Operation Barbarossa 3.0

[larrymarx]

@ pelanderfunk

I intend to try out your mech inf idea, but I have a few small points to raise:

1. You can’t hit the Russian navy with the Norway fighter. It has to be one of the ones from West Germany.

2. Why not try to take out the Battleship + destroyer stack so that you can send a sub to steal Russia’s bonus for a few rounds? Any units you lose in Paris as a result of lacking air support are made up for by fewer units that the Russians can buy, plus having your subs around longer means the UK is making less too.

3. Why not make use of your starting transport by at least purchasing an artillery on the first round to ship to the front on the second? One more artillery adds three pips to the battle of Moscow, but a mech adds only one. I do realize your path to Moscow doesn’t take you through the Baltic States, but it may be worth diverging a tiny bit.

4. I tend to prefer using Italians to defend Europe so that Germany can focus more on the Eastern front. For example, if the Italians did this then Germany could purchase 4 tac bombers on turn 3 instead of defense for landings to add 16 pips to the impending battle. Surely this would have more of an impact on the Russian stack than Italian suicide attacks?

[larrymarx]

OK, so I did a trial run of the mech inf idea and it turns out to be something I won’t use in my games. I found that if the Russians build nothing but infantry and enter a full retreat from turn 1, they can hold on turn three at Bryansk. Just to make the German attack stronger, I upgraded four of the mech on turn 2 to tanks and bought two bombers on turn 3. Here’s the attack on Bryansk I came up with:

Germans-

17 inf
8 mechs
5 art
11 tanks
4 fighters
3 tacs
3 bombers

Strength: 109 Hits:51

Russians-

35 inf
2 mechs
3 art
2 tanks
1 tac
2 fighters
1 AA gun

Strength: 98 Hits: 45

So, the Germans will likely win this battle. In fact, the battle calculator puts the odds at 96.9%. But, it won’t matter, because bordering Bryansk the Russians had 11 infantry and 7 artillery (the latter I built on the previous turn to prepare the counterattack). If the Germans win the battle and take the territory, they’ll likely have a stack of tanks left, but it won’t be enough to stand up to that. If they pull out before winning, the Russians will consolidate even more and there will be no reinforcements to fight them. If the Germans don’t take the battle, the same thing will happen.

Meanwhile, in this test game, the British were rampaging all over the Italians. Because I wanted to save the Luftwaffe, there was no counter on turn 2 for the Taranto raid, and the British were able to pump 3 transports out of their Egypt factory. They had brought in all of the aircraft from India and they decided to land everything in Yugoslavia that turn (because it was attacked and not captured, it converted to a friendly space that the Allies could land in). There were 7 fighters and 2 tac guarded by 4 Slavic infantry on the continent that the Italians could do nothing about and which the Germans were too preoccupied to deal with. There was no way Italy was going to be able to stop Britain from capturing Rome - on turn 3!

All in all, I don’t think the strategy is actually a bad strategy. It’s pretty close to what the Germans actually tried in the war. I simply believe that this game is too far in favor of the Allies. It seems that without special strategies and counter-strategies on the part of the Axis, Britain and Russia can hold them off on their own. If the Axis get too devious, however, they’ve probably delayed themselves a turn or two and America is already on top of them. It’s up to Japan to save the day, but they’re on the other side of the world. The Allies are always one step ahead.

[chompers]

That’s the problem.  There’s literally no combination of units the German’s can come up with that’ll beat a Russian player churning out inf/art.  There’s really no way of taking down Moscow before at least turn 10 once the Russian player realizes this.  I honestly believe Germany going inf/art w/ a sub a turn is the only thing that gives them a fighting chance long-term.

This game is painfully allied-favored.

[AdmiralNagano]

Riiiiight.

I think the mistake here is to look for a guaranteed strategy to capture Moscow. Yes, that was the way to win AA50, Revised and so on, but this is a different game.

Firstly, it depends what the rest of the board looks like. Germany needs to not be too distracted defending France, which means Italy needs to be doing the business in Africa and Japan needs to have put the frighteners on America.

Secondly, you don’t need to take Moscow to get the Axis income above the Allies income. If Russia is building all infantry/artillery and the Yanks are going mostly Atlantic, the correct response would be a German turtle, and helping Italy to push out in Africa. It will take a long, long time for the Russians to get an infantry army into Berlin. Monster Italy and monster Japan is enough to take Axis income above the Allies.

