German Carrier SZ 15

Moderator’s edit:
The question behind the following answer and the follow up discussion has been:

German Carrier SZ 15
How to deal with? Ignore? It effectively stalls the Allies putting pressure on Germany for at least a turn. My USA build is usually Aircraft carrier and 3 destroyers, or 1 destroyer and a battleship, I know all the reasons not to buy battleships, but the 2 hit pays for itself many times over against aircraft. UK buys 2 infantry and a fighter for India, and one fighter for Great Britain. With Germany funneling troops into Africa, you’d think Russia would have some advantage, but apparently Germany can do both attack Africa and crush the meager Russians with Storm troopers piling in from Japan. It’s round 3 before the USA has a fleet large enough to even push a landing on south Africa due to the German Navy, that’s with pure defensive build, limited to the 2 transports that usually destroyed round 1. If Japan even fakes at coming towards the Pacific, USA has to shore up defense there, buying another turn of Russia being on an island. UK relegated to defending India and shuffling fighters over to defend Moscow, with no fleet after round one and a now significant threat from German fighters with increased range due to their carrier. By the time the USA gets a fleet large enough to defend itself, they are faced with the choice to chase down the German menace which can blithely skip through the Mediterranean, or ignore and push Normandy or Norway. Ignoring it means the Germans can park in SZ 15 virtually all game after the US fleet moves up, they can pound Africa destroying the UK income. There is no margin for error as the Allies, no time for stalled turns, round 5 is when they can actually mount a significant onslaught on Germany and by that time Russia is well on their heels. Any delay is death, basically for 14 IPC’s Germany can tactically destroy the Allied march.

I think your issue lies with your UK response to the German Carrier. If I see a Germany investing in navy my natural response would be to go almost 100% KGF (except maybe like 3 INF a turn for India to slow Japan down a bit). If you had bought something like 1 CV/1DD/3 INF B1, and landed the initial British fighters on the new CV, you would have had a competent UK Navy in SZ 6 that would have prevented the German Navy from leaving SZ5 without taking some decent losses. The idea would be to trade navy with Germany for as long as they’re willing to keep building navy, since every IPC Germany is spending on navy takes an enormous amount of pressure off of the Soviets. Yes, the starting German Army is extremely strong and more than a match for the USSR, but if Germany neglects their land forces for too long by spending large amounts of IPC on navy, then eventually the Soviets will catch up and reach the high 20s/low 30s in income (by taking West Russia/Ukraine/Belorussia and possibly retaking Karelia). If you as Germany let the USSR cross that threshold then they stop being a punching bag for the Axis and start becoming a serious threat that you will be hard-pressed to deal with.

@theskeindhu Considering your recent post in the Russian opening sticky thread, I suspect you’re playing 1942 Online. But I’m going to address my reply as if you are playing 1942 Second Edition.

Instead of writing “German carrier sz 15” best write “G1 Med carrier” or “G1 Italy carrier”.

@theskeindhu said in German Carrier SZ 15:

How to deal with? Ignore? It effectively stalls the Allies putting pressure on Germany for at least a turn.

If I read just that, I would assume the “SZ 15” reference is a typo. Why? Because I don’t believe an Italy carrier does effectively stall the Allies from pressuring Germany for at least a turn.

If you’re talking KGF (and I say reasonably you wouldn’t be mentioning pressure on Germany in any other context), I expect Allied pressure to develop at Finland/Karelia. If Germany builds a Med carrier that has advantages, but stalling Allies from pressuring Germany there isn’t one of them. If Germany builds a G1 Med carrier then pokes its nose out on G2 then probably that fleet’s going to be pretty useless for a while (not dropping anything to Africa) plus wandering into the open Atlantic probably gets the German fleet blown up as it walks right into the range of UK/US builds.

On the other hand, if you have a SZ 5 (Baltic) carrier build, probably it’s something like Germany captured Gibraltrar G1. So you have a few threats; G2 invasion of London, G2 unification of fleet off France that’s probably going to be battleship, carrier, cruiser, and two fighters. Pushing a G1 Baltic carrier threat is costly to Germany, but it does at least potentially delay the Allies for a turn where it matters, where the G1 Italy carrier does not.

Read DoManMacgee’s response. What does he write? " If you had bought something like 1 CV/1DD/3 INF B1, and landed the initial British fighters on the new CV, you would have had a competent UK Navy in SZ 6 that would have prevented the German Navy from leaving SZ5 without taking some decent losses". Contextually he’s looking at SZ 5 too. He even mentions SZ 6, I think he IS talking about the Baltic where I believe you are talking about the Mediterranean.

“I know all the reasons not to buy battleships, but the 2 hit pays for itself many times over against aircraft.”

I expect you’ll take exception to my disagreeing. However, I would consider it bad form for me to say you’re making a mistake about battleships but then not to explain why.

Under certain theoretical circumstances battleships are superior. But in 1942 Second Edition, those cases tend to be only theoretical.

1. Battleships keep getting a free hit, and “pays for itself many times over against aircraft”. But why is your opponent attacking over and over and failing? There’s just two scenarios I can think of. Either your opponent is terrible (i.e. you already won), or you’ve already won elsewhere and your opponent is desperate. (But probably you won’t have won elsewhere, more on this later). So actually this paying for itself over and over again just shouldn’t happen. Your opponent ought to line up one major attack with good odds that destroys the battleship, then it won’t get these free repairs over and over again. If your opponent can’t do that then they just shouldn’t attack the battleship and deal with landings as they can.

2. Battleships just aren’t tactically flexible. It’s a huge investment that floats around. Compare to carriers. You build carriers, you have options. Carriers ease your logistics timings to reinforce Russia. You can move fighters from carrier to carrier which eases your timings. You can even retreat carriers entirely and fly fighters to reinforce ground positions. You’re not going to land a battleship to reinforce Russia. If you’ve read references to battleships as a “win more” unit, it’s not in the sense that battleships help you win a game that you would lose. It’s in the sense that if you’re already winning by a lot, then battleships help you clean up situations with fewer losses. You only build battleships after you’ve already basically won. Not while the game is still contested in any real sense.

3. Unit placement limit theoretical constructs usually just don’t bear out in practice. If you’re in a contested area and you have “need” for a battleship, probably you can’t hold against enemy pressure anyways so spending a load on a battleship in the area is throwing good money after bad. There’s very situational exceptions but it’s very much on a case by case basis, and even then it’s typically expected battleships are not the right buy. (Provided your opponent isn’t terrible.)

4. It’s possible to construct scenarios in which battleships outperform other units. But typically such constructs are terribly unrealistic. They assume that an opponent won’t have a big fleet of subs (which they can as they’ve been watching a fleet get built up over loads of turns). Or worse (and very commonly) it’s assumed that an opponent is just going to stand there and get punched in the face. Why would an opponent do that? If the odds are not good, why would they fight a high-stakes bad-odds battle? The answer is they shouldn’t. So you should expect they won’t.

5. Again, battleships are just really limited. They don’t hunt submarines. They fire one round at 4, compare to multiple rounds at 3 for a fighter. Yes, you can create theoretical constructs in which battleships are superior. Imagine the entire map is islands and there’s gigantic infantry forces and antiaircraft on each island, players have almost no income and start with no transports or fighters, but battleships are very cheap. In that scenario you’re immediately looking at enemy stack reduction by bombardment. A couple fighters just won’t cut it because the entire scenario is constructed so air just really isn’t efficient.

But that’s not what 1942 Second Edition looks like.

