Thanks, I’ll check it out.
German bomber strategy - How to play and How to counter
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@Arthur:
Sure, 8 loaded carriers would be sufficient to prevent the Germans from launching a bomber raid against the Allied navy. Keep in mind that such a build requires 4 full turns of US spending in the Atlantic plus a turn or two for moving the fleet into position. Time is on the German side in Dark Skies. Once the Germans reach the oilfields, their income will start matching that of the US. Also consider that Germany has quite a bit of flexibility. The bombers can be used to destroy Russia, navies, London, and supporting raids on territories with medium-sized stacks of troops.
In my last game, the US tried a KGF strategy with a very large navy off the coast of Gibraltar on round 3. The Germans mostly ignored it. From the base in Paris, the bombers could limit the options of the Allied navy and also force Russia to retreat back towards Moscow. Meanwhile, Japan was about to capture India and it seemed inevitable for a total victory on J7-J8.
ABH, thank you. you speak a lot of sense. i’m sorry, but when people focus on things like “loaded carrier vs bomber–bring it on!”, they’re not really understanding the difficulty. i guess they have to just experience it for themselves. to think that US can build 8 fully loaded carriers in the atlantic is, imo, showing inexperience and lack of really understanding just what kind of punishment will be delivered by the foe on the other side of the map.
I don’t think you should call people inexperienced if you aren’t even going to read their posts. As I clearly pointed out:
2. The US doesn’t need 8 carriers. That provides only a 7% survival for 24 bombers, obviously this is overkill. I haven’t done the math, but I’m pretty sure the US could get by with a smaller fleet.
I wasn’t suggesting the US build 8 carriers. I was showing that bombers can’t possibly deter Allied fleets if Germany loses all their bombers trying to kill the Allied fleet. I’m not the only one, and I’m certainly the least experienced, to point out that if Germany commits its bombers to stop an Allied invasion, Germany loses its bombers, its threat projection, and the IPCs it spent.
Furthermore, you called Zhukov’s point “totally right”, even though I pointed out that DizzKneeLand pointed out that fixing SBR doesn’t fix Dark Skies (at least how DizzKneeLand does Dark Skies) because SBR isn’t part of the strategy. How can Zhukov be totally right when his (her?) solution doesn’t even work?
I believe you spent more time looking at users’ post counts rather than their posts.
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Amanntai, I am currently playing the Allies against a Dark Skies German. His bombers are severely hindering my American build in the Atlantic. On G3, he will have 11 bombers. I will need at least 3 loaded aircraft carriers to escort transports to Africa or Western Europe. By the time I get those carriers, he will have even more bombers. I probably will need 6 carriers in the Atlantic before I start ferrying troops over. That is 216 PUs or three full turns of production. Just having the threat of the bombers is delaying an Allied invasion by a couple of turns. I decided to play KJF strategy so I won’t be able to start building in the Atlantic until tun 3 or 4. That means an expected landing on turn ~7. It is quite frustrating as the Allied player.
When I do bring my fleet across the pond, I fully expect that he will ignore my carriers and simply plan to counterattack the troops that I drop on his shores. He will not be trading bombers for carriers. I don’t think that he will be very concerned about amphibious landings until turn 9 or so. That is quite late compared to other German strats where the Allies have a good invasion force on turn 6-7.
The huge bonus for him is the potential threat of many bombers forcing me to spend heavily on defense instead of transports + troops. Every round of the building fleets in the Atlantic is another round where he is beating up Russia, sending his troops to the oil fields, and further expansion of his bomber fleet.
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@Arthur:
Amanntai, I am currently playing the Allies against a Dark Skies German. His bombers are severely hindering my American build in the Atlantic. On G3, he will have 11 bombers. I will need at least 3 loaded aircraft carriers to escort transports to Africa or Western Europe. By the time I get those carriers, he will have even more bombers. I probably will need 6 carriers in the Atlantic before I start ferrying troops over. That is 216 PUs or three full turns of production. Just having the threat of the bombers is delaying an Allied invasion by a couple of turns. I decided to play KJF strategy so I won’t be able to start building in the Atlantic until tun 3 or 4. That means an expected landing on turn ~7. It is quite frustrating as the Allied player.
