Lots of questions on Germany and UK

I’m not a very experienced player myself, but I’ll address a few of your questions anyway and hope that I make some sense in doing so. Mind you, there are all sorts of advanced German strategies that I’m not delving into right now - if you’re interested, check out Cow’s excellent work on summarizing some of them. But for now, I’m assuming that the basic idea would be to kill Russia in the east while keeping the UK and the US at bay in the west, which is standard and quite sound. So let’s have a look at things from that perspective….

@BluGerman:

after a fairly average battle for Paris which resulted in me keeping my stack of tanks, I forgot to implement taking the french treasury (we normally forget this step anyways and i was supposed to implement it this game) which was my first big hiccup.

Ehhhr…. well, what can I say… next time, take the money. Germany really needs it.  :-)

@BluGerman:

My first dice problem (and by far the worst in the game) was my assault on the Royal Navy. I followed my typical strategy of sending the Bismark, one sub, fighter and tac to sink the British BB, cruiser, and destroyer off of Scotland. two subs to sink the destroyer and TT off of ireland, and 2 (or 3, I forget) subs, fighter and tac to assault the main stack in the English channel. I also decided to press up the attack, as my unbeatable friend was playing UK, and send two bombers accompanied by all remaining fighters to hit London’s IC. attack off Scotland succeeded, but every other attack failed with no British losses. surprisingly enough we had never strategically bombed an IC and have the defender scramble intercept fighters, so it was much to my surprise when I found out all aircraft roll at a 1 but still saw my opponent rolling snake eyes every time and i kept getting five’s. this brings about my first question, given my units that i appropriated to sink Royal navy (in case of English channel I just send as much to draw scrambling fighters as much as actually trying to sink ships) did i not send enough? or did i just get screwed by the dice and the situation was nothing i could have prevented? and in the case of the SBR, is that a smart thing to do G1?

There are many options when attacking the Royal Navy G1, too many for me to discuss here. But I’ll give you a few things to consider.
First, one thing the British may want to do on their turn, is to attack the Italian fleet in SZ 97, the so-called “Taranto raid”. It has its ups and downs in each case, and on G1, Germany can try to make it less attractive to the British if they want to. One thing that you may want to do as Germany, is to send two subs after the UK cruiser is SZ 91. That cruiser can’t attack SZ 97 itself, but because the British normally also want to sink the SZ 96 Italian fleet, sinking the cruiser may induce them to divert forces away from SZ 97 to make sure to sink SZ 96 anyway.
Now I’m not saying that attacking SZ 91 is a necessity (opinions differ on that), but it’s something to be considered. As an alternative, you may want to use those subs in the north, to assist in killing the RN in SZ 110 and 111. That should certainly work - for example, one sub, the battleship and a bunch of planes to 110, and two subs plus some planes to 111. Sink the RN, lose the German ships as well, but keep most of the planes and you should be fine. Make sure to bring enough to SZ 110 to deter the UK from scrambling (two British and one French fighter available - the scramble in SZ 111 is not a big deal because there’s only the fighter from Scotland).
Which brings me to my next point: I’m not a big fan of attacking SZ 109 with two subs. The British may scramble all four fighters, so if you don’t kill the destroyer immediately, you’re probably losing your subs for nothing. Instead, I’d send those subs after SZ 106: no scramble, and if you sink the Canadian ships, the Canadians will stay home for now. If the UK retaliates by sending the SZ 109 destroyer and a few planes over - well, that’s just fine, because those planes will need to land in Canada, so no Taranto for them.
The G1 SBR…. not a good idea if you ask me. Those two bombers, attacking at 4, could have made all the difference in your unfortunate naval battles.

@BluGerman:

and if i were to modify the values aircraft were given in the air battle prior to SBR what would you recommend changing it to because personally i hate rolling for 1’s.

I don’t know… that would be a house rule.

@BluGerman:

I did not allocate forces to take Normandy and instead sent them all to Paris, this coupled with my Naval/Air fiasco allowed Normandy to stay in the hands of the allies the entire game with Britain (U.S. went all in Japan and was absent from Europe) constantly shipping forces over to counter my constant raids from France (my tank stack that survived battle of Paris killed all but one fighter in Normandy G2 which is why the constant skirmishes developed).

