Breaking the German air force ? Need tips !

I have nearly exclusively played the Axis the last few months with a very strong winning record. I can tell you there were many games I won and had little to no German air force left. Consequently, I’m not sure your question is of the right focus. As far as Germany goes you have to keep them honest by making them fight two fronts. If you do not it’s pretty much a guarantee Russia will fall. If you can keep UK strong (i.e. hold Africa) they can be a viable threat to Germany. I’ve yet to see an Allied win where UK was not strong. I’ve even seen a game won by Allies where Russia had fallen and UK was really strong.

If you’ve decided that you are going to trade a territory with the Germans every turn, then you need to be sure that you always leave an AA gun there as all its hits are guaranteed to be against enemy air. Over time the enemy air force will start to be whittled down, or you may discourage the enemy from bringing it in, giving you more ground troops you can counterattack.

Be warned though that AA guns only move on non-combat, so you have to take this into account when making your attacks.

Yes do this, but make sure you back it up with land forces because AAA are week on their own

They key timings for allies kgf:
Rus: Round 1 Ukraine and west Russia. R2 and after trade ukr, Belo, and karelia as much as possible.

UK: buy 3 inf/art to India a turn. Round 1 creat a navy with carrier destroyer almost without exceptions. R2 prioritize taking nordics with USA. R3 and after build up to 4 transports and put remaining to fighters and bombers.

USA: buy two rounds of inf/art/transports. Usually you have to buy a carrier. Round 3 start buying 1-2 bombers
with inf/art and stop buying transports.

@Boston_NWO Are you just ceding Africa to Germany then?

@Eqqman USA lands 1 transport to Africa round 1. Ideally Morocco but southern half of Africa otherwise. Round 2 two transports. Round 3 or 4 Germany should be kicked out. UK should try to kill med fleet round 1 with 2fig, 1 bom. Africa should be allies favored in kgf.

So you think it’s a better use of the India Fighter to help sink the Med fleet if they do the Suez attack G1, rather than kill the Japanese Kwangtung Transport?

Speaking of dealing with the German Air Force, something I’ve tried as the Axis is buying 2x Subs every so often to build up a stack in the Baltic. This way I can attack an Allied navy and not lose too many expensive fighters. Some times this slows down the Allied invasion as they spend extra time buying ships. In one game I ended up with a stack of 6 + 5 Fighter + 2 Bomber and scared the Allied player away from landing until they had no choice as I had India, Hawaii, and was 1 turn away from Moscow. I wouldn’t expect most players to be that afraid of my subs though.

Always sz61. If the transport survives Japan can do a really strong India R3 timing attack that’s difficult for allies to handle. Attacking with 1 cruiser and 1 carrier is best if you send 1 fighters to kill Germany med fleet. The main situation where UK can’t is if too many Germany units survived s7 battle and needs UK bomber to secure.

Baltic sz is one of the worst territories in the game for Germany to position units. UK natural position of navy and fighters is in reach and Germany has nowhere to go. Germany navy buys go badly because us and uk starts with more navy AND more income. USA builds navy R1, UK creates fleet R2, and germany navy gets smashed R3 or R4. Germany navy purchases are a dead end strategy that’s reliably punished by top players.

@Boston_NWO Well going with the plan commits you to attack immediately any Allied fleet that presents itself. With air power on the west coast your subs will be in range to immediately attack whatever the UK builds. If they aren’t savvy enough to delay a round to make something invincible you can keep up with sinking anything they drop down it’s worked more often than not at the levels I’m still playing at but you’re right it’s not a gold or platinum strategy.

@Eqqman

There’s any number of ways of winning against poor play. I’m recommending lines of play that maximizes chances of winning across a broad spectrum of players and minimizes the opportunity for opponent counter play.

@Eqqman Those subs are very vulnerable to a UK building a destroyer SZ 6 in the same turn it builds for instance a carrier + 2 destroyers in SZ that gets reinforced with UK fighters and the US fleet that was off the coast of Canada.

Destroyer SZ 6 blocks the subs and subs get killed easily by the UK fleet. US reinforces UK fleet in SZ 5 same round.

German subs seem like a huge of IPC’s against a competent player that uses a destroyer to block SZ 6.

Ironically this strategy is being used against me in a game. Turn 1 Germany built 2 Subs but then G2 they went all-in and built 6 more Subs for the Baltic plus 2 for the Med. In the latter case, possibly to sink the UK Carrier that was risking attack trying to escape the Indian Ocean, but ironically the Carrier survived the attack from these Subs. Buying that many Subs is a bit much even for me heh heh.

Just been having more trouble with this too as I keep going with games as the Allies. In one particular game the Axis killed both the British BB and the US Transports turn 1 and landed fighters + extra troops in Africa to take Egypt turn 2. It seems clear it is more effective for the Allies’ strategy to be landing in Scandinavia + France each turn rather than both sides landing in W. Europe. But this means a split fleet and with the Germans having 6+ air units ready to hit the coast I couldn’t figure out how to manage this without risking the game on a coin flip. If the Axis air force has more than a 50% chance to wipe out your fleet, do you avoid the split, or let them sink half your navy knowing it will take their air with them and you can still make landings with the other power? Or do you keep the fleet combined and overproduce Transports so that the US player can start shucking troops via Greenland with a 2-step move? In this particular game I suspect the Axis player was anticipating me to do that since they used the German transport to take Iceland also on turn 1.

1. As allies doing KGF, do not fear trading Germany air for your navy on even or moderate loss terms.

2. Germany air purchases means less land units, shift every single available Russia unit towards Germany and trade as much as possible every turn. Realize that Germany air often has to choose between using the fighters to trade vs placing in the most anti-allies navy position of France. More Russia units makes it more painful for Germany to keep air in France.

3. The more Germany air, the less attractive to split allies navy. At worst, allies can trade or severely pressure northwest territory and France.

4. USA bomber purchases are very effective in kgf. Can attack outright or SBR. The purchase immediately places pressure on France. By Germany round 3, Germany must place about 20 units in France to make a safe stack against optimized allies kgf. This nearly guarantees allies stacking karelia if axis does so.

@Boston_NWO said in Breaking the German air force ? Need tips !:

4. USA bomber purchases are very effective in kgf. Can attack outright or SBR. The purchase immediately places pressure on France. By Germany round 3, Germany must place about 20 units in France to make a safe stack against optimized allies kgf. This nearly guarantees allies stacking karelia if axis does so.

What do you consider optimized KGF? By G3 the US and UK have only gone twice. I can’t think of anything they could build in 2 rounds that would require a 20 unit stack unless the German player sank no ships at all in the first round. The US also needs to use a whole round simply moving to Europe.

Usa 1: 1 ac, 2 trans, 2 inf, 2art
Usa 2: 2 trans, 6 inf, 2 art
Usa 3: 6 land units 2 bomber

Uk 1: 1 ac, 1 dest, 3 inf
Uk 2: inf and likely 1 trans
Uk 3: depends but goal composition is to have 4 trans inf and art to land and fighters

So why does Germany need 20 units -in France- to defend against the 4 US + 4 UK units that might land in Europe round 2?

@Eqqman I didn’t say anything about a round 2 timing. It does not exist. Round 2 allies ideally take nordics. R3 is when allies pressure on France and northwest Europe europe is severe. It is Germany’s elective if they want to stack France R3. But realize that stacking requires about 20 units.