I’d throw 8 IPC into the water if it meant I kept both Italian NOs (10 IPC a round.) I was just wondering if you played against a destroyer build. (Or even a carrier build since you have a fighter that can land on it, and Italy could really use the fighter starting in the med so it can attack both theaters of operations.)
CmdrJennifer, I modified the build which was from the start 2 bombers and 1 carrier, in order to have some fodder units instead. It is true of course that Italy has three builds before US3 and can build more than 1CV+1DD which US alone can beat with my proposed US1 build. My idea then was to use the UK navy to finish the attack, probably on the turn after US strikes, UK4. You then send in air and fodder units, 3-4 DDs or subs, and spare your CV and CAs in sz12 to minimize losses to the UK invasion fleet. (A Russian blocking attack against TRJ is then needed to hinder Japanese deployment into the Med., and if Italy survives with a CV don’t forget that figs can be flown onto it before UK moves!)
This is a simplification, of course, because you might try to hide ships in sz15/sz16 as Italy and so forth. I haven’t played this myself that much yet, when I tried it Italy has acquiesced in losing their fleet but for one game where I built two bombers US1 and didn’t have enough fodder units.
UK doing the killing alone I think is a bad idea. They need to be invading and sending the fleet into battle first does too much harm to it. In the example above of a double US/UK strike at the Italian fleet, you can survive with the core of your Royal Navy if you play well. In this scenario you can’t invade FRA/NWE for a turn or two for a long-term benefit of destroying plenty of Axis IPCs.
