UK opening

ideally you need 4 AP shucking 8 land to France each turn and to support that you need one CV, 2-4 fighters, 2-4 bombers, 3-4 DD, 1-2 CA.

Now you build on turn one 1 CV and 2 DD, save 1
bring the tank and AP off canada, move one infantry to Alaska.
Bring the cruiser and 1 fighter to attack the Japanese CA and AP
Bring one AP and 2 men and take Borneo, The other AP and 2 men from Australia can take new guinea
Fighter can land with US fighter in China and on latter turn go to India or UK CV ( depends on need)

Turn 2 build 3 land units for India, and the rest on AP for UK
Turn 3 get to 4 AP off of UK, balance land units… usually in pairs of either 1 INF, 1 ART or 1 INF 1 Tank for UK

Now if USA goes KJF, you need to buy bombers and fighters for india. These are landing closer and closer to Japanese mainland/ fleet. You just shadow the US fleet.

for example buy 1 bomber, 1 tank, 1, fighter…on UK 1 move the carrier, fighters ( egypt and the other one), CA, and DD away from Japanese fleet and try to combine them off India latter but while your building the second fighter, build the second CV. once you got 2 CV, build 3 SS each turn

@theskeindhu I agree with IL’s general plan. 2 DD/1 CV is a better way of doing what you’re trying to do. Cruisers suck generally speaking.

The reasoning behind buying the CV B1 is that you can land the FTRs from UK on it to give yourself 2 free @4 Defenders to help with surviving any potential air-attack coming your way G2. If you just buy a CR/DD, Germany can blow that out of the water with relative ease, forcing you to restart from scratch on B2.

B2 onward you need 3 INF/TANK for India and to pump whatever else you can into naval unit.

@DoManMacgee said in UK opening:

@theskeindhu I agree with IL’s general plan. 2 DD/1 CV is a better way of doing what you’re trying to do. Cruisers suck generally speaking. **Such a shame ! **

@theskeindhu I think I misread your initial post. I was assuming that the units you were buying were going to U.K., not India.

If you build 0 in U.K. B1 you risk getting Sealioned. I would not recommend that plan of action in any scenario.

Side-note, are you playing OOB or LHTR? If you’re playing OOB rules you shouldn’t be surprised that Allies can’t win.

Why not just skip the navy and build 3 FTRs for India B1? Any fleet you build in a OOB scenario is just going to get trapped/wiped out on J1-J2. Japan’s starting navy (1 DD/1 CR/1 SUB/2 BB/2 Loaded Carriers + 2 additional FTRs and a BOMB that can easily reach the UK Fleet and NCM to friendly territory) is going to crush anything you can buy in the first 2 rounds.

@theskeindhu AAO has both setups. Ranked is LHTR-only, but you can play OOB and LHTR in free-play.

I am currently like #5 in Gold League with Allies, and ~8-2 (admittedly, I’ve only fought like 3 competent Axis Players, beat 2 of them lost to 1. The second loss I have is because I lost the West Russia fight R1 and ragequit rather than play the game out). Allies can win quite comfortably in LHTR if you know what you’re doing and don’t get diced.

Under LHTR, you might as well just stay in and kill the entire DEI Fleet. You have pretty good odds at achieving this if you killed Ukraine R1 and Germany failed to take Egypt G1 (they usually do. The most common opening I’ve seen is an ampib against Trans-Jordan).

FYI, the Australia navy has a CR in it IIRC, not a DD.

Calcs:

Best Case Scenario:

2 FTR (1 from Egypt + 1 from India fleet)/1 CV/2 CR/1 SUB Vs. 1BB/1 CV/2 FTR

A. survives: 55.1% D. survives: 43.3%

Good enough odds to pursue.

Assuming Germany gets Egypt G1:

1FTR/1 CV/2 CR/1 SUB Vs. 1BB/1 CV/2 FTR

A. survives: 24.4% D. survives: 75.7%

You lose everything but Japan only keeps a FTR/BB on average, assuming they didn’t stick with the (atrocious) default casualty profile, in which case they’ll take the CV after the FTRs, which often times leads to UK winning/drawing.

Strafing the SZ37 Fleet isn’t worth it, IMO. Whatever survives the attack will run off to join the rest of the IJN and from that point on you have 0 chance of killing it until late game.

EDIT: There isn’t a second UK SUB in the Pacific, even under LHTR. Bad on me. Changed the Calc to reflect that.

@theskeindhu said in UK opening:

What calc are you using? Is there an app?

No app that I know of. I’m just using the Calc hosted by this site (http://calc.axisandallies.org/). Just set your settings to “All Rounds of Combat”, “10,000 Runs”, and “AA1942”). 10,000 simulated runs is certainly a high enough number for Monte-Carlo style Probability for this small of an event.

@theskeindhu said in UK opening:

I’ve run it 5 straight times and the worst is getting 3 hits. Average puts me at a sub, 3 cruisers a loaded transport and a full carrier. After placing units. That’s quite a bit of firepower for units that would otherwise be running scared and split up.

