Countering Operation Sea Lion

[Jennifer]

Okay, let me demonstrate, Switch.

Round 1:  Russia kills everything in W. Russia and Ukraine.  That’s a pretty safe assumption given the odds.

Round 1:  Germany has 22 Infantry left on the board, scattered around the board.  Effectively, Germany has 7 infantry in Combat range this round.

Round 1:  Germany spends 40 IPC for 8 Tech Dice Rolls to get LRA.  Let’s assume you succeed, since odds are in your favor at this point.

Round 1:  You attack England with Infantry, Armor, 5 Fighters, Bomber and win with Armor, Fighter Bomber.  You now only have 21 Infantry scattered all over the board.

Let us also assume both the English tranport and the German submarine survived in SZ 1. And, due to severe lack of resource, you did NOT take Egypt, but rather took Trans-Jordan losing 1 infantry and taking the land.  You also took Karelia, which was abandoned and attacked Ukraine with 3 infantry and an armor to kill the two armor that took it from Russia.

This leaves Germany with 133 IPC worth of equipment and a collection of 49 IPC on Round 1 (+30 from England) total 79 IPC.

On Round 1 England does NOT liberate England, just for argument’s sake, but rather reinforces Egypt, sinks the Japanese submarine and transport and consolidates the rest of their fleet in SZ 1 killing the submarine there. As well as sinking the German fleet in SZ 15 with a battleship and 2 fighters.

Japan does it’s thing as normal.  America pulls up to reinforce.

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It is now Round 2.  Germany has a sum total of 8 infantry in combat position and 6 tanks.

Russia 2:

Russia spits out some tanks and a load of infantry.

They take out Karelia, Belorussia and Ukraine with ease and pull up their reserves to deal Germany the death blow.

Germany buys 15 tanks, 1 Artillery (since you are 1 IPC short of your declared build on Germany 2 of 16 tanks.  Your choice, not mine.)

Germany retakes Karelia, Belorussia, Ukraine.  But has to expose 2 armor and an artillery to do it.

What you do have in aircraft you use to kill the other Battleship.

I’m assuming you do NOT reinforce England, but rather desert it since you will want your armies in Mainland Europe.

England joins with the American fleet in SZ 12 and America lands a sizeable force in Algeria

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Round 3:

Russia has enough forces to make a stand and keep Germany out.  Germany is earning 47 IPC a round, but it’s only a matter of time before they are wiped off the map.  After all, Germany only has 7 infnatry on the board at this point.  Sure, they have 20 tanks, but Russia’s got 30 infantry and tanks and more fighters. (I’m assuming the British Battleship sinks a fighter and the German bomber retreats.)  Very far from the 10 infantry + 20 armor you are talking about. (Since all those infantry and armor are not present to attack Russia.  Some of them are not even on the same continent.)

That, my dear, is how I say you have no infantry left.  You either have no infantry, or you leave Russia open to take Norway and keep their prizes in Europe tax free.  Both are BAD options for Germany.

And, to top it off, England’s got a nice beach head in Africa and some forces to liberate England when they feel ready too.  Meanwhile, you have to protect it or give it to England free.

Any way you slice this, it royally sucks for Germany after a few rounds.  Meanwhile, Japan’s got it’s hands full doing what it normally does to get ready.

[Guest]

First off, if 2 USSR FIGs went to London, I am probably NOT going to attempt Sea Lion, nor will I spend a lot of cash on Tech.

So, we need to first clarify where the USSR FIGs are.  If the do not go to London, then Sea Lion succeeds, if they do, then I am not doing Sea Lion and I have my Air Force available to counter-attack Russia’s advances.

So which way do you want to analyze this?  With the USSR FIGs in London or not?

If the USSR FIGs are NOT in London, then Sea Lion goes forward, most likely with at least the BOM left (71% overall for Sea Lion to succeed).

If the USSR FIGs go to London…  Then Germany SKIPS tech AND SeaLion.

