Sealion ,how many moves can it be done in ?

I’ve seen it done on the first move, but the second move is probably a more likely scenario. Against a good UK player, it’s probably really hard. However, I don’t believe it’s impossible.

If you are lucky I suppose it might be possible to do so on turn one. However I never plan on rolling a Yahtzee, I try to make plans where I have a reasonable chance of sucess.

Against good Allied play, I don’t beleive it can be done until after the fall of Moscow. Then Germany must build a navy sufficient to control the North Sea and hold off any UK/US counter attacks. All this would take a long time to accomplish.

Get Hvy bmbs, and/or long range, its yours!

I don’t know about that, MuthaRussia… even if Germany can get heavy bombers, they need a way to get at least one surviving land unit in on the attack. Now if you mean using heavy bombers to wipe out the British units on a turn, then to start building sea units once the UK has no planes left, that’s all well… but you still have to consider whether the US or Russia would have planes in a safer territory like Karelia. If so, Germany has no chance to build any transports and can’t land an infantry or tank unit, without which a territory cannot be captured. This would also require the Germans to spend money on both bombers and transports. Can they really afford to do so while locked in constant battle with Russia and defending against the US simultaneously? I doubt it.

Get Hvy bmbs, and/or long range, its yours!

It had better be, otherwise Russia will eat your lunch in E. Europe! :D

Even if you take London and have HB and/or long range Germany will still struggle.

Spending the cash required to get the tech plus the planes and other resources you will lose to take London will let Russia walk into E. Europe. on R2. And when the USA takes London back on US1 (or Russia on R2 if this by chance doesn’t happen) Germany will lose the GB income and by UK4/US4, Germany will start to see Allied reinforcement of E. Europe.

What makes this hard for Germany is that even with the cash from UK, Germany can’t replace the lost fighters and will have trouble defending Germany, S. Europe and W. Europe. If Germany is sucessful on G3 or G4 in taking E. Europe back from USSR, it will still be very thin on defense, especially from a UK/US attack on W. Europe. The fighters are needed to put some teeth into the German defenses and to add offensive punch on the Eastern front when there is little or no chance of losing a fighter.

Of course, there is always the possibility that the Allies will surrender once UK falls, and even if they don’t its worth the look on their faces 8)

@UKcommander:

I’ve seen it done on the first move, but the second move is probably a more likely scenario. Against a good UK player, it’s probably really hard. However, I don’t believe it’s impossible.

I find the “first move” thing pretty doubtful against any but the dumbest of Allied players. Only one transport can even theoretically reach the UK, so as long as Russia takes it out with his plane (which should always be done in my opinion) Germany has nothing to make a direct assault with. Even if you are playing RR however, you need to kill the British fleet before attacking. With RR you can hit with 2 subs and as many planes as you need; I think the ideal attack on first round would be the fighters from Ukraine, EE and Germany (since none of these can reach UK anyway) plus the two subs against the UK/Russian fleet (Russian players on RR do generally move their sub & transport to either North Sea or Canada at least, right?) and then hit the mainland with 2 infantry (a tank gives too few hit-taking capability), the bomber from Germany and the fighters from WE and Finland. That’s 5 units, all of the amount that even have potential to reach the UK: two 1’s, two 3’s and a 4. But to take UK the 3’s and 4’s must take the hits first. This is against three 2’s, two 4’s and a 1, not to mention AA shots (3 1’s in the early play. Not only does the UK have better hitting rate all around, it would take 6 hits to finish them while it would take only 5 to kill Germany’s troops.

Doubtful about an outcome? Consider a case with dead-average rolling: Ger 2 Inf 2 Ftr 1 Bmb UK 2 Inf 1 Arm 1 Bmb 2 Ftr. On average Germany should hit twice taking off the infantry and the UK should hit 2 or 3 times finishing at minimum the German fighters, so even if he hits only twice the UK is left with two inf and a bmb, against an arm, bmb and 2 ftr. Pressing the attack (AA retreat is impossible) Ger hits maybe once while UK will hit once or twice leaving Ger with only inf against the UK’s planes, a probably impossible situation. Using bids I suppose the buying transports thing is impossible, but personally I’ve always found the whole bids thing kind of cheap. Besides, the question was to take UK in original A&A rules, not to take UK in a game with bids. Playing with RR is help enough for Germany to at least get some kind of advantage.

I agree with AP.

But if I must play RR+Bid…mo’ed gets it.

Note: Of course, your opponents moves may preclude or allow the opportunity. (e.g., Precluded if US/Allied playa builds and flies 1 or more ftrs to UK each turn.)

