I agree.
German bomber strategy - How to play and How to counter
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Absolutely no reason to ridicule Marshmallow’s contribution to the discussion, rpg.
In general, I’d like for this to be a pleasant place for anyone to share whatever thoughts and experiences they have. You can disagree with people, but please don’t be rude about it.
Rpg can act pissy if he likes.
As I said previously, I haven’t played against this strategy. That being the case I stand by my position for these reasons:
1. One of the fundamental concepts of the game is resource usage. Given finite resources, a heavy concentration of power in one area is going to lead to vulnerabilities in other areas. Those bomber stacks are expensive. If Germany is building bombers, they’re not building ground forces. Granted that Germany has lots of ground forces at the start, but those will get worn out pretty fast. This cannot work without ground support from Germany’s jr buddy in the Med.
2. It’s amazingly easy to destroy Italy’s income. A stack of three or four Allied subs can all but shut down Italy’s production. Italy can work on killing Russia or it can try to protect its income, but it can’t do both effectively. If you shut down Italy, the Axis offensive should stall out. Remind me again how those bombers do against subs when you have no destroyers….The Chinese ground forces can claw their way to the coast, depriving Japan of a lot of its income.
3. Allied strategic bombers work against captured factories too. If you want to build at those factories, you’re going to have to buy off the bombing damage first.
4. Those bomber stacks are really only effective if kept together. The Allies are more than capable of presenting multiple threats on the same turn that have to be dealt with and giving the Axis tough choices about what to do. Splitting stacks diminishes the effect of the law of large numbers on the stack’s effectiveness and increases losses to the stacks.
5. It’s amazingly dumb to assume that Axis bomber stacks will never have to land somewhere where Allied bomber stacks can attack them. Even if the Allies only get one or two bombers at a time, that stack is getting smaller. It’s a hefty assumption that the Axis can keep that bomber stack at full strength for the entire game.
6. Given the same amount of IPCs spent on bombers vs fleet, the fleet will beat up the bomber stack pretty damned well, killing a heck of a lot of IPCs that it will take many, many turns to replenish.
7. Allied factories in Iraq, Persia, and Egypt can shuttle enough fast-moving ground forces, fighters, and even strat bombers into Russia to counter the presence of Italian troops, slow down German troops, and strat bomb captured factories. The Axis can’t keep going forever if it’s being pressed on multiple fronts.
8. Since the Axis has to be conservative with its existing ground troops, there are going to be opportunities to deprive Germany of valuable income (Finland, Norway, etc) and give those NOs to Russia. That will lessen the impact of strategic bombing on the Allies and also lessen the ability to replenish lost Axis bombers and the ground forces that shield them.At first inspection this seems like pretty much every other Axis strategy – if the Allies can live long enough and coordinate their defense, the Axis will run out of steam. Is this a viable Axis strategy? It seems so. Is it a guaranteed win? If it were, wouldn’t you all be running it all the time? This strategy can be probably be countered with the right combination of skill, analysis, and teamwork on the part of the Allies.
Is the bomber unit broken? Probably. You can add it to the list of things that aren’t right with the game. I’m sure it wouldn’t even make page one of the list…
Marsh
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Issue isn’t as simple as calculating bombers vs boats. If all those carriers and fighters could somehow also simultaneously threaten the japanese, then you can make the comparison. Again the threat projection is the real problem allies face. Those same bombers are keeping the allied boats at distance, while simultaneously threatening London, Cairo, the Middle East, and Moscow.
I understand rpg’s frustration. Unless you’ve actually played against this strategy, which is very frustrating believe me (we both have failed against it), one just doesn’t really see the problem.
Done some calculation. Using Low luck as i can do those things in my head :)
Bombers vs ships.
Actualy if you take 3 bombers 36 and attack a loaded carrier 36 ipc you have nearly mutual annihilation ( slight defender advantage )
Attack 12 vs defence 10. Defender hits once you hit twice, round 2 8 vs 8 lets call that even shall we.