Thirdly, Barbarossa is positional warfare. Push forward stacks that can’t be counterattacked, keep your tanks alive, force the Russian into bad positions. For example, imagine a typical G3 setup with about 10 inf + some art in Leningrad, 10 inf + some art in Belarus, and about 15 inf + some art south of the Pripet. Germany pushes into Baltic States and Eat Poland. Put enough in that (1) You can’t be attacked, (2) You can guarantee taking Leningrad if they put everything into it, (3) You can guarantee beating their combined Leningrad / Belarus / Bryansk army if they concentrate it in Belarus. At that point, a smart Russian player is forced to retreat their Leningrad army to Archangel - a horrible place to be!

Fourthly, you can have a successful Barbarossa without taking Moscow. How about a limited offensive to take Leningrad and the Ukraine, then sit and trade the border territories? That gets German up above 60, and Russia’s income should be down into the 20s. If the US is pressing hard then you can spend that money defending Europe and preventing any Russian advance.

[chompers]

That’s a plan predicated on Italy taking Africa and expanding its economy.  They won’t if half their fleet is at the bottom of the Med.  If Germany has to assist Italy in Africa, it’s weakening its push into Russia.  If the Russian player organizes his defense around Bryansk and Belarus with R1 and R2 9 art builds complementing their already considerable number of inf, by G4 anything less than a really concerted German push is gonna stall a province or two in.  If the German player continues to posses the advantage in numbers (only possible IMHO through its own inf/art buys) the Russian player is forced to fall back for a turn to allow extra reinforcements from Moscow, but by R6 or so the Russian stack is always bigger.  You really only need to hold the line for the first 6-7 turns before America’s camped at Gibraltar with a considerable force of its own, forcing Germany to concentrate the vast majority of its spending on covering the ridiculous number of critical territories within striking range of the US fleet.  At this point even a 20 IPC Russia (unlikely to fall even this far unless the Japs are pushing very hard) is probably spending more than Germany on the Russian front, allowing them to always possess the advantage in numbers.

[chompers]

In response to Japan putting “the freighteners” on the US….How does Japan distract the US in any way that doesn’t slow Japan down more IPC-wise than the US?

[AdmiralNagano]

Taranto definitely does not stop Italy from advancing in Africa. A well-played Italy with German help to clear the med and a sealion threat to prevent builds in south africa can push out pretty well in my experience so far.

Yes, the basis of any german offensive is inf and art. It has always been this way and always will!

I’m not saying you can do all of these things at once, in fact you can’t - this game is all about responding well to your opponent’s moves and builds, and using the correct economy of force. There is no magic strat I can give you to win as either side, although the US gibraltar shuck is indeed the easiest potential game-winner to implement.

[larrymarx]

I agree with everything Nagano just said based on my own experience.

I would add, however, that the Taranto raid combined with support from the Indian navy and air force makes advancing in Africa a much harder prospect. If Britain does this combined with a US KIF strategy, I don’t think Italy has a chance of making it past Egypt no matter what Germany does. When I play the Allies, this is my strategy of choice.

[calvinhobbesliker]

@larrymarx:

I agree with everything Nagano just said based on my own experience.

I would add, however, that the Taranto raid combined with support from the Indian navy and air force makes advancing in Africa a much harder prospect. If Britain does this combined with a US KIF strategy, I don’t think Italy has a chance of making it past Egypt no matter what Germany does. When I play the Allies, this is my strategy of choice.

Yes, the allies can do that, but then japan is unchecked

[chompers]

@calvinhobbesliker:

Yes, the allies can do that, but then japan is unchecked

That’s a pretty good trade-off IMHO.  It’s not like those Indian planes stop Japan dead in its tracks or anything.  You can also fly them back after you’ve finished off Italy’s African forces around turn 4 or so.

[RedHunter]

@calvinhobbesliker:

@larrymarx:

I agree with everything Nagano just said based on my own experience.

I would add, however, that the Taranto raid combined with support from the Indian navy and air force makes advancing in Africa a much harder prospect. If Britain does this combined with a US KIF strategy, I don’t think Italy has a chance of making it past Egypt no matter what Germany does. When I play the Allies, this is my strategy of choice.

Yes, the allies can do that, but then japan is unchecked

Honestly imo in the global game Japan is a lot less of a threat then Germany because America can always come back and crush them later on.