Even if you push and contain Japan, a competent Axis player will make capturing Japan a crazy difficult fight. Rather than spending loads of IPCs on battleships it’s just more cost effective to hit all the income islands and roll up Japan on the coast - and only then, after the game is pretty much won, to switch to battleship production to reduce the Axis stack defending Japan (and in so doing, also provide some protection against a likely ever-growing Axis air force). But you don’t build battleships first; if you do then Japan has a much easier time fighting off Allies’ navy in the first place and even later you need ground units to push Asia and the islands. Your core is destroyers, subs, carriers, and fighters, if you buy other stuff it’s very situational. That’s just how it is, it’s just mechanics and mathematics.

“UK buys 2 infantry and a fighter for India, and one fighter for Great Britain”.

Why, exactly? What is the exact application of a UK1 fighter placement on India that makes it superior to 3 infantry/artillery on India and 2 fighters on UK? Or other UK spending/saving? And I don’t mean vaguely, I mean specifically, like you consider it essential to UK2 defense of Trans-Jordan and you have the projections to back it up, or you have a very specific timing threat against Japan and/or Germany.

I’d say you must be planning on landing UK fighters on US carriers, except you mentioned Germany’s fleet is apparently interfering with US landings at South Africa. (and if you write you meant “French West Africa” instead of “Union of South Africa”, south versus west, what’s up with that, and how exactly is Germany preventing US landings even at French West Africa unless the German Med fleet is posting south of France which kills its timings against Africa but I digress.)

“With Germany funneling troops into Africa, you’d think Russia would have some advantage, but apparently Germany can do both attack Africa and crush the meager Russians with Storm troopers piling in from Japan.”

That shouldn’t be happening. Far as I’ve ever constructed scenarios or heard from other credible players, the theoretical line on G1 Med carrier is you put pressure on UK income in Africa, feed that into Germany’s efficient logistics and initial stack size. Then there’s a bunch of branches but basically Germany sacrifices progress and timings in Europe for a long-term production and logistics strategy. What you’re describing is Germany getting long-term production and logistics and still hitting its Europe timings. You can construct theoretical scenarios and talk about dice results but there are a lot of contributing factors that all push in the same direction especially if you’re talking about KGF. Even if the Axis get lucky here or there, a lot has to go wrong for it to go as badly as you’re describing.

“It’s round 3 before the USA has a fleet large enough to even push a landing on south Africa due to the German Navy, that’s with pure defensive build, limited to the 2 transports that usually destroyed round 1.”

Er . . . lost you there. So let me get this straight. You’re lining up a US3 push to South Africa for some reason, you’re worried about the German navy, you apparently want a “pure defensive” build and you’re saying . . . that US lost its East Coast transports on US1? How, exactly? What is this game? A lot of screenshots would help.

But absent screenshots - take US3 push to South Africa. Why would you do this? You protect Africa income, sure, but does this scenario involve Germany holding Finland and Norway uncontested? So there’s zero positional pressure on Germany in the Atlantic, and you say Germany can crush Russia while Japan runs in from the other side . . . no wait. That would explain things, I suppose. Zero pressure against Germany in Europe, frees them up to do pure tank builds, income off Finland and Norway, yes I can see how that could be messy . . .

“It’s round 3 before the USA has a fleet large enough to even push a landing on south Africa due to the German Navy, that’s with pure defensive build, limited to the 2 transports that usually destroyed round 1.”

Yes, I quoted it twice. Perhaps you may rethink a US3 pure defensive navy headed towards South Africa. There is just a lot of, um, “weird” going on there. I feel that there’s just a lot of assumptions being made that I don’t expect to see, and not because there’s some amazing line I’ve never even considered - I think probably some really weird stuff is happening in that game.

For example, let’s say you’re pushing US3 with no transports, pure defensive build in Atlantic. Which I guess is going to happen when you buy battleships but eh. Axis can see you have no transports, there’s no real threat. It’s very very late in development. If you do US1 or US2 drops to French West Africa then pressure Germany to try to get local superiority of force, that’s what I’d expect. But US3 and no transports? So Germany’s been eating Africa income plus sitting unopposed on Finland and Norway - and will be sitting on Finland and Norway for some time. That’s the midgame for Axis, and that looks strictly winning to me. So you have this large inefficient US transport fleet funneling ground units to Africa to contest it while Russia gets flattened. That’s what I expect off that description.

In Revised and other early versions you could do 1 transport loads and offloads in one turn from East Canada to Africa, then you didn’t have Morocco added to the map slowing Allied progress, nor did you have an India IC that jumpstarted Japan’s logistics post-capture. But 1942 Second Edition is not Revised. Africa drops are slow, you need two fleets of transports plus Morocco slows things plus you can’t use transports as ablative armor. I expect maybe some really sharp players could adapt a line using tanks, but you’re not talking about tanks at all with a “pure defensive fleet without transports”. On the US3 timing no less! What’s happening in that game?

“If Japan even fakes at coming towards the Pacific, USA has to shore up defense there, buying another turn of Russia being on an island.”

I’m sure it’s all very clear in your head but I don’t know what you mean by “fakes”. As far as I’m concerned Japan never 'fakes" anything. It makes a run on Hawaiian Islands and Alaska to disrupt US timings and put on a little victory city pressure, trading a late Japanese timing for an immediate US response. There just doesn’t need to be any fakery about it.

And if you’re playing to 9 VCs and pushing US3 to Africa and

@theskeindhu said in German Carrier SZ 15:

@DoManMacgee Ok, that makes sense. So assume India falls round 3 and just focus on Germany most of the IPC’s.

Well if Axis have Karelia, India, and Hawaiian Islands that’s 9 VCs right there. If you don’t have US transports I don’t see France or Italy being contested but the US fleet is headed towards Africa anyways. You wrote UK doesn’t have a fleet and USSR is getting rolled up. So how are Allies planning to prevent Axis victory city win condition?

I hope you’re not saying that US is going to build a huge defensive Pacific fleet to fend Japan off Hawaiian Islands after trying to build a huge defensive Atlantic fleet with no transports anywhere.

“UK relegated to defending India and shuffling fighters over to defend Moscow, with no fleet after round one and a now significant threat from German fighters with increased range due to their carrier. By the time the USA gets a fleet large enough to defend itself, they are faced with the choice to chase down the German menace which can blithely skip through the Mediterranean, or ignore and push Normandy or Norway. Ignoring it means the Germans can park in SZ 15 virtually all game after the US fleet moves up, they can pound Africa destroying the UK income.”

If you build a load of fighters with UK of course you’re not going to have funds for fleet. In the KGF with UK the tradeoff is if you build fighters then you get faster defense to Russia, but you slow your eventual fleet development. But apparently you’re never building fleet with UK. What is this, KJF?

US1 fleet build, US2 movement off Africa or East Canada, UK3 fleet drop, US3 fleet joins UK3 fleet. UK has 4-5 transports, destroyer, carrier, US has carrier, bunch of fighters, destroyer(s), cruiser, transports, you start UK4/US4 drops of 10 ground a turn or something like that, and that’s the late timing which is unrealistically pessimistic as a G1 Italy carrier means German air was committed south, plus you’re saying US1’s East Coast fleet was destroyed so exactly what happened on UK1? You know, with its East Coast UK destroyer and transport and cruiser off Morocco and things, not to mention the rest of its India navy/air force. Did I say “pessimistic”, perhaps I should have said “wildly pessimistic”. There is just really something substantial missing here, and even if you’re building UK fighters for timings, you land UK fighters on US carriers, boop, there’s your instant navy, I think it’s kind of weird to put UK fighters on US carriers instead of US fighters on UK carriers, the timing is all wrong, but you ought to be able to pull something off.

“There is no margin for error as the Allies, no time for stalled turns, round 5 is when they can actually mount a significant onslaught on Germany and by that time Russia is well on their heels. Any delay is death, basically for 14 IPC’s Germany can tactically destroy the Allied march.”

Significant onslaught on Germany with no UK/US transports?