So the russians didnt fortify UK….not to wise (would need to check the odds)…but what happened in Kar?

@APolaris:

I don’t know about that, MuthaRussia… even if Germany can get heavy bombers, they need a way to get at least one surviving land unit in on the attack. Now if you mean using heavy bombers to wipe out the British units on a turn, then to start building sea units once the UK has no planes left, that’s all well… but you still have to consider whether the US or Russia would have planes in a safer territory like Karelia. If so, Germany has no chance to build any transports and can’t land an infantry or tank unit, without which a territory cannot be captured. This would also require the Germans to spend money on both bombers and transports. Can they really afford to do so while locked in constant battle with Russia and defending against the US simultaneously? I doubt it.

If you wait, there is no way it will work till the end of the game, except when the game is nearly over anyways…I believe the attack in general is a matter of chance, so do it right away!

I have to add there is one exception to the rule about not being able to do this… when you’re playing against those phenomenally stupid computer opponents from the cd. Just now for fun I decided to see just how badly they would lose against that idea, and, without techs, ended up capturing the UK on turn two with Germany, and the US on turn 3… with Germany. Without fighting a single unit except a transport, in the US’s case. I think when they released the cd game, they INTENDED for you to be able to beat it with minimal effort or something… I’ve noticed it practically lets you take Russia by turn 2 or 3 with Germany and lets you practically take Germany on turn 2 or 3 with pretty much whoever you want. I wonder if a version with computer opponents as strong as the people we’re used to playing could be made? Nah, they’d probably not do that because of the lack of popular demand. People don’t like their games to be challenging enough these days… sigh

first of all i would like to say, its good to be back!!! boot camp sucked. 8)

now, on to the matter at hand……

Sealion is an accomplishable objective. However, it must be done early. Otherwise, the UK can build 2 INF + whatever each turn, and by the time you take out Russia, its a veritable fortress. The way this is accompllished is by the debatable German carrier. Get one out from the med and the UK will have no choice but to send its fighters after it. If the BB from the Med survives the initial battle, this is even better. send whatever subs you have surviving to use as cannon fodder against the UK planes, and start shipping over as many tanks/INF as can be spared from the eastern front. If the UK does become an impregnable fortress, you can always pull a shot against North america, landing whatever force you have availiable there to help distract the americans from the battle in the pacific.

1. There’s no reason the UK “has to” go after the carrier. The UK can easily produce more defense than Germany could ever have a chance of attacking per turn until they get Japanese assistance (via bombing) and take Russia (to help them make enough money to build stuff) and they would be perfectly safe leaving the carrier right as it is. But even if they “had to” it would simply be a 1/2 chance of losing one fighter for a very high chance (if they sent all 3 planes) of killing the carrier. Also, the carrier really doesn’t do anything on its own.

2. If you waste your German money on a carrier, you’ll make your opponent happy since that basically hands Germany to a Russian player who doesn’t have some psychiatric condition.

3. A carrier won’t get you the ability to make a land attack, because ships don’t attack land in this game. The carrier could be used to defend German transports being built in theory, but only if Germany either gets the carrier to the Baltic (a questionable idea, and one that would take way too much trouble with it trying to pass the North Sea) or builds the transports in Italy (an even more asinine idea since it basically hands over 2 rounds’ time for the UK to build before they can carry anything over. If Germany builds transports for even one turn they’re essentially handing EE to Russia, and if for 2 turns they’re basically giving up their capital.

And 4. Germany going after the US is even more asinine. Even if Germany could build up transports, it would take them 2 turns to reach the US, in which time the US could easily build from 20-24 infantry units unless they’ve somehow lost more than 6 IPC/turn income (which, in my opinion, should be impossible). Even if that’s all that’s on the US - 20 infantry - to even get 20 infantry to attack the US would take 10 transports + 20 men (a cost of 140 IPCs). Last time I checked Germany has no way to do this. And that’s to have a DISadvantaged attack.

I would love to see a typical scenario you consider a possibility for using a German carrier to help invade the UK. Please provide one, maybe builds for a few turns, what you’re doing to defend against Russia, and what a final attack might look like, and most importantly - what you do with the carrier?

The problem I see with OP Sea Lion is that the UK just isn’t anywhere near as big a threat as Russia is to Germany. Yes, the Germans can overcome the threat easily, but they still need a few turns to do so. Until then (and assuming you didn’t roll only 6’s when attacking the Brit fleet) you can pretty much ignore the UK until you can reduce the defending units of Moscow enough that Japan can take it before USSR can rebuild. (Yea, that means that Japan gets the money, but so what? Build only infnatry in Euro-Asia and Africa and wait until the Japs can take the US.)