• '21 '20 '19 '18 '17 '16

    @Frederick:

    Okay. So your two loaded carriers with three fighters and a tactical bomber, two cruisers (assuming the Indian cruiser joined), and five destroyers (assuming the Indian joined) vs five fighters, one aircraft carrier, one battleship, two cruisers, three destroyers, and two subs. Don’t forget that the French destroyer can’t attack with the UK’s fleet. Plus the Luftwaffe can easily finish anything left losing probably one fighter. Yeah I did the math.

    Where the heck is Italy getting five fighters, a carrier, two subs, and three destroyers on I2? Anyone can do math and predict victory if they include units the enemy cannot possibly have….Do the math again without the fantasy sub, two fantasy destroyers, fantasy carrier, and three fantasy fighters. UK easily wins.

    When you do the math with what Italy can actually have available to attack on I2, Italy cannot attack the UK fleet and can only survive an attack under air cover.

    Marsh

  • '19 '17 '16

    @Marshmallow:

    Pretty sure I’m discussing not doing Taranto.

    Alright.

    Where did the second CV and 6th DD come from?

    DD off Egypt and Cru from SZ91 are presumably lost as a blocker.
    Leaves in SZ81 at the end of UK1 only a DD, CV and Cru. Off the horn of Africa there might be another DD and Cru. French DD is also added later.

    I count 3DDs, 2Cru and 1CV in SZ98 G3, if not attacked I2.

  • '21 '20 '19 '18 '17 '16

    @simon33:

    Where did the second CV and 6th DD come from?

    DD off Egypt and Cru from SZ91 are presumably lost as a blocker.
    Leaves in SZ81 at the end of UK1 only a DD, CV and Cru. Off the horn of Africa there might be another DD and Cru. French DD is also added later.

    I count 3DDs, 2Cru and 1CV in SZ98 G3, if not attacked I2.

    @Marshmallow:

    On UK2 the UK moves back into sea zone 98 and places a build of one carrier and two destroyers. The UK fleet now has two loaded carriers, five destroyers (six once the French destroyer reaches sea zone 98), and at least one cruiser (two if the sea zone 91 cruiser was used as a blocker on UK1).

    This was clarified many, many posts back.

    http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=38162.msg1563265#msg1563265

    Marsh

  • '19 '17 '16

    Interesting play. I don’t think I grasped it at first.

    I still only count 4 UK DDs surviving. One off Egypt is sacrificed as a blocker. Perhaps you’re using the one starting in SZ109?

    As YG has mentioned in one of his videos, the Egypt IC build does have the weakness of opening up Sea Lion possibilities, maybe depending on the G1 build.

  • '19 '17 '16

    The way I see it, one maybe two (if the Italian DD hits in SZ96) of the planes have to come from India. Unless you fly them around via Gibraltar.

  • '21 '20 '19 '18 '17 '16

    The destroyer from 109 can make it on UK2 if it is not killed before then, as well as surviving fleet from 110 (if any). The fighter and tactical bomber from India land on the carrier when it moves to sea zone 81. The destroyer and cruiser from India also head over, making it to the rest of the fleet when it moves back into the Med. Joining them is the destroyer from South Africa. Two new destroyers and a new carrier are placed in UK2, joined by the Malta (formerly Gibraltar) and Egypt (formerly Malta) fighters. Looks like five UK destroyers and one French destroyer. If you don’t bring the destroyer from 109, there is obviously one less destroyer.

    If you don’t want to strip the aircraft from India, you can fly fighters in from London via Gibraltar, but there is a risk that Italy can kill them with ground units. It would probably be better to land them in Morocco with a French infantry if you are going this route, though Italy could still kill them. Better still would be to land additional ground forces in Morocco with the two fighters, making it really expensive and difficult for Italy to kill the fighters (though you might lose your transport to the Italian sub).

    There is also the possibility that Italy chooses not to kill both your blockers to avoid spreading out the Italian fleet. If Italy does kill both UK blockers and also the French fleet, he runs the risk of losing two or more units and also spreads his remaining fleet out instead of concentrating it. This means that the UK can pick off those fleet elements (admittedly at some risk to its fleet/planes).

    Also keep in mind that this is with no bid at all – these are all existing units from setup or build on UK2. A bid placed partially or fully in the Med only makes this play stronger.

    The rest of the UK1 build goes in London. If Germany does go for Sea Lion after that, it will be terribly expensive.

