Whats your favourite SURPRISE move?

With that in mind sz109 might be the best staging point for Royal Navy if the RAF is strong, they can scramble up to 6 fighters there.  Never considered that before.

No, you are not missing anything. That is a perfectly legal move. I am assuming that the Allies still control Gibraltar, right?

In fact, in your example, since Gibraltar has a friendly naval base (assuming it hasn’t been bombed), the US fleet could go all the way to Sea Zone 95 and park right next to Italy if Italy had no ships there OR they just had submarines and/or transports. Even if Italy had fighters on their air base, they couldn’t scramble because it is the US NON-combat move.

You can basically move your ships to any sea zone you want as long as there are no enemy surface warships blocking your way, or as in your example you have cleared any enemy warships.
Of course, that US submarine would have to remain in the sea zone just east of Gibraltar since it moved in the combat movement.

If the US player is smart, he makes sure you don’t have any decent attack on the us fleet in pear if US stacks it.

I’m with ghr.  The strength of Russian infantry is in their mass, not left to die in a 33% that they take out an Axis Infantry with them.

G1:

Purchase - 30 IPC
1 CV
1 DD
1 SS

Combat:

SZ110:
1 BB via SZ112
All Aircraft less the Tac in Poland and the Ftr in Hungary

SZ106:
2 SS via SZ117 and SZ118

SZ91:
2 SS via SZ108 and SZ103

SZ109:
1 SS via SZ124

Normandy:
2 Inf/Art via Holland

France:
3 Arm S.Germany
4 Mech, 1 Art, 3 Inf via W.Germany
3 Arm, 2 Inf via Holland
1 Ftr via Hungary
1 Tac via Poland

Yugoslavia:
6 Inf, 2 Art via S.France
3 Arm via Poland, Hungary and Romania
2 Inf via Hungary
1 Inf via Romania

Only thing to realistically note about this move is that if you sink all the ships in SZ110 and the BB is remaining, retreat to SZ112.

NCM:

Finland:
1 Inf via Norway

Bulgaria:
1 Inf via Romania

SZ112:
1 CR via SZ114
1 TT w/ 2 Inf from Poland to Norway
2 Ftr via SZ110

W.Germany:
All remaining Aircraft from France and SZ110

Unit Placement:

Place 1 CV, 1 DD, 1 SS in SZ112

End Move

Notes about this opener:

I like this opener due to the fact that provided the SS score hits in both SZ106 and SZ91 that you effectively eliminate units into England via Canada and help Italy in the Med.  Further, your SS are in a location (SZ106 and 91) that if the DD in SZ109 survives, that the UK has to choose one of the two to hit.

Your fleet in SZ112 has the following in it:
1 CV (with 2 Ftr)
1 CR
1 DD
1 SS
1 TT

It also has the possibility of a tipped BB as well as 3 aircraft to scramble out of W.Germany.  This will most likely deter England from sending its SZ111 fleet against your fleet.  The preservation of your fleet in SZ112 is paramount to allowing for SS builds on G2 and G3 to keep England in a defensive posture until the US establishes a presence of a fleet in Europe.

In example, the UK is going to have to face multiple SS from varied locations and it does not have enough DD to address them all, which enables Germany to establish a convoy on SZ109 as early as G2.  This convoy will probably survive until the 4th round before the US and England can remove your SS and fleet and regain control of the Atlantic.  This is beneficial to enabling a march on Moscow if the Allies cannot just waltz in with TT once the US enters the war.  Further, for every SS you purchase at 6 IPC - England has to spend 8 IPC on a DD to attack it with.  This creates a 2 IPC per SS advantage for Germany on top of any Convoy damage England takes.

The drawback to this is that Germany will probably not make significant headway into Russia until G4 - but it also enables Japan to work its magic of getting China under control while establishing an AB in Northern China to fly in its entire starting Air Force in support of your delayed entrance into Russia.  Many Japanese players will not buy into this tactic, but from an Axis perspective, If Germany owns Moscow then the fight is for Egypt - which Japan can assist with via its fleet sailing PAST Calcutta and into the Med.  A combined Japanese/Italian move against Egypt is almost impossible to stop - especially if Germany is providing air cover out of W.Germany once Moscow falls.

another example of this in action is attacking an enemy sub.  He might (and probably will) submerge, but its up to the defender so the attacker needs to send enough hardware to the sz to win if the enemy defends.

Thank you gentlemen… it is as I thought then.

They were not intentionally cheating, I am sure, however, they are still breaking the rules and will have to be penalized accordingly. Which probably means returning their ships to the proper sea zones, removing the infantry and surrendering whatever collected money they had to the bank.

Thanks again.