German bomber strategy - How to play and How to counter

Exactly, Amanntai.  I have had several opponents try building up a big US atlantic fleet on turns 2-3.  I ignored him and laughed my way to Japanese victory.  Japan will be out earning the combined US + India + ANZAC by turn 5.  At that point, victory is virtually assured.  Meanwhile Germany is slowly pushing its way into Russia, leaving behind a few troops to deal with possible amphibious invaders.

Gargantua, definitely down for a game sometime.  Perhaps this weekend?

Variance, Germany keeps their ground units together.  The issue is they cannot compete with Russia on that front, as the Russians are buying 10 ground units a turn.  Let’s look at it this way: Germany’s first three turns under this plan nets them 10 bombers with enough left to buy 5-8 ground units (please correct me if my math is wrong on this).  Russia should be able to buy 30 units easily (I like 7 artillery and 3 infantry in the first few rounds).  Germany cannot effectively beat that back AND use that air force to keep US and UK at bay.

I’ve mentioned my Allied strategy in other threads but I’ll do a quick recap: US turn 1 I buy a CV, DD and 4 transports in EUS.  If I saw Germany doing the bomber strategy I’d probably grab another carrier turn 2.  I’d have the UK move any surviving ships from round 1 over toward Canada and buy out of there (at least 1 carrier no doubt).  The allies could easily have an impressive fleet hanging out at Gibraltar or London by turn 3 or 4.  Germany is not beating back that fleet AND marching on Russia.  I respect the opinion of everyone on this board, but I don’t buy it guys.

Clerc, I don’t march back the Siberian troops.  What I like to do with them: Buryatia turn 1, Amur turn 2.  I make Japan react by A) attacking it or B) stacking Manchuria.  If they go with B, depending how the board looks, I’ll take Korea turn 3.  It’s a giant pain for Japan and slows them down a bit.

It seems a lot of the dark skies strategy relies on a premise I’ve never agreed with: if the Allies go KGF then Japan will win the game every time.

Yeah I don’t see it either guys.  I’m sure Nippon and I will keep working on it but we just don’t see how you deal with the massive Russian stack without adequate ground purchases.  Germany can only make it so far before they are forced back.  If all their fighters/tacs are sitting in Russia trying to protect the weak stack from a counter attack, they’re not threatening the Atlantic or Med.

Dark Skies is not intended as a strategy for KGF! If the United States spends all of their money on the first two rounds in the Atlantic, start building ground units as Germany and enjoy the victory in the Pacific.  Japan can by earning 45 PUs on J1, 57ish on J2, and around 70 on J3.  On J4, they can conquer India leading to ~80 PUs.  There is little or nothing that the Allies can do for these first four rounds except pray for lucky dice rolls. Don’t tell me you have some secret play to use the measly forces of India, China, and ANZAC to prevent this scripted attack (read Cow’s guide for J1 attack on Asia and the Philippines).

If the US has spent little in the Pacific for the first 2 rounds, they won’t be able to field a significant threat to Japan until turn 7!  By that time, Japan should be approaching an income of 90.  Not only will they be outproducing the US and ANZAC, but they have shorter supply lines and simpler attack coordination.  Perhaps you have been facing bad Japanese players who don’t know how to properly expand.

@IKE:

Yeah I don’t see it either guys.  I’m sure Nippon and I will keep working on it but we just don’t see how you deal with the massive Russian stack without adequate ground purchases.  Germany can only make it so far before they are forced back.  If all their fighters/tacs are sitting in Russia trying to protect the weak stack from a counter attack, they’re not threatening the Atlantic or Med.

The units Germany starts with is more than enough to hold Russia at bay for turns 2-3. After that, Dark Skies calls for only 1-2 Bombers a turn, with the rest going to ground buys. It isn’t like Dark Skies is 100% Bombers.

Even if Germany buys 1 Bomber per turn, they can still out buy Russia on ground units. How can Russia hold them back? Especially since the bombers purchased in Germany’s first 3 turns prevent the Western Allies from coming to Russia’s aid?

Shadow, I’m with you 100% US and UK can have a very respectable fleet put together by round 3.  If Germany sends its air force it’s probably a mutual annhilation, which almost always favors the Allies.