You need to clarify where those FIGs are before we can discuss the odds on a probable sequence of events.

[Nukchebi0]

And of course, if the Russian fighters are in London, it gives your forces on the Eastern Front better odds in getting attacked.

That is, they won’t be as destructive against you.

[Guest]

That is the point.

Either Sea Lion goes forward and Russia advances only to be met by a MASSIVE German build, or the Russian FIGs are useless for 2 turns and Germany just advances on Moscow.

Pick one, both are happy things for me as Germany…

[hyogoetophile]

@ncscswitch:

The difference Hyog is that in an unBaltic strat, Germany does not have an extra $38 to spend on G2, and UK is not only delayed, but is incapable of building at all.

In this version, it is not “10 INF and whatever ARM it can muster”  It would be more like 10 INF and 20+ ARM.  Big difference between 20+ ARM compared to cobbling together the remnants of Germany’s starting ARM (6-8 ARM).

Sea Lion:
G1 - 40 IPCs spent on LRA, everything goes well
G2 - 76-80 IPCs to buy 15-16 arm

UnBaltic:
G1 - 15-24 IPCs spent on air/sea, 16-25 IPCs spent for 3-5arm
G2 - 40 IPCs spent for 8arm

Sea Lion: ~10inf ~22arm by G3
UnBaltic: ~10inf ~19arm by G3

This is even assuming a G1 air/sea build. Otherwise it’s like exactly the same amount of money to spend on arm. The only difference is that one build is G1/G2 and the other is just G2.

After a successful Sea Lion, UK won’t be landing for a while, but it’s not much worse than when the UK fleet gets wiped out by UnBaltic. And during those turns when 10inf 20+arm are dashing to Cau/Mos, Germany is going to be really hurting to trade territories. My point is, Sea Lion doesn’t field that much more arm. In fact, UnBaltic leaves Germany with a few more fighters and Sea Lion provides a few more arm. They both provide pretty much exactly the same amount of offensive power.

[tekkyy]

Lol. Switch, Ranor and myself has repeated yet again. So people, stop it with that 40 IPC on tech thing.
Be reasonable, Germany is not commited. See what Russia does first.
What wrong with 1 die?

[hyogoetophile]

@tekkyy:

Lol. Switch, Ranor and myself has repeated yet again. So people, stop it with that 40 IPC on tech thing.
Be reasonable, Germany is not commited. See what Russia does first.
What wrong with 1 die?

1-3 die is much more dangerous than an all-out Sea Lion, because if Germany gets LRA, it can build G1 transports that can be used to retake UK on G2. Cha-ching! That would get Germany the 30 more IPCs it needs to drop the 10inf that will kill Russia. Or it could just build 8-11inf then and there.

[Ranor]

By the way if Russia took out the Ukr fig, the odds for sucsess are pretty slim. I made the battle on frood with with OOL proposed by Cmdr Jennifer and Germany has only 51.7% to take England with at least 1 tnk.

On the other hand there are still some points I disagree about. With enough bid Germany can take Egy even without support by air (6 ground troops should do the job - 2Lyb, 2 Bid and 2 from SEu)

And if London is not recaptured by the americans (as proposed above), then I can build 8 inf in London, so you mabe never retake it. Also I strongly disagree about the english beeing unimportant for the Allies - cause if London is not liberated the german does not have to take Afr so you can retake the territories with the US.

Since germany already has +8 from london I would be contend to leave every tan territory alone, if there is the threat of recapture by the US, because all british territories are lost for the Allies concerning the ipcs. This is a huge economical shift in favour of the Axis, cause now they earn more than US and Russia combined.

[Funcioneta]

I still don’t understand why are you talking about bids. OOb rules have no bids. And if you want mod the oob to let bids, I would not be surprised of seeing 0 bids or even 3 bid for allies (inf at England) to counter Sea Lion without landing the USSR figther.