When I do bring my fleet across the pond, I fully expect that he will ignore my carriers and simply plan to counterattack the troops that I drop on his shores. He will not be trading bombers for carriers. I don’t think that he will be very concerned about amphibious landings until turn 9 or so. That is quite late compared to other German strats where the Allies have a good invasion force on turn 6-7.
The huge bonus for him is the potential threat of many bombers forcing me to spend heavily on defense instead of transports + troops. Every round of the building fleets in the Atlantic is another round where he is beating up Russia, sending his troops to the oil fields, and further expansion of his bomber fleet.
If Germany isn’t going to attack your fleet, why do you need 6 carriers? That’s a waste of IPCs, if you ask me. You don’t need enough fleet defense to win, only enough to kill a sizeable number of Bombers. If Germany loses most of it’s bombers, then it loses the power projection it had. If Germany doesn’t attack, then you saved the IPCs. On one hand, it’s a loss, but a Pyrrhic Victory for the Germans, and on the other, a win.
On a side note, you know what HR would really fix this? Bringing back Classic transports. Or any of the other transport with defense rules.
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@Arthur:
Well stated, axis dominion!�  I won my first test game of Dark Skies when the US spent too much money in the Atlantic, Germany didn’t take the bait of attacking a powerful navy off of Gibraltar, and Japan painted Asia yellow.� Â
If you are referring to our first game, little correction: no1 lost or won that game. I suggested to start over (not giving up) because I didn’t want to play a game where strategies need to be switched around turn 2. Clearly, the fastest way the USA can build up in Europe isn’t going to help the allies enough in Europe because the USA is (barely) missing the power to do something meaningful. If they spend more in Europe to gain such power, the Pacific will be lost forever (again, unless the USA suddenly decides to send all Europe forces back into the Pacific). So, I’d say this rapid buildup is only effective at slowing down Germany a turn or two, after which the USA needs to withdraw and return the Euro-forces into the Pacific.
But maybe you are referring to another test game… Nvm.
In my second test game, I’m playing the Allies.�  My game plan is building a strong Russian artillery force so that I can block Germany’s advance to the Middle East.�  I will have to see if it gets shoved back as his ground forces advance.
I think you will see that I am right about what I said earlier:
Germany will (should) be able to push Russia back into Moscow, but will have a lot of problems approaching it. I will need all German FTR + TAC to protect any such approach. In short, I doubt Germany will be able to get Moscow, but we’ll see. I’m going to try and if I calculate that I cannot approach, I will continue playing for the oil fields and we’ll see how that will work out. -
Amanntai,
Please try out a game playing the Allies against a good German Dark Skies player. If you don’t build up a huge navy, he will destroy your invasion fleet with minimal bomber losses. If you do build up a huge navy, he will ignore it and wait till your troops are ashore. Germany has the choice of when and where to attack. The massive flexibility of the bombers allows it many more options than you normally have in a game. That makes up for the lack of damage/PU compared to other units. I truly wish that I had other valid options besides spending heavily on a massive Atlantic fleet since that is severely delaying my ability to assist Russia.
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Just an idea, but if it’s really like that (not sure about that yet). If it’s really like building a lot of navy (without a proper transport force) that Germany then just ignores, that fleet is perhaps an ineffective investment, not? Apart from convoying, but you don’t need an overkill for that. If it’s like that the allies could try a different approach, buying stuff that they can do something with.
What if the UK puts a heavy focus on the ME (building from SA and an IC in Egypt or the ME itself). This could put London in a dangerous position later on, so the USA can invest in protecting London to make sure UK can spend most of its income in the ME (once London looks safe), assisting Russia from there.