If a poster doesn’t dot the i’s and cross the t’s, sure, there’s no need to nitpick. But it’s just impossible to get any idea of what’s really going on.

"UK relegated to defending India and shuffling fighters over to defend Moscow, with no fleet after round one and a now significant threat from German fighters with increased range due to their carrier. "

In the same sentence you’re talking about “no fleet after round one” which in the KGF context you specified heavily implies a UK Atlantic fleet (as opposed to a possible UK fleet in Indian/Pacific against KJF), you’re saying there’s a “significant threat” from “German fighters with increased range due to their carrier”. It’s a BALTIC carrier that gives you better range against sea zones off UK. If it’s a MED carrier then Axis fighters on the Med carrier are out of range.

Let’s recap. A Med carrier stalls the Allies from pressuring Germany for at least a turn . . . how? If you’re talking G1 Baltic carrier then you have invasion threat on London plus G2 fleet unification off London. But G1 Med carrier does not play out like that at all. It’s a KGF but UK doesn’t plan to build any Atlantic fleet. US3 is building a pure defensive fleet apparently without transports and heading to South Africa. Germany spent on a carrier and is bleeding units out of Europe into Africa, yet despite the expenditure on carrier meaning less ground was built initially plus the additional loss of units from Europe bleeding into Africa, Germany is still crushing Russia AND conquering Africa AND interdicting any UK naval builds AND threatening US off - not from an Allied push into the Mediterranean, no, but actually pressuring the US significantly so US has to do pure defensive builds and US can’t even safely push to Africa. The German Med fleet is west, we know this because apparently it’s threatening off any Allied Atlantic fleet. Yet it’s also east, we know this because it’s pressuring Africa. But the Mediterranean fleet is also in the Baltic as it’s extending fighter range threat around UK’s sea zones. Oh, and battleships are good because they can soak repeated hits from air attacks though an opponent shouldn’t be doing that anyways.

Now look, I know you called me a “dick” and an “elitist” in that other post, maybe you think I’m going to take that all personal-like, maybe you think I’m making these points in bad faith. But I want you to look through what I’m writing. I didn’t just say battleships suck, I wrote why they suck. I didn’t just say your post was confusing I wrote why it was confusing.

Follow-up post later.

@theskeindhu Please clarify wihich game you are actually talking about.
This category is about the boardgame - while we have a seperate one for the online game as mentioned in this sticky:
https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/topic/35794/axis-allies-1942-online-has-its-own-dedicated-forum-category

In case this topic is about the boargame - fine. If not, I will move it to the correct category.
Thank you.

In my previous post I wrote why the OP just doesn’t make sense. But I’m going to piece together some of what I say a G1 Med carrier game looks like, and if it’s wildly different to what the OP is saying happens, I think most of what the OP’s describing shouldn’t be happening anyways. We could talk about mechanics and mathematics of it, but I expect most veterans will have at least some idea of what I’m talking about even if they do disagree on details.

So we’ll say LHTR setup, Allied bid of 11, preplaced units limit one per territory/sea zone a power already controls units. GenCon has to call games on time but we’ll assume that doesn’t happen, and I believe GenCon also pushes KJF because of how they decide games that haven’t concluded under regular victory conditions but that’s a bit of an aside.

We’re saying KGF so I’ll say Allies put artillery at Caucasus, artillery at Karelia, infantry at Egypt. I don’t know if I would really put an infantry on Egypt, I think there’s a case for Trans-Jordan or Russia but whatever. At the very least the Ukraine / West Russia opening is stabilized.

So there’s a few branches of G1 Med carrier opening. Let’s go off something like G1 placement 9 infantry on Germany, carrier at Italy, Germany transports units to Libya, hits the UK destroyer in east Med, hits the UK cruiser off Morocco. Whether Germany sends a submarine to hit the UK destroyer / transport off East Canada I leave open to debate, but I assume Germany does NOT hit the US destroyer / transport.

So you can already see where there’s important differences to the OP stating USA “limited to the 2 transports that usually destroyed round 1” (which I’m not sure what that means precisely). Then there’s that whole phantom army thing that normally just doesn’t happen.

Okay let’s say Germany hits UK destroyer/transport off East Canada. 1/3 chance UK transport lives, 1/3 chance UK destroyer and transport live, 1/3 chance German sub only lives. If the UK transport dies, great, Germany can allocate zero units to defending France and doesn’t have to worry as much about UK pushing Norway/Finland, not that I’m saying those would be great for Allies anyways but regardless no UK transport off East Canada cuts UK’s options. Not a great chance of UK transport dying, but there is a chance, and the zero allocation thing is pretty nice.

A better chance, and also a decent prize, is if East Canada UK destroyer dies. Any sub survivors of the UK battleship fight will be safe if the UK East Canada destroyer is dead.

And if the German sub dies? Oh well. It had its chance to get some very nice prizes for Germany, if it didn’t manage to pull it off, oh well.

“But wait”, you say, you want to allocate all Germany’s available units to the UK battleship battle? Okay. But then the US East destroyer/transports don’t die either.

What’s the drawback of letting US East destroyer/transports live? Well this is where everything in the OP starts breaking apart. There, it’s phantom teleporting armies. But actually Germany can’t be everywhere and doing everything. If Germany sent its two Atlantic submarines against US East’s fleet, great (for Allies), Germany just borked the odds on its attack against the UK battleship.

So what happens? Well let’s say Germany fighter hit the UK cruiser - and there’s a line where you use a German sub there instead of at UK East Canada or US East US. So off that line, you get some chances of Germany having a fighter on Morocco and a submarine off Morocco, which messes with any prospective US landings at Morocco - but also threatens French West Africa.

But then, you have to really start looking at what happens, paying attention to these details, thinking about the moves, the counters, the counter-counters. Again, I’m saying the OP is painting this horrible picture that never actually happens because the real position doesn’t play out that way.

So let’s think about it. US1 to French West Africa. That eats a G2 counter of what, two fighters off Germany’s Med carrier, fighter from Morocco, maybe a submarine. Sounds scary. But really, so what? That’s three German fighters way out of position against Russia, and if Germany commits all those fighters then it’ll also have to commit its carrier west of Morocco on the G2 counter. Which means that a G2 hard counter against a US1 landing on French West Africa walks right into a US1 buy that fuels the US2 counter against the G2 counter. Not so rosy after all.

And when this happens on G2, what else is happening? We know Germany dropped to Libya, let’s assume they have some fat nasty counter against any UK attempt to hold Egypt. All right. But where is all that German power coming from?

Let’s recap. USSR1 opening can blow up Germany’s fighter and bomber in Ukraine. Germany’s Bulgaria-Romania fighter attacked the UK destroyer in east Med on G1 which isn’t a fantastic battle but otherwise it can fuel a UK1 counter to the G1 Med fleet build. Germany’s Germany fighter attacked the UK cruiser off Morocco. Norway and NW Europe fighters hit the UK battleship with subs. There is a lot of risk to Germany’s air and Germany can’t just skimp on fighters protecting its new carrier as UK has a threat against Italy’s sea zone (remember, we’re assuming Egypt and Trans-Jordan are uncontested).

So let’s say Germany has power lined up against Africa. Well all right, it does have a carrier and fighters in range down there. But how do those German Med fighters threaten the sea zones around UK? They don’t. Not enough range. It’s very easy for UK to drop a fleet in the Atlantic in those conditions, and even assuming fantastic Germany dice it’s UK destroyer, carrier, and two fighters against three German fighters. If Germany’s dice aren’t so fantastic it’s two German fighters. Maybe even one.

And this is part of the reason why you hit the UK East Canada fleet. If it really is only one German fighter threatening any UK naval builds then you can get some very weird interactions especially off dice results, like possibly UK1 carrier/transport build, UK1 capture of Finland or Norway, if the 1 German fighter attacks the UK destroyer it’s only 50% to wipe the UK fleet but regardless has to land on Finland or Norway (whichever wasn’t captured) then maybe has to eat a 6+ dice UK counter so dies regardless. Fun stuff!