I think it’s OK not to take Normandy G1 and minimize potential losses by focusing on Paris. There’s even a strategy based on not taking Normandy at all, because if the Allies recapture it, they can build right there, which they can’t if it stays French. Especially with the RN surviving and with the early British threats, I don’t think you would have been happy with a UK owned factory in Normandy. So I don’t see a problem here.

@BluGerman:

This was just the Western Front. In the south and East the Axis attempt was disappointing. G1 I took Finland, Yugo, and Bulgaria putting a minor IC in Romania moving all forces not allocated to west or Yugo onto the Russian border.

Some people favor building a complex in Romania, but I don’t think it makes for a good business case. It sits right next to the Russian border of course, but those 12 IPC’s could have been spent on building fast units in Germany - mechs instead of inf. G1 minor IC in Romania + 3 inf built there G2 = 3 German inf in Bessarabia or Eastern Poland G3, at a cost of 21. G1 building 5 mechs in Germany = 5 mechs in Eastern Poland G2 or in Bessarabia G3, at a cost of 20.
As for Yugoslavia, there’s the nice little tactic of sending in the inf + art from Southern Germany plus one inf from Romania and a plane or two, fight one round to kill most Yugoslavians, and the retreat everything back into Romania, thus quickly moving the slow units that were in Southern Germany, to Romania. This leaves a now poorly defended Yugoslavia for Italy. Planes that fought in Yug, may land in Southern Italy to scramble against a UK Taranto attack.

@BluGerman:

My plan was against a medium skilled Russian player and involved a southern root to the Caucasus with 6 inf covering flank in Poland and Finland while keeping distance from Leningrad.

Why leave inf in Poland? If Russia should move in, which they typically can’t afford to do anyway, you can easily build a big force in Germany and kick them right out again. Also, “keeping distance from Leningrad”… that doesn’t seem to be necessary because if your attack on Moscow is going somewhat well, Russia needs to pull the Leningrad forces back anyway to try and keep their capital.

@BluGerman:

However due to a surprise takeover of Tobruk and a weak Italian response I made a ill decision to build a factory in Yugo and start shipping inf to Libya. North Africa’s fate was sealed before i could send my Afrikacorps and cost me 29 IPC’s for the minor, transport, 2inf and art.

Like you said: not a good decision. Even if Africa could have been kept, it would not have been worth such a massive German investment. On top of the costs you mention, you’d also need protection for the transports to effectively use them. In general terms, if you want to put German ships in the Mediterranean, capture Southern France with Germany.

@BluGerman:

other than the questions i already asked as to what caused my downfall, how was my decision of Barbarossa strategy? Romanian/Yugo factory? I would love to know and would love just one win for global that didn’t involve my nemesis on my team

I think I addressed most points…. there’s nothing wrong with Barbarossa as such, but you need to pour in troops from Germany’s existing major complexes. The big German stack will crush Russia.

Hope this helps… and maybe, more experienced players will comment on it. Good luck next time!  :-)

Hi Blu,

Herr kaLeun says he 's not very experienced but I think he is shamelessly modest and I agree with everything he posted ;-).

It looks to me you were really plagued by bad dicing man  :-(.
Having said that, I think you made the classical mistake to spread your forces too thin/want too much at once as the axis.

The first thing I noticed reading your post was that your attacks on all the RN stacks were either equally strong or even weaker than the defending UK. The usual recipe for success against the RN is to attack it with a force that is 1,5 (ish) times stronger than the defenders!
For example the RN in the Channel: the UK has 1BB, 2CA and 3FTR (sadly, you must take into account possible scramblers). That is 7 hits with 22 Defense Factors. To kill this you should bring at least 1 sub, 1BB, 2FTR, 2TAC, 2STR. This can still be risky (for both sides) if your UK opponent is a gambler and scrambles. To be more on the safe side, add a second sub.
As the Brits decide where they scramble if at all, as Germany you must take that RAF into account in every SZ you attack because where you don’t, they will scramble and defeat you.

