A lot of interesting thoughts!
I personally don’t really get the carrier purchase. The main argument for carrier + 2 TT’s is to be serious about sealion. But people keep writing, that if London falls, USA will almost always take it back. I have not enough experience to know anything about that.
I can see some meaning with the TT’s though.
It shows your intent to land in london, which may scare the UK player to keep his planes in defence instead of crushing italian fleet. But why not use the TT’s to offload in Sovjet, preferably Leningrad? In that way, you can move a lot of infantry waaay faster. If the Sovjet player is smart, he can hold this maneuver back the first round, but then you can do it in the second round after DOW on Sovjet
A&A is a moneygame. To have a strong fleet is wishful, no doubt. But controlling the atlantic is not changing the income balance. It’s a fact the allies start out with about 67% of total IPC income, this can be changed to a 60/40 within the 1 round, when Ger takes out french economy, Japan decimates China and maybe USSR depending on tactics, and USA is not being brought in to the game.
2. round: If you want to change the IPC balance, going for Sovjet will help. I’ve played only one game of G40, and represented Sovjet, so maybe I have missed something.
But from a Sovjet perspective, Germany has so much coming. You kind of have to prioritize what to defend. Since you want to prevent as many German bonusses as possible, it makes more sense to give up Leningrad instead of opening up in the south, where axis players gets bonuses for Stalingrad, Caucasus, has factories in Ukraine as well, and gets access to the middle east, where axis also gets bonusses. damn
Back to german perspective. TT’s makes it look like a threat against london, but could be used for landing troops in northern russian territories, backed by the finnish reinforcements, and changes IPC Balance.
But the carrier? It doesn’t do much by laying around in the baltic sea. sure it can keep planes on it for defensive reasons - but you don’t win a game where you so economically behind, by playing defensively…