rounds or so which makes it hard for Italy to keep transports around to get land units over to Africa, but with no Allied ships in the Med, the Italian fleet kind of served it’s purpose. That’s an extra $5 to Italy for at least the next several rounds.
It USA has decided on a heavy Atlantic strategy, once they get over there Italy will probably lose it’s Med NO, but that will be the least of their worries by then.

[Noll]

@knp7765:

I have found usually if UK doesn’t do a Taranto raid, the Axis usually have the Med cleared of Allied ships by round 2. Whatever ships survive clearing out Allied ships will usually get sunk by RAF units in the next couple of rounds or so which makes it hard for Italy to keep transports around to get land units over to Africa, but with no Allied ships in the Med, the Italian fleet kind of served it’s purpose. That’s an extra $5 to Italy for at least the next several rounds.
It USA has decided on a heavy Atlantic strategy, once they get over there Italy will probably lose it’s Med NO, but that will be the least of their worries by then.

You should see my current game against wittman. I didn’t attack his Taranto fleet, Italians still have a big fleet but they’re locked at the docks, they lost all africa and germany even buffed them with a carrier and a dd.

[knp7765]

@Noll:

@knp7765:

I have found usually if UK doesn’t do a Taranto raid, the Axis usually have the Med cleared of Allied ships by round 2. Whatever ships survive clearing out Allied ships will usually get sunk by RAF units in the next couple of rounds or so which makes it hard for Italy to keep transports around to get land units over to Africa, but with no Allied ships in the Med, the Italian fleet kind of served it’s purpose. That’s an extra $5 to Italy for at least the next several rounds.
It USA has decided on a heavy Atlantic strategy, once they get over there Italy will probably lose it’s Med NO, but that will be the least of their worries by then.

You should see my current game against wittman. I didn’t attack his Taranto fleet, Italians still have a big fleet but they’re locked at the docks, they lost all africa and germany even buffed them with a carrier and a dd.

Big RAF in the Med?

[Noll]

I currently have only 3 UK fighters in the med (in Gibraltar, with airbase), defending a fleet made by the BB, CR and DD from the pacific (we are at round7 or so), plus 1 more UK BB, 1 russian SS and a single american carrier with 2 american fighters.

The fleet is so “small” (it’s small for a turn7 fleet) cause I have another fleet keeping nowray and denmark in allied control in the north.

The point is: turn#1 I didn’t attack Taranto. I killed malta and moved my UK fleet in 92.
He decided to sink that fleet with the german airforce, resulting in an almost total annihilation of the german air. (I had Algeria very well protected, so he resorted to buy a carrier in Southern France to land 2 more air to support that attack. He had 2 or 3 air in SITA + 2 fighters from Germany + 2 bombers on it). This did let me build small fleet cause there’s no more air danger in europe. So I bought few American navy in the atlantic in order to “unlock” UK’s coastal landings pretty early.
Italian were able to conserve and build more fleet, I even had to let them get Egypt for 1 turn, but I was in position to take it back and by that time, my new allied fleet was sitting in gibraltar.

[Witt]

@Noll:

@knp7765:

I have found usually if UK doesn’t do a Taranto raid, the Axis usually have the Med cleared of Allied ships by round 2. Whatever ships survive clearing out Allied ships will usually get sunk by RAF units in the next couple of rounds or so which makes it hard for Italy to keep transports around to get land units over to Africa, but with no Allied ships in the Med, the Italian fleet kind of served it’s purpose. That’s an extra $5 to Italy for at least the next several rounds.
It USA has decided on a heavy Atlantic strategy, once they get over there Italy will probably lose it’s Med NO, but that will be the least of their worries by then.

You should see my current game against wittman. I didn’t attack his Taranto fleet, Italians still have a big fleet but they’re locked at the docks, they lost all africa and germany even buffed them with a carrier and a dd.

B#####d!
Am still reeling from the shock of it my friend.
And annoyed I cannot break the impasse. But I do not give up…

[ItIsILeClerc]

@Noll:

I currently have only 3 UK fighters in the med (in Gibraltar, with airbase), defending a fleet made by the BB, CR and DD from the pacific (we are at round7 or so), plus 1 more UK BB, 1 russian SS and a single american carrier with 2 american fighters.