So you can see where the game plan breaks apart. Germany has so many nice threats on paper, but dice results and having to eat potential Allied counters means they’re not free and clear advantages.

Let’s look at the game a little later. UK and US have developed an Atlantic fleet with transports - and why not? What’s Germany really going to do about it? Jump into a naval war with the combined economies of UK and US? While it’s also fighting USSR? Germany’s G4 Ukraine push is already a little anemic as it swapped out unit count and artillery that would provide flexibility without requiring air cover for its carrier. And with UK/US making landings, sure, Germany has nice logistics at Med but it’s been bleeding out Europe into Africa on top of the expenditure for the carrier plus Germany’s probably down some air. Sure, Germany could get lucky here or there, but as I wrote, it’s not just one thing here or there that has to break down if you’re getting Germany’s timings against Russia the same as if it hadn’t built a carrier and is pressuring Africa as well. That’s just not normal, you need a LOT of weird stuff for that to really happen.

So we’re looking at this game some time later, and we say that US has landed forces at French West Africa. And is that really unreasonable? Again, look at the numbers. If you say both German Atlantic subs pushed the UK battleship then Germany had a safer battle there but the UK East Canada and US East US fleets survived. If you say a German Atlantic sub split to hit UK at East Canada then US East is completely intact. If you say a German Atlantic sub split to hit US then UK East is completely intact and Allies have a chance at all that nice weird early counter game in Europe. If you say the Germans sent their fighters north to cover UK’s sea zones then they left their German Med fleet to eat an attack from UK’s 2 fighters and bomber. If you say the Germans sent their fighters south to protect its Med fleet then you run into all the stuff I mentioned. And if you had a G2 counter to US1 French West Africa landing then that eats the US1 build feeding the US2 counter.

It’s not that the Axis game sucks. But it’s not really fantastic either. There’s going to be an opening. Unless you’re saying that the Allies are missing all their rolls and Axis hitting all their rolls, but nothing’s going to win against that anyways.

So, using these reasonable assumptions, where does the game lead? I expect faster than normal Allied development against Finland/Norway (not slower). If Germany’s very careful and lucky they can pull off something close to the timing compared to if they hadn’t built a carrier. It won’t be the same, but something sort of like it.

But there’s absolutely nothing Germany can do about the fact they’re four units down from having built a carrier instead of four ground units, or the fact that Germany’s bleeding out of Europe to feed Africa. There’s also stuff like the G1 end position being even weaker off the bat as you want to leave 2 units in range to be transported out of Europe, but I won’t go too much into detail, just mentioning there’s stuff like that floating around that needs to be dealt with.

Yes, Germany has wonderful logistics now in the Med, but there’s just no way to compensate for sheer lack of unit count. Okay, Germany can catch up at Ukraine? Fantastic, superb - but where do those units come from? They have to come from somewhere. If you’re pulling out of Italy to dump to Ukraine, great for the Ukraine push, but that must mean your defenses around Germany are weaker for the loss of units. Especially against KGF.

So you start looking at the timing of how everything goes together and it works out - Germany pays for a carrier. It bleeds out Europe to feed Africa. Later on Germany can shift stuff around, more so if left unmolested in the Mediterranean. But you have a lot of little problems. Germany just can’t compensate for loss of raw unit count. Germany risks its air and has to commit what it does have left. Then there’s little mathematical issues that pile up, like Germany not having G1 artillery that free up its G3 fighters from having to commit to trades so much, and though Germany can push artillery at Karelia, it’s not the same as having artillery shifting to Poland then Ukraine (building at Karelia just doesn’t reinforce Ukraine timely.) Yes, you can have income from Africa. But considering all the piled up costs, it really only starts paying off in the later game and even then there are a LOT of problems for the Axis with proper Allied counterplay.

Proper Allied counterplay such as . . . ? Look. This is not a magic bullet I’m talking about here. I don’t think there is a hard counter to a G1 Med carrier if it’s played right. I’m saying there’s stuff the Allies can do, if Axis don’t deal with it then Axis end up with problems, if Axis do deal with it the Axis end up with problems elsewhere. But there’s no magic or cleverness in it. There’s no hiding of information, there’s no ruses, it’s all just probability distributions, mathematics, and mechanics. Just as the Allies are going to try to mess with the Axis, the Axis should be trying to mess with the Allies.

Sometimes you do get near hard-counters but that’s off misplays. And I don’t think G1 carrier is necessarily a misplay. It might be. But I’ve never seen anything convincing me that it really is.

Anyways, counterplay. So let’s say Germany bulks at Libya. Then let’s say UK moves Egypt units south into Africa, moves Union of South Africa infantry north, US1 lands at French West Africa. G2 captures Egypt, UK2 to Rhodesia, US2 to French Equatorial Africa, then what happens on G3?

If Germany grabs Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, so what? No income. If Germany pushes tanks into Belgian Congo and Italian East Africa they get killed by UK/US counters. If Germany’s using air to help its tanks, where did that German air come from and where does it land? Probably not a real threat. So then what?

If Germany pushes to Trans-Jordan, there go any plans for African income right there. It’s not awful, Germany has Egypt and Trans-Jordan which often it can’t count on at all. But that’s just 3 IPCs. Granted, that IS a lot. But compare to all the costs already described for Germany. If you’re pushing into the late game, sure, nice for Axis. But that’s the late game.

If Germany pushes into Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, okay. If Germany splits, UK and US pick it off. If Germany stays together, UK and US can defend together. Germany can move around Africa horribly slowly with a lot of units, and UK and US follow right after, picking up the income that Germany drops. Sure, Germany can brute-force Africa, but the timing is always going to suck and it’s always going to mean bleeding out units in Europe immediately for later gains in Africa. It’s just not fantastic.

The real problem for Allies happens after Japan picks up India then can use its transports to drop all over the coast of Africa. Germany moves, Japan reinforces. If Germany’s alone, UK moves then US reinforces, no chance for Germany to attack. But if Germany has Japan along, UK moves then Japan punishes before US can reinforce. And if US moves then Germany can punish before UK reinforces. If the Allies are working deliberately to prevent German income in Africa (instead allowing Japan to have it) it’s still not easy, as the Axis know that’s what the Allies want and try to prevent exactly that from happening. But anyways that all happens quite late.

In the meantime, what happens in Europe? Well, if the Allies let Germany chain African income to German production and logistics, that’s REAL messy. If Germany has Med logistics against Africa and southeast Europe and Japan has India transport logistics against Africa, there’s just no way for the Allies to fight off Axis superior logistics in Africa and a pumped Germany. The longer the game goes, the more the game probably pushes in favor of Axis until the Allies break apart.

So - again, this isn’t a “magic bullet” - no magical solutions here - the Allies just have to make sure that doesn’t happen. And it should be rough, because the Axis should make it rough. It’s not like the Axis are going to say “hey ho, I’m just going to let you take Karelia then march ground reinforcement into Russia then bleed out whichever Axis stack you choose while conserving whatever main Allied stack you choose, then I’m going to say golly gee mister Allies, it looks like the Axis just lost!”

You see a G1 Med carrier, I’d say you need to immediately be thinking about Allied timing attacks against Karelia if you’re going KGF. You need to think about how exactly you’re going to break apart the Axis game play, how you’re going to poke here and there and test for weaknesses, and how the Axis are not going to make anything easy. You shouldn’t expect to be able to find any obvious counters as you shouldn’t expect your opponent to play badly, but openings will be there somewhere, and you need to plan your buys and moves not just trying to punish gigantic obvious opponent mistakes, but trying to create openings where your opponent won’t necessarily have left big opportunities.