    Marsh

  • '19 '17 '16

    Not sure about your closing comment. Your buys in Egypt tie up all the UK2 purchasing with 1IPC change (2IPC if Ethiopia is taken).

    You could build 5 inf or 2inf+1ftr in London with the IC UK1. I guess your advantage is that you keep your planes at home. 5inf + starting doesn’t sound too tough to me. Might require a 5-6TT buy G2.


  • @simon33:

    Not sure about your closing comment. Your buys in Egypt tie up all the UK2 purchasing with 1IPC change (2IPC if Ethiopia is taken).

    You could build 5 inf or 2inf+1ftr in London with the IC UK1. I guess your advantage is that you keep your planes at home. 5inf + starting doesn’t sound too tough to me. Might require a 5-6TT buy G2.

    You do Realize that the UK/France stack end of round one would be 11 Inf 1 Mech 5 AA and 4 Fighters.  And then if Germany does a buy of 5-6 TT then UK will surely buy 10 Inf in response.  So that means you are looking at a London defense of 21 Inf 1 Mech 5 AA and 4 Fighters. Against 7-8 German TTs. Well load those TTs and say Germany brings 5 Fighters 5 Tac and 2 Strat. Well I ran those odds with 8 TT and UK won 68% of the time. So I’d say bring it.


  • @Marshmallow:

    @Frederick:

    Okay. So your two loaded carriers with three fighters and a tactical bomber, two cruisers (assuming the Indian cruiser joined), and five destroyers (assuming the Indian joined) vs five fighters, one aircraft carrier, one battleship, two cruisers, three destroyers, and two subs. Don’t forget that the French destroyer can’t attack with the UK’s fleet. Plus the Luftwaffe can easily finish anything left losing probably one fighter. Yeah I did the math.

    Where the heck is Italy getting five fighters, a carrier, two subs, and three destroyers on I2? Anyone can do math and predict victory if they include units the enemy cannot possibly have….Do the math again without the fantasy sub, two fantasy destroyers, fantasy carrier, and three fantasy fighters. UK easily wins.

    When you do the math with what Italy can actually have available to attack on I2, Italy cannot attack the UK fleet and can only survive an attack under air cover.

    Marsh

    What fantasy? Italy starts with two destroyers and on R1 Italy saves it’s ipcs. Since you back your med fleet away that a Italian NO +5 ipcs and taking both Southern France and Greece is another +5 ipcs. That’s +10 ipcs saved from I1, +15 ipcs from Italy’s collected income on I1, and with the NO +5 ipcs that’s 30 ipcs which is enough to buy one aircraft carrier, one destroyer, and one sub. On R2 you would fly your fighters to seazone 97 to land on the new aircraft carrier and Germany would fly three fighters to Rome as scrambling protection. Italy also starts with two cruisers, a sub, and a battleship along with the two destroyers. If you united all Italians ships in seazone 97 and place the new ships in the same seazone along with the two fighters you get five fighters, one aircraft carrier, one battleship, two cruisers, three destroyers, and two subs. It’s not fantasy.

  • '19 '17 '16

    @Tirano:

    @simon33:

    Not sure about your closing comment. Your buys in Egypt tie up all the UK2 purchasing with 1IPC change (2IPC if Ethiopia is taken).

    You could build 5 inf or 2inf+1ftr in London with the IC UK1. I guess your advantage is that you keep your planes at home. 5inf + starting doesn’t sound too tough to me. Might require a 5-6TT buy G2.

    You do Realize that the UK/France stack end of round one would be 11 Inf 1 Mech 5 AA and 4 Fighters.  And then if Germany does a buy of 5-6 TT then UK will surely buy 10 Inf in response.  So that means you are looking at a London defense of 21 Inf 1 Mech 5 AA and 4 Fighters. Against 7-8 German TTs. Well load those TTs and say Germany brings 5 Fighters 5 Tac and 2 Strat. Well I ran those odds with 8 TT and UK won 68% of the time. So I’d say bring it.

    I didn’t run the numbers. With the 68IPC Germany normally has they can buy 9TTs and 1 art. You can move 11inf 5art back to Germany and normally 2art 6arm back to West Germany. So you can indeed fill those 10TTs. Depends a lot on what happened G1. You may need to buy some fleet.


  • @simon33:

    @Tirano:

    @simon33:

    Not sure about your closing comment. Your buys in Egypt tie up all the UK2 purchasing with 1IPC change (2IPC if Ethiopia is taken).