@Arthur:

Dark Skies is not intended as a strategy for KGF! If the United States spends all of their money on the first two rounds in the Atlantic, start building ground units as Germany and enjoy the victory in the Pacific.  Japan can by earning 45 PUs on J1, 57ish on J2, and around 70 on J3.  On J4, they can conquer India leading to ~80 PUs.  There is little or nothing that the Allies can do for these first four rounds except pray for lucky dice rolls. Don’t tell me you have some secret play to use the measly forces of India, China, and ANZAC to prevent this scripted attack (read Cow’s guide for J1 attack on Asia and the Philippines).Â

If the US has spent little in the Pacific for the first 2 rounds, they won’t be able to field a significant threat to Japan until turn 7!  By that time, Japan should be approaching an income of 90.  Not only will they be outproducing the US and ANZAC, but they have shorter supply lines and simpler attack coordination.  Perhaps you have been facing bad Japanese players who don’t know how to properly expand.

I don’t want to squirrel the topic, but I’m not a believer in the J1 attack.  I’ve seen it in action six times and the record is 1-4-1 (and this was following Cow’s guide step by step by step).

I say all of this in good fun and the spirit of debate:

It’s amazing to me that nobody can come to any conclusion other than “Everyone you play the game with must not know how to play country X.”

Between Ike living up the street, my Jersey and Westchester groups, we’re about 12 players deep with well over one thousand live games played between all of us.  We study the boards, utilize strategies posted, play test games (sometimes a couple of us will play three rounds of a strategy, start over, play three again with slight tweaks and then compare differences), have entire war-game weekends (heading to PA next Thurs-Sun where 7-9 of us will have two boards going) and can set the board up from memory.  We’re not amateurs.

Maybe you guys don’t play against strong Allied players.  It’s at least as likely as my group not knowing how to play the Axis, isn’t it?

@ShadowHAwk:

You can get away with 2-3 rounds of bombers which gives you around 10 bombers.

US can easy counter this with 2 carriers and 2 destroyers build round 1-2 with 1 airbase on gibraltar and 3 fighters or a UK carrier you will not destroy his fleet. And 10 bombers will not be enough to overcome the 15+ unit advantage russia has. Mutual annihilation is in favor for the russians as they produce closer to the front and they need to survive where germany needs to make ground.

How many times must it be said? If Germany cannot kill the fleet, they ignore it and the US wasted their IPCs. The Germans have no reason to attack a US turn 3 fleet.

Furthermore, after turn 3, Germany is putting most of it’s IPCs toward ground troops in Russia. Germany can outspend Russia easily and push Russia back. How can Russia win?

@amanntai:

@ShadowHAwk:

You can get away with 2-3 rounds of bombers which gives you around 10 bombers.

US can easy counter this with 2 carriers and 2 destroyers build round 1-2 with 1 airbase on gibraltar and 3 fighters or a UK carrier you will not destroy his fleet. And 10 bombers will not be enough to overcome the 15+ unit advantage russia has. Mutual annihilation is in favor for the russians as they produce closer to the front and they need to survive where germany needs to make ground.

How many times must it be said? If Germany cannot kill the fleet, they ignore it and the US wasted their IPCs. The Germans have no reason to attack a US turn 3 fleet.

Furthermore, after turn 3, Germany is putting most of it’s IPCs toward ground troops in Russia. Germany can outspend Russia easily and push Russia back. How can Russia win?

If Germany doesn’t attack the fleet, then the transports accompanying it can land in Europe (not to mention UK can easily keep the units coming after that).

@ShadowHAwk:

@amanntai:

@ShadowHAwk:

You can get away with 2-3 rounds of bombers which gives you around 10 bombers.

US can easy counter this with 2 carriers and 2 destroyers build round 1-2 with 1 airbase on gibraltar and 3 fighters or a UK carrier you will not destroy his fleet. And 10 bombers will not be enough to overcome the 15+ unit advantage russia has. Mutual annihilation is in favor for the russians as they produce closer to the front and they need to survive where germany needs to make ground.