If you take 6 bombers and attack 2 loaded carriers the defender will nearly always win.
attack 24 defence20, 4 hits attacker 3 hits defender. Round 2 12 attacker vs 14 defender defender will win this with 1 fighter left.So if germany wants to spend most of its money on bombers the US can easy counter buying carriers with fighters. If they time it right the UK can add their carrier + fighter as well. You can even add a few destoyers in the mix just for good measure but your carriers will hold out against german bombers and while germany is trying to outspend UK + US ( they can barely outspend the UK ) russia is just going to say Hello on the eastern front.
Bombers vs ships isnt that overpowered. Same IPC value can defend against it and in higher numbers outright defeat it.
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Put another way, if you have to assemble a large enough stack of boats in the Atlantic just to overcome the bombers, then you may as well pack it up in the pacific. It’s hard enough as it is against the japanese when you have america giving it full attention.
Furthermore, no one wins with just boats. Say you manage to dominate the seas and then start dropping troops in Europe. How many do you think you can drop if much of your income went to buying your boat stacks? With 20 or 30 german bombers and say 5 inf, do you think your landing party has any chance of surviving?
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thanks for the insight Marsh…very well stated.
Back in 2013 when the guy who started the “Dark Skies” strategy claimed it broke the game and it was unstoppable he was challenged my some high level players to try it against. And when things for him didn’t go quite as anticipated he disappeared without finishing the games. Most of us following the game went away with the feeling that it wasn’t really unstoppable then.
Looking back at the game I played against Dizz…there were several things I could have done to reduce the impact of his bomber stack.
Like buying more US bombers earlier in the game. Had I not waited to do that I could have eliminated the IJN earlier and then moved my stack to India…where it could have attacked Japanese ground units or German units coming through Caucasus.Another mistake I made was being reluctant to let his 30 bombers attack my fleet in 91. I had three loaded carriers, 11dd’s, 1 ca and six fighters that could have been scrambled from airbases in Gib and Morocco. I don’t think I would have won that battle but it would have reduced his bomber stack considerably.
But I withdrew out of range of the bombers and UK fell before I could get that fleet back in position. -
The most direct defense counter to the bomber is the fighter. Problem is, the fighter has a significantly shorter range and furthermore, while the bomber can threaten many crucial targets at any given time, the fighter can only defend one place at a time. You therefore would need a lot more fighters to sit and guard in different places just to somewhat neutralize all the threats.
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Put another way, if you have to assemble a large enough stack of boats in the Atlantic just to overcome the bombers, then you may as well pack it up in the pacific. It’s hard enough as it is against the japanese when you have america giving it full attention.
Furthermore, no one wins with just boats. Say you manage to dominate the seas and then start dropping troops in Europe. How many do you think you can drop if much of your income went to buying your boat stacks? With 20 or 30 german bombers and say 5 inf, do you think your landing party has any chance of surviving?
Very good point my friend. Those Carriers can escort but after that they just sit in the water and watch the fireworks.
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Put another way, if you have to assemble a large enough stack of boats in the Atlantic just to overcome the bombers, then you may as well pack it up in the pacific. It’s hard enough as it is against the japanese when you have america giving it full attention.
I think the Allies would have to choose which side to win on and which side to “not lose on.” The Pacific is the obvious side to not lose on – all you have to do is not let Japan take Honolulu or Sydney or, at the very least, be capable of immediately recapturing them. This would mean making sure that bomber stack could not hit the sea zone off Hawaii by depriving Japan of any possible landing areas for them. That would mean to me take Marshall Islands early and don’t let Japan get another foothold.
More balanced buying for the US.
Furthermore, no one wins with just boats. Say you manage to dominate the seas and then start dropping troops in Europe. How many do you think you can drop if much of your income went to buying your boat stacks? With 20 or 30 german bombers and say 5 inf, do you think your landing party has any chance of surviving?
Isn’t that another turn that those bombers are not being used against Russia? Also possibly more air losses to Germany? Every turn that Germany lets Allied troops land and has to kill them is more time for Russia and more possible losses for Germany.