Oh, something to add. If using OOb + NA’s, radar is a very good choice for UK to prevent Sea Lion  :-D

[Jennifer]

Switch,

I stated a few times already that NO RUSSIAN FIGHTERS IN ENGLAND.  I invite Sea Lion because you WILL be destroyed doing it.

I even gave you a Fighter AND a Bomber surviving Sea Lion, that’s pretty generous, IMHO.  Especially since you yourself said Bomber only.

So on round 1 you have built NOTHING.  (101 IPC lead on Russia dwindles to 61 IPC) before ANY combat is factored in.

Russia takes Ukraine with 2 armor, 2 fighters and W. Russia with 7 Infantry, Artillery, 2 Armor (AA Gun).  That takes your 101 IPC lead from the start of the game and drops it to 50 IPC.  Russia is going to build next round with 29 IPC, Germany will have nothing built for this round, but potentially will have 79 IPC after their turn to build.

You take England, but you lose (your estimate) 5 fighters, 1 infantry in the process.  And you take Karelia and Ukraine (losing 2 infantry in Ukraine and exposing one armor to counter attack.)  I also made the intelligent choice of hitting Trans-Jordan since you do NOT have hte firepower to take out Egypt.  Let’s say you take that with loss of one infnatry and leave an artillery exposed to counter attack.

Germany collects 49 IPC + 30 from England’s bank for 79 IPC

Germany has 123 IPC in ground and air units.  Russia has 125 IPC in ground and air units.  And Russia’s primed for Round 2, Germany is cowering in Berlin with no ability to hold E. Europe, Norway, Belorussia, Ukraine, Balkans or W. Russia.

This, of course, does NOT include England’s round where they will easily liberate England and take Trans-Jordan and Libya as well, while simultaniously sinking the German med fleet with their fighters and battleship. (All this without having to give up the attacks on SZ 45 and 59 in the Pacific.)

Go ahead.  Go for your Sea Lion, Switch.  I’d love an easy win.

[Guest]

I will reitereate what others have said repeatedly…

You start from a false assumption of $40 spent on tech.

We’ll start there, the rest…
1.  You ignore Japan
2.  You are ignoring the loss of other Allied units as a result of UK not being able to build anything (like the remnants of the Royal Navy to 2 SUBs, 1 DST, 1 TRN and remaining AF.
3.  And you are overly optimistic in your Russian plans.  A single slightly bad dice roll, and your plan falls apart.  Not catastrophic dice, just a slight roll down is all that is need to wreck those plans.

[tekkyy]

Jen, if you are confident then can we analysis what switch, Ranor, and myself have sugguested….normal G1 build level minus one or very few tech dice.

And then if it we do come to a conclusion that Germany “WILL be destroyed doing it”, then the case rests.

And then we could even analysis the different Sealion newspaintbrush sugguested as being better.

[newpaintbrush]

(dryly) I hate to rain on everyone’s parade  :lol: ooo teh punz

but consider that the fewer dice you spend on tech, the more your chance of just wasting IPC.

[Nukchebi0]

What about bidding an extra transport in the Baltic?

[Ranor]

@the:

but consider that the fewer dice you spend on tech, the more your chance of just wasting IPC.

True but as I said above, if I only buy one die and it does not work OK fine I can live with that. because 1 arm less bought on G1 does not ruin the game 5 point of TUV is something that can happen anytime in trading territories. If it work than you have still 35 ipc left and can go for some transport to retake london on G2 (or just anything else you think worthwhile)

And even if I you buy 8 tech dice you still have a chance to fail. (5/6^8=0.23)
23% to not get the tech under these circumstances, with no units bought on G1, I don’t know if one can recover from this - I guess not.

@Nukchebi0:

What about bidding an extra transport in the Baltic?

If you get an 8 bid and place the trn in the baltic sea the allies have to know what you are trying for. I gues they would send both russian figs to london - else you take london with 2 arm and 2 air left (frood) on average and the chance of failure is only 10%.