    You could build 5 inf or 2inf+1ftr in London with the IC UK1. I guess your advantage is that you keep your planes at home. 5inf + starting doesn’t sound too tough to me. Might require a 5-6TT buy G2.

    You do Realize that the UK/France stack end of round one would be 11 Inf 1 Mech 5 AA and 4 Fighters.  And then if Germany does a buy of 5-6 TT then UK will surely buy 10 Inf in response.  So that means you are looking at a London defense of 21 Inf 1 Mech 5 AA and 4 Fighters. Against 7-8 German TTs. Well load those TTs and say Germany brings 5 Fighters 5 Tac and 2 Strat. Well I ran those odds with 8 TT and UK won 68% of the time. So I’d say bring it.

    I didn’t run the numbers. With the 68IPC Germany normally has they can buy 9TTs and 1 art. You can move 11inf 5art back to Germany and normally 2art 6arm back to West Germany. So you can indeed fill those 10TTs. Depends a lot on what happened G1. You may need to buy some fleet.

    Well let us do assume that you have 10 Transport to fill (even though you said 6-7) if you have 10 Trans you can muster a force of 10 Inf 10 Art 5 Fighter 5 Tac and 2 Strat.  Well let us not forget that UK almost always has 1 transport survive in the Atlantic so you can add an Inf and a Tank to UK.  That brings UK defense up to 22Inf 1Mech 1 Tank 5 AA 4 Fighter and a Strat. I just ran those odds and Germany now wins 43% - woohoo.  Hardly what I call a for sure thing.

  • '19 '17 '16

    Would you really buy 5inf UK1 in London rather than 2inf+1ftr? All of this assumes no fleet action so probably will not happen.

    I just ran the odds. Perhaps I’m looking at something different to you but I get 81% to the attacker.

    Attacker: 10inf 7art 3arm 5ftr 5tac 2sb 1Cru 1BB
    Def: 22inf 1mec 1tank 4ftr 1sb 5aaa

    This is all pretty theoretical but fleet action will no doubt reduce the strength of the attack.


  • @simon33:

    Would you really buy 5inf UK1 in London rather than 2inf+1ftr? All of this assumes no fleet action so probably will not happen.

    I just ran the odds. Perhaps I’m looking at something different to you but I get 81% to the attacker.

    Attacker: 10inf 7art 3arm 5ftr 5tac 2sb 1Cru 1BB
    Def: 22inf 1mec 1tank 4ftr 1sb 5aaa

    This is all pretty theoretical but fleet action will no doubt reduce the strength of the attack.

    Absolutely I forgot the Bombardments, however in order to have saved that Battleship you would have lost at least 1 plane if not 2. Which as you said would weaken the attack.

    As for would I buy 5 Inf over 2 Inf&1 Plane? Absolutely, every time. I see 5 Inf as a MINIMUM buy for UK on turn 1 regardless of German buys. Only way I might consider less is if Germany has left me with the bulk of my navy, in which case I’d consider a Carrier and Tac.

    The point I’m trying to make is that UK can afford a IC in Egypt on Turn 1 if they so wish, assuming rest is defense for London.  London still has a viable enough defense that Germany would be unwise to pursue Sea Lion any further.  As Germany if I want to threaten Sea Lion I simply buy 1 Trans which forces a 5 Inf UK buy, so as Germany I call that a net win, which is all you are tyrinh to accomplish as Germany.

  • '19 '17 '16

    With only the Cruiser bombardment I still get 77% to Germany and 74% with no bombardments. What are you doing differently to me that you are seeing <50%?


  • For one I make sure I select “must take territory” then after realizing the bombardments the percentage has came down to 52% for London. The difference is you are running a perfect scenario for Germany, where they keep all surface ships, and all Luftwaffe. I am running it as if they either get to keep 1-2 planes or lose the bombardments, not both.

    http://goo.gl/lmb1Gu

    I ran that right there and got UK winning 51-53% of the time.  With Must take territory turned off.  Tell me how you are setting up it, I may indeed be wrong myself I just need to see how ;)

  • '19 '17 '16

    Ah, you said with 5Tacs & 5Ftrs. With no bombardment, 4tacs+4ftrs and must take territory I can get it down to 42%.

    A more realistic scenario of 3 tanks, 3ftrs, 5tacs and a cruiser bombardment it is 51%. Rising to 55% with 5 tanks.


  • @simon33:

    Ah, you said with 5Tacs & 5Ftrs. With no bombardment, 4tacs+4ftrs and must take territory I can get it down to 42%.