USA builds that come to mind for this are FTR, STR, SUB. And perhaps a few occasional DD and opportunistic TRS. If Germany gets the hint and leaves London alone, USA can also start channeling FTR + STR into Russia (it is aircraft so it’s flexible), while the subs fullfill a passive-aggressive role: convoying axis shipping. Of course, the downside is that Germany can focus on a 1-front war which is possibly not a good idea… It would all come down to how much economy both sides can channel into Russia. The side who has the economic edge should win it, if the economical underdog doesn’t have a too big initial military advantage.As an alternative, the USA could just go all-out against Japan, and then start reinforcing Russia from the South West Pacific, once it has secured India, the DEI, and SE Asia. A way to protect London from a late game axis invasion is still needed as well, ofc. Just another thought. But, as far as I’m concerned, an annoying one since this would mean another (K)JF that saves the day. In A&AG40.2, (K)JF seems to be the one limited thing the allies can do, must do even, otherwise they’ll be toast.
And last but not least, if I have a large allied Navy (with or without a lot of TRS) that I cannot do anything with in Europe, I always comfort myself that this will deter a German invasion of London as well and keeps a lot of German forces pinned down in Western Europe, away from Russia.
Trial and error, and if nothing works, place a higher bid.
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I just lost a game using the German Bmb strat. I built 10 Inf first round, 10 Art second, and then just pushed forward buying mostly Bmbs and subs until I started building land forces on the Russian factories.
The weakness of the strategy is twofold - For one thing, German land forces will be weaker than usual when they get to Russia’s door. That’s why I lost; Russia annihilated my stack.
But the second weakness is that, while German bombers can theoretically attack anywhere, they can’t ACTUALLY attack everywhere. You’ve got to make choices. Sure, you can nuke the USA fleet, but that takes a chunk out of your bomber stack. Can you rebuild your stack before the Allies rebuild their fleet?
I think the key to this strategy is really good Japan play. Which is unfortunately a weakness of mine.
Here’s the game if anyone wants to see:
http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=35576.new#new
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I see Shin Ji beat me to this thread! :lol:
I was his opponent in that game.
Adding to what Shin said, I’ll note that the allies had a big bid which allowed them to hold the middle east–critical so that the UK can aid in the atlantic and the USSR when the time comes.
But really, I think, the way to fight the bombers is loaded carriers. This has been hit on before. So nothing new there.
The point however is that the USA can’t go KJF and really needs to split almost 50/50 so that the carrier force is strong enough, if not to prevail, then at least take down as many bombers as possible.
In that game, I lost 2 fleets to the bombers, but each time it reduced the bombers to low single digits, saving Russia from being blitzed.
The other important thing is to move decisively with the carriers, i.e. threaten something important to make him attack you. My big fear in that game was that he’d ignore my fleet and just wipe out Russia.
So I moved to take Norway and built an Mmic there. He had to kill me then.Also, I have to admit, I had good luck on the BOMBERS vs CARRIER battles… but they are dicey battles anyway.
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From what I’ve seen and read, part of the problem is maybe you don’t have enough bombers for Germany ?
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well, I’d have to go back and look, but Shin had upward of 17 bombers I think at one point?
He never got too many bombers because he had to spend them on the fleet. The allies fleet was in action against western europe around round 5-6, so he had limited time to build up
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I thought Germany had to have 18 to 20 bombers by end of turn 4 ?
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That’s more of a pure Dark Skies strat. I was doing one that involved a slower ramp-up of Bombers. Buying 3 or so per turn starting turn 3.
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I think more bombers would actually have been easier to fight off to the extent the Russian’s could get aggressive and build art and tanks to kill the small German land forces.
As it was with Shin, the German armies were too strong for the Russians to kill so they just had to withdraw, making the bombers the final hammer that would kill Russia once the land forces got to Moscow…. very distressing strategy.