This is the most important lesson I learned with Germany: preserve the Luftwaffe in the opening turns! Loosing 1 too many planes and Germany is done for. So whatever your plans are, plan to loose no aircraft. Plan it so, that if you loose aircraft it is indeed the dicegods to blame by default…
This means you can attack SZ110 and SZ111 in strength and that’s it. SZ106 or ZS91 can also be attacked but this attack remains a little gamble. Attack it with 1, maybe 2 submarines but no more than that! I wholeheartedly agree with KaLeun about SZ109. All your land units in range should of course attack Paris and that’s it G1, west of Germany that is. Adding more targets G1 will add the risk of terrible failure exponentially. I’d bet adding 1 more target may work if the dice roll normally or slightly in favor of Germany, but if it’s the other way around Germany is in a lot of pain. It remains asking the gods to be on your side and loose if they are not.

Second thing, you mentioned it yourself already, building that IC in Yugho and started to ferry troops into the med. Russia can defeat Germany all by itself now. The IC itself should be OK although I agree with KaLeun about its efficiency. Using it to ferry troops to a front other than Russia was the real mistake.

So my advice would be: stay focussed!
Recognise the most important threats for Germany, being Russia and the (Wallies) Western Allies and from GE3 and on, attack only Russia or the Wallies while defending on the other side. As an alternative (I never tried this but it might work) you can try to defend against both west and east and attack south (Med/Africa), but Germany can never attack on 2 fronts at the same time (Luftwaffe may be an exeption during a short window of time). Before turn 10 that is. Do not loose your luftwaffe! A couple of planes is OK but not more than that. It is your most valuable asset and can be used very flexible, apart from the main German army. There is an exeption to not loosing German aircraft however… IF there is nothing else than RAF that can save Moscow (given a focussed German assault), it is usually affordable too loose Luftwaffe against RAF, as long as this is 1:1 or better! Germany can send its luftwaffe all over Europe to help attack/defend wherever they are needed, as long as they are back (rebased) for the attack on either London or Moscow, whenever it comes. If your German army is active in Russia the Luftwaffe must go over there even if you cannot attack Moscow, to help defend against Russian counter attacks.
As for an attack on London… don’t even think about it without keeping the Luftwaffe very close ;-)…

@BluGerman:

had my first global game in a very long time this past week and Played as Germany (lost) at around turn 5 when Europe stagnated/Tokyo was on the eve of invasion and axis conceded. I never liked blaming a loss on bad luck but this time I really felt like the dice Gods had it out for me. after a fairly average battle for Paris which resulted in me keeping my stack of tanks, I forgot to implement taking the french treasury (we normally forget this step anyways and i was supposed to implement it this game) which was my first big hiccup. My first dice problem (and by far the worst in the game) was my assault on the Royal Navy. I followed my typical strategy of sending the Bismark, one sub, fighter and tac to sink the British BB, cruiser, and destroyer off of Scotland. two subs to sink the destroyer and TT off of ireland, and 2 (or 3, I forget) subs, fighter and tac to assault the main stack in the English channel. I also decided to press up the attack, as my unbeatable friend was playing UK, and send two bombers accompanied by all remaining fighters to hit London’s IC. attack off Scotland succeeded, but every other attack failed with no British losses. surprisingly enough we had never strategically bombed an IC and have the defender scramble intercept fighters, so it was much to my surprise when I found out all aircraft roll at a 1 but still saw my opponent rolling snake eyes every time and i kept getting five’s. this brings about my first question, given my units that i appropriated to sink Royal navy (in case of English channel I just send as much to draw scrambling fighters as much as actually trying to sink ships) did i not send enough? or did i just get screwed by the dice and the situation was nothing i could have prevented? and in the case of the SBR, is that a smart thing to do G1? and if i were to modify the values aircraft were given in the air battle prior to SBR what would you recommend changing it to because personally i hate rolling for 1’s. I did not allocate forces to take Normandy and instead sent them all to Paris, this coupled with my Naval/Air fiasco allowed Normandy to stay in the hands of the allies the entire game with Britain (U.S. went all in Japan and was absent from Europe) constantly shipping forces over to counter my constant raids from France (my tank stack that survived battle of Paris killed all but one fighter in Normandy G2 which is why the constant skirmishes developed). This was just the Western Front. In the south and East the Axis attempt was disappointing. G1 I took Finland, Yugo, and Bulgaria putting a minor IC in Romania moving all forces not allocated to west or Yugo onto the Russian border. My plan was against a medium skilled Russian player and involved a southern root to the Caucasus with 6 inf covering flank in Poland and Finland while keeping distance from Leningrad. However due to a surprise takeover of Tobruk and a weak Italian response I made a ill decision to build a factory in Yugo and start shipping inf to Libya. North Africa’s fate was sealed before i could send my Afrikacorps and cost me 29 IPC’s for the minor, transport, 2inf and art. this major setback in south and west meant my Eastern campaign could only do so much and my stack only made it to Western Ukraine through E.P. and Besserabia when the major Russian stack from Ukraine attacked and Soviets pulled it out with 1 tank remaining. The next round the Axis capitulated with Euro-Axis doomed on all fronts and Japan looking out at the U.S. fleet sitting triumphantly in the sea of japan. other than the questions i already asked as to what caused my downfall, how was my decision of Barbarossa strategy? Romanian/Yugo factory? I would love to know and would love just one win for global that didn’t involve my nemesis on my team