Please don’t misunderstand – it does seem like a frustrating strategy to play against. It does seem to me that the only way to counter it is to “keep chipping away at the mountain until it’s no longer a mountain”. I’m just saying that it doesn’t look unbeatable. It just seems like a counter that demands a great deal of patience to play. The good news is that if you are better at being patient than the Axis player that you can probably turn the frustration around on them…
Marsh
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I agree with you that at some point one of your allies just has to make that sacrifice to force the bomber reduction and ease the massive threat to the other allies (eg US sacrifices ships to reduce threat on moscow or London). However, the problem is that of making the sacrifice really count. For example, in a recent game, I decided to offload 16 ground units into Norway without the cover of warships. I made a tactical sacrifice of 8 transports to gain a larger strategic objective, and this of course was required as the german navy and airforce were too much for my navy. So, if you’re going to risk your entire atlantic fleet, then it should at least mean you’ve gained a strategic objective like establishing a critical beachhead in Normandy or elsewhere in Europe. French West Africa or morocco, or even London, just wouldn’t cut it IMO.
This too presents a problem, as even getting close enough to then make that sacrificial leap onto Europe is too challenging as those 30 bombers have an ungodly reach.
@captain:
thanks for the insight Marsh…very well stated.
Back in 2013 when the guy who started the “Dark Skies” strategy claimed it broke the game and it was unstoppable he was challenged my some high level players to try it against. And when things for him didn’t go quite as anticipated he disappeared without finishing the games. Most of us following the game went away with the feeling that it wasn’t really unstoppable then.
Looking back at the game I played against Dizz…there were several things I could have done to reduce the impact of his bomber stack.
Like buying more US bombers earlier in the game. Had I not waited to do that I could have eliminated the IJN earlier and then moved my stack to India…where it could have attacked Japanese ground units or German units coming through Caucasus.Another mistake I made was being reluctant to let his 30 bombers attack my fleet in 91. I had three loaded carriers, 11dd’s, 1 ca and six fighters that could have been scrambled from airbases in Gib and Morocco. I don’t think I would have won that battle but it would have reduced his bomber stack considerably.
But I withdrew out of range of the bombers and UK fell before I could get that fleet back in position. -
I agree with you that at some point one of your allies just has to make that sacrifice to force the bomber reduction and ease the massive threat to the other allies (eg US sacrifices ships to reduce threat on moscow or London). However, the problem is that of making the sacrifice really count. For example, in a recent game, I decided to offload 16 ground units into Norway without the cover of warships. I made a tactical sacrifice of 8 transports to gain a larger strategic objective, and this of course was required as the german navy and airforce were too much for my navy. So, if you’re going to risk your entire atlantic fleet, then it should at least mean you’ve gained a strategic objective like establishing a critical beachhead in Normandy or elsewhere in Europe. French West Africa or morocco, or even London, just wouldn’t cut it IMO.
I agree 100% with this.
Marsh
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I’m thinking now that if I had moved that fleet to 109 instead of back to the US then the UK could have put an airbase in Ireland… and that would have given me three more fighters to scramble. I still don’t think it would have survived a 30 bomber attack but it may have reduced the bomber stack so it wasn’t such a threat for a couple more rounds.
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Whatever the answer is going to be, to me it is saying a LOT that nowadays most threads end up in balance-discussions. A&AG40.2 is balanced for most strategies, but there are a few -axis- strategies that are hopelessly unbalanced and need fixing. Whether the ‘dark skies’ is one of them remains to be seen but reading that it has been defeated before makes my day. The fewer strategies with unbalance the better (easier to fix).
And I also would like a fix for KJF being the only true way to go for the allies. Back in the days when the allies always went KGF is fixed as well (split up axis VC) and now it’s the reverse situation. Only now it’s not even a choice anymore, it’s a necessity.
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I’m not a huge fan of buying bombers before they are needed. The 2 bomber buy on the first turn isn’t a horrible, but not ideal. The bombers should really be purchased when your 2 move units can’t reach Moscow for the final attack, and then after taking Moscow continue to buy a couple bombers every round. You still need the ground forces for defensive purposes. By the time US has crippled Japan and decides to swing over to help the allies on the Europe side Germany has 10+ bombers and he has to have a massive fleet to defend these.
Two things, I think, need to be done to reduce the effectiveness of bombers.
1. Allow factories to be built on Islands. This will mean that US can build factories in the DEI’s and stage his fleet off of East Africa/Middle East after he has dealt with Japan.
