Heavy Taranto UK1 right move?

@ItIsILeClerc:

@Herr:

(…)
The situation reminds me of one of my rare over-the-board games, when I played Russia, and Germany focused on fighting the UK a bit, ruling the Med, trying to help Italy take Egypt… all very wonderful, but I DOW’d him R4 and stomped into Scandinavia with my Novgorod stack. Russia normally can’t afford to do that, because those units are needed to defend Moscow, but Germany had just failed to build the land units to take Moscow anyway. Finland and Norway in Russian hands meant +11 for Russia (income + NO) and -10 for Germany (income + NO). He still marched into Novgorod, but with Russian income well above 50, the Red army ruled.
And of course at that very moment, the US was eying Gibraltar. The Axis didn’t last long.

It looks your opponent really sent a lot of IPCs into the med. As much as he would throw against London during a True Sea Lion.
By comparison, that would roughly be 30 + 98 (two turns worth of buying ships) + 115 (TUV of forces sent to London that won’t return to fight against Russia) = 243 IPCs sent elsewhere.

But maybe we should forget about mathematical IPC-comparisons :P.
From a strategical point of view, I think Russia is in the position of attacking Scandinavia if they can defend @ Belarus (or even at East Poland!) after sending in units into Scandinavia.
Maybe there is still a margin for Russia to attack Scandinavia even if they can’t hold @ Belarus, but I often wondered where the breaking point lies.

He didn’t quite make it that bad - he did spent money building German land units, but just not enough to worry Russia. I basically gave up on Belarus and Novgorod, but my Moscow stack was quite big, and I was doing very well in the south too. He wasn’t strong enough to take Moscow anyway, especially with Russian production well above 50. He could have taken Scandinavia back from Novgorod, but that would have slowed him down even more. But I don’t remember the details, it’s been a while.
I’m not sure that you can generally say that as Russia, you need to make a stand at a specific location (other than Moscow of course) to be able to afford capturing Scandinavia. With Norway and Finland in Russian hands, Germany will have a hard time outproducing Russia anyway.

@leontini:
If Germany moves his big stack into Belorussia next round, that implies that your Novgorod troops are too late to reach Moscow anyway. So in that case, I’d say, go for Scandinavia. Alternatively, if Germany goes into Western Ukraine (why leave 4 inf there?), you’re still strong enough to block him by pulling everything together in Bryansk, including anything that’s in Russia (was nothing produced there last round?). As for the Novgorod units - they can either go south towards Belarus and Bryansk, or attack Scandinavia even in that case. I’m not sure which option is better, but both seem alright for Russia to me.

As for Egypt, even if you build there and troops from South Africa arrive at the same time, that’s probably just enough to keep either Germany or Italy away, but not both. In other words: Italy could sacrifice its land units to soften Egypt up for Germany to take it. I don’t think you can stop that by just sitting in Egypt, so you need to do something… strafing Alexandria would help, but only if it works out really well and deters Italy from making an attack at all.

When it comes to the US, I totally agree with what LeClerc and ghr2 said.

I must admit I am having trouble with this axis strategy myself lately. Haven’t found the ‘correct’ allied answer yet.
For the first time in my ‘allied career’ I have a puzzle that I could’t solve within a couple of days, and I am still looking for an answer to this axis ‘slow delay strategy’.
Then again, my opponent (the one that uses this strategy) is very strong with the axis and I don’t know the level of your opponent ofc, but if he makes no mistakes…

The way I am thinking about it now, may already be too late for you but I 'll share it anyway:

• Russia must force Germany somehow to use its Luftwaffe in the east by blocking off the path into Caucasus/Stalingrad, OR by doing what Herr Kaleun suggested. Just don’t overdo an attack on Scandinavia because the German Luftwaffe always has the flexibility to just abandon the west/south and fly east, taking Moscow hard. Recent calculations suggest Russia should not send >20 units away into (for example) Scandinavia and that is with a mild RAF assistance in Moscow (4 units).

• The USA must get ~14 (!) fully loaded TRS into Western Europe US5, accompanied by 3 UK TRS. UK should slowly increase its TRS to 5-10 units once the fleet is at the channel to increase pressure on Berlin itself and start flooding 8-10 units into Europe per turn. 10 units should always threaten Berlin, slowly increasing to 25 (USA takes Denmark + Norway, UK kills Berlin is the threat).

• UK must abandon Egypt and build an IC in Persia to compensate. 3 to 6 units should be placed in SA + Persia. Maybe not every turn, but as often as possible/needed. Alternatively, Egypt is held, but this may require a bid.

• A Russian alternative might be to retake the North + Scandinavia AFTER Germany dived into Caucasus/Stalingrad while moving away from Moscow.

I know these things will greatly help the allies fighting this strategy, but I am still working out if this doesn’t leave the USA with too few IPCs for the Pacific, as the Atlantic fleet also needs proper protection.
Obviously, the allies lose the game if they lose ~24 TRS and their escorts, even if this takes down all the German + Italian air.
Fortunately, the USA has a little room for loosing Hawaii, because in this axis strategy (delaying both the USA and Russia into the war untill round4), Calcutta should have 30-40 units and will not fall before J10. And the more IPCs Japan spends on Hawaii/Sydney, the longer Calcutta will remain free.

But as said, I am still puzzling on this axis strategy myself ;-)!

Thanks, LeClerc, for your insightful comments on this type of Axis strategy. I’ll certainly consider it if it’s ever played against me in a better way than my opponent did.

YW Herr, always looking to share (and hopefully recieve) valuable experience :-).
Especially with the allies, since many players  seem to have a lot of problems playing allies. Including me recently, since I only stumbled upon this axis stratagem roughly 2 weeks ago.

I’ve come a bit further with this puzzle today.
It seems that spending ~190IPCs in Europe with the USA is OK with this J3/4DOW.
With that, the USA should be able to put together a ‘taskforce Europe’. I just tried it with 7TRS and that was just barely NOT enough to get a beachhead in Western Europe, but enough to take Norway (with UK help) and after that, Leningrad and all of Scandinavia + Northern Russia.

Being a bit creative with the US’ starting forces and production limits, USA can (possibly, if you want) max the number of its transports in Europe at 14 in US4 (also using the Pacific TRS).
It does mean however, that the USA follows a purely defensive strategy in the Pacific for the first 10 turns or so, if Japan is focusing on Hawaii ‘Cow-style’ but less turns if not.

Sorry - I got quite busy and forgot about this. I suppose that by now the game has continued to a point beyond the situation we were discussing. So what happened?