Why is Taranto raid so popular?

@ampdrive

Yep!

@cornwallis said in Can Tac Bombers Escort a Bombing Raid, but choose not to bomb?:

@panther but what if you send them in to bomb an air or Naval base, then they do participate in the dog fight?

Yes.

I feel like the “3rd” option is stacking UK navy in 92 and building an air base in Gibraltar UK1.  Same risk of Sea Lion as building the IC in Egypt UK1 tho.  This requires “breaking out” by attacking the Italian Destroyer in 96 with air power (bomber from London and Fighter from Malta).  I would also recommend an attack on Ethiopia via India support combined with the Tac and TT with 2 units from egypt, then consolidating Alex/Egypt forces in Egypt.  If, for whatever reason, UK navy in 110 was avoided, send them to 92 as well.

Just another option to consider with lots of “ifs”.  Germany’s opening move should dictate your options rather than have a hard and fast “this is what the UK MUST DO”.

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.

True, I did not mean to say that one bad-luck battle increases your odds of a future good-luck battle. What I meant is that Global 1940 is a much bigger game than, say, Revised. Global has more units involved and more battles that matter. The effect of having more units and more battles is to soften the effect of any one unit missing or of any one battle going poorly. In other words, as you broaden your sample size, you get closer to achieving average results in the aggregate.

Sometimes we will use British bomber(s) to hit Northern Italy IC.
US bombers based in London often will hit Normandy, S France and France ICs. Sometimes will hit W Germany if German player doesn’t have too many fighters to intercept. Also will hit Germany if Allies control Norway or Novgorod for bombers to land.
If US Navy is doing well in the Pacific, US usually takes Iwo Jima and lands bombers there to pound Japan’s facilities. Often escorted by Carrier planes.

Strangely enough, don’t usually do a lot of SBRs with Axis bombers.

I’m not so sure about the new convoy raiding rules.  It was kind of nice to have a set amount, something you could count on each round as long as your submarines or warships survived to attack the convoys.  However, the new system does present the possibility of getting much more damage per ship (6 per sub and 3 per warship) plus it lets carrier planes get involved too.  I will be interested to try them out in my next game and see how they work.