Help Needed For Allied Strategy - Updated thoughts on Bid?

[OutlawUnForgiven]

Well, the general strategy for how he would be defeated is to force such a stalemate in W. Russia that he never breaks it and begins breaking off his buildup due to pressure in the West. Or is forced to prematurely attack and is smashed, at which point he would surrender. I’ve never considered there being a mass of Russian forces pouring into Europe…maybe a few stragglers, couple tanks fanning out, in which case I can buy those late and mobilize if needed, supported by whatever infantry may have survived the big battle.

More points:

• The armor expenses also negatively impact my infantry needs in the East. I’m busy trading Ukraine, feeding up 4 infantry from Caucasus per round and probably bleeding small territories Far East. So, I’d be purchasing 1 tank + maybe 5-6 infantry a round, diminishing. The extra infantry or two that doesn’t go to Caucasus must go to W. Russia to fortify the stack. There’s nothing going East to delay or support…and I’m losing 1-3 infantry per round just in territory swapping. I’m game to try it, but, I’m extremely skeptical. Building W. Russia by 1-2 infantry per turn (and a tank) against his typical 8 infantry / 3 tank buys (give or take) doesn’t seem viable.
• Agreed in that you don’t have forward advantage without tanks. But I don’t need it. My Russian objectives are to hold W. Russia, hold Caucasus, and trade Ukraine/Archangel as needed. If I see an opportunity to steal Karelia I will take it. If that holds, Germany will crumble, and even a slow infantry push offensive with couple of starting tanks would be sufficient to overrun.
• I’ll definitely post the full KJF experience later - let’s just say I WON, but, IMO I diced him late game. Still, it carried me deep and I’m opening up to it again. He was indeed thrown off a bit.
• Will continue to contemplate avoiding SZ37, can’t hurt to try
• Used Destroyers for blocking / protecting my island-hopping to the South, whenever there was a chance my Naval stack would in theory be crushed by his full attack
• Also built up massive Pacific Fleet with USA, which he attempted to match, and did indeed keep him up by SZ 61 for the entire game
• Your D-Day experience mirrors mine WHEN you have 1 Navy (USA) forced to protect both Transport fleets. This telegraphs your attacks and generally keeps everyone out of SZ5. Try my approach - salvage the UK navy near India AND near Australia, link up down by S. America, and use that Navy to protect British Transports. Suddenly you’re dropping 8+ land forces in SZ5 each round, wherever you want, and aren’t relying on Russia to create that pressure. This also gives you the Norway/Finland IPCS which he can never really reclaim, and you can take/hold Karelia for Russia unless he pulls his Belorussia stack back. He certainly can’t send his German forces over to Karelia b/c he’s busy looking at US Transport landings on Western Europe. And that’s precisely the point at which his front begins to crumble and you might get some odds to move Russia forward.
• It seems the fundamental difference we have is, I’d rather develop a Strat that makes UK harass Karelia and other Northern Europe territory, and let Russia hold the wall…I am not confident I can rely on Russia offensively.
• We do play TripleA, and I’d be happy to tinker around with you. It might be fun to have you go up against my friend, and just spectate. Let me know and I’ll see what I can set up…I feel like if you played him it would be interesting. I usually use Aliases on there but I’ll start using Outlaw_Unforgiven. If you have a day/time in mind post or message me, his schedule is pretty free so if nothing else I can get you two going
• His secondary stack is usually going through Poland. I do successfully keep Ukraine dead-zoned MOST games. sometimes he varies it up a little and splits his forces to decisively hold Ukraine. Agreed that loss of West Russia, unless it’s a strategic withdrawal, is disastrous for me. Because he won’t take it unless he crushes it and has superior remaining forces, and that immediately makes him a serious threat for Russia very next round.
• Mentioned this elsewhere but been running a 9 bid, 6 infantry for Russia/3 for India. He has offered and acknowledged need for a higher bid and has suggested 12 but I’m stubborn and hate taking a bid so I have tried to hold at 9 due to ego.
• I’ve thought briefly about the triple attack into Belo but feel that I’d have to surrender if that went horribly bad. And that to me seems cheap. You’re right, it’s razor thin, and if it fails, you’re screwed.
• To be honest, on Belo, I’d rather he keep stacking there. If he swings his entire stack to Ukraine for his stack, he’ll take Caucasus at will since I can’t defend both Caucasus/W Russia, then he can march from there straight into Russia or West Russia depending on how I retreat. I don’t know why he doesn’t stack Ukraine more often, but I don’t want to inadvertently encourage him figuring that out :)
• SZ 16 is open, which does present annoying problems when his Med fleet buildup gets to 2 Transports.
• He’ll buy a single fighter mid-game so yeah, he’s usually at 7 fighters at some point. But not Round 1. You’re suggesting a US fodder fleet - can you elaborate on that? Are you saying buy 2-3 destroyers and send them without transports on a suicide run, hoping to perhaps draw out his Med fleet and/or take out 1-2 fighters if you get lucky? Remember he’ll have subs around - 2-3 usually - pulled back to Med. So, he has plenty of his own fodder…my fear is I lose destroyers, he loses subs that he doesn’t need, and I don’t take out any fighters at all. My calculations tell me I can START a buildup with USA Round 1 Atlantic, but it isn’t going anywhere until it can be properly defended by the Pacific fleet and another 1-2 rounds of buildup (I like a 2nd Carrier a lot). We’re back to the Round 4 problem.
• Will read the link you provided, thanks

