German bomber strategy - How to play and How to counter

thanks for the insight Marsh…very well stated.

Back in 2013 when the guy who started the “Dark Skies” strategy claimed it broke the game and it was unstoppable he was challenged my some high level players to try it against. And when things for him didn’t go quite as anticipated he disappeared without finishing the games. Most of us following the game went away with the feeling that it wasn’t really unstoppable then.

Looking back at the game I played against Dizz…there were several things I could have done to reduce the impact of his bomber stack.
Like buying more US bombers earlier in the game. Had I not waited to do that I could have eliminated the IJN earlier and then moved my stack to India…where it could have attacked Japanese ground units or German units coming through Caucasus.

Another mistake I made was being reluctant to let his 30 bombers attack my fleet in 91. I had three loaded carriers, 11dd’s, 1 ca and six fighters that could have been scrambled from airbases in Gib and Morocco. I don’t think I would have won that battle but it would have reduced his bomber stack considerably.
But I withdrew out of range of the bombers and UK fell before I could get that fleet back in position.

The most direct defense counter to the bomber is the fighter. Problem is, the fighter has a significantly shorter range and furthermore, while the bomber can threaten many crucial targets at any given time, the fighter can only defend one place at a time. You therefore would need a lot more fighters to sit and guard in different places just to somewhat neutralize all the threats.

@axis-dominion:

Put another way, if you have to assemble a large enough stack of boats in the Atlantic just to overcome the bombers, then you may as well pack it up in the pacific. It’s hard enough as it is against the japanese when you have america giving it full attention.

Furthermore, no one wins with just boats. Say you manage to dominate the seas and then start dropping troops in Europe. How many do you think you can drop if much of your income went to buying your boat stacks? With 20 or 30 german bombers and say 5 inf, do you think your landing party has any chance of surviving?

Very good point my friend.  Those Carriers can escort but after that they just sit in the water and watch the fireworks.

@axis-dominion:

Put another way, if you have to assemble a large enough stack of boats in the Atlantic just to overcome the bombers, then you may as well pack it up in the pacific. It’s hard enough as it is against the japanese when you have america giving it full attention.

I think the Allies would have to choose which side to win on and which side to “not lose on.” The Pacific is the obvious side to not lose on – all you have to do is not let Japan take Honolulu or Sydney or, at the very least, be capable of immediately recapturing them. This would mean making sure that bomber stack could not hit the sea zone off Hawaii by depriving Japan of any possible landing areas for them. That would mean to me take Marshall Islands early and don’t let Japan get another foothold.

More balanced buying for the US.

@axis-dominion:

Furthermore, no one wins with just boats. Say you manage to dominate the seas and then start dropping troops in Europe. How many do you think you can drop if much of your income went to buying your boat stacks? With 20 or 30 german bombers and say 5 inf, do you think your landing party has any chance of surviving?

Isn’t that another turn that those bombers are not being used against Russia? Also possibly more air losses to Germany? Every turn that Germany lets Allied troops land and has to kill them is more time for Russia and more possible losses for Germany.

Please don’t misunderstand – it does seem like a frustrating strategy to play against. It does seem to me that the only way to counter it is to “keep chipping away at the mountain until it’s no longer a mountain”. I’m just saying that it doesn’t look unbeatable. It just seems like a counter that demands a great deal of patience to play. The good news is that if you are better at being patient than the Axis player that you can probably turn the frustration around on them…

Marsh

I agree with you that at some point one of your allies just has to make that sacrifice to force the bomber reduction and ease the massive threat to the other allies (eg US sacrifices ships to reduce threat on moscow or London). However, the problem is that of making the sacrifice really count. For example, in a recent game, I decided to offload 16 ground units into Norway without the cover of warships. I made a tactical sacrifice of 8 transports to gain a larger strategic objective, and this of course was required as the german navy and airforce were too much for my navy. So, if you’re going to risk your entire atlantic fleet, then it should at least mean you’ve gained a strategic objective like establishing a critical beachhead in Normandy or elsewhere in Europe. French West Africa or morocco, or even London, just wouldn’t cut it IMO.

This too presents a problem, as even getting close enough to then make that sacrificial leap onto Europe is too challenging as those 30 bombers have an ungodly reach.

@captain:

thanks for the insight Marsh…very well stated.

Back in 2013 when the guy who started the “Dark Skies” strategy claimed it broke the game and it was unstoppable he was challenged my some high level players to try it against. And when things for him didn’t go quite as anticipated he disappeared without finishing the games. Most of us following the game went away with the feeling that it wasn’t really unstoppable then.

