Failing to take Russia/India

@DoManMacgee Hi DMM & thanks for the response… Really appreciate that these forums have experienced players who weigh in on things. It was OOB with a 12 bid.
That’s pretty much what Japan did - eliminate the threats and take back the 2 islands as advantageously as possible while still consolidating the fleet. I was just surprised how long it then took for Japan to have any pressure westward. India, in spite of losing 2 men on the initial Kwangtung foray, stayed around for quite a while (minimal investment for a KGF).
What helped, no doubt, was that Russia traded unfavourably in the initial Caucasus strafe (dice game, lost 3 inf to Germany’s 2, and took W Russia at odds) and the Germans (rather than push hard back immediately), decided to save the Med fleet with a carrier. This made the Egypt / Africa game interesting, but maybe a different buy on G1 and the Germans win sooner. Always tough to say.
But, as many have pointed out here, the Axis have such a strong start in this game it was nice to have a hotly contested battle!

@fenderbender4 Hi there. I certainly do not mean don’t attack anywhere. Where there are easy victories make the most of them. But don’t place a significant G force at the mercy of a superior R one.

That Black_Elk guy always seems to have some of the most level-headed reasonable responses!  Well put.

I think the KJF strategy ranks right up there for the Allies as much as the KBF strategy for the Axis.  Its just not really the preferred strategy, but usually gets done more out of trying to “mix things up” or “target of opportunity” more than the best sound strategy.

Yes, provided the fighters have a place to land when the attack is made, you can choose the carrier as a casualty before the fighters. Though in either case, whether you win or lose, if the surviving fighters don’t have a place to land after combat, they will crash into the sea. The important point is that when combat begins all combatant fighters must have a viable place to land. The ability to move fighters off territories to land on carriers, or off carriers to land on territories, may allow you to bring more fighters into the battle than the carriers alone would seem to allow, this is called maxing movement, but you can’t suicide or kamikaze fighters outright. In other words, you have to have a place for them to go at the start of the attack, but not necessarily once the attack is underway and you are actually taking fire. There is some flexibility in choosing casualties, once combat begins… so if you know it is an all or nothing flight, it may make sense to choose the carrier before the fighters.

There is one situation where choosing the carrier first can be crushing though, if you are defending, and the attacker retreats after a strafe, if your fighters have no carrier or territory to land on they will crash into the sea at no cost to the attacker.

On the older boards there were mechanisms like counters to track the exact  movement left for individual aircraft. But I think on these latest boards, the attacker is just assumed to always take casualties on the fighters with the least movements first. For the defending carrier based fighter it doesn’t matter, if the deck is destoyed they have to land in a territory adjacent to the sz where the combat took place. Otherwise they crash

Max Fighter buy on India is an interesting idea. I’ve had two more games since my posts the other day and will consolidate my experiences in the other thread I started. I did a KGF and a KJF both with slightly more success than my ‘traditional’ strategies.

I play with the same guy constantly so I think sometimes it puts me in a bubble in terms of seeing variations in Axis strategy. For instance, he’s never even tried Sea Lion.

The attack on SZ 37 typically succeeds with anywhere from a Cruiser + Fighter left, to Fighter only, to mutual destruction. A failure that leaves his Battleship, and I’d be tempted to surrender Round 1. Not something I’m proud of, but, Allied Round 1 is a precarious thing and adverse results with Russia or UK Naval efforts near India to me are unrecoverable. At least against this guy.

What he does Round 1 with Japan is he parks his transports in SZ 61, staging for a Round 3 or Round 4 take, out of range of Fighters on India. India has to follow the traditional retreat from Burma Round 1. So the 3 fighters, while providing defense power, will offer little in the way of threat to his Navy. I guess it’s nice that they can get to Russia next round, but, I can have Fighters in W. Russia in a single round from UK and that’s usually where I need them most anyway.

I should also add he is a very conservative player - he will never attack without overwhelming odds, whereas I’ll gamble routinely. So there’d never be a situation where he lands on India, my fighters survive, and hit his Navy. He simply wouldn’t attack if there were a chance of that. Similarly, his surviving transport in SZ 61 will be immediately reinforced and remain so, negating a Bomber zerg raid….

More thoughts about Allied fleets against this particular player in my other thread. Unless you’re talking about an Allied Fleet as in, INDIA building a naval fleet?

I will say, as to the rest, that there is a clear Russia Round 1 sequence of attacks that you mentioned in the other thread that absolutely must succeed, and also, Russia can’t lose West Russia for at least 4 rounds, offering plenty of time to convey Fighters over from UK, stop in W Russia , and continue on down to India. On balance, I’m not sure it changes things all that much to put the UK fighters there so early, since W. Russia shouldn’t seriously be threatened enough early on for it to matter. To compensate for 3 fighters round 1 India, you’d need a heavy ground force buy India round 2, especially if you’ve transported troops away to reinforce Africa etc…

Anyway let me lay out a few things in the other thread that may shed light on how I better managed India in both recent games…

sz15 can be attacked with 2 fig 1 bom, vs 1 bb 1 cru 2 tran the odds are

61% all G units dead
15% only 2 trans left
17% BB + 2 trans left
7%  all G units survive

This is asuming that the UK destroyer at sz17 was killed with G air on G1.

Either Germany needs to buy more navy to protect the BB, or it must either attack Egypt G1 or take Gibraltar on G1.
Otherwise it will be possible for the UK to launch a solid attack.

UK has to attack the Jap fleet to reduce their Navy. Japan, like Italy(Anniversary or 1940), is dead once it’s fleet is sunk. Leaving the fleet on UK1 gives Japan two taskforces: one for conquest and a second for defence: Philippines and Japan.
UK come before Japan for a reason: to weaken Japan. (Same reason in 1940 they come before Italy: to weaken them!)

@MistuhJay:

@UrJohn:

It depends on your strategy.

–CV, AP & 3 INF

why would you need a third CV when you start with two already?

I don’t think you’d need a 3rd CV on J1. By the time its J1, you may be down to 1 CV. If the UK attacks your SZ 37 fleet and wins soundly, then Japan starts off on the defensive. You may want a 2nd CV.

If you don’t buy any navy/air force on J1, then the US can take the initiative in the Pacific. You will be hard pressed to do everything the IJN needs to do: protect Philippines, Borneo, East Indies, Japan, Kwangtung and Manchuria; chase off or destroy the USN; crush India; and pick up Australia, New Zealand and/or Africa.