Taking Greece

[RougeOne]

I was just looking at the board and I noticed that Greece is Prime Real Estate for the allies. It borders three sea zones has a built in garrison, an IC can be built there, fighters can reach moscow, bombers can reach london, if you are planning to take Spain you are poised to take turkey not to mention you can protect three seazones with an airbase. The only problem would be holding it. Thoughts?

[Tirano]

Like you said the problem is holding it, typically Italy will be poised to retake Greece.

[siparo]

Not worth the loss of 10 IPC’s to take it, 1 infantry and 1 transport.

[UltimateChaos]

If the med is secure and Rome is too heavily defended than yes, Greece is a great landing spot for the reasons you mentioned. Otherwise it is really just a waste of resources as the Italians can easily counter it with a lot of force.

[simon33]

UK1, all landing on it does is add 1-2inf to the defenders and gains 2IPC but costs a transport and 1-2inf. If Germany has activated Bulgaria, that’s 5 inf who will hit it next turn, with planes no doubt. If Germany has left Bulgaria for Italy? Perhaps, but you have to be prepared to fly in a crap load of planes to try to hold it for I2.

[taamvan]

Taking Greece is more of a late game play;  in the G40 scenario the Germans have plenty of money and time to build mobile units that can bash any entry into Greece before it can be reinforced by the other allies.  This would be a great way to avoid the Atlantic Wall, except that it you have to build navy air and transports in Egypt to support the move and as long as the axis has any air or mobile power, they can defeat it on land or sea (without transports).

[MarshmallowofWar]

@simon33:

UK1, all landing on it does is add 1-2inf to the defenders and gains 2IPC but costs a transport and 1-2inf. If Germany has activated Bulgaria, that’s 5 inf who will hit it next turn, with planes no doubt. If Germany has left Bulgaria for Italy? Perhaps, but you have to be prepared to fly in a crap load of planes to try to hold it for I2.

I typically do not take Greece in early game, unless I am doing Taranto. If I am doing Taranto, then Greece provides a place that planes from the UK carrier can land. Otherwise, as soon as you take a hit on the carrier the Axis can retreat and kill your planes for free. On the other hand, if the Axis goes light your planes can survive and bolster your Greek defense, and if the Axis does not attack Greece your planes survive.

That being said, taking Greece while it is subject to Axis counterattack does put any infantry used in the counterattack five whole turns away from Moscow. Weakening the attack on Moscow by five German infantry may indeed be worth taking Greece on UK1 and losing eight IPCs (minus any kills that you get on the attacking Axis forces). That of course presumes that Germany activates Bulgaria on G1. On average, you should kill about 1.6 attacking infantry with those Greek forces, which would mean you lose between two and three IPCs in the process but gain Moscow an extra turn of life if Bulgaria was activated with German forces. It’s a trade I would make if I thought it would kill the Moscow attack because of a bad G1 build…

Also, I question sitting there in Greece and waiting for a counterattack if Italy activated Bulgaria – in that case, if you have air support, it would be better to attack the Italian forces instead of waiting to be attacked. It slows Italy down and if your attack is very successful might force Germany to divert forces away from the Moscow attack to prevent an sore from becoming an oozing wound in its southern flank. Killing an Italian tank on your terms could be very helpful for Russia.

A big concern with taking Greece is that it forces you to use the Egyptian transport to not attack Tobruk and also not reinforce Egypt. This could have consequences that you did not intend.

Marsh