If there are 2 more figs in london you take it with only 46% - not the best odds.

These assumption are based on 2 inf 2 arm 5 fig 1 bom - since russia should try to bring 1 german fig down on R1 else you have 65% chance of sucsess in the second scenario.

[tekkyy]

@the:

(dryly) I hate to rain on everyone’s parade  :lol: ooo teh punz
but consider that the fewer dice you spend on tech, the more your chance of just wasting IPC.

yeah thats one analysis of tech dice in this game

but some of the current claims are that if Sealion suceeds if 8 dice was used its relatively suicidal (lets say 10% chance of winning) and if 1 die was used its relatively godly (lets say 90% chance of winning)

in that case, the reverse would be true
you spend X die on G1 for LRA tech, but not more than X since even if it success the situation is not good for Germany

do you see the fuss against the auto-40-IPC analysis now?

[newpaintbrush]

@tekkyy:

@the:

(dryly) I hate to rain on everyone’s parade  :lol: ooo teh punz
but consider that the fewer dice you spend on tech, the more your chance of just wasting IPC.

yeah thats one analysis of tech dice in this game

but some of the current claims are that if Sealion suceeds if 8 dice was used its relatively suicidal (lets say 10% chance of winning) and if 1 die was used its relatively godly (lets say 90% chance of winning)

in that case, the reverse would be true
you spend X die on G1 for LRA tech, but not more than X since even if it success the situation is not good for Germany

do you see the fuss against the auto-40-IPC analysis now?

omg, I so recommended AGAINST 40 IPC.  See my earlier posts.  I’m not making this up, people!

See, how can I help but be insulting when people ask me questions like that?  :roll:

Do you see why I say you should wear pants in public?  No, seriously, do you?  :roll:

[DarthMaximus]

If I did the numbers right, here are the approx odds for tech (getting at least 1 hit):

1 die - 17%
2 dice - 30%
3 dice - 42%
4 dice - 51%
5 dice - 60%
6 dice - 66%
7 dice - 72%
8 dice - 76%

So, it is bad to assume someone will spend 40 ipc on dice, since you don’t really gain that much of an advantage over just spending 35 or even 30.  What is probably more likely is someone spending 15 to 25 ipc on dice (3 to 5 rolls), in which they take the shot but still have 15 to 25 other ipc to spend on units.

That being said, while losing London is bad, it is not necessarily a game ender for the Allies.  The reason being (assume you need to wait for the US to liberate) with the loss of the UK 1 buy all you lose is possibly 1 AC and 1 trn (fairly common buy for UK in some circumstances).  But you don’t need to “re-buy” (or buy) the AC later b/c you should have 2 BB’s floating around (plus US capital ships) and an extremely weak German airforce.
The loss of the UK 2 buy is bad, but again this is usually spent on 1-2 trns (maybe inf/planes) and used to go to Afr.  But you shouldn’t need immediate help in Afr on UK2 anyway b/c Egy is an easy counter and you’ll have 2 inf (aus/nz) ready to land on UK 3 plus the US can still land on US 2.

The Allies will certainly need Russia and the US to be playing well to cover for the lack of UK units but there other times not involving Sealion where the UK can be hit with massive losses early and the Allies still win.

Take a sz 5 attack with 2 ftrs, 1 bom.  Say UK misses and Germany gets the double hit.
UK will usually lose its med fleet (BB/DD) for the cost of a sub, and 33% of the time Germany can clear pretty much wol.
Also consider a failed first time bombimg run is a loss of a bomber right there (15 ipc for nothing).

Again I’m not saying losing London is advantageous for the Allies or doesn’t matter, just that is isn’t necessarily game over either.  Certainly the advantage takes a big shift to the Axis to win the game but the Allies still have a chance to comeback.

