Carrierland

I was thinking with the Germans, start by adding a carrier to the Baltic, then slowly crank out two more as they are needed to keep the Baltic alive?

I understand the costs involved; it’s not just the 16 IPC per carrier that’s going to be missing out of your landforce, but also the fighters need to guard them instead of say, W. Europe. Such is Axis and Allies, it’s give and take.

The benefits look interesting at a first glance. With an intact Baltic, you potentially slow down Allied shipping by 1-2 turns by this reasoning: UK and US have to land in Norway and walk troops down. They can no longer skip straight to Karelia, E. Europe, or your capital. That means their forces build up in a bottleneck fashion rather than them being able to say, combine attack with their stack in Karelia and drop their builds from London.

Also, I probably need to emphasize this heavily beforehand, and even in doing so I know for certain someone will try to argue against it anyways: there’s no need to lose German fighters out on the water. You will not be able to keep the Baltic fleet no matter how many IPCs you spend on it, so retreat your fighters on the turn before a likely attack. If the UK/US are likely going to attack you consecutively, try to lose your carriers on the UK turn so your fighters can land safely before the US comes. There’s no good reason to lose fighters out on the water.

Naturally, you won’t be doing very much damage once the fighters have retreated from the carriers, but the point was that the Allies had to build up some significant muscle to be able to overpower the fighters on the carriers in the first place - muscle that detracts from their landing troops from Africa to Europe.

I personally found this annoying as the Allies because as I said before, I couldn’t land directly into E. Europe or Karelia, which made the building up of big troops 1-2 turns slower. I did have to retreat from the Russians a little bit earlier due to lack of infantry for piecemealing, but every strategy has its tradeoffs. But the UK/US had to buy much more than 16 IPCs per carrier to counter the 16 IPCs of carrier that Germany put down.

What do you guys think?

Why do you assume that you HAVE to take out the German Baltic fleet?  If you continue funneling troops into Europe via Norway, and play aggressively with Russia, you will eventually wear Germany down to the point where she will have no choice but to retreat the fighters from the Baltic to protect her capital.

I was waiting for someone to bring this up, but if you don’t take out the Baltic fleet, your funnel is potentially 2 turns weaker than it could normally be. Without the Baltic fleet both the US and UK can have their European troops stacked all together in Karelia or E. Europe with a quick move into SZ5. If the German Baltic fleet is there, let’s say you want to move into E. Europe; well now you’re 2 turns behind the ball since you have 1 turn of troops in Norway and 1 turn of troops in Karelia that can’t help out, whereas without a Baltic those troops would all be nicely in E. Europe. 2 turns of troops from UK and US each is a lot of units! Going via Norway is slow and you won’t be threatening the capital as quickly. I think this delays the Allies no matter how you look at it; either they spend a turn churning out mass fighters to dislodge the navy, or they waste turns funneling slowly from Norway.

I don’t find that Germany comes often to the point where they have to use their fighters to defend the capital. You might if you lurched out your extra units towards Russia, but otherwise Germany has enough units for a long while.

meanwhile, you’ve gotten the Germans to waste 32 IPC on Carriers and tie up 4 fighters that are now not protecting landing zones for the Allied armies.

Meanwhile, stepping into E. Europe is 2 turns slower than normal. That’s 2 turns of UK and US each, 128 IPCs of units if not more.

I wouldn’t like to do that Magister because then Russia is coming in strong across Balkans/Ukraine/E. Europe, and it’s also hard to supply Karelia with lots of units while the Allies are staging massive defenses in Norway.

But if Russia manages to hold Ukraine solidly then this position unravels: the Germans in transit to Karelia may be not enough to hold EEU; Balkans MUST be swapped (else Russian tanks may reach Italy) etc.

Yes, exactly. That’s why I think it’s hard to supply Karelia with German units, because Russia can threaten the supply through E. Europe and it’s also a couple turns of marching whereas the Allies dump straight into Norway with big defenses (and even an aa gun to snipe out a fighter if you try to strafe).

I agree, the threat to the Germans is less if they cannot land directly in E. Europe.

I disagree that it is a bad thing for the allies though.  I’d rather land in Archangelsk then E. Europe.  Safer.  Faster to get to Moscow anyway.

No matter whether you prefer Norway vs Archangel, there is a point at which you want to occupy E. Europe, because you want the Germans to stop gaining on that territory. If there is a bigass Baltic fleet, you can’t land directly there, which slows you by very arguably 2 turns of units, since you have a trail of 2 territories with units that can’t be in E. Europe (norway/kar or Archangel/kar). Being behind 2 turns of units each with US and UK means the Germans are quite happy for a while trading E. Europe. Yes, they’ll be behind the ball against Russia for a bit, but I’d rather delay the big death blow for 2 turns than just mediocrely trade territories with Russia.

I think this is a bad thing for the Allies. Landing in Archangel isn’t any faster to get to E. Europe. The benefit of Archangel is reinforcing Moscow, which is good in itself, but what we’re focusing on here is whether Germany should spend the IPCs to delay the Allies. I think it’s very much worth it; it’s an efficient use of IPCs since you already have the fighters that costs the Allies a lot more than the amount you spent in it. Although of course you will be light against Russia when you’re busy reconfiguring for the lower amount of inf and fighters for land defense.

It is a matter of when the Allies switch from “defense” (landing in Archangel) to “offense” (landing in Eastern).

So long as the Allies are playing defensive, the Axis has a chance.  But once the Allies establish offense securely, it is over for the Axis.

I’m gonna go slightly off topic here, that’s a good point Switch. Now, do you think there is a “turning point” for the Axis to win? I would think that once the Axis are producing more IPCs than the Allies then it’s over the Allies, but it seems very difficult to achieve this turning point.

Bean, I think you’re making too much of this two-turn delay thing.  If Germany buys two carriers, I frankly don’t care that it takes an extra turn or two to get there, because when I get there, Germany will be VERY THIN on defense.  32 IPCs on carriers = 9 infantry and an armor, almost a full turn of builds for Germany.  That lack of troops has the secondary effect of preventing Germany from trading Karelia-Belo-Ukraine with Russia, and thus costs Germany even more income and, hence, troops.  Unless Germany gets lucky in Africa, Germany will be sucking wind by turn 3 at the latest, and RUSSIA will be in Eastern Europe (or trading it with Germany), instead of Germany securely holding Eastern Europe with a massive stack.  If you don’t think that creates a deep hole for Germany, then please sign up for the League and play me – I’ll show you.

Hmm no I’m not trying to make too much of it, it’s just that the initial responses skipped right over any benefit of having the Baltic navy intact. I had to point out that there is a benefit to it, which was completely ignored and not fairly analyzed vs the costs. I do like your argument now that it has some flesh to it.

But also remember that I’m not going to purchase a second carrier until I feel that the Allies have presented a credible threat to the single carrier. I’m not buying 2 carriers at once, but over a few turns.

As for a League Game, I think I’ll be ready to jump back into the pirranha-infested waters after next week, I have a lot of tests coming up and I also want to get some practice in, I’m not exactly flying at full sail after a year’s hiatus (was I even flying at full sail back then?  :wink: ). You’ll be my first opponent though once I’m ready, but don’t hold me to using a multiple carrier buy if I don’t think it’s warranted by that time =P