My friends and I have been playing Alpha 3, not 3.9, and I’m considering moving on to the new version. I normally play as Germany and the rearrangement of naval units in the Atlantic really trips up the naval attacks I used to do in A3.
In particular, moving the UK and French cruisers from SZ112 into 110/111 seems to be a huge buff for Allied naval survival after G1. I wouldn’t mind this so much if the German cruiser stayed where it was, but being stuck in 114 with no naval base means there’s no way to get it into the action on the 1st turn.
In Alpha 3 my typical play was this:
G1 purchase: 1 carrier, 2 transports
to SZ112
-SZ113: 1 battleship, 1 cruiser
-Poland: 1 tac bomber
-Slovakia: 1 fighter
to SZ111
-Norway: 1 fighter
-Holland: 1 fighter
-West Germany: 2 tac bombers
-Germany: 1 strat bomber
-SZ118: 1 sub
-SZ124: 1 sub
to SZ110
-West Germany: 2 fighters, 1 tac bomber
-Germany: 1 strat bomber, 1 tac bomber
-SZ103: 1 sub
-SZ108: 1 sub
to SZ106
-SZ117: 1 sub
This play doesn’t really work anymore, since I can no longer use the planes in Slovakia or Poland in the naval attacks. Also with the addition of another curiser into 110, it’s now a no-brainer for the UK to scramble its fighters in 110 with the attacks I was carrying out before.
Now, it seems like if I want to sink the entire fleet on the 1st turn I should change my buy to 3 fighters to replace the losses I’m inevitabily going to suffer. So, what are the typical G1 moves to sink the UK fleet in 3.9?