[Black_Elk]

Aha so sz 16 is open eh? Well that is definitely going to change things. Most people I know are playing with sea zone 16 closed off to all but aircraft, and they are still bidding out Allies, sometimes as high 13 ipcs pre-placement. (AA50 settled around that range, 13, so I think people got used to it, even if it seems a bit high for my tastes.) But that is when the bosphorus is closed, when its open the Russians are under a lot more pressure in the opening rounds. A lot more. With sz 16 open you really can’t afford to buy tanks at all, since you need the inf to cover Caucasus by sea as well as land (with a bombardment to boot.) Its starting to make sense to me now, why you haven’t been able to take a more forward approach with the Russians.

Honestly with 16 open, I’m not sure if the Russian position is viable, not without a bid and a good deal of luck. Sz 16 open gives Germany a super easy shuck-shuck to the East, totally negating the Southern Europe and Bulgaria speed bumps. It gives G a round 1 option on Caucasus (even when Ukraine is strafed hard by the Russians). And in general, open 16 just works to further the early Axis advantage. I’m surprised that your opponent hasn’t been driving harder on Ukraine to exploit 16, he must indeed be very conservative and risk averse.

As for the Altantic destroyer creep, the way to set it up is out of sz 1. Really sz 1 is the only option, since it is the only zone in range of sz 7 that isn’t covered by German bombers in France.  Rather than massing destroyers here early, its better to train them out 1 at a time at first. You don’t want transports with the first dds. These aren’t fodder destroyers, but uboat hunters. The goal is to push the german subs back to sz 3 or 8, and then to sz 5 or 6 or into the med. Always keeping at least one dd, 3 moves out from any sub to keep them covered on counter attack if the subs try to go forward. If you draw a sub attack into sz 1, this is all to the good, because you will have the second or third dd waiting to counter it with overwhelming air support. I find sz 2 oddly useful for the dd creep, since it’s out of range of France based fighters, but can still reach into sz 6, 8 and 13 on coverage. Once you have the subs pushed back then you can start moving the main American surface fleet with transports, and bring any surviving dd to merge with it as fodder, or block in surrounding sea zones. Even then though, you’re probably still looking at round 4. But again with 16 open, sz 14 becomes a much more valuable sz for G, (since they can transit back to Russia, or Egypt) which makes it harder to separate the med from the Atlantic, and Morocco/Gibraltar from the the rest of Africa.

