Best way to sneak up on UK

[rjclayton]

I’ll take a shot at the 3 fgt counter…

UK: Buy 3 fgt to counter fleet unification in SZ7

G1 Assumptions:
Ger Med Fleet in WMD w/1 trn, 1 bb, 1 sub
Ger Baltic Fleet 1 des, 2 sub, 4 trn
6 GER fgt survived
UK GRN Fleet survived w/1 bb, 1 trn
UK LAB trn survived

Step 1: Assess Sea Lion Threat.
UK will have 1 AA, 2 inf, 1 art, 1 arm, 5 fgt, 1 bmb
GER can invade with 5 inf, 5 arm, 5 fgt, 1 bmb, 1 bb, on G2 (1 fgt 1 bmb in Lib)

• With no additional help, GER takes UK 95% of the time.  UK needs help to defend against G2 Sea Lion
  UK transports 1 arm from WCan to UK on UK1
  US lands 1 bmb, 1 fgt in UK on US1
  US transports 2 inf, 1 art, 1 arm to UK on US1
• with this additional help, GER only takes UK 8.2% of the time.
  Also, USSR could land fighters in UK if they are available.

Step 2: Assess SZ7 attack in UK2.
SZ7 will have: 5 trn, 3 sub, 1 des, 1 bb
UK can hit it with 2 trn, 1 bb, 5 fgt, 1 bmb

• attacker survives 67.5%.  Median result would be to survive with 1 fgt, 1 bmb.  This assumes the GER subs don’t submerge.
• analysis: GER loses all boats (100 IPC) while UK loses 4 fgt, 2 trn, 1 bb (80 IPC).  This looks better than a SZ12 blockade option, but still a 29% chance that the GER bb lives.

[Guest]

Very good.

I don’t see anything off hand I disagree with there, so let’s expand on a couple of points:

1. The win percentage is about 67%.  Functionally, you’re a little better off than that because the UK can stop early and have the US finish the job.  It may mean the btl recharges, but you can decide if that’s a price worth paying.  The downside, of course, is the 1/3 chance you’ll get smoked overall.  That’s not a trivial likelihood, but it may not be a deterrent.

2. Interesting note: the UK btl is very likely to die.  Normally you would just plan on taking that as a last casualty, but because of the casualty order for the Germans, the UK is likely to get a sub hit on the btl.  Nothing crazy there, I just think it is interesting.

Now let’s get to the real assessment:

3. The UK has lost a lot of navy; Germany has lost no planes.  The German naval threat is eliminated, but THE ALLIES STILL HAVE TO BUILD CAPITAL SHIPS to defend against the untouched Luftewaffe.

4. Germany bought 24 IPCs of gear to leverage the existing 76 IPCs of gear.  That’s not a bad investment to protect units that would otherwise die with little gain (Baltic smoked immediately on the cheap, the Med fleet would die in the mid-game on the cheap).  So spending 24 IPCs got you a lot of benefit.  Germany spent 24; UK spent 30.  UK will have to then spend a lot more in the water.

5. The UK is not putting gear in the water, or the mainland, or Africa early.  R1 purchase was 3ftr.  That all dies.  They lose their boats and most of their planes in the attack.  They need to buy new transports AND the Allies need capital ships.

Pro Z07 attack w/ 3ftr purchase: German navy dies 67% of the time from the UK; US can finish off remainder.
Con Z07 attack w/ 3ftr purchase: Starting UK navy dies R2.  R1 purchase dies R2.  Fleet unprotected.  Significant chance of a bad outcome in Z07 attack.  No troops in Africa for UK earlier than R3.

One final note:
6. If Germany buys a carrier instead of 3tra, there is no way the UK can touch the united fleet.  Personally, I prefer the flexibility of the transports because I’m happy with the above pros/cons, but my point here is that if your sole goal is the united fleet, the carrier does the job quite well.

That’s my first pass on the assessment.  Anyone see something major I missed?

Summary points: 3ftr + Z07 attack is not terrible, but as Allies I do not like the Pros vs. the Cons.  It is better than a Z12 block.  Against a purchase of a single German carrier in the Baltic you can’t attack Z07.

Someone poke at this.