If you want little tricks, sorry, that just isn’t how it works. I can only emphasize stuff that works off basic mechanics and mathematics. Local superiority of force in Africa. Axis logistics superiority to Africa. German income from Africa feeding Germany’s superior production, logistics, and initial stack sizes. It takes a while for Germany’s investment to pay off. There isn’t any big obvious counter because all that stuff just relies on basics and correctly weighing relative importance. Your fundamentals need to be strong.

I wrote previously - you’re talking about US3 fleet without transports to South Africa. That’s not normally right. If you want to tie that assertion into basic mechanics and mathematics, sure, let’s do that, let’s look at an application.

Let’s start with economics. I say you don’t normally want to trade 6 IPCs for 3 IPCs. You don’t want to trade a tank for an infantry. There’s exceptions but generally speaking.

Then let’s talk about stacks and bleeding. I have a fat Germany stack. You have a fat USSR stack that also has UK and US fighters on it. This is a problem for Axis. Only one power can attack at a time, but all opposing powers can defend together.

If you’re bleeding out an opponent stack, you’re trying to get them to commit forces elsewhere than their main stack. If an opponent’s main stack can’t reasonably contest your combined defensive stack, sucks to be them.

Then let’s look at logistics. Look at UK. How does it get units to Africa? How about USSR? US? Germany? Japan?

Answer is, USSR logistics suck to Africa. USSR can send units to Persia, Axis say great, you go ahead and bleed out your Europe stack, now Germany can push with impunity and you won’t be able to do anything about it. UK logistics to Africa also suck. You want to send 10 IPC fighters to swap with 3 IPC infantry, sure, do that. UK can push transports to Africa but if UK can get an Atlantic transport and escort fleet going, that’s way better - threaten Finland,Norway, Karelia, Baltic States, Germany, Northwest Europe, France. US has such lousy logistics to Europe that it’s best placed to reinforce Africa, but even then it sucks. You can drop units from East US to French West Africa then empty US transports can move to East Canada preparatory to dropping to Finland/Norway. But French West Africa is not the interior of Africa, US’s march is slow and predictable (and thus counter-able), and you’re going to miss drops to Finland/Norway. If you couldn’t push Finland/Norway early anyways, which happens with Axis interdiction, all right, but if you’re pushing US3 to South Africa, that’s absolutely the wrong timing. If Allies are holding out in Europe with anywhere near normal development, there’s two possibilities you’re looking at. If US3 to South Africa is telegraphed, then G3 builds tanks and with its G1-G2 builds you get a very serious and nasty G4 Ukraine push. But even if US3 to South Africa isn’t telegraphed and Germany only builds G4 tanks after the US3 commit, US is still way out of position to even try to punish anything Germany tries to do. It’s basically a KGF that isn’t a KGF because Germany isn’t being pressured at all.

So what are your options? You can compensate for slow infantry by throwing money at the problem. Infantry slow to progress through Africa, okay, use tanks. Need range to threaten both Africa and Europe, use bombers. But those create issues too. You can play clever games with superiority of force, but Germany can block your shenanigans to some degree and it’s not like you have a lot of clever options pushing through Africa to try to reinforce Europe. It’s totally predictable, you will push through Egypt into Persia, the Axis can see it coming miles away and will act accordingly.

As to bombers, sure, there’s no stopping the range. But bombers aren’t great at defense, and though they’re better at 12 compared to 15 in revised, they’re still expensive. If you go bombers you didn’t go fighters, and your defensive options will suffer.

So you get a general idea of how these things interact. You can push local superiority of force at Africa, but it only really makes sense if you’re trying to contest early Axis control of Africa and trying to specifically deny Germany income. Late game you just can’t beat Japan’s dropping anywhere along the coast, much less Germany dropping anywhere from the Mediterranean; if you really want to stop the Axis late game in Africa you need to commit way too much US reserves to Africa on a timing that means Axis far more freedom to act in Europe, which is the last thing you want. Apart from Axis possibly getting 9 victory cities and winning right there and Allies not being in a position to do anything about it, any units dropped to Africa are way out of position to remotely do anything in Europe for a long time, and that’s exactly how the Axis want it.

So then you have these principles and have some idea of how they apply in relation to one another. Then look at the board and think about Africa again.

Let’s do a transport chain. US East to East Canada to Finland to pressure Karelia. You capture Karelia, Germany gets 2 less units there, it’s an immediately relevant territory. And if you must, all right, then Karelia to West Russia to Russia. 6 territories in that chain.

Then look at Africa. US East to French West Africa to French Equatorial Africa to Anglo-Egyptian Sudan to Egypt to Trans-Jordan to Persia to Caucasus to Russia. 9 territories in that chain.

Which chain is more efficient? The one that involves six territories or the one that involves nine? Every link in the chain that you’re not fighting for is waste. Necessary waste, perhaps, but a waste. Think about it. If you have units on East Canada, is that REALLY helping you in Europe? No. If you have units on Finland, is that REALLY helping you defend Russia? No. (Well probably you’re pressuring Karelia but leave that aside). The longer the territory, the more units you have doing no fighting, just marching along. Not efficient. Not what you want to do.

And are you getting some kind of great timing advantage on Africa? In Revised, sure, you get one transport loading and offloading from East Canada to Africa every turn, plus you don’t have Morocco, plus the map elsewhere is different, transports act as ablative armor, fantastic, wonderful, superb. But 1942 Second Edition you need two transports per transport load to send to Africa, same as if you dumped to Finland/Norway, transports aren’t ablative armor, it’s not terribly fast, French West Africa isn’t really great placement, Africa’s got all this dead space in it on this map . . . right.

There’s a lot I’m leaving unaddressed. I know I went on at length but I’m only giving a brief overview with a few rough examples of how some of it plays out. It isn’t meant to be a comprehensive address, not even close. I didn’t even mention Japanese air to Europe or the importance of UK capturing Morocco and what you do if you can’t get that to happen. Just loads of stuff, eurgh.

@theskeindhu said in German Carrier SZ 15:

@aardvarkpepper Strafes and bombardments, two reasons to occasionally buy a Battleship. I use strafes frequently, specifically on battles I don’t actually want to win because the counter attack would destroy me. For such a battleship is superior. People get in echo chambers and repeat the same nonsense and think, because everyone says it, it must be true. Fact is, bombardments of 4 are actually quite useful, having a Battleship is like having a bomber, it’s not ideal for every situation, but it hits hard when used right.

I’m not talking about what “everyone says”. I’m saying you are creating theoretical constructs without looking at the practical counters. I say that’s what happened when you were writing about a German carrier, I say it’s happening again when you say battleships are good.

Battleship strafes in 1942 Second Edition don’t happen in practical terms.

Maybe we can dispense with the rest of this post as I’ll just ask straight out - is one of your assumptions that the opponent is bad, desperate, has incredible and consistent dice disadvantage, and/or has basically already lost the game? If so, then there’s no need to go further because when you make those sorts of assumptions, battleships do end up being good all the time.

And I don’t mean “assumptions” in a pejorative sense. I myself am assuming that players are highly competent. But on a working basis, I’d guess most metas probably don’t have a load of highly competent players. So if you assume players aren’t competent, I’m saying that’s perfectly reasonable. I’m just saying let’s understand what we are assuming for the discussion.

Are we talking about best lines of play between highly competent players? Or lines of play that work less against highly competent opponents, but which are expected to punish less competent opponents? Real question. Not rhetorical.

==

The rest of this post assumes you’re saying battleships are mechanically and mathematically good in a practical sense. (edit - which come to think on it is just my assumption, my bad if I’m wrong about that.)