I will be around tonight and tomorrow if you are in the lobby. My handle is triplelk, TripleElk

Oh cool, let me know if you like the boost rule. I just updated that thread for you in the house rules section.

[innohub]

The sea zone 16, I feel, gives some advantage to Germany at the beginning but if it could also benefit Allies in mid-game or towards end-game. There was 1 game I played before that closing sea zone really hurts me on hunting Germany back (at that time Germany conquered Caucasus).

When it is open, I would consider taking out the Mediterranean transport as top priority to lesson the load of Caucasus.

Are you guys planning to start some 42 2E game via PBEM?.. :)…

[Black_Elk]

Yeah it’s debatable which side sz16 favors in the endgame. Even by round 3 the Allies will have enough air in range to cover the sz from Germany ships, but if Japan gets involved the Axis can lock down the Italy shuck pretty easily.

To my mind the early Axis advantage is pretty clear with 16 open, but I can see ways the Allies could try to reverse that. Basically it just makes the Med and control of Suez that much more important to either side.

These days I game live more than PBEM, though I used to PBEM quite a bit. Tonight is a bit busy, but I’ll shoot you a message when I get off work

[Black_Elk]

OK you mentioned Allies at 9, so here are a couple bids I like at 9 ipcs

All Russia:
2 artillery, in Karelia and Caucasus, save 1 ipc.

For 25 ipcs Buy
Defensive
5 inf and 1 artillery and 1 tank

Offensive
Buy 3 inf 1 art and 2 tanks

Attack Ukraine heavy with 3 inf 3 tanks 2 art and 2 fighters
to strafe or take depending on the opening roll

Attack W. Russia with 9 inf 3 art 1 tank

Non com: AA guns forward to W Russia, or W. Russia and Ukraine depending on the results of the attack (strafe/or take, how many inf remaining etc.) Option move 1 Kazakh inf to szech for fighter defense.  Option 5 stack to Bury. Or full western focus depending on the results of the attack.

Place: drop 3 inf 1 art in Caucasus, with tank(s) in Moscow. Additional infantry (if bought) option either Moscow or Karelia, depending on whether you want to draw a counter attack possibility or just let the germans walk in to escape bombardment.

I think that should set up a decent Russian opening. Another approach is 2 tanks to W. Russia, 2 to Ukraine, depending if you want to go lighter on Ukraine in case of the round 1 sweep.

All UK:
1 inf in Egypt, and 1 sub in sz 35

buys 3 tanks in India 1 fighter in UK. Option 1 inf in UK or save 3 ipcs
or
buys 3 tanks in India 1 bomber in UK saves 1 ipc

The extra infantry unit should be enough fodder to keep your Egypt fighter alive into the second round. The sub can join an attack “all in” on sz 37, or if you forego 37 it can peel off with a fighter to kill the Japanese transport in sz 61 landing either in Bury or Szech.

To set up full KJF, or Japan Stall, or tank support to Russia post India withdrawal

Split bid at 9:
6 to Russia, 3 to UK for

1 tank Russia, 1 inf in Egypt
The tank can be used to reinforce the attack on W. Russia, or brought in for the hit on Ukraine. I think it might be advantageous to have 1 tank over 2 infantry here, just to secure the counter attack options. But you could also try 2 inf for fodder in these attacks instead of 1 tank for the hammer.

The infantry for Egypt is, again, to keep the fighter alive into the second round. I think this fighter has the best chance of swinging the game, for early attack options or long term defense.

USA destroyer bid:
8 to USA, save 1 ipc for Russia to convert an inf to artillery in the first round buy.
The only bid that stands to make much difference for the Americans is the second destroyer in sz 11. Or possibly in sz 19 (by the cruiser off panama) if you prefer to kill subs on the counter attack, or push Germany to consider sz 10 instead of 11, for fear of this counter attack

Just some thoughts, nothing is full proof. I think the first round is a bit dicier for everyone on this board. There is probably no full proof conservative winning strategy for the Allies even with a bid at 9. Something has to give somewhere, but these are some options on a bid. Hopefully it helps

Perhaps some others here have opening bids they like?