The fleet is so “small” (it’s small for a turn7 fleet) cause I have another fleet keeping nowray and denmark in allied control in the north.

The point is: turn#1 I didn’t attack Taranto. I killed malta and moved my UK fleet in 92.
He decided to sink that fleet with the german airforce, resulting in an almost total annihilation of the german air. (I had Algeria very well protected, so he resorted to buy a carrier in Southern France to land 2 more air to support that attack. He had 2 or 3 air in SITA + 2 fighters from Germany + 2 bombers on it). This did let me build small fleet cause there’s no more air danger in europe. So I bought few American navy in the atlantic in order to “unlock” UK’s coastal landings pretty early.
Italian were able to conserve and build more fleet, I even had to let them get Egypt for 1 turn, but I was in position to take it back and by that time, my new allied fleet was sitting in gibraltar.

Goodness gracious!
With the risk of going off-topic, but does this mean the Russians in your game are laughing at the Germans?? I mean, the luftwaffe almost totally annihilated… I would expect Russia to be safe (one of the reasons I tend to only curse the RN in the med with Germany but forego attacking it, unless I can expect just 1 or 2 air losses  :wink:)…

[Noll]

@ItIsILeClerc:

@Noll:

I currently have only 3 UK fighters in the med (in Gibraltar, with airbase), defending a fleet made by the BB, CR and DD from the pacific (we are at round7 or so), plus 1 more UK BB, 1 russian SS and a single american carrier with 2 american fighters.

The fleet is so “small” (it’s small for a turn7 fleet) cause I have another fleet keeping nowray and denmark in allied control in the north.

The point is: turn#1 I didn’t attack Taranto. I killed malta and moved my UK fleet in 92.
He decided to sink that fleet with the german airforce, resulting in an almost total annihilation of the german air. (I had Algeria very well protected, so he resorted to buy a carrier in Southern France to land 2 more air to support that attack. He had 2 or 3 air in SITA + 2 fighters from Germany + 2 bombers on it). This did let me build small fleet cause there’s no more air danger in europe. So I bought few American navy in the atlantic in order to “unlock” UK’s coastal landings pretty early.
Italian were able to conserve and build more fleet, I even had to let them get Egypt for 1 turn, but I was in position to take it back and by that time, my new allied fleet was sitting in gibraltar.

Goodness gracious!
With the risk of going off-topic, but does this mean the Russians in your game are laughing at the Germans?? I mean, the luftwaffe almost totally annihilated… I would expect Russia to be safe (one of the reasons I tend to only curse the RN in the med with Germany but forego attacking it, unless I can expect just 1 or 2 air losses  :wink:)…

Yeah Russia is in an excellent shape.

[Witt]

Helped by a ridiculous rule which gives it 9-15 in NOs for owning worthless, or 1IPC,
Italian African possessions.
Countries inhabited by peoples who would not abandon Islam for Communism.

Pertinently, it was coupled with a J2, which enabled the US to move on Africa/Europe earlier than usual. This will always disadvantage the Euro Axis.

[WILD BILL]

@wittmann:

Helped by a ridiculous rule which gives it 9-15 in NOs for owning worthless, or 1IPC,
Italian African possessions.
Countries inhabited by peoples who would not abandon Islam for Communism.

Pertinently, it was coupled with a J2, which enabled the US to move on Africa/Europe earlier than usual. This will always disadvantage the Euro Axis.

So witt it sounds like the allies have cracked the code, or you’re a spy for the them (keep giving the axis bad advice) lol

[Witt]

It must be that French woman I have been sleeping with.
Will have to have her shot.
Pity; the wife did not know about her. @WILD:

@wittmann:

Helped by a ridiculous rule which gives it 9-15 in NOs for owning worthless, or 1IPC,
Italian African possessions.
Countries inhabited by peoples who would not abandon Islam for Communism.

Pertinently, it was coupled with a J2, which enabled the US to move on Africa/Europe earlier than usual. This will always disadvantage the Euro Axis.

So witt it sounds like the allies have cracked the code, or you’re a spy for the them (keep giving the axis bad advice) lol