So you bounce your theories off me, I bounce my theories off you, and all’s equal, right? But no. Battleships don’t work in practice. I can give you a bajazillion examples of how they don’t work in practice, but really, what does that “prove”? After all, all you need is to demonstrate one particular case that you can force to apply to games to disprove everything. Bajazillion against one, but the one wins.

But where is that one? Just take one screenshot. That’s all you need.

But I’ll say now, I expect when you take that screenshot, you can say “check it out! all these battleships that I built, ultra cool!” But a veteran that looks at the screen will say “and how did it get to that position? That position shouldn’t exist.” And it’s not an echo chamber, they can point out why the position shouldn’t exist.

You mention doing battleship strafing. How does that happen, exactly?

1. The opponent needs to leave their navy in range. But exactly why would they do that? Let’s just look at each major power, if you disagree on any point, feel free to say so.

USSR: I don’t think USSR having a navy in context of battleship strafing is an issue. I say functionally USSR could use its starting submarine to reinforce UK and/or US, but then it’s functionally part of a UK/US stack so I’ll just ignore any USSR fleet as a separate entity.

UK: In the KGF that’s the context of this thread - no? - or a proper KGF anyways, UK and US fleets work together, that’s the expectation. Germany’s “strafe” has to take on the combined defensive power of UK and US fleets, normally Germany just doesn’t have the power to build a load of battleships and fight off USSR. If UK and US play it really fast and loose with their Atlantic fleet, then maybe Germany can develop some sort of naval/air pressure. But repeated strafes just won’t happen. If the combined UK/US fleet is really in danger, then they just move out of range until they can reinforce.

Sure, you can set up the board where Germany has a load of Atlantic battleships and is also crushing USSR. But that’s pretty much down to opponent’s bad or crazy dice. It’s not normal. You take pictures of the game as it develops, a veteran will point out again and again where an opponent straight screwed up or had repeated horrible dice, that’s how those situations happen.

As to UK in Indian/Pacific, again, UK just shouldn’t be leaving its naval assets in range of any good attacks OR strafes, and there really isn’t anything Japan can do to force the situation normally. You have to construct a scenario in which UK can’t retreat around South Africa, it’s cut off by Japan fleets to the west and to the east then just gets slaughtered. But that just isn’t normal. Sure, UK can’t do much about the UK1 moves and there is a possibility J2 cuts off and slaughters UK fleet. But that’s not Japan doing some sort of repeated strafe activity. That’s just expected and normal if UK doesn’t push naval/air assets in the region.

And if you have a serious KJF, then UK fighters are landing on US carriers. Again there will be no repeated strafe barring weird dice. If Japan’s been just building up loads of battleships then UK/US move into range, Japan tries to pull a strafe, then Japan’s entire fleet dies to the UK/US counter. That isn’t some theoretical construct, that’s exactly what happens in practice.

If you want to talk theory, sure, let’s look at it. Japan has a big starting fleet and air, true. In KJF, UK can bid sub at India to attack the East Indies fleet, true. So it’s likely Japan’s starting forces are down battleship, carrier, two fighters. The UK1 bid, placement, and move telegraph a KJF. So Japan can even use its first turn build to counter. Sure. But then what? Japan buys battleships?

If USSR didn’t stack Buryatia (because that screws with the numbers in Europe and can be punished by Japan unless USSR seriously commits* then you don’t get immediate pressure near Japan. But even if USSR goes full retreat towards Archangel on USSR1, it can still reverse and put four infantry on Buryatia on USSR2. Plus USSR can push units through China, plus UK is producing units at India. And normally this is not done, because USSR pushing the Asian coast uses units that are needed near Europe, and USSR can’t make any real progress as it walks right into the face of Japan’s logistics.

But if Japan’s building battleships then Japan just doesn’t have the numbers to fight pressure off too well. So instead of Japan eating up USSR push in Asia, instead USSR units in Asia survive and start getting Asia coast income. And a fat USSR income is a real problem for the Axis.

And now consider. If you tied up Japan’s income in battleships, what’s Germany doing? What’s UK doing? If you’re building battleships all over the place, where’s the air? If you have air, then what’s the opportunity cost?

What I’m working towards is you end up with - as I wrote earlier - tactically inflexible Japanese battleships in the Pacific. If UK builds an Atlantic fleet, Japanese battleships in the Pacific can do nothing against it. If Germany builds air, that’s less cost-efficient tanks they can push for the timing. And again, you have to consider what happens with UK and USSR. There’s every chance UK is very fat as it has Africa and India, and maybe Borneo and/or East Indies, then there’s New Guinea. USSR might also be nice and fat. Those Japanese battleships are not really pushing ground, they can’t contest the interior of Asia at all, they can maybe punish a push after the fact to some degree but that’s about it.

So Japan’s territory gets smaller and smaller and UK and Russia get bigger and bigger. That’s the stage we’re setting. And UK fighters on US carriers means the Allies ramp up real quick in Pacific.

So exactly when does Japan have this awesome punishing fleet that it can use to repeatedly strafe? It doesn’t. UK/US might do a fast push in range of Japan’s main fleet whee Japan can hit it. But if it’s a strafe, any UK/US survivors can then attack plus whatever else Allies have in range. And there probably will be stuff in range that wasn’t involved in the initial defense. Example, probably you’re going to have US fighters on a US carrier off West US. That’s going to extend US’s threat range and improve its timings. I did say carriers improve your logistics and timings.

Consider a fighter on West US. Just doesn’t have any good range to any targets. Battleship at West US. Slow, probably no range to any targets. Fighters on a carrier at West US. Those fighter have range to Borneo and Philippines sea zones, both Japan’s sea zones, plus generally just have fantastic range, on the turn right after they’re placed. There’s a good reason why Allies chain fighters onto carriers, because the timing improvements are fantastic.

And this is not to mention any submarines Allies put down.

If you want to say “sure, but Japan can do stuff too, like destroyer interdiction and threatening and things” - I’m saying go on, show me those screenshots. I’m not trying to be demanding here. If you don’t have the time to set up and take screenshots, okay. But consider

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHKaOgd6We8

Yes, the fellow really DOES have a singing and dancing frog. But even though he knows he has it, that doesn’t mean others believe it.

But back to battleship strafing. Again, I’m talking about how it just doesn’t happen in practical application, got up through UK.

How about US? Why should US ever leave its units in range to be repeatedly punish-strafed? Or hard countered? Shouldn’t happen. If US wants to press into range of an Axis attack, sure, that happens. Then after US survives the Axis strafe it uses its existing assets to blow up the survivors of the strafe. If US couldn’t get odds on that, then it wouldn’t have moved into position where it could be strafed in the first place, and it really can’t be forced into it. Unless you’re making extreme assumptions like the Axis have some incredibly amazing fleet assets, cut off US retreat through the Panama canal, and somehow US legit didn’t see any of this coming and didn’t prepare for it in any way.

What about Germany and Japan?

Japan first. If Allies are pushing battleships into range, they have to eat a Japanese sub/air/fleet counter. It’s going to cost Japan subs, but it’s going to cost Allies their entire fleet. If KJF Pacific is operated on an accelerated timeline with UK fighters coming from India (or from UK to West Russia to India on the UK1 build then transposing to later India fighters and/or India navy) and UK fighters landing on US carriers, sure. That threat develops pretty quick. But how, exactly, do the Allies force a confrontation? If you say UK1 placed India sub with bid (telegraphing KJF) then followed up with a East Indies attack (committing to a KJF action and telegraphing KJF again though it could still transpose into KGF, it really depend on the US1 fleet build and placement) - then what? You still have Japan seeing the UK1 attack and able to build a J1 carrier which does suck for Japan as it messes up its progress against Asia, but you still have battleship, two carriers, four fighters, bomber, plus three transports. From there, Japan consolidates in Asia then pushes Yunnan drops, and how exactly does Japan’s fleet get cut off at India?