[MarineIguana]

As a very experienced revised player, playing 1942 second edition is a refreshing change. The India factory, change to make Pearl Harbor attack unfavorable, and favorable germany attack of US east coast on round 1 combine to make the Pacific more attractive. After playing 30+ games, some at a high level, I believe a bid of 8-12 to the allies is appropriate.

Compared to revised, Germany is much stronger because UK and US can’t exert much less pressure early. The Karelia factory also raises the likely prospect that Germany will be able to stack Karelia and solidify the position with unit production from that factory.

7-8 bid: inf in cauc, art in karelia. 4 inf attacking into ukraine means you have a very good chance of taking ukr with only 2 tanks. art into Wrussia allows you to take the battle in 2 rounds, reducing losses.

9 bid: inf in cauc, sub in sz15. Inf for the reason described above. The sub gives a huge headache for germany’s naval fleet. Thinking about the possible scenarios with optimal play on both sides, I don’t believe there’s any way to keep Germany’s Med fleet alive past round 3 without a carrier AND destroyer buy. Losing the Med fleet is a huge blow to the Axis achieving income parity.

10+ bid: you can start considering a ukr, belo, wrus triple attack.
e.g. with 2 art and 1 inf bid.  4 inf, 1 art, 2 tanks, 2 fig Ukr ; 3 inf, 2 art, 6 inf, 2 art, 2 tank to Wrus. These are all favorable battles and will force germany to buy all infantry for many rounds.

–-
I don’t think an egypt inf bid is necessary. A germany R1 attack to egypt practically guarantees losing the battleship and transport to a 2 fighter, 1 bomber attack.

The SZ37 bid, even with a sub isn’t worth it in my opinion unless US plans to commit everything to the Pacific. By attacking, UK loses all opportunity to swing around and form an atlantic fleet in rounds 5+. Japan loses ~1/3rd of the naval and air fleet but the remaining fleet remains unopposed without US building a fleet. My point is that attacking SZ37 weakens UK more than weakens Japan.

[Black_Elk]

Do you usually play with sz 16 open?

If open I think there is a lot more pressure on both sides to handle the med early. This would prompt me to consider a med sub bid as UK, either in sz 14 or 17, or as G to consider the carrier. Sz 16 gives me headaches hehe :)

Open or closed seems to change the dynamic quite a lot

[Zombie69]

I don’t see how that’s the case. The way I see it, with all the air power at Germany’s disposal, the UK can’t get anywhere near the Med fleet with anything other than subs (which can be kept away with a single destroyer) or planes (which will require a big investment and many turns to set up). I can see the one sub on the bid making quite a difference early on, but I wouldn’t consider the Med fleet threatened, just paralyzed early on (which is already a big plus for the UK, mind you).

[Black_Elk]

Well the bomber in UK can reach any space in the med during the first round. If G buys nothing, or fails to destroy both the cruiser in 14, or the destroyer in 17, then its fairly easy for Allies to set up on the med. If UK buys a second bomber they can pretty much clear the med battleship just with those alone, unless G drops more ships in the water. Another sub from the outset could be decisive. If nothing else, just to peel off lone destroyers, or prevent the building of an unescorted med carrier. If Britain fails to clear it, but forces G into a naval race, then USA can pick up the slack I would think.

[Zombie69]

I’m sorry, I thought the German reply to a sub bid would be to stay near Italy, but I looked again at the map and that would spell certain doom, even if the two UK boats get sunk by planes. So yeah, that sub is a real pain. Now I see only 3 ways to reply to it:
1. Lose the med fleet, lose Africa and concentrate on Russia.
2. Buy a destroyer and a carrier.
3. Attack Gibraltar and buy a destroyer to block the sub and destroyer.

None of them is very appealing, so yeah, the sub bid is pretty annoying.