[cyan]

using the same exact assumptions as rjclayton’s 3 fig scerniro, i believe that 1sub,1destoyer and 1 fig is a better buy. (8+12+10=30)
you will be able to bring 2 trns, 1sub, 3 figs, 1 destroyer, 1 bomber, and 1 battleship vs. 5 trn, 3 sub, 1 des, 1 bb. there is only a 63.3% chance of killing everything. but you will loss 66 ipcs for the median compared to the 3 figs option that had 80ipcs. you will be able to save your battleship untill teh end and either a bomber or destroyer(whichever you prefer to keep). this build allows the destroyer to prevent the subs from killing your navy before they fire back. if you build 3 trns for UK 2, then your battleship can protect the trns and will not make it viable for germany to attack. if your attack does fail the US can always finish the job.

[rjclayton]

@cyan:

if you build 3 trns for UK 2, then your battleship can protect the trns and will not make it viable for germany to attack. if your attack does fail the US can always finish the job.

Unless you are planning on having the US navy consolidate with your 1 bb, 3 trn, this is probably not a good idea.  We are assuming the GER air remains intact.  1 bmb 6 fgt vs. 3 trn 1 bb -> GER only loses 2 fgt to squash your navy.  If US does consolidate in SZ7 to protect UK navy (this is on US2), they would only be able to do so with starting navy of 1 des, 2 trn (any US1 builds can’t reach there yet).  And these trn would have to offload onto UK (they are not going to take WEU, and can’t unload to anywhere else) so Allies are still not landing anything into Europe or Africa until round 3 earliest.

[Guest]

@cyan:

i believe that 1sub,1destoyer and 1 fig is a better buy

Yeah, I was looking at that too.  If you’re going to do the attack, that may be a better way to do it.  You can also take a hit on a ftr to preserve the des.  That COULD leave you with:

5tra 1sub 3des 1btl

That’s 1sub from Russia, 2tra 1des from EUS, 1des from PAN (moves to Z11 R1; won’t be attacked), 3tra 1des 1btl from UK.

That’s not all bad.  That’s doable.

Of course, you’re still anticipating that you win the battle in Z07 with not-great odds.  But that’s getting there.  As a German player, however, I’d still pay the 24 IPCs to kill those planes, boats, and have a chance to win the battle.  And again, it won’t work against a carrier unification plan.

Any other ways to hit Z07 worth exploring?  2bmr?  Planned UK/US rotation on Z07?  We haven’t yet looked at a serious UK strafe/US clean up plan.

When should the UK pull back?  Should the US build car/bmr to put more gear on Z07 R2?

Peace

[cyan]

yay, I looked at the 2 bombers and its 55% sucees rate. also i looked at 3 subs which is the worst at 52%.  trying to leave 1 battleship for the us only boost tour surviabilty to 70% the us cant handle anything more than that beacuse there a chance(30%) that the destroyer will live too. when i ran the battle I did let the figs die first.

@rjclayton:

@cyan:

if you build 3 trns for UK 2, then your battleship can protect the trns and will not make it viable for germany to attack. if your attack does fail the US can always finish the job.

Unless you are planning on having the US navy consolidate with your 1 bb, 3 trn, this is probably not a good idea.  We are assuming the GER air remains intact.  1 bmb 6 fgt vs. 3 trn 1 bb -> GER only loses 2 fgt to squash your navy.  If US does consolidate in SZ7 to protect UK navy (this is on US2), they would only be able to do so with starting navy of 1 des, 2 trn (any US1 builds can’t reach there yet).  And
these trn would have to offload onto UK (they are not going to take WEU, and can’t unload to anywhere else) so Allies are still not landing anything into Europe or Africa until round 3 earliest.

what are the russians doing all this time? if they see germany buying navy then they should fully expliote that. germany will be using no airunits on the eastren front. germany is going to hurt if it does that. there will be less battles germany can do and it will lose more units. russia should be able to make a lot of progress in in europe. the reason germany only bought 3 trns instead of 5 is that they need to drive russia back.

with the car option with 2 figs on it, theres a less than 23% chance for either mine or rjclayton’s idea to work. so you have to stop germany  from uniting its fleet. if the Algeria is taken US1 then russia can land figs there. so if russia builds 1 fig(which i’ve always been agianst but now see the benfeits) then it can stop the unifaction.

[Bernon]

Hello all! 1st timer here. Nice to see that there are others out there who enjoy playing and strategizing as much as I do. A lot of interesting points made. It would seem to me that you all know your stuff. If I were to go against the UK with any one of you controlling the Allies it would be because I have lost my mind and do not feel like playing anymore :). In other words……I would not do it unless the Allied person was a newb and he forgot to make any purchases. That’s just me though. Tough nut to crack and leaves you very vulnerable. I have tried it early in the game against a less experienced player and survived with one tank left. Don’t think it will ever happen again.