If UK hit East Indies fleet then Japan probably cleaned up any UK survivors so UK’s fleet is gone. If UK didn’t hit East Indies fleet then Japan has another whole battleship and carrier and two fighters, and probably has four transports instead of three, plus Japan often has lines to destroy just about all UK’s India/Pacific fleet. Oh, you can get UK’s Australia fleet reinforcing US, but what I’m working towards is there’s just no way the Allies can cut off Japan retreating its fleet towards India, then there’s Japan possibly capturing India then branching off to Africa and using India to produce naval units if the situation supports Japan pushing back, or Japan just lets Allies push on its islands and coast while Germany cracks USSR open, then Japan and Germany head to the Asian coast to clean the Allies out.

Yes, that can play out in different ways. But again, where is Japan forced to repeatedly suffer enemy battleship strafes? Probably doesn’t happen, because Japan can just run away. If not through the Suez into the Mediterranean (which can be very hard to stop anyways), then around Africa.

I’ve played anti-KJF against an Allies player that tried building battleships with UK at India and more with US. He didn’t walk into any big obvious stupid counters. But what happened was, I developed pressure on Russia with Germany. He’d spent so much in Pacific he just didn’t have any good resistance left in Europe. He could see this massive attack incoming, and I was playing footsies and keep-away with Japan’s navy in the Pacific. He threatened landings through Alaska, he threatened fleet push from India towards Japan’s money islands, I countered every play - and why so easily? Because battleships are tactically inflexible. He just couldn’t develop the punching power to take down Japan’s fleet in any position that I left it, yes, if he could have forced the issue he would have won, but he couldn’t force the issue, I thought about his possible moves before he could make them and did my moves so I could escape his pinning me down. So in the end, he knew Russia was about to fall, and he made a desperation play to try to pressure Japan. I blew up UK’s entire battleship/carrier/destroyer fleet at some cost in subs, and still had a gigantic Japanese force that was so powerful US’s fleet couldn’t seriously push in from the other side. Battleships are weak for cost, you can construct theoretical constructs in which they’re even superior for cost, but once your model starts accounting for needing to walk into range of another player’s subs, those models tend to fall apart. And since the Allies had spent so much on navy, I also used Japan’s ground forces to crush and capture India.

I’m not trying to say I’m this great fantastic player or whatever. I’m just saying, a bum like me, with a little care, ended up horribly punishing a multi-battleship-build player. Not because that player was incredibly stupid either (apart from maybe building battleships in the first place). They tried to develop pressure, I did have to be careful, but they just couldn’t pin Japan down.

And that’s the BEST battleship player I ever beat. Sure, battleships have niche applications, but if you’re really trying to push battleships, they just have these weaknesses, the high cost, the limited tactical flexibility, not a lot of hitting power for their cost, needing to walk into the face of an opponent’s hard counter before being in position to threaten anything yourself.

Other battleship players, it just didn’t work at all. Like they’d have this big fantastic fleet of beautiful Allied battleships, great, they invade the Asian coast, great. Then they’d see they can’ prevent Axis crushing Russia, they realize Russia falls then India falls, they have zero Atlantic pressure and I didn’t suicide Japan’s fleet. They can see the writing on the wall. They quit. All the time, they just quit. A couple stick it out, then I win on VCs. If it’s total victory I swallow Russia and push Allies out of Asia, Axis economy is massive and they have a logistic advantage, all the Axis need to do is wait it out and grind a few mechanics to get the win. And in those situations, I built Axis battleships, and why? Because I’d won, I already had economic, logistic, and unit count superiority in all arenas, it was just a question of finishing Allies off while limiting economic damage,

Yes, you do get edge cases in which sharp players build a single battleship and it renders an advantage that’s worth the cost. But that is extremely abnormal. I’ve done it to other players a couple times, but in every case I was already winning in multiple areas, I could well afford the cost, and they’d messed up on top of it which is why my buying a battleship was even feasible. I expect it to happen in less than one in a hundred games. (edit - out of the last few hundred games I played, I remember every time I built battleships. At first, I was rusty and hadn’t thought things through, my strategies and tactics were shambles, I didn’t know how to prosecute proper timings at all, and I thought battleships were maybe good, then I looked at them post game and realized no, they really suck. Then I tried experimentation, just as you commented about echo chambers and things, I totally agree with that sort of thinking, it wasn’t enough that others said battleships sucked, it wasn’t enough that my predictive models said they sucked, I used them in practice, a lot, to see if my predictive models would hold up in practice. They did. That’s how I know battleships strafes don’t normally work. Decent opponents wouldn’t let me do it, and all that stuff I’m saying about battleships bad for cost etc, that’s how I know. Theoretical model, predictive model, practical experience. I’m open to a counterexample, but I need to see it. Then finally, I saw lots of players try to use battleships against me in various scenarios, and I always ended up punishing them. So I built battleships, I used battleships, I played against battleships, and out of a few hundred games, there was not one game in which I actually looked at the post-game and thought “yeah, a battleship build there, that was proper clever, good move by me or my opponent”. It’s not that I have a few practical counterexamples. I have zero practical counterexamples. I can only argue theoretical cases, and those get quite involved. Like let’s say UK has been producing air (which makes sense as it’s tactically flexible), UK’s already maxed on carrier count to carry fighters at India, and desperately needs two destroyers for tactical reasons but also needs defensive hitting power. So what does UK build? Destroyers plus what, one more unit can be placed at India. Carrier? Costs 14, defends at 2, no point, just build another destroyer, as already posited Allies maxed out on fighters on carriers anyways so the carrier won’t be contributing more to defense than just itself. Cruiser? Costs 12, defends at 3, kinda not the greatest. But wait, what about a battleship? Costs 20, horrible, but UK has the money, battleship has two hits (two hits! with one unit placement!) defends at 4, nice things. For hitting power and efficiency, there you go. And there’s your theoretical construct in which battleships are a GOOD buy. I have others. But they’re always theoretical. Never practical. Why is UK so fixated on defending India’s sea zone this turn? It must be for a particular key timing. So we know Japan has an awesome fleet. UK has an awesome fleet. USSR is fighting Germany to a standstill, probably by itself, because UK spent all its money on this awesome fleet, and probably US is in Pacific too because UK really shouldn’t be trying to take on Japan in Pacific by itself (it’s just a logistics/income/production). So right then you realize the theoretical model requires USSR to fight off Germany all by itself, you look at how Germany’s timings normally develop when it has no opposition in Atlantic, and you throw that theoretical model right out the window, because it CAN happen in theory, but in PRACTICE you need such wild dice results to make it so everyone’s actually acting rationally and correctly at every stage that the whole thing never happens! So when I say less than one in a hundred, I actually don’t even expect that much. There’s other constructs involving battleships but they all break down under scrutiny, they’re theoretically possible, they will happen eventually, but they’re just not common.)

So then we address Germany last, and why? Because Germany is the BEST case example for arguing battleship strafes and it STILL doesn’t work normally.

Why is Germany the best case? Because Germany can’t necessarily retreat safely. Any Germany Baltic build can easily get cut off by UK/US. If Germany wants to escape, it has to walk right through the heart of Allied power, and that’s VERY ugly. As to Mediterranean, if the Axis are paying attention then they can make it very tough for the Allies to close off the Suez with a bad timing (bad for Axis anyways) but it’s possible. This isn’t talking about UK or Japan retreating around Africa which pretty much can’t be stopped. It’s possible (probably not in practical terms but if the Allies player is smart and lucky it could happen).

But EVEN THEN, battleship strafing doesn’t happen. Again, we assume the players are competent. So Germany knows that its Baltic builds can be cut off. So it doesn’t build Baltic fleet.

