Taranto Fail… What next in the Med?

@hengst

Awesome that the Axis won! I have np advice, but I always love seeing game reports! Keep up the good work!

@flyingbadger

Absolutely badger.

While we may see the fight in the Mediterranean from different perspectives, what we inevitably all agree on is that it’s one of the more significant fronts that can easily sway the game for one side or the other all down to the results of a simple raid on Italy.

For me I stick by my philosophy that every Axis piece on the board should be doing something, or playing some sort of role. Which is why I’m a firm believer that scrambling the fighters into the Taranto Raid as the Axis should be done every single time because fact of the matter is, a lot of people tend to say that it’s better to save those fighters for something new but in the end nobody really knows what they’re saving them for, and that’s what causes Axis players to lose. I mean granted Squire had previously said earlier to save those fighters against the French ships or the remaining British ships in the Med but for me the Taranto Raid is the only time I’ll really be able to take of British Planes if I scramble these fighters and when they’re throwing this many planes at me then that’s my objective. Obviously you won’t be able to have absolutely every unit doing something and playing some sort of genuine authentic role but you can get very close to having every single unit active on the board, which is what wins you games.

Very True Simon, Sea Lion even if successful increases allied chances of victory, so unles its 90%+ as Germany, I’m not doing it.

One thing worth mentioning here is that Africa is essentially a trap for the Axis.   Whether the Italian fleet survives or not, it is very hard to make much of an income difference or gain any NOs before America enters the war and takes it back, or without compromising some other more critical front. Â

Italy only risks 2 IPCs by losing Africa.   In our Game 92 on Saturday, I had the entire Italian navy survive because my opponent did exactly what you suggested, and attacked Tobruk rather than Taranto.   The counter is quite favorable to the Italians, to send in their entire fleet on the attack and clear the med for your NO.   Even with the gigantic navy, I was still boxed in as I couldn’t control either Gibraltar or Egypt in the long term though I took both of them once.   Â

Buying more ships is a trap, and you can’t really hold Gibraltar.   I spent all my $$ on strategic bombers and mechs to help Germany on the eastern front and using Italy to protect the Atlantic Wall or help leapfrog Germany in the East is stronger than trying to take the Maghreb or the Levant.  If you keep any transports, the most effective thing to do with those is threaten/cover/block/rush out of Gibraltar but its going to be hard…

One of my buddies said that far from wanting to reinforce the Italian stack on Tobruk, he wanted to evacuate it from Africa.  Its ineffective and trapped on a good day and easy to annihilate on a bad one.

@variance:

UK may strafe Northern Italy with 6 planes and land all remaining plus Gibraltar fighter in Paris.

Sorry guys for being out of commission all summer.

Welcome back my friend!

To be clear, you only have to start the battle with all aircraft having a possible landing location, correct?

retreating from the med isn’t good.  ur basically saying “here ya go dude. do whatever you want.”  the biggest thing holding italy back is the time it takes to secure the med.  pulling back speeds up the process.

let america/anzac deal w/ japan.

Get more Axis ships into the open waters of the Atlantic to at least stall the Americans.  Tighten the noose on England and hope that Japan is threatening the USA enough that they can’t afford tons of units for the Europe half.  Italy has always been the weak point to the Axis, hence why we took them out first in the real war.