Is there a way where you can break this down into easier to read chunks?

:-o You built two IC’s, soryy I missed that (guess ghr has a point :P).

IMHO, building any IC to channel troops into Russia is unnecessary. Probably it will not cost you the game immediately but it will mean less units to throw at Moscow. Because: by the time such a factory starts producing, fast units that you could have built instead of the IC will have arrived in this area or one at the same longitude…

About the scramblers:
Attacking SZ109 can only be done with units that would otherwise have attacked SZ110 or SZ111. Thus I think it is pointless if the goal is to draw the scramblers away from those areas as you have just weakened those two attacks as well. The goal should be: kill as many of the RN as possible while surviving yourself with as many ships, subs and aircraft as possible. Attacking SZ109 works against this goal.

@ghr2:

@BluGerman:

Had my first global game in a very long time this past week. Played as Germany (lost) at around turn 5 when Europe stagnated/Tokyo was on the eve of invasion and axis conceded. I never liked blaming a loss on bad luck but this time I really felt like the dice Gods had it out for me.

After a fairly average battle for Paris which resulted in me keeping my stack of tanks, I forgot to implement taking the french treasury (we normally forget this step anyways and i was supposed to implement it this game) which was my first big hiccup. My first dice problem (and by far the worst in the game) was my assault on the Royal Navy. I followed my typical strategy of sending the Bismark, one sub, fighter and tac to sink the British BB, cruiser, and destroyer off of Scotland. two subs to sink the destroyer and TT off of ireland, and 2 (or 3, I forget) subs, fighter and tac to assault the main stack in the English channel. I also decided to press up the attack, as my unbeatable friend was playing UK, and send two bombers accompanied by all remaining fighters to hit London’s IC.

Attack off Scotland succeeded, but every other attack failed with no British losses. surprisingly enough we had never strategically bombed an IC and have the defender scramble intercept fighters, so it was much to my surprise when I found out all aircraft roll at a 1 but still saw my opponent rolling snake eyes every time and i kept getting five’s.

This brings about my first question, given my units that i appropriated to sink Royal navy (in case of English channel I just send as much to draw scrambling fighters as much as actually trying to sink ships) did i not send enough? or did i just get screwed by the dice and the situation was nothing i could have prevented? and in the case of the SBR, is that a smart thing to do G1? and if i were to modify the values aircraft were given in the air battle prior to SBR what would you recommend changing it to because personally i hate rolling for 1’s.

I did not allocate forces to take Normandy and instead sent them all to Paris, this coupled with my Naval/Air fiasco allowed Normandy to stay in the hands of the allies the entire game with Britain (U.S. went all in Japan and was absent from Europe) constantly shipping forces over to counter my constant raids from France (my tank stack that survived battle of Paris killed all but one fighter in Normandy G2 which is why the constant skirmishes developed). This was just the Western Front. In the south and East the Axis attempt was disappointing.

G1 I took Finland, Yugo, and Bulgaria putting a minor IC in Romania moving all forces not allocated to west or Yugo onto the Russian border. My plan was against a medium skilled Russian player and involved a southern root to the Caucasus with 6 inf covering flank in Poland and Finland while keeping distance from Leningrad. However due to a surprise takeover of Tobruk and a weak Italian response I made a ill decision to build a factory in Yugo and start shipping inf to Libya. North Africa’s fate was sealed before i could send my Afrikacorps and cost me 29 IPC’s for the minor, transport, 2inf and art. this major setback in south and west meant my Eastern campaign could only do so much and my stack only made it to Western Ukraine through E.P. and Besserabia when the major Russian stack from Ukraine attacked and Soviets pulled it out with 1 tank remaining.