How many times must it be said? If Germany cannot kill the fleet, they ignore it and the US wasted their IPCs. The Germans have no reason to attack a US turn 3 fleet.

Furthermore, after turn 3, Germany is putting most of it’s IPCs toward ground troops in Russia. Germany can outspend Russia easily and push Russia back. How can Russia win?

IF germany does not attack the fleet then the US will be in position to attack with the land forces in the transports.
Germany then has to face 4+ transports full of units and russia that has been building for 3 rounds in land forces.
And those transports will keep comming, and you know pretty well where a fleet can go from gibraltar in 1 turn.
Those 2 carriers are not wasted ( 4 fighters to support the invasion) and the cruiser is there at the start.

So those 10 bombers are they better VS russia then 20 inf 10 art that you could have bought?

You think 4 Transports of units will survive a counter attack by 10 Bombers + Land units and other planes? The fact is that by Turn 3, the US simply can’t build a large enough fleet and a large enough invasion force to survive a German attack without spending nothing in the Pacific.

Hmmm… landing 10 troops in Normandy is soooo scary.  That would require 4 soldiers plus the airforce to annihilate.  I’m not sure how Germany could spare so many soldiers.  It is such a long drive from West Germany to the beachheads. Wouldn’t it be horrible if the Allies dropped 16 troops and landed 5 planes to support it.  There surely is no possible way to defeat such a might invasion force.  Furthermore, I’ve lost so many games where Russia drives into Berlin on R5.  I can’t seem to find a tactic to prevent this crushing defeat.  Perhaps Cow can write a guide on defending Germany against the overwhelming Russian army.  Maybe I should buy 33 more infantry during the first two rounds and hide in my capitol.

In the meantime, I am confident that Japan would patiently wait for the US to start building in the Pacific before starting its own expansion.

You can build warships AND transports…

Let’s look at a couple of rounds of buys (as always, you’d need to see exactly what’s happening in that particular game to know exactly what to buy, but let’s try anyway)

US turn 1: CV, DD, 4 transports, place in EUS, move the two infantry in WUS to CUS and one extra plane to the carrier you just bought
US turn 2: 1 loaded transport, 1 inf, 1 CV in EUS, spend the rest in WUS (if you attack J1 then America will have even more money to spend and I’d probably add another 2 DD’s or a BB, but let’s leave it at 52 for now)

UK turn 1: 2 fighters, save 8 bucks (or buy a couple of units in London).  Move all surviving ships to Canada (everyone seems to handle the UK ships differently, so let’s say you end up with a C, DD and a transport over there)
UK turn 2: 2 CV, 1 DD in Canada (the DD if you didn’t spend that extra money on units)

So on turn 3 the US and UK can go to Gibraltar with 4 loaded carriers (using the fighters in UK), 2 cruisers, 2-3 DD’s, 6 loaded American transports, 1-2 loaded transports from Canada (depending on which ships survived).  If Germany has its air force in Western Germany then only their bombers will be able to make it (unless Italy took Gibraltar or Morocco, neither of which they’d keep once America heads over).

From there the Allies have plenty of options: hang in the channel and drop 14-16 troops and a fighter or two for good measure; take Norway or grab Southern France, go for Italy, etc.  Sure, if they move to 110 Germany can wipe them out, but at what cost?  If UK built another two fighters on its turn you’re looking at 18 units defending, 4 of which can take two hits.  Let’s look at how that plays out in battle:

All the ships and planes I mentioned above, plus the two UK just bought for London, and we’re looking at 58 as an attack factor (should be ten hits, rounding up).  Assuming Germany bought 2, 6, 2 bombers, has lost no planes so far and has every one of them in position to attack, then they have 12 str bombers, 5 tac and 5 fighters, right?  14 hits, rounding up.  Four carriers gone, 2 DD’s gone, 2 C’s gone, 2 fighters gone.  Allies still have 8 fighters left.

If Germany presses on they should wipe out all 8 of the remaining fighters, but they’ll lose 5 of their remaining bombers.
Giant allied fleet is wiped out, but Germany lost massive air power (the crux of their entire plan), the Allies are sitting in Normandy and Russia has nothing to worry about.

