How to save Italian fleet

@Maddog77:

…
All other A&A games I own, the xport can at least defend with a roll of 1.

Yes, this has changed starting from Anniversary Edition.

I know people hate them but I like having a couple cruisers in my fleet accompanied by a good screen of subs and DDs to protect carriers. I’d rather spend 4 more IPCs and have two slightly less powerful rolls of the dice in a battle while still having the ability to soak the two hits a BB would get with one unit.

I jest, of course  :-D

Strategy Summary:
Using 7 starting pieces and 5 purchased pieces on turn 1 assemble a Far East Task Force
Prepare a Russian turn 2 Declaration Of War against Japan.
or
Bait Japan(surprise them once per player) into a J1 DOW.
Use Far East Task Force to secure Burma road turn 3, India turn 4, and redeploy air to USSR by turn 6 or 7 for defense of Russia. 5 Russian air units are a nice scramble/carrier cargo in India on turn 3.

Note: The India DOW against Japan turn 1 discussed below is designed for the surrender London Strategy I have proposed elsewhere, simply ignore to evaluate this proposal independently.

Strategy Details:
Turn 1:
Purchase 2 fighters, 3 Mechanized Infantry.
Deploy 17 infantry, 1 AA gun to Amur as bait(above Manchuria+Korea).
Deploy 1 infantry to Yakut S.S.R. to redeploy against a blitzing tank later.
Deploy 1 armor, 1 Mechanized Infantry to Volgograd(Southern Victory City/Factory).
Deploy 2 fighters, 1 Tactical Bomber to Russia(non-surprise/feint option) or Caucasus(feint).
Deploy 1 Armor, 1 Mechanized Infantry to Caucasus(feign a Middle-East staging, prevent a German 5 turn assault on Moscow).

At this point, few Japanese players are expecting Russia to deploy 7 land units and 5 air units in China, so they may choose to seize Amur. This is a critical blunder and should be avoided as you consume 10-11 land units in Asia plus 2-3 air units to destroy that force, without pulling your entire fleet out of position. These 11 land units are needed in China. In my opinion.

China turn 1:
Build 4 Infantry
Deploy 12 infantry to Szechwan, 1 Fighter
Alternative: Attack and kill 1-2 Japanese land units(if 3-4 are present, soften up for India) with 3 infantry and 1 Fighter leaving 9 units plus fighter in Szechwan turn 2.
Collect 8-9 IPCs

_India turn 1: (hinges on if US enters the war turn 2 by surrendering London, disregard this section for independent review of USSR tactic)
Purchase 1 air craft carrier. Save 1 IPC.
Declare war on Japan
Deploy 6 infantry and 1 Artillery to Burma
Capture(preferred) or Clear Yunnan with 2 infantry and 3 planes, land 3 planes in India.
Deploy 1 DD to sz 37 block Jap Navy
Deploy 1 Transport to Sumatra, secure 4 IPCS with 2 Infantry from Malaya.
Deploy 1 Infantry from Malaya to Shan State
Deploy 1 BB, 1 CA to sz39 to protect carrier build.
note Deploy 1 DD french sz72 and 1 DD UKsz71 to sz 75 (in range of sz 39,76,80,41,57,60 as needed)
Collect 21 plus, 5 IPC NO, plus 1 saved for 27 IPCs.

Anzac turn 1: Build 3 infantry save 1 IPC
Deploy 1 fighter to UK carrier
Deploy 2 fighters all land to Queensland to secure landing for US planes on turn 2.
Deploy 1 transport and 2 Infantry to Java_

Russia turn 2
Deploy 2 armor, 5 Mechanized units to Sikiang, China via Kazakhstan (DOW on Japan if needed)
Deploy 4 fighters, 1 tactical bomber to Szechwan to protect 10-13 Chinese units from Jap air attack.
Deploy Amur forces if alive to capture or clear Manchuria and Korea(lower priority)

Now Japan turn 2 must use caution if they hit Amur. They have too few units(11-12) to stack in Kweichow as Russia can hit those units with 7 land and 5 air, clearing that stack.
If they stack in Hunan 12 units (assumes fleet elsewhere unless Amur is ignored), then China moves into Yunnan with 10-12 land units builds 2 more, 7 UK units merge in, along with 7 USSR units on turn 3 prior to J3 assault, plus as many air units as desired up to the allied total of 5 USSR+ 3 UK + 1 Anzac = 9 by turn 3, 11 by turn 4 or later when other 2 anzac land on carriers. US planes to follow as an option from Australia.
These leave china with 26-28 land units plus 9 planes in Yunnan(1 more land if Shan state infantry is alive to move in), vs Japanese 12 land units and typically 12-14 air units even if all 20 air units can hit, its not pretty.

Japans land movements get tricky if they can not land air units to protect them, this keeps China in the game multiple rounds, and using can opener maneuvers, you can drive Japan back since 12 units from Russia are a size-able threat.

If India goes fleet with heavy air support, then Japan must choose whether to sink it since that raises the potency of the US fleet off Australia. See actual play test description below for large naval battle composition.

Unless Japan stays focused like a laser this situation creates opportunities for China/and its allies.

I welcome your comments upon any of the merits or lack there of, of these proposals and plans.

(Sorry for my absence, I have begun to focus on Allied strategies now.)
Maroon text is background information, skip if you just wanted strategy details
Recently, I began to seek ways to address my biased perceived weighting of Alpha2 towards the axis.