That’s fair, but as I alluded to before, I prefer just suicide-ing the UK fleet (I NCM the FTRs back to India if things get particularly terrible) and taking as many Japanese ships down with me as I can. I then use the USN to clean up later. I don’t bring the TT with me to DEI. I NCM it along the bottom of the map so it can move up to India/Africa B2 (assuming it survives). Even if it gets sunk by Japanese Air Power it means Japan wasted a FTR killing your TT instead of doing something more important (killing the US FTR in China, finishing off the UK Navy, etc.).

@theskeindhu said in UK opening:
I’m at silver currently after playing too many games and not focusing after reaching gold. Many times it comes down to the first turn with Russia, which is rather lame.

Agreed with the bit on R1 being overly important. I’ve been playing only 1 Axis game and 1 Allies game at a time and trying to finish them within 2-3 days by checking up on them frequently. IDK exactly how rankings are calculated but raw number of games played doesn’t seem to hold a ton of weight. Try slowing down and playing fewer games at once, it may help you grind your way back into Gold and beyond.

@theskeindhu said in UK opening:

Best success has been in getting the USA to help UK fleet to survive then getting Japan in a fleet spending War with the USA while Britain storms and irritates Germany. Issue is that Africa is too far from any routes and to spend any focus there detracts from getting boots on the ground in Germany. Still trying to work that out.

You’re not too far off what I do. Only difference is that I buy 1-2 loaded transports with USA and commit them to cleaning out Africa. The TTs usually get blown up by German air units, but the land units can usually clean up whatever German stragglers are left in Africa and then NCM their way over to India/Caucasus to help out. How do you play the drop game with UK in Europe? I find that prioritizing securing Scandinavia/diving on Baltic States/Karelia does more to put pressure on Germany than attacking France over and over again, IMO.

EDIT: Grammar/Spelling.

@theskeindhu Generally speaking (you never know with A&A, most games get pretty situational after the first turn or two), I don’t like an IC in Norway. I’d only do that if Moscow going down was a sure-fire thing and I needed to get land units into Russia ASAP. In 42SE Norway can only produce 2 Land Units at a time, which is abysmal and insufficient to make progress in Russia.

I like parking the UK Fleet in the Baltic Sea (SZ5) once it’s set up. Hitting Norway/Finland gets 3 IPC/round out of Germany’s hands, which means 1 less INF/ 1/2 less TANKs heading towards Moscow every round. Additionally, if you can hit Baltic States you mess with the flow of land units from Germany -> Russia. One typical path is Germany -> Karelia -> Moscow, so taking Baltic States, even with units intended to die, will provide some harassment for you.

If you get a lesser Axis Player, they may end up giving up Karelia without too much of a fight. If you can get Karelia and Baltic States in the same turn, USSR can drop 2 Land Units there on the following turn, which may help turn momentum against Germany.

Lastly, don’t get discouraged if Germany keeps sinking the UK Fleet (unless they’re not taking losses in the process). Any Air Units that Germany loses are basically irreplaceable due to Germany needing to commit 100% of its builds on killing Russia. However, if you’re really having problems, try loading up a Carrier as USA and sailing it towards one of the UK SZs. If you buy a navy on a UK Turn, a US CV within 2 spaces can NCM to whatever SZ the UK Fleet was placed in to bolster it against Germany’s Air Force. Something like:

• UK Turn 1: Do whatever (buy a fleet to trade with German Air Forces/stack India)

• USA Turn 1: Buy a US CV/2 FTRs

• UK Turn 2: Do whatever (buy another fleet to trade with German Air Forces/stack India)

• USA Turn 2: Move the CV/2 FTRs to a space where they’ll be in-range of UK for next turn (either the Africa SZ or the Canada one, don’t have a map in front of me so I forget the numbers). Don’t move near Africa if German Air Units would snipe you, obviously.

• UK Turn 3: Drop a fleet that you intend to keep alive. Spawn all the naval units in the same SZ.

• US Turn 3: Move the CV/2 FTRs to the SZ you spawned the UK Fleet.

Unless you messed up and Moscow already died, or unless Germany has literally been building Air Units all game (in which case Russia should be winning on the Eastern Front), Germany will not be able to break the combined US/UK Fleet you’ll end up with in this scenario without losing most if not all of their air force. At that point, you’ll be free to start building Transports with UK and landing wherever you please.

ONE LAST THING: If you’re building UK Naval Units to trade with Germany, put them in SZ7 (the one that’s just kind of a box to the Northwest of UK, not touching France/Northwestern Europe/Norway). That way, Germany can only hit you with Bombers, or FTRs based out of Norway/France (if Germany’s basing their FTRs in Norway/France, it means they’re mostly out of range of Russia, which makes life easier for them anyway). Only step up to the Baltic Sea or the English Channel SZs when you’re positive that Germany would lose if it tried engaging your fleet.

@theskeindhu For the Pacific, what I like to do it bait out elements of the IJN by sending loaded transports at Borneo/DEI/Philippines on suicide missions. The TTs are going to die in all likelihood, but if the opponent overextends you can punish them for it, and if they lack TTs they won’t get the islands back right away, which gives you some healthy income/slows Japan down for a few turns. Even if they have TTs, you can usually sink them with your Carrier FTRs + 1-2 SUBs. This forces them to buy a few more TTs/spend effort cleaning up your SUBs, which distracts them from India/Moscow. Every small distraction helps. 1-2 INF can swing a battle’s odds dramatically in the favor of one side over the other.