Again, all of this assumes Germany has lost zero planes so far, has all of their planes in positions to attack, the US did not collect its war income, etc.  (Someone argued that Germany may choose not to attack that fleet.  Fine, but now the allies are storming through Europe; next turn I’d drop every plane in Normandy and head back to EUS to reload).

Germany is not winning the game at this point; even though they’re still out-earning Russia they’ve lost too much while Russia has built 35-40 ground unit and on top of that they have to get the US out of Europe.  That allows the US to…

Go heavy on the other side.  I’ve argued this before but you can spend heavily in EUS for the first two turns and still be effective in the Pacific simply by returning the favor.

Turn 2: the remaining 19 (possibly more from a J1 attack, but again, let’s assume they had 52) I’d buy a carrier (loaded with the planes from Hawaii) and save 3. 
Turn 3: I’m likely spending the entire 73 (assuming we’re down two from the Philippines) over here now.  Loaded carrier, 3 DD’s, 2 subs. 
Turn 4: Let’s assume 70 to spend (possibly more from Normandy, Norway, etc) Let’s go another loaded carrier and 3 subs, spend a few bucks on the other end.

At the end of turn 4 the US has a solid fleet in the Pacific (four loaded carriers, a BB, couple of C’s, 5 DD’s and 6-7 subs) and is very likely holding onto a complex in Normandy, which can be reinforced by UK.  Add in the Siberian Russia troops hanging around to bug Japan (I like to put them all in Amur turn 2 and make Japan attack them, defend Korea and Manchuria or give up one of them) and this game is far from over.

Is this a sure-fire way to beat the Dark Skies Axis strategy?  There are no sure-fire wins in this game, but it’s definitely a solid approach.

You can’t beat back every Allied answer in Europe with “Well my planes would just wipe you out.”  Germany’s air force cannot be everywhere all at once.

You can’t beat back every Allied answer in the Pacific with “Well Japan would be too strong to take down by turn 4.”  Even after India falls (whenever that may be), Japan still has to go get that 6th victory city.  Not a gimme once the US is regularly spending heavy in the Pacific.

If Germany does not attack the fleet, the Allies are most certainly not “storming through Europe”.

Let’s assume that all 8 of your loaded transports are tank + inf, which offers the highest defensive power to your invasion force. Let’s assume none of them are destroyed in the invasion. Let’s assume you land all 4 of your UK carrier fighters and your French fighter in Normandy to defend.

So you have 8 Infantry, 8 Tanks, and 5 fighters defending. If Germany attacks with their 12 Bombers, 4 Tacs, 4 Fighters, and only 4 Land units, they have a 95% chance of victory! And this is with the Allies throwing everything they have into Normandy. If Germany uses just a couple more units, or if the Allies kept some of their fighters back or used some artillery or lost some units landing, they’d have an even lower survival chance.

@ShadowHAwk:

@amanntai:

If Germany does not attack the fleet, the Allies are most certainly not “storming through Europe”.

Let’s assume that all 8 of your loaded transports are tank + inf, which offers the highest defensive power to your invasion force. Let’s assume none of them are destroyed in the invasion. Let’s assume you land all 8 of your carrier fighters in Normandy to defend.

So you have 8 Infantry, 8 Tanks, and 8 fighters defending. If Germany attacks with their 12 Bombers, 4 Tacs, 4 Fighters, and only 4 Land units, they have a 70% chance of victory! And this is with the Allies throwing everything they have into Normandy. If Germany uses just a couple more units, or if the Allies kept some of their fighters back or used some artillery or lost some units landing, they’d have an even lower survival chance.

Why would i want to land in normandy? Why not just western germany if you have it lightly defended or norway. Or Rome also a verry nice city to invade.
From gibraltar i can hit a lot of area ill take what suits me best not what you can counter best.

Hit West Germany, same result. Can easily be countered. West Germany will also be better defended, so you’ll lose more troops than Normandy and be worse off. Norway might be harder to take back, but not if there are still German troops in Finland or if Germany has a couple of transports in the straits. And taking Norway would be that easy even if Germany hadn’t gone Dark Skies, so I don’t see how Germany did worse there.