The next round the Axis capitulated with Euro-Axis doomed on all fronts and Japan looking out at the U.S. fleet sitting triumphantly in the sea of japan. other than the questions i already asked as to what caused my downfall, how was my decision of Barbarossa strategy? Romanian/Yugo factory? I would love to know and would love just one win for global that didn’t involve my nemesis on my team

Is there a way where you can break this down into easier to read chunks?

Usually on G1 for the attack on the Royal Navy, I will send the following:
SZ 106 = 2 subs
SZ 91  = 2 subs
SZ 111 = 1 sub, 1 BB, 1 fighter, 1 Tac and 1 bomber
SZ 110 = 3 fighters, 3 Tacs and 1 bomber
This is usually successful in wiping out the Royal Navy. As for surviving units, that depends on if UK scrambles or not. If they decide to save the RAF, I will usually wipe out the Royal Navy while keeping most of my planes. However, if UK scrambles into SZ 110, I might take a lot of plane losses, but I also get the chance to cream the RAF in the bargain. Generally, it will be easier for Germany to replace at least some of those planes than it will for the UK.
Also, if the RAF is wiped out trying to defend the Channel, that could make a possible Sealion easier and more than likely means the Italian Navy will be mostly intact, which will mean a lot of trouble for UK in the Med.

Sounds very dangerous, knp!

Let’s play advocate of the devil again  :evil:.
I would personally be very tempted to scramble SZ110. On average, that would mean sacrificing 2 British FTR and a French one, to kill 6 German aircraft. That just sounds bad for Germany  :|.

@ItIsILeClerc:

Sounds very dangerous, knp!

Let’s play advocate of the devil again  :evil:.
I would personally be very tempted to scramble SZ110. On average, that would mean sacrificing 2 British FTR and a French one, to kill 6 German aircraft. That just sounds bad for Germany  :|.

Don’t get me wrong, I agree with you. I hate to see when UK scrambles into SZ 110. On the other hand, while the Luftwaffe definitely takes a hard hit, you also wipe out the Royal Navy and the RAF home squadrons.
Some may disagree with me, but generally if I manage to kill all UK/French ships and planes yet still manage to keep both strategic bombers and at least 1 ftr and 1 tac, then I think it is an overall success. Remember, Germany will still have another fighter and tac from the eastern border. Usually I use the tac to help with the assault on Paris and it lands in W Germany and the fighter will help attack Yugoslavia and either land in S Italy to help protect against a Taranto raid or, if I think a Taranto raid is less likely, the fighter will also land in W Germany.

So, the final result is Germany still has 2 fighters, 2 tacs and 2 bombers in W Germany and SZ 112 (if Germany bought a carrier). Meanwhile, All the Royal Navy except for 1 DD and 1 Transport in SZ 109 is now on the bottom and all the RAF home squadrons including that pesky French fighter is trashed with all the UK’s remaining air force down in the Med. The only plane able to reach London is the Gibraltar fighter and maybe the Malta fighter in 2 moves if they don’t lose it in action against the Italians or do something else with it.
This still makes Sealion a very good possibility if Germany can send 10-11 transports of troops/tanks/artillery. By round 3, UK will only have 2 fighters (Gibraltar, Malta) in London plus any they might purchase.
There lies the trick for the UK. If they buy too much fighter protection, they have less troops to protect London and Germany will overwhelm them with sheer numbers. If they buy all infantry to defend London, then they will have little air cover and most of their defense will be a bunch of "2"s. So Sealion could still be successful if Germany attacks with 20-22 land units, 2 fighters, 2 tacs and 2 bombers.
Also, if the RN and RAF is wasted in SZ 110 and 111, it is very unlikely that UK will come out to try and hit the German navy in SZ 112. I have seen games where the RAF did NOT scramble and after the sea battles, UK flew all their planes plus any remaining navy and sank my German fleet in 112.
Again, with these developments, it is more likely UK will not try Taranto and the Italian fleet will be mostly intact and cause lots of trouble for UK in the Med. This will go a lot toward giving Italy a real “leg up” on expanding into Africa and the Middle East.
So yeah, I hate losing half the Luftwaffe plus several subs and probably their 1 battleship, but if I’m trading it for but bulk of the RN and nearly half the RAF, I still think it is a good trade.
Oh yeah, even if you decide against Sealion and decide to go right after Russia, UK will be stuck with few planes, no boats and a stack of men stuck on their island so it will be a few rounds before they even become a real threat to Germany. If Italy does well in the Med and Germany keeps a decent supply of U-Boats flowing into the Atlantic, you can keep the Brits in check for a while.
Now, what the Americans do when they come into the war is anybody’s guess.