[MarineIguana]

Zombie, forcing Germany into those 3 options are essentially my assessment of the impact with a UK sub bid. The UK sub either destroys or diverts significantly more than its 6IPC cost.

[Black_Elk]

Do you think 14 or 17 is better for the sub?

In either location there is the potential to draw down 22 ipcs from Germany on purchase to try and save their med transport, which fees up russia for a cost of only 6. And this is before running any attacks with UK. Just forcing G to spend that much on a med navy might be counted a victory, depending on your goal. If they camp on 15 there is a decent chance of peeling off a fighter or bomber as well on defense, if G attacks the brit ships with air. It might even draw subs off sz10/11, depending on how cautious G wants to be.

The alternative drawing down 8 ipcs for a German destroyer block. The destroyer could be sunk relatively simply. And forces G into 14, or else at risk in 16 or 17 from air.

If abandoning Africa and the med altogether, the sub puts 27 ipcs worth of German  units at risk immediately, again for only a cost of 6.

This seems like a pretty effective use of the bid. Unlike a sz37 attack, a med sub doesn’t even have to run an attack before it starts influencing the situation on G1, because of the turn order.

[Zombie69]

I looked at it again and Germany can actually defend everything with just a carrier. Here’s how. Attack SZ17 with 2 fighters (landed on the carrier), attack SZ 14 with 1 fighter and 1 bomber, use your subs as you normally would, use the other 2 fighters to attack SZ 7 as usual. Transport 2 ground units to Libya. This leaves you with 1 battleship, 1 carrier, 2 fighters and 1 transport defending against 1 sub, 2 fighters and 1 bomber. You’ll win that battle 86% of the time. You’ll probably lose one fighter in one of the two battles to clear out the Med but everything else stays intact, while spending only 14 IPCs. I’m still not sure that’s the best option for Germany and it’s still not great, but it’s out there at least.

Consider that if there’s no sub bid, Germany still has tough choices for its Med fleet:
1. Attack Egypt at low odds, if no bid placed on it and no Russian fighter landed there, but at low odds and if it fails, the fleet gets destroyed.
2. Take Gibraltar, attack the destroyer with the bomber (with a 3 in 7 chance to lose the bomber).
3. Take Gibraltar, leave the destroyer alone, risk losing your med fleet to a bomber and a destroyer.
4. Take Gibraltar and buy a destroyer to block the opposing destroyer, lose your new destroyer to a destroyer, a bomber and a fighter (or two if Indian carrier coming to the Med).
5. Buy a carrier and do as described above.

None of these options is very appealing. Better for Germany than with the sub present, but not so much better that the sub bid seems warranted over say, 2 infantry units.

[Black_Elk]

This is the way I was handling 17, fighter attack vs the destroyer and land on the newly purchased deck to camp on 15 and push Libya. The problem I’ve run into is losing a fighter on cruiser/destroyer defense. It always seems to happen to me :) Sometimes 2 fighters die, which drops G to just 3 fighters, or 4 and no bomber (if Ukraine was taken). And then the Med fleet in later rounds becomes harder to defend against a sweep by British or American air, it always seems to get stuck with nowhere to go, esp. if sz 16 is closed. And its harder to threaten a counter against sz 7 builds when one of your fighters is dead, and the rest are tied down in the med. Pretty tough to back down after you invest in ships initially, but major headaches in the med no matter what you do.

I feel like any time I buy a carrier without dd cover, I am just asking for trouble, but if you drop another 8 ipcs, for only 2 units to transport it starts to seem like a pointless enterprise. Probably just call it a wash, send the battleship on some kind of suicide mission, and stack German infantry, 11 and 2 art, just leave the canal up to Japan? hehe

Also, if G builds like this, on the water, what is you favored response as Allies? I’m not sure after the carrier build from G, where I’d rather have had my sub, if a sub bid was the play.