Except the exception that already came up earlier, if Germany builds a Baltic carrier. But then, what’s expected to happen? The G2 threats are invasion of London and unified fleet north of France. That’s battleship, cruiser, carrier, two fighters, two transports. That’s a chunky monkey. Germany’s invasion threat on London is perhaps two infantry two tanks four fighters and two bombards, and UK’s defense isn’t going to be fantastic because USSR1 didn’t park fighters on Archangel that could fly in on USSR2 to help defend London. And how do we know that? Because the G1 Baltic carrier comes after the USSR1 turn, Germany can see if USSR1 parked fighters on Archangel; if it did then a Baltic carrier build is contra-indicated.

So you have an eight-dice attack on London, a lot of it being high dice, if London gets sacked it’s a problem. Maybe US can recapture and hold, but UK is always going to be out that pile of cash, meaning less UK units and more German units. And Germany has lots of nice options, they can dump into infantry and hold remainder to keep producing infantry to capacity on following turns, they can dump into tanks - it depends on how the Allies counter, Germany then uses its buys to counter the counters and so it goes.

So what does that mean? Maybe UK has to spend on defending London. What does it buy?

But the problem is there are a lot of holes in the German Baltic carrier buy. Even if you assume USSR didn’t leave fighters on Archangel, usually Germany’s Med fleet at Gibraltar gets cut off. Yes, German air can blow up any blockers then Germany unifies its fleet north of France anyways, but the German Med fleet transport won’t help in any invasion against UK. If the UK East Canada destroyer and transport survived there’s a blocker right there - and if the UK East Canada transport survived that’s another tank defending London. That cuts Germany’s odds.

So right about the scenarios start branching. If Germany spends on Baltic transports then the invasion threat against London is greater. UK’s pressured into spending even more on defense of London, more ground units on London means less air/navy that could counter-threat G2 fleet unification north of France.

Again, we assume players are competent. So what happens? If Germany drops a load of IPCs on Baltic transports, what do they really do? If Germany can’t capture London, at least those transports ease Germany’s logistics to Karelia. But we expect Germany doesn’t really have a load of units it can push to Karelia, and why? Because it spent so much money on transports. Almost all of Germany’s starting units were going to be in G2 range of Karelia anyways, you can use the Baltic transports to redistribute a little efficiently but it probably isn’t that great. And then, Germany dumping to Karelia is all well and good, but that isn’t going to choke off USSR income at Ukraine. Normally you have builds on Germany pushing to Poland then Ukraine but you just don’t have the G1 infantry as you spent on transports. See? Problem.

So what happens as the game develops? If Germany just parks at Karelia, its logistics against USSR are inefficient, right around Ukraine. Germany has a nominal invasion threat against London, but Allies already spent on the defense, they don’t need to spend more unless Germany’s building more transports, and if Germany’s building more transports, UK can build more infantry, and again German transports aren’t going to jump up on land and start contesting territory. So you’re really locked into this inefficient Karelia game.

And then what? You also have improved German logistics to Finland and Karelia which is pretty fantastic. And if you built less Baltic transports with Germany it’s ideal, because you really don’t need a lot of German transports to seriously start screwing with threat ranges countering any Allied pressure at Finland/Norway. But if you didn’t have Baltic transports, then UK had more to counter any G2 unified fleet north of France, to the point that maybe Germany just doesn’t have a fleet at all because UK destroyed it. Germany can’t really escape.

So when the line stabilizes, it’s probably something like Germany has a unified fleet north of France that includes a bunch of transports. Germany can’t stick around too long because it’s going to eat a load of Allied subs/air. If it runs to the Baltic it gets cut off, and Germany doesn’t want to play destroyer build games after already having dropped carrier and multiple transports, its ground game against USSR is really weak; you start adding in destroyer after destroyer and it is going to be ugly.

Then that fleet that started with a Baltic build pushes into the Mediterranean. Allies can play blocking games, it’s tough, probably won’t work. Probably Germany slips away. Then it has battleship, carrier, two cruisers, two fighters as defense against air. It can build destroyers (probably shouldn’t) at Italy. Two transports (plus) give it a lot of nice options and threat range against targets from Ukraine, Caucasus, Egypt, Trans-Jordan.

But the line just isn’t great. I already wrote how even if you build just one Med carrier there’s all these small things that add up for Allies that don’t mean a winning game for Allies necessarily, but at least it shouldn’t be a clear Axis advantage. But when you start throwing in a bunch of transports, then you REALLY kill off Germany’s timings. Yes yes, wonderful Med logistics but you lack unit count, no way around it.

So you go through that scenario, and incidentally I’m saying that’s why I don’t think a G1 Baltic carrier build for Germany is necessarily sound, you can try all sorts of stuff like carrier/destroyer, carrier/air, carrier/transports, but they all transpose into lines where Germany’s navy is trapped in Baltic, and USSR is rolling around Europe like a god, then Allies press in, Germany’s navy gets destroyed, and it just goes downhill.

But even if that’s open to debate (which I think it is) - under no variation of those lines do you see repeated Allied strafes of Germany’s navy. It just doesn’t happen. Nor is it that Germany’s battleship is doing some sort of repeated damage to Allies. If the Allies have good odds, they go for it and probably the German battleship dies. (But that only happens if Germany didn’t properly prepare which means they’re bad, or Germany got bad dice, which also shouldn’t be the working assumption). Otherwise, it’s basically Germany starts with a battleship and they make the most of it but Germany doesn’t build more battleships.

But anyways we’re talking about Allied repeated battleship strafes on Germany. I just wrote how that doesn’t happen with Germany being cut off at Baltic, because a competent Germany player already knows everything I wrote about and more besides, they just don’t let it happen, that’s my expectation.

But then what about Med?

From the OP:

“By the time the USA gets a fleet large enough to defend itself, they are faced with the choice to chase down the German menace which can blithely skip through the Mediterranean”

So the OP already believes the German Med fleet doesn’t get into these repeatedly losing strafe positions either, right?

So I went through each power and explained how repeat battleship strafes just don’t happen for any of them. Yes, if you have battleships you make the most of them. They’re nice to have. But they’re tactically inflexible. You probably don’t buy more. And if you DO buy more - all right, there are specific situations, very very rare, I’d say one in a hundred games between competent players perhaps. But that’s not the same as saying battleships are generally good because they can do repeat strafes, because I expect normally that doesn’t happen.

@theskeindhu said in German Carrier SZ 15:

@Panther said in German Carrier SZ 15:

@theskeindhu Please clarify wihich game you are actually talking about.
This category is about the boardgame - while we have a seperate one for the online game as mentioned in this sticky:
https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/topic/35794/axis-allies-1942-online-has-its-own-dedicated-forum-category

In case this topic is about the boargame - fine. If not, I will move it to the correct category.
Thank you.

I deleted the thread, the answer was simple and answered sufficiently. Not sure why the comments remain with the original deleted, but feel free to get rid of the entire thing.

You cannot delete an entire thread as this would delete content provided by others, too. It is the nature of a forum to keep content available for those interested in the answers to the questions you publicly posted.

Deleting the initial posting of a thread with follow-up content is a no go on a forum. As the following discussion refers to nothing in that case.

This is why I am going to restore what you deleted. Please refrain from deleting content you created that is followed by a discussion in the future. Thank you.

@theskeindhu Thank you. I will move this thread, then.

@aardvarkpepper

I wouldnt recommend going french west africa US1, you’re correct in that G cant really send the med fighters to kill it. But you lose out on getting Norway/Finland US2, which is the fastest timing I’ve found without sacrificing a UK2 nw-eur/france trade for maximum pressure.

G isnt gonne capture any valuable territories before G4 anyaways(assuming 1 UK inf blocks egypt UK1, south africa inf blocks sudan UK2), so you dont need US stuff in africa until US3.