[axis_roll]

@DarthMaximus:

That being said, while losing London is bad, it is not necessarily a game ender for the Allies.  The reason being (assume you need to wait for the US to liberate) with the loss of the UK 1 buy all you lose is possibly 1 AC and 1 trn (fairly common buy for UK in some circumstances).  But you don’t need to “re-buy” (or buy) the AC later b/c you should have 2 BB’s floating around (plus US capital ships) and an extremely weak German airforce.
The loss of the UK 2 buy is bad, but again this is usually spent on 1-2 trns (maybe inf/planes) and used to go to Afr.  But you shouldn’t need immediate help in Afr on UK2 anyway b/c Egy is an easy counter and you’ll have 2 inf (aus/nz) ready to land on UK 3 plus the US can still land on US 2.

You miss that the ORIGINAL UK units are also all gone (2 inf,art,tank and air force).

If UK can not add units until UK3, that is much larger than you are implying, IMHO.

PLUS any smart German player will realize on G1 IF their LRA tech roll is successful that they should probably buy at least 1 if not 2 transports to RETAKE UK G2 after US has liberated it.

That, my friend, IS game over.

Unless Russia has bought all tanks on R1 and pushes like a mother R2 into Ukraine/belo or karelia… but EVEN THEN, Germany should be able to weather than allied pressure.

[DarthMaximus]

I’d be willing to test this scenerio with anyone that wishes to play as the Axis.  I would of course play the Allies.

R1 would be as follows with no fore knowledge of Sea Lion:

Buy 2 inf, 2 rt, 2 arm (common for my play)
Combat - Wrus with 9 inf, 1 rt, 1 arm, Ukr with 3 inf, 1 rt, 3 arm, 2 ftrs

Results: 
Wrus taken with 6 inf, 1 rt, 1 arm
Ukr taken with 3 arm, 2 ftrs

Both standard results (using LL and everything hits on 3 or above).

I’ll Non-Com everything West (again very standard in all my games)
sub to sz 2, aa to wrus, I’ll even make sure the ftrs are out of range of London on R2 by landing in Cauc.

Summary

Wrus - 6 inf, 1 rt, 1 arm, aa
Ukr - 3 arm
Cauc - 4 inf, 2 rt, 2 ftrs, aa, ic
Mos - 4 inf, 2 arm, ic
Novo - 2 inf
Yak - 4 inf
Sz 2 - sub with uk ships

Germany’s turn.

They must spend 25 on dice (giving them a 60% chance to get).  They of course will automatically get LRA for this 25.

Germany must attack London with 1 inf, 1 arm, 5 ftrs, 1 bom.

Results:  Germany takes with 1 arm.
They lose all aircraft - 1 ftr shot down due to aa, and the rest lost trying to preserve the Arm.  (Again this is all standard and avg results with LL or even Frood)

Germany plunders the 30 ipc.

The rest of your G1 purchases/combat/non-com moves are up to you and subject to dice rolls just like a normal game.

Some things in this set up may be negotiable I haven’t looked too closely at it and may have missed a unit here or there.

I would define success for the Allies in the following ways:

1 - No Success - Allies are completely overwhelmed from the loss of London and on their heels all game.  Perhaps Moscow has even fallen, but it is obviously over by rd 4-5.

2 - Limited Success - Allies make it to rd 6-8 and still putting up a fight.  They might be losing the game but UK is back in it and all three Allied capitals are still in Allied hands.

3 - Success - Allies make it to rd 9-10 and are still fighting.  The Allies have recoverd from losing London and the game has turned into a “normal” dogfight.

4 - Great Success - The Allies hold on and win the game.

Personally, as the Allies, if I did lose London on turn 1 I’d be happy with any one of the last 3 definitions in that I gave myself a chance to comeback, but for the sake of this test I’ll be shooting for one of the last two.

We also don’t have to play the entire game, just a few rds to see how things shake out.

I’m actually kind of curious about this since I’ve never played with Tech or OOB rules.