2. Make bombers attack value 2 base and 3 if paired with fighter. This is really the important one. Bombers attack being at 4 just doesn’t make much sense from a realism standpoint, and it blows the balance out of the water.
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Holy Moly Batman, that’s a lot of planes. I’ve seen heavy bmr buys by both sides, but honestly not to the extreme discussed here (so I could be way off base).
Ok, the thought is that the Luftwaffe with 30+ air units (5 ftrs, 5 tacs, and 20+ bmrs), can be positioned to threaten several different allied strong points. They can be used to do SBR runs and push the Russians back (w/starting German land force), threaten major combined allied navy in the Atlantic/Med, or drive a landing force back into the sea.
The thing is they can’t hit them all at the same time though (not in full force). They can’t hit your Western Combo Navy, the landing force, and keep the Russians at bay. Maybe 2/3, but not all 3, so you need to make sure that the Luftwaffe takes a hit when they do commit.
I think the main thing is that the allies need to put themselves in the best defensive positions and force the Germans to commit to reduce the axis air force (by chunks if necessary). This means many carriers w/ftrs, a huge destroyer screen along with multiple airbase support (when possible). One would think that at some point the Germans would be lacking in ground units on all fronts w/heavy air purchases. Do they want to commit to attacking the US/UK navies knowing that they are starving for land units in Russia?
Yeah, it will hurt but once the Luftwaffe takes a major hit (reduced to say a normal 8-12 planes), the Russians should be able to overwhelm the German land force even if the west is pushed off the beaches and the navy takes a big hit.
Wouldn’t this be similar to how an early successful Sea lion can doom the Germans? They spend the wad on transports to invade England just to face an overpowering Russia in the end. If the Germans are buying that many air units (bmrs), then they can’t have the ground units to hold off the Russians, much less attack Moscow (allies must open up a second front even if it fails). Is it too much indecision by the allies that is causing the problem, heard several people say that things could have been different if I had……Then there was the post that said on AAA the axis side just quit when things weren’t going as planned (don’t like to rely on hearsay, but sounds like that guy was a major supporter of this tactic until it failed).
So is this the end all beat all strat, or is the allied learning curve a bit slow? Sounds like in some cases the allies backed out which gave the axis the break they needed to stay on the offensive to capture/hold the last VC.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m going to try it next time I’m axis lol
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What about rather than trying to defend, the allies go on the offensive? Send their own air units to attack Germany, taking advantage of all those Bombers having to roll 1?
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What about rather than trying to defend, the allies go on the offensive? Send their own air units to attack Germany, taking advantage of all those Bombers having to roll 1?
Wherever the Germans land their bombers, they will surely also station some infantry, aa guns, and/or fighters as needed. Only a really careless opponent will leave them undefended in a vulnerable position.
I think trying to bait them into attack could be effective, but will be challenging.
Depending on the situation, a naval base on British Guiana or Suriname could let you reach Normandy (if you’re willing/able to sacrifice enough transports to make a landing stick).
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What about rather than trying to defend, the allies go on the offensive? Send their own air units to attack Germany, taking advantage of all those Bombers having to roll 1?
Wherever the Germans land their bombers, they will surely also station some infantry, aa guns, and/or fighters as needed. Only a really careless opponent will leave them undefended in a vulnerable position.
I think trying to bait them into attack could be effective, but will be challenging.
Depending on the situation, a naval base on British Guiana or Suriname could let you reach Normandy (if you’re willing/able to sacrifice enough transports to make a landing stick).
But if they’re really going all bombers on turn 2-3, how many infantry, AAAs, and fighters would they really have? If the Allies attack with several bombers, some TacBs, and any fighters they have in the UK, surely the Germans would eventually be left with no choice but to start losing bombers? It’d be suicide for the Allied aircraft, but at least they’d eliminate the threat.
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What about rather than trying to defend, the allies go on the offensive? Send their own air units to attack Germany, taking advantage of all those Bombers having to roll 1?
Wherever the Germans land their bombers, they will surely also station some infantry, aa guns, and/or fighters as needed. Only a really careless opponent will leave them undefended in a vulnerable position.
I think trying to bait them into attack could be effective, but will be challenging.
