Let Italy Take Africa

@the-spaceman Seems like a good start. A few thoughts to throw into the mix:

I would say UK’s naval priorities should be first the Baltic fleet, then any stray transports, then any stray subs. The subs don’t do any convoy damage or anything like that, so they’re really just targets of opportunity; it’s not like you can safely leave British transports unattended anyway because of the German bomber, so the subs aren’t doing that much more harm. The Baltic fleet is top priority because it allows Germans to cheaply conquer Norway/Finland/Karelia, and because it’s too expensive for Germany to sanely replace.

The Australian transport can flee across Argentina to the Atlantic, but I would leave the destroyer behind to block a J2 attack on Australia – I think it does more good slowing down Japan and keeping some of the UK income than it does to get a destroyer added to your Atlantic fleet, like, 3 turns later. For similar reasons, I usually won’t move the starting US Pacific fleet to the Atlantic. If the Allies took unusually heavy naval losses, then maybe it’s worthwhile, but the Pacific fleet is earning you nothing the whole time it’s in transit through the Panama Canal. Having a few starting boats in the Pacific – even just CV, ftr, DD, tran – means that if you ever do need to upgrade the Pacific fleet into a formidable force because Japan is grabbing Alaska and Hawaii or whatever, then you can do so with one turn of purchases. If you can’t quickly reinforce the US Pacific fleet to the point where it can drive away the Japanese navy, then you might be forced to buy 10 infantry for the Western US instead or something similarly expensive and wasteful.

It doesn’t always make sense to build a huge Atlantic fleet at all as the Allies – sometimes you can sink the Italian fleet using primarily air power and subs, and/or build a pair of factories in Egypt, South Africa, India, or Australia. Some games you won’t have enough good safe factory sites, and some games you’ll need a big fleet because, e.g., Germany is heavy on air power (so you need protection for your transports) but short on infantry (so invading France is really attractive). On the other hand, if Germany trades its entire air force to wipe out your boats on G1, builds a factory in France on G1, and then drops 6 infantry there on G2, maybe just let the Atlantic navy go for several turns and rely on factories instead, or have the British build factories and let the Americans reinforce with a fleet into Morocco after they build up.

@argothair It depends on which battles failed.

Typically, if any battle is going to go sideways, it’s the SZ12 one (DD/CR off of Gibraltar). I don’t mind losing/drawing this one too much, as all does is gives UK an opportunity to either go all-in against the Italian fleet or consolidate their Atlantic Fleet (which Germany really has no means of stopping even if you kill everything).

In the extremely unlikely event that SZ2 or SZ6 (where the actual transports are) go badly, you’re probably in really horrible shape. Only real recourse at that point is to turtle up, by tons of INF, and pray for better luck on Japan’s side of the board.

All things considered, weighing the options, if I have ANY chance of holding the Island for at least one round OR diverting enemy forces from another objective to take the island back, I’ll take the island.  Especially if it’s an NO and hurts the enemy that much further.

Otherwise, I’ll aid my allies instead, as risking X value in units for less than X in one round of income is not worth it.

Please stay on topic or don’t post in this thread.  Thanks.

The best thing I have found that keeps Japan in check is having the US Build a factory in Alaska and place navy armada in seazone 64.
This does a couple of things:
    Bombers placed in Alaska can strategic bomb Japan.

The US can threaten to invade Japan during the next turn.

The US can land units in Russia and threaten Japans Asia control.

Most importantly it forces Japan to keep buying a navy instead of ground units in order   
    to protect Japan.

http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=19251.0

Here’s a link to his most recent game that is still in progress (so please don’t discuss any future moves about this particular game), if you look for his name on other game threads in the tournament section.  You can read the moves on the forum but you should open the ABattleMap files to look at the actual game board progress.

I also played a US Pacific strategy against Zhukov in my last tournament game, which was also going well, but I made a mistake with the Soviets and let the Germans run rampant. :|  So if you want to “check out” a US Pacific Allied strategy that almost worked, you can see it here:

http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=18757.0

Now having played these two games for several more rounds there do appear to be some disadvantages.

Sacrificing german planes to take CAU, or Italian troops on a first-round assault to help the Germans take it, combined with placing fewer troops in Africa - can make it so that the Axis has less of a fighting force, and might also be making less money than otherwise possible.

Italy is likely to lose its NO(s) in Africa faster.  Germany gets the CAU NO, but if it is possible to get this by trading KAR, then that might be a lot easier.

Germany loses a lot of flexibility by being tied into sending armor to CAU (either to reinforce it, or to take MOS). Also fighters can get tied up too, making atlantic Allied convoys easier and facilitating the US going for Japan.

Plusses: if you can get Italy to fight your Russian territory border skirmishes and to build infantry to defend ITA, FRA, and GER against the Allies amphibious assaults - then Germany can build up much faster than Russia and ultimately take Moscow with a stack of armor (possibly reinforced by a buy of all bombers, the turn before the assault - as they can fly from GER to MOS is one turn).

Having Italy use its infantry for cannon fodder is much better than having Italy attack MOS to soften up the defenses before the German attack, as Italy will typically lose all its units on the first round of fighting (thus it costs 10 IPC to kill a single defending Russian infantry - by buying 2 arm, or 10.5 with inf/art).  Italy can also intentionally escalate in border countries (stack an empty country with 2 inf, instead of 1) to bleed off more Russian units.

don’t forget if you leave causcaus almost empty, and italy takes it, germany can land planes there, in addition to its ground troops, before russia gets to move.