Looking back at the game I played against Dizz…there were several things I could have done to reduce the impact of his bomber stack.
Like buying more US bombers earlier in the game. Had I not waited to do that I could have eliminated the IJN earlier and then moved my stack to India…where it could have attacked Japanese ground units or German units coming through Caucasus.

Another mistake I made was being reluctant to let his 30 bombers attack my fleet in 91. I had three loaded carriers, 11dd’s, 1 ca and six fighters that could have been scrambled from airbases in Gib and Morocco. I don’t think I would have won that battle but it would have reduced his bomber stack considerably.
But I withdrew out of range of the bombers and UK fell before I could get that fleet back in position.

@axis-dominion:

I agree with you that at some point one of your allies just has to make that sacrifice to force the bomber reduction and ease the massive threat to the other allies (eg US sacrifices ships to reduce threat on moscow or London). However, the problem is that of making the sacrifice really count. For example, in a recent game, I decided to offload 16 ground units into Norway without the cover of warships. I made a tactical sacrifice of 8 transports to gain a larger strategic objective, and this of course was required as the german navy and airforce were too much for my navy. So, if you’re going to risk your entire atlantic fleet, then it should at least mean you’ve gained a strategic objective like establishing a critical beachhead in Normandy or elsewhere in Europe. French West Africa or morocco, or even London, just wouldn’t cut it IMO.

I agree 100% with this.

Marsh

I’m thinking now that if I had moved that fleet to 109 instead of back to the US then the UK could have put an airbase in Ireland… and that would have given me three more fighters to scramble. I still don’t think it would have survived a 30 bomber attack but it may have reduced the bomber stack so it wasn’t such a threat for a couple more rounds.

Whatever the answer is going to be, to me it is saying a LOT that nowadays most threads end up in balance-discussions. A&AG40.2 is balanced for most strategies, but there are a few -axis- strategies that are hopelessly unbalanced and need fixing. Whether the ‘dark skies’ is one of them remains to be seen but reading that it has been defeated before makes my day. The fewer strategies with unbalance the better (easier to fix).

And I also would like a fix for KJF being the only true way to go for the allies. Back in the days when the allies always went KGF is fixed as well (split up axis VC) and now it’s the reverse situation. Only now it’s not even a choice anymore, it’s a necessity.

I’m not a huge fan of buying bombers before they are needed. The 2 bomber buy on the first turn isn’t a horrible, but not ideal. The bombers should really be purchased when your 2 move units can’t reach Moscow for the final attack, and then after taking Moscow continue to buy a couple bombers every round. You still need the ground forces for defensive purposes. By the time US has crippled Japan and decides to swing over to help the allies on the Europe side Germany has 10+ bombers and he has to have a massive fleet to defend these.

Two things, I think, need to be done to reduce the effectiveness of bombers.

1. Allow factories to be built on Islands. This will mean that US can build factories in the DEI’s and stage his fleet off of East Africa/Middle East after he has dealt with Japan.

2. Make bombers attack value 2 base and 3 if paired with fighter. This is really the important one. Bombers attack being at 4 just doesn’t make much sense from a realism standpoint, and it blows the balance out of the water.

Holy Moly Batman, that’s a lot of planes. I’ve seen heavy bmr buys by both sides, but honestly not to the extreme discussed here (so I could be way off base).

Ok, the thought is that the Luftwaffe with 30+ air units (5 ftrs, 5 tacs, and 20+ bmrs), can be positioned to threaten several different allied strong points. They can be used to do SBR runs and push the Russians back (w/starting German land force), threaten major combined allied navy in the Atlantic/Med, or drive a landing force back into the sea.

The thing is they can’t hit them all at the same time though (not in full force). They can’t hit your Western Combo Navy, the landing force, and keep the Russians at bay. Maybe 2/3, but not all 3, so you need to make sure that the Luftwaffe takes a hit when they do commit.

I think the main thing is that the allies need to put themselves in the best defensive positions and force the Germans to commit to reduce the axis air force (by chunks if necessary). This means many carriers w/ftrs, a huge destroyer screen along with multiple airbase support (when possible). One would think that at some point the Germans would be lacking in ground units on all fronts w/heavy air purchases. Do they want to commit to attacking the US/UK navies knowing that they are starving for land units in Russia?

Yeah, it will hurt but once the Luftwaffe takes a major hit (reduced to say a normal 8-12 planes), the Russians should be able to overwhelm the German land force even if the west is pushed off the beaches and the navy takes a big hit.