Rome might be a problem if Italy doesn’t have enough troops to defend it.

The problem is that anywhere you can hit from Gibraltar, the bombers can counter attack.

Just some thoughts from someone who hasn’t really done the math nor played enough rounds to actually see this tactic through.

Can US really be at war, at their own initiative, with Germany on turn 3 (Combat/Movement phase?) so they can actually move to Gibraltar at all? Or are there any second edition additional rules that I have missed?

And then on down to the tactics on getting a strong fleet supporting units into Normandy or other mainland european regions:

Am I correct in assuming that Germany loosing it’s entire bomber force against, let’s say, a strong naval presence from US/UK equals a lost game for Germany? I am aware that Japan can still grow to be a monster and win the game for the axis anyhow but let’s keep focus on europe for now. Creating a fleet according to Nippon-kokus suggestion (or similar) would create a situation that requires Germany to respond with their bombers. Once there is a strong static fleet that Germany can’t attack without risking it’s entire air force it’s quite easy for the allies to maintain that ratio of units so that it stays safe. And what happens then? The US can land units basically every turn once the shuttle is running. 8 or 10 units are not frightening, I admit. Easily countered by Germany but the way I see it is that Germany from then on are forced to use their bombers plus land units each turn against a landing force. Using german bombers on that front every turn makes them unusable against the russians. I can certainly see where there could be a bit of trouble breaking through russian lines.

HI Andresal

US can’t be at war  with Germany on their own initiative.  So US can’t be in Gibraltar either in your scenario.

@barney:

HI Andresal

US can’t be at war  with Germany on their own initiative.  So US can’t be in Gibraltar either in your scenario.

Thought so, though it seems that the majority of the players who run the DS strategy also tends to do a J1 opener which would allow this anyway I guess.

@ShadowHAwk:

@amanntai:

@ShadowHAwk:

@amanntai:

If Germany does not attack the fleet, the Allies are most certainly not “storming through Europe”.

Let’s assume that all 8 of your loaded transports are tank + inf, which offers the highest defensive power to your invasion force. Let’s assume none of them are destroyed in the invasion. Let’s assume you land all 8 of your carrier fighters in Normandy to defend.

So you have 8 Infantry, 8 Tanks, and 8 fighters defending. If Germany attacks with their 12 Bombers, 4 Tacs, 4 Fighters, and only 4 Land units, they have a 70% chance of victory! And this is with the Allies throwing everything they have into Normandy. If Germany uses just a couple more units, or if the Allies kept some of their fighters back or used some artillery or lost some units landing, they’d have an even lower survival chance.

Why would i want to land in normandy? Why not just western germany if you have it lightly defended or norway. Or Rome also a verry nice city to invade.
From gibraltar i can hit a lot of area ill take what suits me best not what you can counter best.

Hit West Germany, same result. Can easily be countered. West Germany will also be better defended, so you’ll lose more troops than Normandy and be worse off. Norway might be harder to take back, but not if there are still German troops in Finland or if Germany has a couple of transports in the straits. And taking Norway would be that easy even if Germany hadn’t gone Dark Skies, so I don’t see how Germany did worse there.

Rome might be a problem if Italy doesn’t have enough troops to defend it.

The problem is that anywhere you can hit from Gibraltar, the bombers can counter attack.

West germany is where your bombers are at unless you want them out of position so you suddenly have to protect your bombers as well. And Rome is also a verry nice target getting italy out of the game for a while.

Your bombers will not make a huge difference against russia, besides if you are going to be funny ill land 3 AA guns with my army, now your bombers can face 3AA guns and a few land units your 4 inf alone are not enough so you will lose 1-2 bombers before we even start throwing dice.

Sure the bombers are powerfull but they are a 1 shot thing, once used they lost most of their power.

If the bombers are in West Germany, there’s no way your landing force is going to succeed. You’re facing land units stationed in West Germany to prevent an invasion, any units I built the turn before, and 12 Bombers. Against your 12 US land units? No way.

Like I said, Rome might be a problem, but only if Italy doesn’t have the units prepared to defend itself. Additionally, I don’t see how this is a fault with Dark Skies. Any Axis strategy could fall prey to the Allies using this strategy you’re proposing to invade Italy turn 3.