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again well said ABH. my biggest beef (and rgp44 earlier in this thread had the same beef) is when people who have not yet played against this strat try to minimize just how hard it is to play against by focusing on one aspect of it or another (e.g., saying SBR isn’t part of the strat or talking about bomber vs. carrier trades)…please understand, the real problem is not this one thing or that, but ALL the options the mass bombers have, taken together…that they can reach many critical targets at once (threat projection), that they can “get bored” and decide to bomb the crap out of london or moscow, that they can wipe out any invasion, that they can obliterate even a very sizable fleet, that they can turn on a sea lion (SL) at any point in the game if allies are busy elsewhere, that they can park in FIC (with an airbase) to unblock in the pac while STILL threatening moscow, and so on. again, from my experience, SBR does become a problem if you decide to go KJF and thereby give the bombers fewer targets, i.e., they become “bored” and decide to make good use of themselves. regardless if Dizz or other DS players don’t consider SBR as a critical part of their strat, it is NONETHELESS a major threat. the threat is always there, and it’s very significant, just like the threat of SL is always there as well, regardless of whether it’s considered a primary part of their strat. put another way, if you aren’t careful and neglect certain things, the DS player can pull out one of those options (SBR campaign or SL, e.g.) in an instant and completely change the course of the game.
@Arthur:
Amanntai,
Please try out a game playing the Allies against a good German Dark Skies player.� If you don’t build up a huge navy, he will destroy your invasion fleet with minimal bomber losses.� If you do build up a huge navy, he will ignore it and wait till your troops are ashore.� Germany has the choice of when and where to attack.� The massive flexibility of the bombers allows it many more options than you normally have in a game.� That makes up for the lack of damage/PU compared to other units.� I truly wish that I had other valid options besides spending heavily on a massive Atlantic fleet since that is severely delaying my ability to assist Russia.
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A-D I agree with everything you say.
I think the key for me was threatening Germany in a place they couldn’t/didn’t want to lose like Norway.
He had to kill the fleet otherwise 3 us ftrs would start popping out of my Mmic there every turn…. and hey, I’d lose 3ftrs even if they only killed 2 bombers each round… Germany is not that inexhaustible…
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The only problem that I see with that is, are you able to knock Japan out of the Pacific and still send those troops over? And, will Egypt be weakened too much from the standard German push?
Sorry to answer a question with a question, but that would be what you have to consider there. :)
Also, remember this. If you defend the UK with 30 land units, and Germany has 45 bombers, the bombers can clear you off (not counting aa guns) in one turn.
If you start trying to stack the UK, Germany may just take an opportune moment to clear the UK even without sending in land units, and then send in the land units the next turn, depending on the numbers. So, none of the ideas you are suggesting seem bad, but things may be more complex than they first appear with regard to defending both the UK and Egypt.
The key point is that the bombers can hit everything in one turn, whereas you can’t even move a friendly unit between the UK and Egypt in one turn. That split is what gives the bombers their potential advantage.
As a rough rule of thumb, you can say that a battle with similar number of StBombers against Infantry units and just enough AAA units will results, on average, to a destruction of at least half number of Strategic bombers fleet and a total annihilation of defender’s units.
45 Bombers vs 30 Infantry and 15 AAA units:
Overall %*: A. survives: 99.3% D. survives: 0.7% No one survives: 0%
Avg result: 7.24% surviving: 20 Bom. loss: 25 Bom. : (300 IPCs)
http://calc.axisandallies.org/?mustland=0&abortratio=0&saveunits=0&strafeunits=0&AA=on&aInf=&aArt=&aArm=&aFig=&aBom=45&aTra=&aSub=&aDes=&aCru=&aCar=&aBat=&adBat=&dInf=&dArt=&dArm=&dFig=&dBom=&dTra=15&dSub=&dDes=30&dCru=&dCar=&dBat=&ddBat=&ool_att=Bat-Inf-Art-AArt-Arm-Sub-SSub-Des-Fig-JFig-Cru-Bom-HBom-Car-dBat-Tra&ool_def=Bat-Inf-Art-AArt-Arm-Bom-HBom-Sub-SSub-Tra-Des-Car-Cru-Fig-JFig-dBat&battle=Run&rounds=&reps=10000&luck=pure&ruleset=AA1942&territory=&round=1&pbem=30 Bombers vs 20 Infantry and 10 AAA units:
Overall %*: A. survives: 97.8% D. survives: 2.1% No one survives: 0.1%
Avg result: 8.27% surviving: 13 Bom. loss: 17 Bom. : (204 IPCs)15 Bombers vs 10 Infantry and 5 AAA units:
Overall %*: A. survives: 92% D. survives: 7.4% No one survives: 0.5%
Avg result: 11.08% surviving: 6 Bom. loss: 9 Bom. : (108 IPCs)To get odds higher than simply even chance of mutual destruction, you need around the same number of Infantry units compared to StBs and enough AAA units to cover for all StBs.