Wouldn’t this be similar to how an early successful Sea lion can doom the Germans? They spend the wad on transports to invade England just to face an overpowering Russia in the end. If the Germans are buying that many air units (bmrs), then they can’t have the ground units to hold off the Russians, much less attack Moscow (allies must open up a second front even if it fails). Is it too much indecision by the allies that is causing the problem, heard several people say that things could have been different if I had……Then there was the post that said on AAA the axis side just quit when things weren’t going as planned (don’t like to rely on hearsay, but sounds like that guy was a major supporter of this tactic until it failed).

So is this the end all beat all strat, or is the allied learning curve a bit slow? Sounds like in some cases the allies backed out which gave the axis the break they needed to stay on the offensive to capture/hold the last VC.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m going to try it next time I’m axis lol

What about rather than trying to defend, the allies go on the offensive? Send their own air units to attack Germany, taking advantage of all those Bombers having to roll 1?

@amanntai:

What about rather than trying to defend, the allies go on the offensive? Send their own air units to attack Germany, taking advantage of all those Bombers having to roll 1?

Wherever the Germans land their bombers, they will surely also station some infantry, aa guns, and/or fighters as needed. Only a really careless opponent will leave them undefended in a vulnerable position.

I think trying to bait them into attack could be effective, but will be challenging.

Depending on the situation, a naval base on British Guiana or Suriname could let you reach Normandy (if you’re willing/able to sacrifice enough transports to make a landing stick).

@wheatbeer:

@amanntai:

What about rather than trying to defend, the allies go on the offensive? Send their own air units to attack Germany, taking advantage of all those Bombers having to roll 1?

Wherever the Germans land their bombers, they will surely also station some infantry, aa guns, and/or fighters as needed. Only a really careless opponent will leave them undefended in a vulnerable position.

I think trying to bait them into attack could be effective, but will be challenging.

Depending on the situation, a naval base on British Guiana or Suriname could let you reach Normandy (if you’re willing/able to sacrifice enough transports to make a landing stick).

But if they’re really going all bombers on turn 2-3, how many infantry, AAAs, and fighters would they really have? If the Allies attack with several bombers, some TacBs, and any fighters they have in the UK, surely the Germans would eventually be left with no choice but to start losing bombers? It’d be suicide for the Allied aircraft, but at least they’d eliminate the threat.

@amanntai:

@wheatbeer:

@amanntai:

What about rather than trying to defend, the allies go on the offensive? Send their own air units to attack Germany, taking advantage of all those Bombers having to roll 1?

Wherever the Germans land their bombers, they will surely also station some infantry, aa guns, and/or fighters as needed. Only a really careless opponent will leave them undefended in a vulnerable position.

I think trying to bait them into attack could be effective, but will be challenging.

Depending on the situation, a naval base on British Guiana or Suriname could let you reach Normandy (if you’re willing/able to sacrifice enough transports to make a landing stick).

But if they’re really going all bombers on turn 2-3, how many infantry, AAAs, and fighters would they really have? If the Allies attack with several bombers, some TacBs, and any fighters they have in the UK, surely the Germans would eventually be left with no choice but to start losing bombers? It’d be suicide for the Allied aircraft, but at least they’d eliminate the threat.

Who ever said all bombers?  I know that I myself EXPLICITLY stated otherwise…. 3-4 bombers plus land units.  You can still have a nice stack around G8 or so.  I mean, Germany is going to get several NO’s and have a solid income base.

wheatbeer, I like your idea, and I even made that purchase against bmnielsen.  However, I didn’t have a plan for it from the beginning, but instead just happened to figure out that was the only way to get there.  I think having the plan from the beginning would have had more “teeth” so to speak, and might just be the best counter.  For the rest reading this, the idea is to land so many units that the bombers plus land cannot annihilate the landing forces.

And, to correct some potential misperceptions above, the defensive ability of an infantry is not half that of a bomber when the bombers are stacked.  It is generally 1/3.  The reason?  If I hit your infantry stack, I’m going to make sure you get exactly one defensive hit.  So, you will hit 1/3 on the bombers (using faulty math) and thereby gain IPC’s… but only 1 ipc gained per infantry lost (12-3*3)/3.  Depending on board positioning, that may well be worth it to the Axis.  The bombers can maintain central position for a long time…

@DizzKneeLand33:

@amanntai:

@wheatbeer:

@amanntai:

What about rather than trying to defend, the allies go on the offensive? Send their own air units to attack Germany, taking advantage of all those Bombers having to roll 1?

Wherever the Germans land their bombers, they will surely also station some infantry, aa guns, and/or fighters as needed. Only a really careless opponent will leave them undefended in a vulnerable position.