Go ahead and land 3 AAAs. I’ll laugh. Statistically, I’d only lose one fighter, and then you’d be three tanks or artillery short on defense. 4 land units, 3 fighters, 4 Tacs, and 12 Bombers against 8 Infantry, 5 Tanks, and maybe a few (5) fighters? You’ll lose big time. There’s an 94.5% chance the Germans live, and they’ll average 1 Tank and 7 Bombers left if Germany used 2 Tanks and 2 Artillery as their land units.

I do find it so interesting that everyone is focusing on a KGF approach to stop the Axis.  I’m surprised that so many people still believe that such a plan is advisable.  In my current game, Japan is at 46 at the end of J1, will be at 69 at J3, and around 80 at J4-5 depending on the cleverness of the Allies.  There is absolutely nothing that the Allies can do to prevent the Japanese advances during the first 4 rounds.  They neither have the starting troops nor the income for India and ANZAC to be much of a nuisance.  With 10 troops and 20+ airplanes, India will fall in an amphibious assault when Japan puts its mind to it.

With the US waiting till turn 3-4 to start building in the Pacific, combined with 2 turns to get the fleet into position, Japan will be in such an amazingly strong position by the time the US brings about their fleet on US6-7.  India will have fallen, China virtually crushed, the money islands firmly under control, and 400 PUs spent on building up Japan’s forces.  At that point, the US will need to spend 100% of its income in the Pacific just to prevent further expansion of Japan.  Meanwhile the 2-3 rounds of spending in the Atlantic cannot possibly be enough to permanently cripple Germany.  Slow it down and delay a Moscow invasion for an additional few rounds, sure, but complete destruction, absolutely no!

Hence I consider any KGF Allied plan to be intrinsically flawed and doomed to fail against a smart Axis player.  I would appreciate that serious discussion of an Allied solution focus on significant spending in the Atlantic only after a few turns of initial build in the Pacific so that Japan cannot grow unconstrained into a behemoth. I don’t want to know how the Allies could theoretically crush an incompetent Axis opponent…

Arthur, while I agree with the second paragraph of your plea, you should be more open to other people’s experience. A wise man knows he knows nothing, is the saying :-D.

There are a lot of ‘smart’ axis players who do NOT J1, nor play DS and there is always (always), some1 smarter than you, just around the corner.
In our first game I experimented a bit with the allies, building up a max presence in Europe at max speed. Borrowing from the Pacific, however turned out to be unsatisfying for me. I knew this from other German strategies but I wanted to see it against DS as well.
Anyway, the USA can also build up for a GF a bit slower (not borrowing units from the Pacific).

Consider this:
If the USA is played in A&AP40.2, they have an income (from turn to turn) looking like this with a J1:
17 + 55 + 55 + 55 (etc.). I must admit I never played A&AP40 (of any edition), but let’s consider this as balanced enough for the USA to at least be an effective opponent for Japan.
This means that in 9 turns, they will have spent 457IPCs in the Pacific. If the USA brings this ‘requirement’ for the Pacific into a Global Game, after the first 2 turns of investing every IPC into Europe, they will still have 505IPCs to spend there (7*72) until turn 9. More than they would have had when playing P40 alone. Consider this compensation for the higher income Japan gets.

The USA will still be able to stabilise the Pacific but it will be hard work.
The hard and painful thing remains ofc, that with 2 turns (only) of focusing in Europe, the USA will only cause a hiccup for Germany.
After that, the USA must decide if they stay in Europe (possibly only just to protect London), or if they move their forces out of Europe and into the Pacific. Through the med, around South Africa or through Panama is then for them to decide…
This is still not necessarily a lost game for the allies, but if they are going to abandon Europe I admit the better option would be to focus on Japan right from the start of the game and slowly adding more and more focus on Europe later on. Which is why I suggested to start over from our first DS playtest, but that aside.

@ShadowHAwk:

How does japan get more income in pacific then in global?

I meant that Japan can get more income in G40 than in P40, if the USA spends first 2 turns in Europe-only. Sorry if that wasn’t clear enough.