Air Base in Holland/Belgium?

You’re talking about spending 15IPC to save a 20IPC unit which you wouldn’t replace. That’s the problem with that idea. If you want to save the BB, use it to attack SZ111 and retreat back to SZ112 where it will be repaired and also protected by the airbase in West Germany.

Yea, what he said, set up the sz111 battle so you don’t kill Brit navy in one round (hopefully leaving UK with just a damaged BB). Then you retreat your damaged BB back to sz112 where you have air cover (probably moving your cruiser/tpt there in noncombat, and maybe having built a dd or carrier for sz112). Careful not to go to heavy on the sz111 battle because you don’t want to kill the Brit navy in one round (stranding your damaged BB in sz111), but can’t go to light either because they can scramble the ftr.

SZ 111 doesn’t have a naval base so the Brit BB can’t repair or run far on the UK turn. Chances are you can kill their damaged BB on G2, they only have a couple options. Could attack you w/damaged BB, move it to sz109 where they have air cover, or move it to Iceland and send a couple planes there for air cover.

I feel that a scramble in this combat (SZ111) is acceptable. It kills one unit 2/3 of the time. That unit could be a sub. You don’t really want one in SZ110 though, unless you’re keen to kill the RAF quickly and willing to lose some planes to do so (why would you do that?).

@tornado_ofsouls:

I was thinking of buying an airbase in Holland G1, because I noticed a tendancy to land aircraft there after the 110/111SZ battles.

The typical reason for landing aircraft in Holland/Belgium is because the tactical bomber from Germany must land there if it participates in the sea zone 110 battle, and of course you don’t want the plane sitting there alone. You can avoid the need if you take that one tactical bomber as your first plane casualty in sea zone 110. (Speaking of which, does anyone know how to specify this loss in Triple A?)

The 15 IPCs for the airbase are better spent on other things IMO.

Marsh

@Marshmallow:

(Speaking of which, does anyone know how to specify this loss in Triple A?)

Just take a tac. It automatically removes units with the least remaining movement first.

Thanks Simon! I did not know that.

Marsh

If you did have the AB, you could shuttle back to West Germany on your turn, fighting at sea or on land and flying from AB to AB.  Problem is that if you keep doing this as the Axis, you wont have many aircraft left later in most games…

Another real pinch here would be blocking the channel, preventing the US from moving into attack position and allowing you to invade London turn after turn.  Later in the game, both UK and US can attack you with a pile of planes and ships, so after G5 this is going to be a very expensive block to enforce and surface ships alone aren’t going to cut it.  Might be kind of annoying if Germany can protect a single destroyer, blocking the channel, with planes.

Neither of these moves is a great use of 15IPCS.  Germany tends to run out of planes and it needs them everywhere, so it seems better spent on more bombers.

It is critical for the Axis to formulate a plan to get enough victory cities and stick to the gameplan.  I have seen so many people lose because they get distracted, spending money on non-essential builds.  They wind up 10 units short of being able to capture Moscow, turning great odds into bad odds.

Focus on destroying Russia if you are playing the European Axis and capturing India/holding money islands if you are Japan.  Only deviate if the Allies make a big blunder or have bad dice rolling.

The only time I have built an air base for Holland is when doing sea lion from sz110. It was a long time ago, but I believe I did it because the US had a couple loaded carriers (sz102) and bombers in range to hit my tpt fleet after the assault on London. I think we were testing out sea lion theories at the time, so the allied player knew that sea lion was a good possibility.