Summary: Germany takes UK by turn 3 or 4, Russia can move into Germany on turn 4 but is often driven back. Japan destroys China by turn 3 or 4. US spins its wheels staging in the Pacific to keep a powerful Japan from ending the game, Europe grows into a forest fire that the US struggles with after the focus lifts from Japan. <biased view=“” based=“” on=“” my=“” observations,=“” feel=“” free=“” to=“” disagree=“”>While testing a failed Russian navy concept(I had to try it once before I rule it out), I took two things out of this:
1st: A Russian navy was ineffective, but a one destroyer build with a starting sub and scramble from sz 127 shows promise of keeping the sz125 Russian Objective 2-3 rounds without a moderate German naval/air effort that could draw assets away from the US on those critical turn 4-6 maneuvers.
2nd: Russia’s first turn build is expendable in a 10+ turn game with a SeaLion Threat.

Summary: Having concluded(perhaps shortsightedly) that Russian offensives against Germany are ill-advised, and that having Russia sit and build up while doing nothing until turn 4 is also ill-advised, the logical focus of early efforts is in Asia.

Note: The below strategy was play tested 12 turns in combination with a surrender London, and Turn 1 DOW against Japan by India and Anzac after a Japan DOW turn 1 on Russia’s bait.
Japan had 2-3 critical choices to make, all of them could have changed the outcome which was: Japan was brought to her knees, with no American builds in the Pacific until turn 5, and 1 UK carrier built in S. Africa on turn 1.
Starting US Navy was forward deployed and used in Pacific when it entered the war on turn 2. Japanese navy was stacked off of French Indo China to threaten an India first campaign.
India and Anzac collected at war NO’s on turn 1 (Anzac did not have the island NO)
(all Mediterranean forces were stacked in sz92 Gibraltar turn1. 2 Land units(London/Scotland) and 3 planes were landed on Algeria(sz109 transport was critical) to prevent an Italian landing site for a German air assault against the UK sz92 force G2, (1 DD was left to block Italian bombardments/naval assault in sz 94) Turn 2, UK Navy Reinforced US navy in sz91 Gibraltar.
Buy turn 3, India was able to stack:
3 carriers, 1 BB, 1 Cruiser, 2 DD(French/UK), 9 fighters(3 Anzac,2 UK, 4 USSR fighters-3 scrambled
vs. the Japanese fleet able to hit it by turn J4:
3 Carriers, 2 BB, 2 CA, 4 DD, 2 subs (Japan had moved fleet to Philippines turn 2, as one transport was  used turn 1 against Amur, 1 was in Japan, and with only 1 transport, India first was not viable.) This was the second critical choice that failed to see the potential of the Indian navy on one side, the US navy off of Australia, and the cost of the first critical decision to hit Amur depleting Asian land units and pulling 1 transport out of range.
Egypt did not fall in 12 turns stacking 5 UK fighters (2London,Scotland,Gibraltar,Malta) plus 1 Tactical on Egypt turn 2 as US planes landed on UK/US fleet, causing Italy to drive through Middle-east to grab Volgograd rather then engage 15 land units, 6 air in Egypt. Italy was not safe to move away from scramble air cover for first 3 turns, as a 6 UK air force would scuttle 1 BB, 2 CA, and 2 DDs in 3 combat rounds. (3 hits round 1, 2 round 2, 1 round 3 vs. Italy 2 hits round 1, 2 round 2, 1 round 1 leaving 1 French fighter to sink unescorted transports if all UK air lost) this forced an Italian carrier build on turn 3, and fleet was able to move out turn 4….by then 5 US air offered a one , two punch threat.
In fact, the axis were forced to use a turn 2 neutral crush on Sweden, Spain, and Turkey just so Italian units could be transported to turkey when fleet was able to deploy on turn 3, this also permitted the axis to stack 30+ units on Gibraltar by turn 5 as Germany went navy for first 4 turns to drive the US away from Gibraltar since Germany was out producing the US due to capital plunder early on.</biased>

As you can see this is a gamble, but it CAN work.

If Russia is spending money on Airbases, subs, and losing aircraft that it is working.

As long as you are matching his Land army builds and pushing towards and objective also.

Gargantua,

This tactic does sound like it can hurt the Russians.  I have been able to sack Moscow as Germany in the games I played but it is very hard and I don’t always succeed.  There have been other games where I died in the Russian Winter.

I don’t think I could use the Italian aircraft against the opponent I play because he is usually pretty adamnent about reducing Italy to next to nothing before he strikes anything else.  On UK1 he sinks half of my Italian fleet.  Which hurts a lot but the main problem is the US fleet he pulls out of the Pacific and sends into the Med along with some subs and transports to end Italy’s war efforts in Africa.  Meanwhile he flys fighters to Hawaii and transports Infantry there.  It would still be possible to take out Hawaii as Japan but would take a lot of resources for very little economic gain.

I have countered by trying to win the game as Japan and I have killed India J3 with the purchase of the Hainan Naval base.  Yet even then by the time I set my sights on the last victory city Italy has been stomped to irrelevant and the US is back in the Pacific.

One needs to be prepared for every outcome.  That’s all I am saying.

Sorry, I’m thinking of my own historical rules in which Romania starts neutral. ~Posting on this soon.  Yugoslavia or maybe later on Ukraine?