Need help defending as UK until USSR joins

@arthur-bomber-harris

I play against myself.

It is best to buy Mechs and can open and support Germany on the East Front. If the opportunity arises, and the U.K. and US player allow it, buy a DD to keep your convoying down. Don’t make it easy for the Allies to deny you income. German Fts often have to park in Rome to scramble to sink Subs.
Playing Italy is about bothering the Allies, forcing them to spend in the Med, when they want to go East, towards the ME.

One thing worth mentioning here is that Africa is essentially a trap for the Axis.   Whether the Italian fleet survives or not, it is very hard to make much of an income difference or gain any NOs before America enters the war and takes it back, or without compromising some other more critical front. Â

Italy only risks 2 IPCs by losing Africa.   In our Game 92 on Saturday, I had the entire Italian navy survive because my opponent did exactly what you suggested, and attacked Tobruk rather than Taranto.   The counter is quite favorable to the Italians, to send in their entire fleet on the attack and clear the med for your NO.   Even with the gigantic navy, I was still boxed in as I couldn’t control either Gibraltar or Egypt in the long term though I took both of them once.   Â

Buying more ships is a trap, and you can’t really hold Gibraltar.   I spent all my $$ on strategic bombers and mechs to help Germany on the eastern front and using Italy to protect the Atlantic Wall or help leapfrog Germany in the East is stronger than trying to take the Maghreb or the Levant.  If you keep any transports, the most effective thing to do with those is threaten/cover/block/rush out of Gibraltar but its going to be hard…

One of my buddies said that far from wanting to reinforce the Italian stack on Tobruk, he wanted to evacuate it from Africa.  Its ineffective and trapped on a good day and easy to annihilate on a bad one.

Haha Cyanight I like your new avatar. Squirrels in Lightsaber-fight :-).
Damn I cannot check if I got that right (avatars disappear while typing). Let’s just add the famous IIRC!

About the breakdown,
Yeah I love ‘breakdowns’ (as long as they are not ‘nervous’). They speed up the game because otherwise you may be busy entering units in a Battle Calculator a lot of times and that will take time.

The complete breakdown as I wrote it in my list of quick reminders:
Moscow SURVIVES ASSAULT (with ~18 units) IF allies have >7 units more than GER, and DF(RU/UK) >= AF(GE).

If allies have no more than 8DF < AF(GER): all RAF(UK) should survive the assault (6 to 12 aircraft).

If allies have no more than 14DF < AF(GER): the borderline. (LL system) both sides end the assault with 0 units.

In case you wonder what this all means:
DF = Defense Factors, the total sum of defense values of all defending units.
AF = You guessed right ;-).

Note that all my reminders and breakdowns are based on the LL-calculator. I find that a good system to base a strategy on, because rolling dice will only produce as much hits as in LL if you are rolling above average. As this works for both sides, over time (on average) the LL-calculator gets it right.
I, for one, will play on and not attack Moscow with my big German stack if the LL-calculator tells me Russia will win that battle with ~18 units. Would you attack? Or play on and try to squeeze russian production untill the odds are more in favor of your German attackers?
And where would the turning point be. For me I will only attack a place such as Moscow if the calculator tells me I will win with the number of units I want to win with (which may vary).

@Guru03:

My brother always beats me in the 1st round in A&A and i dread playing because of that. Can you give me some good allies and some good axis strategies to help me win?

One thing you might have failed to realise is that the Allies are supposed to suffer heavy casualties in the early war, and then progress into winning in the long run.

Think of the axies as the school bully who pushes the young allies around. Then in the long run the Allies go to college and become CEO of Goldman Sachs and proceed to dick on the over-cocky axies. If the Allies give up in the early stages, well they will never win, whilst if they stick to their guns and make the good investments and minimize their loss, they win in the long run.

@SSPanther:

Hey Krieghund (sp?) or anyone else out there, I need to questions answered for a game we are playing now.

1. If the US is not yet at war with Japan, and flies their fighter from the Philipinnes to Burma or Kwangtung, if the Japanese then attack the British in either of those territories, does it provoke the US and bring them into the war? Or can this non-combat move even be made by the US

1. The US, while neutral, cannot move units into or over territories that do not belong to them.  They cannot move a fighter into a UK territory, and thus this example can never happen.

@SSPanther:

2. Can Russia, when not yet at war, move ships into a seazone with UK ships, and can they move into a seazone with German ships?

3. Can Russia, when not at war, move into NW Persia?

Thank you!

2. Yes

3. No, not until at war on that side of the board (so war against German or Italy).

well, italy runnign wild is EASILY made up by the fact that germany made 70+ ipcs worth of transports that will hardly do anything to help him vs russia besides threatening Novgorod.
With US entering the war soon, italy will be beaten, you would just need to conserve your afircan forces and try to slow down or contain italian advances.  You dont need to hold egypt, you just need to prevent him from getting too much more.  Usually of germany tries to sealion, Japan does not bother you on J2 to prvent US from entering earlier.  The extra money you wil collect from controling your stuff in the pacific can be used to make stuff than can reinforce persia.  Eventually when germany is going full bore on russia, you can just leave a strong garrison on uk and start wearing italy down and investing your money into africa/persia from the europe side.

Great summation Daedelus