The Fleet Chewer

Thanks for everyone’s answers. I’ll have to try out the Aircraft Carrier option next time.

I’ll have to read yours in more detail next time I play it (which will be soon hopefully  :-D), Darkman.

@syntaxerror111:

@Col.Stauffenberg:

I move the two subs down to sea zone 7, the rest of the med navy and other sub attack the battle ship (with figs). My opponent attacked the remaing baltic with his air force. He leaves the subs alone because he can only attack it with  his navy, which would put it in range of mine + all my planes in round 2. He has to choose what his air force attacks because it’s to risky to split them up. Sure this tactic delays me in Africa but it helps secure the Med and with a round 1 purchase of all men + 1 art, I can afford the delay. The us bomber has a crack at the subs but at the least I’ll keep one. Two or three subs, BB + tran is a good thing to have in the Med in round 2.

If I were your opponent in this situation I would have attacked the two lone subs with air on UK1 and the rest of the baltic fleet on UK2. You would most likely lose the Baltic fleet and both subs- if one sub survives the US Bmb gets a shot at as well.

@Zhukov44:

Fine with me. Those boats are expendable. If I get to keep the destroyer and Trans for another round, that’s just a bonus. I can get more infantry to a front, I can block, I can use to attack, uk has to make sure they build enough land forces to resist an invasion, which limits their options, like if they build boats or an Indian IC and drop their troops in Norway or Africa and leave their capitol insufficiently guarded. GER goes before uk anyway so they can build an AC round 2 if they really want to protect the fleet, but that’s something I’d never do anyway. Germany CANNOT afford any delays against Russia.

Trying to save those subs is a gamble, I’ll give you that, but the benefits of them surviving outweigh any negative I’ve encountered.

Ironically, when I am playing the Axis I like an early exit for the Med fleet to!!

Into the Atlantic!!!  :evil:

@frimmel:

God d**n perhaps?

okay i gottch’ya. if your goin swear paintbrush do it right you F*******e(wroung way)  :-)

@Dr.:

Hey guys, I can’t really figure out how to use my med fleet best. I usually use my bid on 2 units for Libya. Then should i still send my med fleet to Egypt to try a take and hold, or should I buy ekstra fleet for the baltic and then send my med fleet west and unite the fleet on G2?
How do you use your med fleet?
do you buy the carrier or transports for the baltic, if you buy any at all?

Those two first listed options pretty much sums it up.

I don’t ever buy carriers for the Med fleet.  German fighters in Western Europe combined with the Med fleet prevent early Allied naval invasion of the Mediterranean.

Late game, I sometimes buy transports to shuttle additional infantry from S. Europe to Caucasus.

You can try to pressure Caucasus extra early on if you make a couple of German transports at S. Europe.  That is, if Russian fighters land in Moscow on R1, 2-3 Baltic transports is not sufficient threat against UK (since Russian fighters can fly to London).  But if Russian fighters land in Moscow on R1, they’re not in position to attack any German transports produced at Southern Europe.

But if you DO produce transports at S. Europe early, remember that they’re not going to do too much.  Even with transported infantry, it is very hard to match up to the bulked mass of Rusisan infantry/tanks/fighters/some artillery.  It is probably a far safer bet to produce infantry early, march east, then produce transports to unload infantry, and have Jap fighters land in the same territory.

BUT if Russia was very aggressive, or very unlucky, Germany can try to run a tank dash to Moscow game, in which case early transports in the Med are decent.  But this should ONLY be tried if a gigantic proportion of the Russian army is destroyed.  Otherwise, Germany simply overextends itself.

@Jennifer:

Coulda sworn I amended that in later posts to not have a british invasion of North Africa on UK1 and a joining of the US/UK fleets in Sea Zone 8 instead.  If not, I meant too.  (Perhaps the filter kicked it out because of a perceived bad word?)

Anyway, a UK build of 3 fighters with a consolidation of US and UK fleets in Sea Zone 8 cripple Germany’s ability to do anything more then take some more of Africa and hope to hold out against Russia.  On UK 3 you should be able to sink the Baltic Fleet and make life safe for Transports throughout the Atlantic Ocean.  (5 Fighters, 1 Bomber, 1 Battleship, 2 Transports should take out 2 submarines, 1 destroyer, 1 transport, 1 carrier and 2 fighters.)

Oh, OK then.  Well, if you united at London, then German invasion of London is out.

For the rest - not . . . quite.  Because once an Axis player sees that the Allies have massed air, and have any kind of serious navy near the Baltic fleet, you have a couple options.

1.  If there is NOT a serious navy near the Baltic fleet (say it’s just a lone battleship and 2 transports), you just send the German air force to kill everything.  Lose a fighter or two.  It hurts, but you can rebuild a fighter or two that turn.

2.  If there IS a serious navy near the Baltic fleet (US/UK fleet), you can attack with German air and the Baltic fleet as fodder.  The massed air is usually on London, where it can’t help defend.  You take a huge chunk out of the Allied combined fleet, and usually lose maybe one or two fighters, if there wasn’t an Allied AC there.  If there WAS an Allied AC there, you could then think about building more navy (probably not recommended in most games anyways, but ACs aren’t all that great on attack, so at least the Allies spent 32 IPC on 2 units with  a combined attack value of 2).

But even after 2., there is usually some Allied fleet wandering around the Pacific that’s enough to deter attacks from the German air force.  So the transports are safe anyways; it’s just that the Allies lost a bit more navy.

which is true.

Darth was implying to use it as a Egypt Counter on UK2 instead of UK1 or for some other use to pester the japs later on or something.

the fleet by all means can survive. can the fleet by any means be really effective later on? maybe but on turn 1 they have a great opportunity to do greater things then float around continent of africa.

I’ve only seen russa build a fleet when the game was over for all purposes.  Germany had fallen and Japan was about to.  So he put 2 BB in the pac using a IC that Japan built.  I was foolish and went after US with Japan.  Suicide.