@ItIsILeClerc:

Herr kaLeun says he 's not very experienced but I think he is shamelessly modest and I agree with everything he posted ;-).

@BluGerman:

Herr KaLeun I agree with clerc in that you are most definitely underselling yourself :p

Thanks for the compliments guys! But the grand total of A&A Global 1940 games I played in my life, is precisely 2. I owe the strategical an tactical insights that I summarized, to other people on this forum who generously shared their knowledge.

In the mean time……

@BluGerman:

I tried my best to keep Luftwaffe intact but the dice said nay :p I will definitely use less air on next G1 though.

No, what you need to do, is to use more air. Use those bombers and fighters that you sent to London to do your naval battles instead, in order to win those battles by a good margin and keep as many planes as possible alive. Preserving the Luftwaffe by not using it would be a bad idea.

@BluGerman:

for the destroyer and TT off Ireland wouldn’t attacking it be smart as it will draw scrambling fighters away from the two larger sea battles

The problem is that how to use those fighters is Britain’s choice. If you set up the main battles in such a way that the UK has a good chance of winning them by scrambling, they will forget about SZ 109 and kill your main attacks, which is pretty much a disaster for Germany, as LeClerc pointed out. But if you make your main attacks so strong that the UK can’t expect to succeed even with the scramblers, then he won’t scramble at all because that would be a waste of his planes. And in that case, if you attack SZ 109, the UK will be more than happy to gainfully employ the fighters after all, by scrambling into that sea zone.

@BluGerman:

and/or wouldn’t leaving the destroyer there be inviting it to kill the rest of your subs or is keeping subs around not even a big deal in your opinion because I have never been in a situation to really use subs to their full advantage as Germany

If you used your subs for the main battles, there typically won’t be any remaining subs to kill anyway. If you send one or two subs away to fight elsewhere and win that battle, then the destroyer may indeed come after them, but that’s not necessarily favorable to the British. It’s one reason why I like the 2 sub attack in SZ 106: if the destroyer sails in from 109 on UK1, then there’s a certain risk of that attack failing. So, depending on the number of German subs surviving, the UK will need to send at least one and maybe two fighters to finish the job. And because those fighters need to land, they’ll see Toronto before they ever get to see Taranto, and Italy’s admirals will rejoice.
From the starting position, Germany’s subs are basically dead. So use them to do as much damage as possible.

@knp7765:

Usually on G1 for the attack on the Royal Navy, I will send the following:
SZ 106 = 2 subs
SZ 91  = 2 subs
SZ 111 = 1 sub, 1 BB, 1 fighter, 1 Tac and 1 bomber
SZ 110 = 3 fighters, 3 Tacs and 1 bomber
This is usually successful in wiping out the Royal Navy. As for surviving units, that depends on if UK scrambles or not. If they decide to save the RAF, I will usually wipe out the Royal Navy while keeping most of my planes. However, if UK scrambles into SZ 110, I might take a lot of plane losses, but I also get the chance to cream the RAF in the bargain. Generally, it will be easier for Germany to replace at least some of those planes than it will for the UK.
Also, if the RAF is wiped out trying to defend the Channel, that could make a possible Sealion easier and more than likely means the Italian Navy will be mostly intact, which will mean a lot of trouble for UK in the Med.

Depends on how much UK killed in the channel, of course.

@knp7765:

(…) Some may disagree with me, but generally if I manage to kill all UK/French ships and planes yet still manage to keep both strategic bombers and at least 1 ftr and 1 tac, then I think it is an overall success (…)

That’s okay knp, I don’t get you wrong :-). I’m afraid we just have to disagree on that. You are right in that all of the RN is down, but… The RN is non-existent anyway if 110, 111 and either one of 106 or 91 are knocked out and that can be achieved without loosing a single German plane.
If Germany and the UK loose aircraft G1 on a 1:1 basis I can still be with you but Germany loosing double the amount that the UK looses?