So 45 StBs required 45 Infantry and 15 AAAs. -
or you could do something with unescorted bombers attacking at lower values which would be much more realistic, I cringe every time I send a stack of unescorted bombers against a factory because in reality any fighter cover would make mincemeat of unescorted bombers (unless its a night raid).
Done there:
Re: Rethinking Strategic Bomber and Tactical Bomber Roles
http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=35415.msg1391137#msg1391137And the first stone (maybe inspired by your early post on this topic):
Re: Rethinking Strategic Bomber and Tactical Bomber Roles
http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=35415.msg1382356#msg1382356 -
@Arthur:
Amanntai,
Please try out a game playing the Allies against a good German Dark Skies player. If you don’t build up a huge navy, he will destroy your invasion fleet with minimal bomber losses. If you do build up a huge navy, he will ignore it and wait till your troops are ashore. Germany has the choice of when and where to attack. The massive flexibility of the bombers allows it many more options than you normally have in a game. That makes up for the lack of damage/PU compared to other units. I truly wish that I had other valid options besides spending heavily on a massive Atlantic fleet since that is severely delaying my ability to assist Russia.
Well… AACalc is a little unhelpful because it doesn’t do two-hit carriers, but from estimation using 1-hit carriers and subbing 2 destroyers for carriers leaves me with this result: The Allies would have to spend at least 1 IPC for every bomber to have a fleet with a decent chance of survival and a measly invasion force that wouldn’t survive a Bomber counterattack.
Of course, I haven’t played a game to see if the bomber losses (which usually amounted to at least 12/24 even if the Allies spent much less) would cripple Germany, but that relies on Germany actually attacking the fleet, and they would only do that if the Allied landing force was more than enough to resist a bomber counterattack, in which case the fleet would likely be weak enough that the Bombers could destroy it with few losses.
Basically, a single allied fleet is either f***ed, or useless.
I’ll have to look into alternative strategies.
PS: The solution is still Classic transports.
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Well… AACalc is a little unhelpful because it doesn’t do two-hit carriers, but from estimation using 1-hit carriers and subbing 2 destroyers for carriers leaves me with this result: The Allies would have to spend at least 1 IPC for every bomber to have a fleet with a decent chance of survival and a measly invasion force that wouldn’t survive a Bomber counterattack.
It is easy to simulate a two-hits Carrier with AACalc:
On offense, you used 2 Transports as they worth 2 hits but have no attack value, you only need to change the order of casualty and place transports before any combat unit as you see fit your combat simulations.
On defense, you used 1 Carrier (for defense value @2) and 1 transport, which you also place as the first casualty in the order of loss.That way, you get a pretty good accurate statistical results. :wink:
Follow the link to see an example of 30 StratBombers against 9 2 hits-Carrier with 18 Fighters
Overall %*: A. survives: 39.1% D. survives: 59.3% No one survives: 1.6%Follow the link to see an example of 30 StratBombers against 8 2 hits-Carrier with 16 Fighters
Overall %*: A. survives: 88.5% D. survives: 10.6% No one survives: 0.9%
http://calc.axisandallies.org/?mustland=0&abortratio=0&saveunits=0&strafeunits=0&techs=on&aInf=&aArt=&aAArt=&aArm=&aFig=&aJFig=&aBom=30&aHBom=&aTra=&aSub=&aSSub=&aDes=&aCru=&aCar=&aBat=&adBat=&dInf=&dArt=&dAArt=&dArm=&dFig=16&dJFig=&dBom=&dHBom=&dTra=8&dSub=&dSSub=&dDes=&dCru=&dCar=8&dBat=&ddBat=&ool_att=Bat-Inf-Art-AArt-Arm-Sub-SSub-Des-Fig-JFig-Cru-Bom-HBom-Car-dBat-Tra&ool_def=Bat-Inf-Art-AArt-Arm-Bom-HBom-Tra-Sub-SSub-Des-Car-Cru-Fig-JFig-dBat&battle=Run&rounds=&reps=10000&luck=pure&ruleset=AA50&territory=&round=1&pbem=This showed that when you built 3 Full 2-hits Carriers (108 IPCs) against 10 Strategic Bomber (120 IPCs), the US player will get the better odds on his part.
