Hi Slip
Don’t Know if there is a kick ass bracket looking thing. Probably same link : )
I’ve been practicing playing as Germany on Triple A. I play the Revised edition.
Anyways I wanted to know some basic strategies about what to do with the German fleet.
Should I keep them there or send them out somewhere? I don’t want to leave the transport alone. What do you experienced Germany players do with your Baltic fleet. I’m more keen on building mostly land forces to take down Russia as quickly as possible.
One of my strategies as Germany is to not move any of my Baltic fleet on G1, and then to build an aircraft carrier and a fighter to bolster the fleet. Then on G2 I can combine them with my Luftwaffe to take out the British fleet (if they haven’t already run away). Then you can build some more transports with safety and conduct operation sealion.
This plan usually works fairly well, and the British have trouble combating it. If they try constructing additional ships or build more land units in UK to defend, they must neglect their forces elsewhere, and the axis can easily take Egypt and India. The biggest problem with this plan (I call it the G3 Sealion) is that it forces you to neglect Russia. If you mobilise your starting troops early, you can defend against the Soviets for several turns, but eventually you’ll need to start sending reinforcements to the east. That’s why it’s important to quickly take out the Royal Navy (don’t get into a war of attrition). I hope that helps :-)
The German Baltic Fleet buy is, in my opinion, at best questionable opening in Revised (In Anniversary 1942, this is an option I would consider). I’ll try to give you a little analysis.
Preliminary note: The Baltic Fleet buy instantly leads to a Kill Germany first game for the Allies. A Kill Japan first (KJF) game with an UK IC buy in India turn 1 is close to impossible because UK cannot match both the German fleet and the Japanese ground troops.
General strategy and opening moves in a Kill Germany first (KGF) game without Baltic Fleet buy:
The Baltic fleet buy: General idea
The Baltic fleet buy: Purchase options
The Baltic fleet buy: Opening moves
They depends a lot on the Russian opening moves. There is one major thing and one minor that influence it:
(1) Has the Russian sub been moved to SZ2 to the UK battleship? (the major thing)
(2) Has the Russian player killed your the Ukrainian fighter? (the ‘bonus’)
If you are lucky and can answer at least question 1 with ‘no’, this creates a pretty good situation for the following opening moves:
The Baltic fleet buy: Later strategy
If your attacks worked out, you have cleared the Atlantic almost completely. You have taken any pressure from Japan now and forced the Allies to play against Germany only because otherwise UK is in danger. Combine your fleets in SZ7. Make sure you reinforce your fleet only if absolutely necessary since supply is far (an IC in France might solve this but is usually not affordable) and look for a good point to trade it if you recognize that you can’t take UK. If US misses according fleet buys, you can possibly load all your transports and land in Eastern Canada with a decent force, threatening US. This should be combined with a Japanese landing in Alaska and needs to be prepared accordingly. On the mainland vs Russia, you will usually need air units. Consider buying one bomber turn 2 to have a way to clear the Atlantic from the new built UK fleet. As Japan, you might want to not move the Japanese fleet to the med sea but rather keep it near Japan to make and attack on the US a viable option and distract them.
The Baltic fleet buy: US/UK counterstrategy
Your only advantage of your strategy is that you threaten UK and therefor delay the US and UK landings by 2-3 turns. Your disadvantage is that you have to watch the Russian front, it can break down, and your fleet buys cost you ground unit buys early on, which are usually crucial. Also, your fleet will get lost in 95% of the games, no matter how you play, it’s just a matter of time.
The counterstrategy of the Allies is easy to describe: Turn 1, if the UK battleship in SZ2 survived, UK builds mostly sea units. He can hardly attack anywhere (he might decide to attack your SZ13 bb+trannie to sink the trannie), so this is where you bought yourself some time. If UK and US play correctly, UK builds e.g. an AC and a dd turn 1 (or 1 AC, 1 sub, 1 transport), placing all his units in SZ8, where the US also moves his 2 transports and the destroyer from SZ10 and unloads the troops to UK and sends a fighter and bomber over, too. Always calculate here, if UK decides to place his fighters on the carrier and you can attack with 4 full transport, you can create e.g. an attack with 4 inf, 1 art, 3 tank, 4 figs and 1 bmb vs 4 inf, 2 art, 2 tanks, 1 fig and 2 bmb, where you have a 78% chance of taking UK turn 2 under heavy losses. Overall, a massive US/UK fleet combines in SZ8, and it will become a problem once you lose the German fleet and those ground units can start landing. Also, Russia will heavily push against Germany so the income of Germany cannot match versus its attackers mid- and late game. Japan has to go for a win vs Russia or maybe US usually.
The Baltic fleet buy: Conclusion
In my opinion, this is a nice interesting option for a fun game. Because of the problems and counterstrategy as described above, I heavily doubt though it’s a good strategy in a competitive game.
If you have played any games with this strategy or have other idea, please let me know!
Re. the original query….my preference was moving the fleet out to SZ7. This puts critical pressure on SZ12–since by the time the Allies get around to attacking SZ7 you know whether they will land in SZ12, and you know whether or not to submerge your submarines. In addition, if the Krauts stay in SZ5, Uk planes can hit this target and still land deep in Russia…but their movements are more limited if they have to attack SZ7.
Against experts, it’s usually a good idea to send either a sub or the tranny to SZ3 to prevent a UK1 landing on Karelia and R2 blitz of Norway. Typically, I take the transport to 7…along with 2 inf from Norway that will help defend Western Europe. Of course, if it’s safe to stack Karelia, then you want the tranny to stay in SZ 5 and unload 2 more inf, and in that case it’s not necessary to block SZ3 so both subs can go to 7.
As for sustainable German fleet options, that’s a pretty complicated topic. I think German fleet options are way stronger in Revised then in AA50 because of the sub and transport rule changes. There are several effective strategies (Darkman’s post above has good ideas), most of which involve a G2 combine in 7. But granted, if the Allied opponent is an expert and knows exactly how to counter it and can KGF effectively, then its probably not be an optimal move. Makes for a fun game though, and the Allied player has to be pretty skilled to beat it if Germany knows what its doing.
I like to scatter my submarines to sz7 and sz3, and my destroyer either goes to sz6 or stays in sz5 with the transport.
I don’t know if it’s a fantastic move, but I like having my opponent forced to split up his attacks. I don’t know how much I value that transport; I always seem to focus more on south east europe than karelia, but that’s because we don’t play victory cities.
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.