Depending on the situation, a naval base on British Guiana or Suriname could let you reach Normandy (if you’re willing/able to sacrifice enough transports to make a landing stick).
But if they’re really going all bombers on turn 2-3, how many infantry, AAAs, and fighters would they really have? If the Allies attack with several bombers, some TacBs, and any fighters they have in the UK, surely the Germans would eventually be left with no choice but to start losing bombers? It’d be suicide for the Allied aircraft, but at least they’d eliminate the threat.
Who ever said all bombers? I know that I myself EXPLICITLY stated otherwise…. 3-4 bombers plus land units. You can still have a nice stack around G8 or so. I mean, Germany is going to get several NO’s and have a solid income base.
wheatbeer, I like your idea, and I even made that purchase against bmnielsen. However, I didn’t have a plan for it from the beginning, but instead just happened to figure out that was the only way to get there. I think having the plan from the beginning would have had more “teeth” so to speak, and might just be the best counter. For the rest reading this, the idea is to land so many units that the bombers plus land cannot annihilate the landing forces.
And, to correct some potential misperceptions above, the defensive ability of an infantry is not half that of a bomber when the bombers are stacked. It is generally 1/3. The reason? If I hit your infantry stack, I’m going to make sure you get exactly one defensive hit. So, you will hit 1/3 on the bombers (using faulty math) and thereby gain IPC’s… but only 1 ipc gained per infantry lost (12-3*3)/3. Depending on board positioning, that may well be worth it to the Axis. The bombers can maintain central position for a long time…
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What about rather than trying to defend, the allies go on the offensive? Send their own air units to attack Germany, taking advantage of all those Bombers having to roll 1?
Wherever the Germans land their bombers, they will surely also station some infantry, aa guns, and/or fighters as needed. Only a really careless opponent will leave them undefended in a vulnerable position.
I think trying to bait them into attack could be effective, but will be challenging.
Depending on the situation, a naval base on British Guiana or Suriname could let you reach Normandy (if you’re willing/able to sacrifice enough transports to make a landing stick).
But if they’re really going all bombers on turn 2-3, how many infantry, AAAs, and fighters would they really have? If the Allies attack with several bombers, some TacBs, and any fighters they have in the UK, surely the Germans would eventually be left with no choice but to start losing bombers? It’d be suicide for the Allied aircraft, but at least they’d eliminate the threat.
Who ever said all bombers? I know that I myself EXPLICITLY stated otherwise…. 3-4 bombers plus land units. You can still have a nice stack around G8 or so. I mean, Germany is going to get several NO’s and have a solid income base.
I usually buy 3 to 4 bombers per turn after the first few turns. My 2nd round purchase has been 8 bombers, and the 3rd round is usually all bombers too, but of course this can be adjusted.
My Comment matched your description of the strategy.
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Sorry, maybe I’m misunderstanding. G4 you can buy what you need. US can’t even land in UK until turn 4 (it’s a J4 DOW kind of game usually). The UK doesn’t have the resources to hit anything in Europe that early. In addition, You will never have enough planes to take on the German bombers. All Germany has to do is purchase 2 less to have 8 infantry of cover. Only the US can come close, but the US needs to send bombers by way of taking out Japan on the way to Egypt, if that strikes your fancy.
I’m not trying to blindly argue. But a couple of points: it is a non-issue to take Russia – Russia will fall, just look at the league games with this strategy. Germany starts the game with enough land units to take out Russia, the others purchases or mechs are just to save planes. The only true question is whether or not Germany can get to the UK or Egypt for the 8th VC, or if the Allies can stop it (or capture a VC in return). Any other discussion here is almost secondary to that question.
So, the two main ideas seem to be for the Allies to go KJF and then roll across Asia as fast as they can to take back one of the Russia VC’s, or to stack off of South America and land with enough force in Europe to disrupt the VC win.
[Or, the third one may be to go with all bombers with the U.S. However, I think that’s just a bit slow (not by much by the way, just a bit).]
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…(it’s a J4 DOW kind of game usually)…
J4DOW games are usually very hard for the allies in Europe ;-). Axis that do this usually are very experienced and coordinate the Euro- and Pacific axis carefully together.
…Hard for the USA in general (late in the war, and with fewer income at that as well).
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