While a little more than 10 StBs against 3 Full Carrier or less, the German player will have the odds on his side.
31 StBs against 9 2-hits Full Carriers
Overall %*: A. survives: 56.7% D. survives: 41.4% No one survives: 1.8% -
@Arthur:
Amanntai,
Please try out a game playing the Allies against a good German Dark Skies player. If you don’t build up a huge navy, he will destroy your invasion fleet with minimal bomber losses. If you do build up a huge navy, he will ignore it and wait till your troops are ashore. Germany has the choice of when and where to attack. The massive flexibility of the bombers allows it many more options than you normally have in a game. That makes up for the lack of damage/PU compared to other units. I truly wish that I had other valid options besides spending heavily on a massive Atlantic fleet since that is severely delaying my ability to assist Russia.
Well… AACalc is a little unhelpful because it doesn’t do two-hit carriers, but from estimation using 1-hit carriers and subbing 2 destroyers for carriers leaves me with this result: The Allies would have to spend at least 1 IPC for every bomber to have a fleet with a decent chance of survival and a measly invasion force that wouldn’t survive a Bomber counterattack.
Of course, I haven’t played a game to see if the bomber losses (which usually amounted to at least 12/24 even if the Allies spent much less) would cripple Germany, but that relies on Germany actually attacking the fleet, and they would only do that if the Allied landing force was more than enough to resist a bomber counterattack, in which case the fleet would likely be weak enough that the Bombers could destroy it with few losses.
Basically, a single allied fleet is either f***ed, or useless.
I’ll have to look into alternative strategies.
PS: The solution is still Classic transports.
Classic transports are a bad idea because they just make sure you build loads of transports and only a few warships. Transports are not ment to defend the warships but the other way around.
Why are we even calculating 30 bombers vs 30 inf, it would be 30 bombers vs 120 inf.
Germany can only use the bombers at 1 location, sure that location gets hammered and then most of the strength will be spend.
Every combat that involves bombers only is a verry bad trade for the player with the bombers, even if they win they will lose a lot more money wise then the defender and most of the time the left over bombers are exposed to counter attack (and they are not brilliant defenders )In regards to transports:
This isn’t the thread for that discussion, but as I pointed out in the Defenseless Transport thread, transports wouldn’t defend warships. If you choose the transports as casualties, you lose your invasion force. And then the Germans win because you spent hundreds of IPCs on useless warships and lost your whole invasion force anyways.
Unless the transports are empty, in which case they are worse than destroyers, and therefore a really bad defense.As for Bombers versus infantry, it isn’t 30 Bombers versus 120 infantry. How are you going to get those infantry anywhere? You need 60 transports to use them against Germany. And then you need a fleet to defend those 60 transports, and by then Germany has way more than 30 Bombers and probably already stomped Russia. Think inside the game.
Same problem arises with Baron’s calcs… 108 IPCs in carriers for every 10 Bombers doesn’t give the US enough for an invasion force. 12 IPCs for every 10 Bombers? That leaves 1 Transport and only 5 IPCs for a land unit. Against 10 Bombers. At that point, Germany completely ignores the fleet and simply kills the 4 Land units that landed in Normandy.
The problem is that the Allies have to build two separate forces capable of defeating the Bombers, which is just not economically viable.
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