Germany Basic Strategies, Concepts and Ideas

Ups, my fault. Gibraltar is not considered a canal, so in theory u can pass with transport, but only to be stopped by the destroyer as mentioned earlier in this topic.
BTW: We play Gibraltar-Morocco as canal as a house-rule, perhaps that explains my post above.

I decided to write up my strategies for 1941 scenario.

Germany:
Buy 1 tank, 2 art, 6 inf

take Gibraltar with either two inf or 1 inf and 1tank, this allows Italy to get a National objective bonus by taking either Egypt or Syria on its turn. Don’t worry about losing the transport you won’t be using it to defend the Mediterranean that’s Italy’s job.
Attack UK destroyer with cruiser and sub in baltic. attack cruiser and destroyer with sub and fighters on nw europe and germany. attack BS w/ sub, bomber and fighter from norway.
take E Poland w 2tanks czech and 2 inf poland, Take Baltic w inf nwe, art ger, and everything left on poland, take Ukraine with everything in bugaria.

As my opinion:

The US has to harass Japan as fast as possible, while Germany has its weak times, just in the first three rounds. germany usually lacks infantery on turn 2 to push their offense against the USSR.
So the US builds up a medium sized fleet in the Pacific. (including at least 2 loaded transport). Keep the fleet slightly out of range of the main japanese airforce/fleet but position to take a money island or two, remove a national objective from Japan, etc. Force them to defend a lot of places (eventually leaving one vulnerable for an attack) or force them to try to come after your fleet (1 turn the japanese fleet/airforce moves out of position) and fall back. Therefore you do not need a decesive victroy, but distract Japan from its main objectives. Maybe you have to sacrifice your pacific navy to an combined airforce and naval attack by Japan, as major distraction.
The difficult seems to be, when to turn your attention to the atlantic. If its too late then its game over.

The main point is the following:
You are forced to react on the Japanese opening round. Is Japan going straight after India, is Japan trying to take the islands first or is japan going for Russia?
UK and China should try to whittle down the japanese ground forces, while the US needs to build up some fleet, to force Japan to invest into expensive and not too useful warships.

I play without national objectives regularly.  IMHO, the key for the Axis is killing Russia. I have found that the best way to kill Russia is to do a combined Germany/Japan land assault.  However, this cannot be done if USA and GB are offloading on France/NWE-  Germany cannot guard the Atlantic borders and keep pressure on Russia.  My solution was simple.  Establish a chain supply of Japanese fighters to France for defense (2 per turn as of turn 3)  This accomplishes two things: one, defends France effectively and,two, forces the Allies to build navy to avoid losing their transports.  This allows Germany to send roughly half of their land forces to the Russia front. ( build only infantry and artillery since IPC’s are scarce from turn 3 forward)  This slows Japan down but is well worth it to keep pressure on Russia from Germany.  Also,  move the Japanese fleet to protect Italy from invasion.  Allies can’t amphibious assault Italy with a massive combined Italian/Japanese fleet in sea zone 14.

I build a German bomber on turns 1 & 2 to keep Britain off shores till turn 3, then the bombers become useful in swapping territories with Russia.

I’d probably go for a surge into china while holding the line against Germany.  Never seen this before though so I don’t know for sure, usually Russia just gets beat on while US/UK try to get something going.  My usual Russian strat is kill as many German and Japanese units as possible.

I agree with putting down as many units as possible as Germany and even Italy because the UK and USA can easily muster a massive bomber force for cutting down your production in just a few rounds.  I personally hate to lose the Baltic fleet because you just opened the path for naval invasions with minimal counterattacks.  I know the airforce could strike those fleets but that means they are not attacking Russians.  I strongly favor a ship/land unit build first turn to protect your fleet from a turn 1 UK slaughter fest.  Heck if Italy saves 3 IPCs and meets their NOs while also taking Trans-Jordan, they could build a carrier and have one powerful fleet to contend with.

i think it’s fairly balanced to be honest. i’ve seen both sides win, and i’ve won with both sides. anyone who thinks one side has a much larger advantage needs to play the game a lot more  :-P

Actually the more I think about it I think if the UK has the boats they should move there entire navy to SZ 12 landing all available troops plus placing the 3 fighters in Gibraltar, purchasing 1 more trannie (or 2 if you lost 1), 1 more bomber, and then land units, what have you.  If you kept the BB this allows you to seriously threaten Italy on UK2, especially if you have 2 trannies left at the end of turn 1.  Now you have to ensure that Germany doesn’t have the planes in position to sink your fleet in SZ12, but if you take Algeria fighters can only reach from France/NW Europe, bombers are another story.  Granted Italy could attack Gibraltar, but then they will be exposing there fleet, same if they hit your fleet.  This allows you to bring a lot of gear to bear against Rome on turn 2 or turn 3 if you have to clear out there fleet first.  Can Germany stop you? Of course, if they leave off Russia for a bit.  You can even rely on the US to take back Africa for you with just there one transport.