[Epicurus_13]

@OutlawUnForgiven:

[…]

• All of this cemented my thinking around 3 Key Points:

(1) Any KGF strategy must involve Allied landings in multiple locations. In prior games when I consolidated USA and UK navies, he simply put 20+ infantry stacks on either Western Europe or Northwestern Europe, supported with 7 fighters or so, with tanks in reserve, and dared me to land on one of the two obvious choices, knowing he’d throw me back into the ocean immediately. So, to do it right, requires separate Navies, both able to fully defend themselves, and further, there is no hope of affording a reasonable UK Navy that can do so anytime within the first 4-5 rounds. To save up for such a Navy requires essentially a wholesale abandonment of India and virtually zero spending on anything for multiple rounds, which is not viable.

(2) Bombing Germany with 5+ bombers total a round, provided the dice hold up, takes a big toll. The economic value becomes obvious - 6 bombers against a die roll of 1 mean you’ll statistically lose 1 bomber per round. But the remaining 5 should hit for an average of 3 IPC each, which is 15 IPC damage. At a loss of 12 IPC to the Allies (the cost of the bomber). That’s +3 IPC impact to Allies, -3 to the Axis. Hmmm……

(3) Failure to apply any meaningful economic pressure to Germany prior to Round 4 or 5 will result almost certainly in Russia being overrun. There are only three ways to apply economic pressure - take German territory in big chunks (impossible for first 4+ rounds), win decisive battles that cost Germany more than the allies (impossible against a player like him that will never engage a battle that he does not have a large advantage in, and who cannot be attacked on your terms for quite some time), or deprive her of IPC’s through heavy bombing.

I think points 2 and 3 are very interesting as a possible route to victory for the allies. I think that applying the US’ economic power as quickly and efficiently as possible is essential, so US bombers conducting SBRs on Germany seems like a good way to essentially turn US income into a tax on German income - a net win for the wealthy allied powers.

If on my turn as US I could spend IPCs to just directly destroy an equal amount of IPCs for Germany, I think I would do so. On average die rolls, this is basically what sending bombers does (in fact, excepting for 1 turn travel time, bombers are better than 1-to-1 efficiency). I’m going to pursue a bomber-based purchase plan for the US for my first allied game for sure.

[theROCmonster]

I like the bomber idea with US. Here is a thought. Keep 6 US bombers in UK at all time bombing Germany. You will loose 1 a turn, so build one a turn after round 3.

Round 1 buy is 3 bombers=36.  save 6
Round 2 you will have 46-48, so buy 2 bombers 3 transports=45. Save 1-3.
Round 3 you will have 39-41, so buy 2 bombers 1 transport and all the rest infantry.
Rounds 4 on you build 1 bomber, ground, and transports.

In low luck mathematically you will do 17-18 damage a turn with 6 bombers attacking industrial. You will loose 1 a turn, so that means you loose 12 for his 17-18. You build a transport fleet now just like you would normally. You use your pacific fleet as your defense, which is why you don’t need transports till round 2, since your pacific fleet cant stage off Morocco till round 3.

What do you think?

[Cow]

Bomber strategy is viable.

If you do a bid. I like 1 inf on egypt and an arty on caucasus.
~

UK 1 sink the 1 japan transport it will make things easier for you.

[Cow]

Everything in the pacific as usa, just bring it over to europe. There is little reason to go pacific sadly.

R1 I just hit Ukraine and west Russia with everything I have. Everything else is risky.
~
Kill the Japan transport with either cruiser carrier or cruiser fighter. Run the carrier home, takes awhile but it will get there.

Same with australia fleet. Also just leave the inf on it , dont pack anything up.

Everyone gangs up on Germany. Typical game.

[Oddbjoern]

1 Bomber destroys (1+2+3+4+5+6)/6 = 3.5 IPC
IPC loss with Bomber = 12/6 = 2 IPC

SO with 6 Bombers you destroy 21 IPC (not 17-18) and lose 12 IPC.

[Zombie69]

Wrong. The bomber on average gets only 5 shots in before getting destroyed (on the 6th pass, it gets shot down before it can release its bombs), so on average it will do 5 * 3.5 = 17.5 damage before going down.