[cyan]

I’ve actually never played the allies for revised  :oops: this is all counter startegy(cause Japan is the best).

[General_D.Fox]

@cyan:

I’ve actually never played the allies for revised  :oops: this is all counter startegy(cause Japan is the best).

Eeenngggg, wrong, nope.  Germany is the best! Germany is teh pawnage!!!1111!!!1111!!!11!!1 CHINAINFISFORNOOBS!!! :mrgreen:

[polywog]

what are the russians doing all this time? if they see germany buying navy then they should fully expliote that. germany will be using no airunits on the eastren front. germany is going to hurt if it does that. there will be less battles germany can do and it will lose more units. russia should be able to make a lot of progress in in europe. the reason germany only bought 3 trns instead of 5 is that they need to drive russia back.

Good point… for sure Russia should get aggressive round 2 if the Germans invest heavily in the kriegsmarine. Also, another easy stopper to the German fleet linkup is to dump the russian sub into SZ6 (that is, if it’s still alive after round 1).

[polywog]

woops - goofed up the quote on the last post…

[rjclayton]

A small blocker in SZ6 won’t prevent the linkup.  Germany can simply sink the sub with it’s fighters and still do the linkup in non-combat movement.

[Guest]

There is always the massed UK fleet in SZ6 option….

1 BB, 1 DST, 1 TRN, 1 AC, 2 FIG, and 1 USSR SUB.

Makes for a pretty nasty force for the Germans to deal with.  Sure, the UK loses their fleet, but the German’s lose theirs, and a nice chunk of the Luftwaffe as well

With anythign less than 5 FIGs, there is no Baltic fleet left to make the link.  With less than 4 FIGs, the Luftwaffe ends up pretty thin after the battle…
And the US counter on the Med Fleet and/or any Baltic remnants is going to be UGLY for Germany…

[Guest]

Hey Switch.

Can we hold off on option 3 (Z06 block) for a few more posts?  I think we’re close to wrapping up option 2 - the counterattack against the unified fleet.

1. As other posters have pointed out, it looks like we have the two best UK attack purchases: 3ftr for raw hitting power or 1sub 1des 1ftr for defensive holding power.  2bmr/3sub are not viable options.

2. I asked about the rotating attack option where you start with the UK but finish with the US.  Let’s walk through what it looks like.  If you plan on hitting Z07 with the UK, you can pull back before you clear the zone.  That would enable you to retreat to Z08, which in turn enables you to unite with US boats built R1.  That means UK can build 3tra R2, preserve their battleship, and rely on the US to supply another capital ship for defense against the German planes.

The US, then, would want to look for a first round kill against whatever grey boats remain.  You could have a max US force of 2tra 2des 3ftr 1bmr + purchase.  And actually, for true max value the Pearl Harbor ftr might live.  Let’s assume it dies ;-)

You don’t want to have boats left in Z07, so the way you would do it is to send in just enough fodder (tra + des) to absorb hits but still kill all the boats.  The UK can’t get enough hits in one round to justify the strafe (too much left for the US), so you’re going to need to go two rounds.  That means you need to buy 1sub 1des 1ftr with the UK or the battleship is very likely to get hit by a sub R2.

So you would have this:
UK: 2tra 1sub 1des 1btl 3ftr 1bmr : oPunch = 22 : oHits = 4
Ger: 5tra 3sub 1des 1btl : dPunch = 18 : dHits = 3

After one round:
UK: 1sub 1des 1btl 3ftr 1bmr : oPunch = 22 : oHits = 4
Ger: 2tra 3sub 1des 1btl : dPunch = 15 : dHits = 3

After two rounds, the most common outcome is:
UK: 1btl 2ftr 1bmr (if you’re retreating to Z08, you probably don’t need the destroyer, but you could lose another ftr instead)
Ger: 1sub 1des 1btl : dPunch = 9 : dHits = 2 : dCount = 4

So with the US you want to put 4 hits on the Germans while only exposing 2 cheap casualties.

We have: 2tra 2des 3ftr 1bmr + purchase.  We don’t want to send in more than 2tra because whatever lives in Z07 will be Planed down by Germany.Â

US: 2tra 3ftr 1bmr: oPunch = 13 : oHits = 2

We need more juice.  We can either send in a destroyer or two, or buy planes R1 to hit Z07.  We can buy ftrs to do that if we also buy a carrier for them to start on.  We need 12 punch more for FRK (first round kill).  That would mean sending in both des and buying 1car 2ftr.  Hmph.Â

Or we could skip FRK and just go for the win using all 4 green boats.  Wasteful.  Hmph.