So I have been giving it some more thoughts and what I think loosing 6 German aircraft G1 against 2Brits and 1 French does:

• It worsens Germany’s chances for Sea Lion, compared to a Sea Lion where neither side lost a single plane. In my experience the UK can hold that off, so then why wouldn’t it if Germany lost double airplanes already?

• It kills German chances to capture Moscow, given some US pressure in Europe. Not that Germany won’t be able to push back the Reds, but taking Moscow is another thing entirely. Russia moves into a comfort zone which is very bad news for the axis plans.

• If Germany persist in the Atlantic, Italy and/or Germany will feast on Africa but can this win the Axis the game? As this also means Germany cannot expand anywhere else because Russia moves from its comfort zone into being outright dangerous!

• If Germany does not persist in the Atlantic and turns on Russia (without being able to seriously threaten Moscow itself), the UK is still capable enough to hold much of Africa and take back what is lost from turn 4/5 and onwards.

And then, indeed, the US enters the war and we can start guessing.

I 've seen it in our group a couple of times already: Germany resigning after loosing much of its luftwaffe to the UK only loosing half that amount of RAF/Armée de l’Air combined. We never put much debate into it as to why exactly we resigned as every1 on the table agreed, but now I am happy we can share thoughts about whether this is premature or not.
Personally I think fighting on with Germany in this situation is only an option if you know Stalin is very weak at defending Moscow. In that respect it can pay Germany well, ofc ;-).

Oh yeah, I’m not saying it is a good thing for Germany to lose half the Luftwaffe even at the expense of the RAF and RN. I just think that it leaves Germany with still a step up over the UK.
You are right in that losing that much air power will make it much harder for Germany. It is my experience that Germany can still pull off a win, although it will take a little longer than it would if they still had the majority of the Luftwaffe left.
I guess my thing is if the UK manages to keep all it’s RAF, even after losing the navy, they are much more able to cause trouble for me while I’m trying to take down the Reds. Whereas if the RAF gets wiped out along with their navy, even at the cost of up to half of my planes, then UK is kind of stuck on it’s island and really unable to bother me for at least a couple of rounds or so.
Now, losing up to half of my planes is very extreme and I would not want to lose any more if at all possible. Losing any more would be one of those phyrric victories and you are right, it will cost Germany in the long run.
One other thing, this my be my thinking because of the people I play with. Maybe it’s just their tactics that make me think it’s not such a bad thing. Perhaps if my UK player employed better strategies, I might think differently.

Hehheh yeah who knows.
Personally I definately feel the difference if playing Germany versus 1 (group of) player or the other.

@BluGerman:

I feel weary using bombers though :(

If you want to fight the two major naval battles G1 (SZ 110 and 111) and you want to win those battles, use the bombers.

@BluGerman:

I always want the best possible outcome not being a sea lion but bombing and/or convoying the Brits into submission.  Whether or not this is realistic I would rather lose all my normal planes and keep my bombers because it is just too expensive to be buying bombers as Germany

I’m not sure what your plan is there. You can’t knock the British out of the war that way. All that will happen is that you’ll need to invest a lot of money for bombers to do the raids and for subs to do the convoying (yes, you’ll need new bombers because they’ll get shot down eventually, and no, they’re not terribly expensive if you ask me, just 1-2 IPC’s more than the smaller planes).
An SBR campaign against the UK early in the game basically amounts to spending German money to make the British spend their money. If you don’t plan to do Sea Lion as a counterpart to that bombing campaign, you won’t make any real progress as Germany. Russia will be smiling, and as soon as the US arrives, your bombers and subs will need to stop bothering the Brits or they’ll be destroyed.

As LeClerc explained, Germany can’t afford to fight a two front war against the UK and Russia. You have to pick one of them. If your general plan is to go after Russia, you’ll probably still want to attack the Royal Navy G1 with everything you’ve got, simply because it’s the best moment to do so. But after doing that and taking out France, send your forces east to kill Russia. Conversely, if your general plan is to go after Britain, you’ll need to prepare for Sea Lion.

@BluGerman:

speaking of expensive what about those NO’s i proposed?

I agree with you that the British NO that exists in the game is a bit lame. But I’m not sure about alternatives…. control of the Atlantic seems to be too easy to achieve for the Allies. I like the Sicily idea, though, and it also has a nice historical background to it.