    A more realistic scenario of 3 tanks, 3ftrs, 5tacs and a cruiser bombardment it is 51%. Rising to 55% with 5 tanks.

    Sure playing with the air force even slightly makes large differences. But even at 55% would Germany risk the whole game on that? If they lose then Moscow and London surely stand and allow USA to stop Japan.  If they win it is at a great cost and Russia will still likely stand and once the USA liberates UK on Round 5 then America takes Japan.  So unless Germany gets the luckiest rolls of all time, it’s really not an option

  • '21 '20 '19 '18 '17 '16

    @Frederick:

    What fantasy? Italy starts with two destroyers and on R1 Italy saves it’s ipcs. Since you back your med fleet away that a Italian NO +5 ipcs and taking both Southern France and Greece is another +5 ipcs. That’s +10 ipcs saved from I1, +15 ipcs from Italy’s collected income on I1, and with the NO +5 ipcs that’s 30 ipcs which is enough to buy one aircraft carrier, one destroyer, and one sub. On R2 you would fly your fighters to seazone 97 to land on the new aircraft carrier and Germany would fly three fighters to Rome as scrambling protection. Italy also starts with two cruisers, a sub, and a battleship along with the two destroyers. If you united all Italians ships in seazone 97 and place the new ships in the same seazone along with the two fighters you get five fighters, one aircraft carrier, one battleship, two cruisers, three destroyers, and two subs. It’s not fantasy.

    Your Italian IPCs that you spent on a navy are now pinned under air cover from the Southern Italy airbase – if the fleet moves out from air cover, it dies. Those German fighters are pinned too – as soon as they move away the Italian fleet dies. The UK never has to attack the Italian fleet to put it out of commission, and in the process ties up a large part of your airforce.

    This is assuming that Italy lost NO units on I1 or UK2, and that’s a huge assumption. Realistically your fleet will be two or three units smaller than this. That’s minus one sub and one destroyer on an average game. It’s also an assumption that the UK will not have killed any of your dispersed units that you used clearing the Med, let’s call that minus a cruiser. So that’s three fantasy units right there.

    Assuming the UK brings two fighters and a strat bomber into sea zone 97 from London, the Italian fleet (and a big chunk of the German air force) dies right there in sea zone 97 on UK3 85% or so of the time. The UK could bring a third fighter too – 90+%.

    And again, still working solely with units present at startup or built on UK2. Placing part or all of a bid in the Med on UK1 makes this even stronger.

    But heck, if you are buying fleet like that with Italy, the Allies have already won the game.

    Marsh

  • '21 '20 '19 '18 '17 '16

    @Tirano:

    As for would I buy 5 Inf over 2 Inf&1 Plane? Absolutely, every time. I see 5 Inf as a MINIMUM buy for UK on turn 1 regardless of German buys. Only way I might consider less is if Germany has left me with the bulk of my navy, in which case I’d consider a Carrier and Tac.

    It’s very situational IMO. Fighter plus two infantry is enough of a build to deter Sea Lion because of cost, and it gives you the added bonus of having five fighters there to thwart a G2 strategic bombing (which means you can build more infantry on UK2 if Germany builds transports on G2, instead of spending money to repair your factory). Plus it gets the highly mobile fighter on the board sooner, which means if Sea Lion doesn’t come the fighter gets in the game faster.

    If we were just calculating defense against Sea Lion alone though, the five infantry would probably be the way to go. However, there are other factors:

    1. It matters what the US is doing – if the US is prepping KGF and Japan is holding off until J4 to handicap the US and give Germany time, fighter plus two infantry. If not, 5 infantry.
    2. It matters whether or not the sea zone 106 transport survived. If it did and you think Sea Lion is on the table, bring those Canadian units to the UK and build the fighter.
    3. It matters how much air power Germany lost killing the Royal Navy. More than one plane? Build the fighter.
    4. If Germany did not secure Normandy on G1 and left Holland light/empty and the sea zone 109 transport survived, take Holland and build the five infantry. Now Germany cannot bring fighters with its strat bombers for strategic bombing.

    Marsh

  • '19 '17 '16

    @Tirano:

    But even at 55% would Germany risk the whole game on that?

    Short answer is no.

    But this is a highly idealised model which assumes no contribution from a G1 build and no scramble. I will generally build a strat bomber G1. I’m starting to think a second TT will be useful too. Either it helps to take Leningrad or the sea lion scenario we are discussing.

    The third bomber alone rises the odds to 70%. Still not really enough to bet the game though.

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