Ok, that walkthrough makes me not a fan of a rotating attack.  The benefit of the rotation was supposed to be to try and preserve Allied boats, but because you risk getting stuck in Z07 with either fleet, the rotation is not very economical.

You can’t count on a third UK strafing round because you could take out the German boats and then the UK would have moved up beyond the protection of the US R1 build.  If the UK built transports, you’re in trouble.

I think if you’re going for the option of killing the United Fleet, you just need to go all the way with the UK.

I think the earlier summary stands with a couple modifications:

Pro Z07 attack w/ 3ftr purchase: German navy dies 67% of the time from the UK; US can finish off remainder.
Con Z07 attack w/ 3ftr purchase: Starting UK navy dies R2.  R1 purchase dies R2.  Fleet unprotected.  Significant chance of a bad outcome in Z07 attack.  No troops in Africa for UK earlier than R3.
Misc: Buying 1sub 1des 1ftr allows you to defend Z07 in conjunction with a UK naval build R2; a rotating attack from UK/US is not as good as you might think so you’re probably better off with planning on the UK as the primary attack and US only on cleanup from bad dice.

That summary says you can take out the unified fleet, but it’s not pretty.  I’m still happy as the Germans.

Anyone see anything major missed in that?

[cyan]

UK1: buys 1bb (sounds crazy but wait)
US1: buys 3 bmb move figs t e. canada and the uk.
UK2: attacks for 1 round. takes out on averge 2 trns(while they lose 1)
US2: atacks with2 Fig, 4 Bom, 2 Tra, 1 Des. v. Defender: 3 Tra, 3 Sub, 1 Des, 1 Bat
theres a 1/5 cance of keeping all bombers)(whcih is the median) the a 96% the defender will die there a 20% chance of geting 3 bombers and 10% of getting 2 bombers alive.

[cyan]

i assumed that the trns would die first this is actually worse for germany. now that i let the trns die after the subs theres a 90% chance of  the US succeding(worse than 95%) now its:
19.13% 4 Bom.  - 14.89% 3 Bom.      - 10.3% 2 Bom.          - 5.52% 1 Bom.

if germany wants to perserve its subs it will have to take tehm as a last cassualty and still therees only a 49% chance of sruvival.
Sub 3 20.91% Sub 2: 13.31% Sub 1: 14.13%
the US will have all 4 bombers and maybe a fig.  germany gives up 1 extra hit on the us(10 ipcs) in exchange to flip a coin and see if at least 1 sub lives. so depeding on how well the us did 1st round it may be worth it to save teh subs.(even though will be worthless unless you plan on rebuilding)

[nooob]

US1 has only 42ipc’s to spend…3 bom=45ipcs…

also to backtrack a little… if both uk and us lose their trn on rd2 than with africa, germany is offsetting the delay of not purchasing(as many) ground units on g1.
in this case blocking in SZ12 and taking algeria might not be the best option

on a side note i dont see the point in 2trns i think you gotta go for three.(or a carrier)

[cyan]

talk about a stupid mistake. i’'ll go see if it will work with 2 bombers.

[nooob]

i mean algeria MIGHT BE the best option.  sorry grammar error

[cyan]

now i ran it with 23 bmbs instead of 4 and got a 70% success rate. if germany saves the subs to subemge then it is a 85% that a germany unit will live(3 subs being the most likely at 42%) the median result for the us is 2 bmbs survive(15 % ) if germany decides to use it’s subs. if it decides to save them(killing the bb if necessary) it has a 25% chance of 3 bmb living. the good thing about this option is  that the UK can still attack noraway (if left emptied) and the US will be able to build a trn and inf or artillery. even though this allows more flexible there a good chance if germany rebuilds there going to be another naval battle(UK/US 3 or 4). the only thing this guarantees is that germany won’t be able to attack the UK on GER 3. Ger will loss 76 ipcs(16 on UK turn and 60 on the us turn) while there will be a loss of 8(UK) + 48(us)= 56 ipcs. the allies keep the UK navy and deal 20 ipcs of damage to Germany with the option of taking Norway or Algeria on R2.  also the us may be able to sbr germany latter. Germany meanwhile gains delaying the Atlantic threat and optimizes its navy. germany may even be able to start a new navy with the 3 subs present.