I think trying to bait them into attack could be effective, but will be challenging.

Depending on the situation, a naval base on British Guiana or Suriname could let you reach Normandy (if you’re willing/able to sacrifice enough transports to make a landing stick).

But if they’re really going all bombers on turn 2-3, how many infantry, AAAs, and fighters would they really have? If the Allies attack with several bombers, some TacBs, and any fighters they have in the UK, surely the Germans would eventually be left with no choice but to start losing bombers? It’d be suicide for the Allied aircraft, but at least they’d eliminate the threat.

Who ever said all bombers?  I know that I myself EXPLICITLY stated otherwise…. 3-4 bombers plus land units.  You can still have a nice stack around G8 or so.  I mean, Germany is going to get several NO’s and have a solid income base.

I usually buy 3 to 4 bombers per turn after the first few turns.  My 2nd round purchase has been 8 bombers, and the 3rd round is usually all bombers too, but of course this can be adjusted.

My Comment matched your description of the strategy.

Sorry, maybe I’m misunderstanding.  G4 you can buy what you need.  US can’t even land in UK until turn 4 (it’s a J4 DOW kind of game usually).  The UK doesn’t have the resources to hit anything in Europe that early.  In addition, You will never have enough planes to take on the German bombers.  All Germany has to do is purchase 2 less to have 8 infantry of cover.  Only the US can come close, but the US needs to send bombers by way of taking out Japan on the way to Egypt, if that strikes your fancy.

I’m not trying to blindly argue.  But a couple of points:  it is a non-issue to take Russia – Russia will fall, just look at the league games with this strategy.  Germany starts the game with enough land units to take out Russia, the others purchases or mechs are just to save planes.  The only true question is whether or not Germany can get to the UK or Egypt for the 8th VC, or if the Allies can stop it (or capture a VC in return).  Any other discussion here is almost secondary to that question.

So, the two main ideas seem to be for the Allies to go KJF and then roll across Asia as fast as they can to take back one of the Russia VC’s, or to stack off of South America and land with enough force in Europe to disrupt the VC win.

[Or, the third one may be to go with all bombers with the U.S.  However, I think that’s just a bit slow (not by much by the way, just a bit).]

@DizzKneeLand33:

…(it’s a J4 DOW kind of game usually)…

J4DOW games are usually very hard for the allies in Europe ;-). Axis that do this usually are very experienced and coordinate the Euro- and Pacific axis carefully together.
…Hard for the USA in general (late in the war, and with fewer income at that as well).

Well, I’m currently playing my rematch against bmnielsen, and man it’s just not fun going against his strategy…but here it is for all of you to see the issues one faces when dealing with it:

http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=35062.new;topicseen#new

I don’t think Russia will hold for much longer, but my hope is to keep the other Euro VCs long enough for me to overwhelm Japan and then rush to help a falling Europe. As you can see, Italy gets so big with this strategy, as nothing can get near the med and even the middle east. I’ve already blown out two of his Italian fleets (at a high cost in US planes), but they just keep coming as Italy’s income is great and it has a monster backing it up!

I could use a little cheering on  :lol:

GO Axis D! GO!

I recently completed a game using German bombers.  I forced Russia to retreat back to Moscow and then headed south into Persia.  Russia was only netting 3 infantry a turn after repairing bomb damage to the factory.  UK was hurting economically for bomb raids over London.  I was about to pull my German air force back home for a turn 7 Sealion when the opponent called it over.

My main German stack had to stay away from the big Russian stack, but likewise his army could never step out from Moscow.  His money just kept dwindling, especially after Japan picked off a few territories in the east.  America tried KJF, but never could get too close to the combined fleet + planes stacked up at FIC.  Japan played an economic game.  The money islands were taken and held, China reduced to three territories, and India made irrelevant by bombings every turn.  Japan couldn’t win in the Pacific, but America could not turn significant money towards a massive enough Atlantic fleet to withstand the German bombers.

To top things off, I had spotted the Allies 16: two subs in the Med and an artillery in Africa.  I never once stepped foot back onto Africa after the first two rounds of obliteration, but it still was one of my easiest Axis victories.  I had some bad dice rolling as Axis, but the amount of economic superiority far then made up for the lack of luck.

I think that the Allies do have a chance against the German bombers if they can quarantine Japan with 3 solid rounds of American building in the Pacific and then an abrupt change of focus into the Atlantic.  Still, it is tough to prevent Germany and their bombers from reaching the oil fields and winning by economic superiority.  Moscow does not have to fall for the Germans to have overwhelming amounts of money.