Noob questions on KGF and G vs. Africa

Some Japan players protect their battleships (BBs) and aircraft carriers (ACs).  In such cases, if you are doing KGF, you might as well withdraw from Pacific.  But if you can put Japan in a position in which it’s lost 2-3 capital ships (BBs or ACs) early, you will probably want to keep some units or even build in the Pacific to take advantage.

With Germany, you almost always want to hit Anglo-Egypt on G1.  If you don’t, UK is free to use those forces to screw around with the Axis big-time.  They can set up a 6-dice attack on the sea zone east of Japan (sub/AC/cruiser/2 fighters/bomber), take Borneo with 80%+ chance, usually attacking New Guinea too.  Even if UK doesn’t kick Japan’s ass, they can withdraw into Africa to shut the Germans down.  Imagine India transport bringing units to Africa.  You’ll then have 3 inf 1 tank 2 fighter fending you off, with a second wave of 1 inf, and additional fighters from London and bomber from London joining in.  That is NOT going to be easy to crack, and you will have to bleed out of Europe like mad if you want to gain ground in Africa.  Since you’re probably going to lose the German battleship and transport pretty soon anyways, that means you’re NEVER going to get going in Africa, because you will never have enough ground units to make it happen.

You should not lose your Med transport by G2 unless you’re looking at R1 sub buys.  Are you?

If you do KGF, which most people do most of the times, there are three basic goals.

1. Keep Russia Germany front balanced. You can do that most of the times trading ukr, kar, bel. If the pressure mounts you might retreat to cauc, rus, but you definitely do not want to lose cauc. Most of the times, you would need to send all your starting units west to achive this goal but the far east six ones.

2. Start pressuring germany with western allies ASAP. There are various schools of thought on how this should achieved. Some people would use Africa, which is very easy but really slow, some people would use WEU, some people would operate US and UK convoys seperately. My system of choice is an old idea of caspian sub using the UK, NOR, KAR, EE push which has the advantage of increasing the pressure gradually and both US and UK ships and units operating in synchronicity, the disadvantages might be that it does not allow for much flexibility, it is not esspecially quick and it is not that as easy to master as it is to write about.

3. Secure Africa. Some people use the black sea sub RR1. While I have not decided what is the best way to counter that move yet, my intuition is against it because while Germany may really be pushed of africa it will be able to keep the western allies longer from europe due to sinking of the UK BB while being able to stack ukr G1 most of the times.

So i still rather would go R R1 after norway and start the UK push to Europe on UK1, and use combined efforts of us and UK to secure africa, than using russians for this. But I admit it might just be a matter of taste.

The first question regarding any Allied strategy are its objectives. Equally as important to either killing Germany or Japan, there is always another main objective which is to ensure the survival of Russia, at least until either G or J falls. And it is possible to win the game by only focusing on keeping Russia alive and outproducing the Axis (which requires securing Africa) - eventually the Axis player will concede as the advantage in units and income gets bigger for the Allies.

The trick is to be able to achieve both objectives, which requires a lot of things.

@Granada:

2. Start pressuring germany with western allies ASAP. There are various schools of thought on how this should achieved. Some people would use Africa, which is very easy but really slow, some people would use WEU, some people would operate US and UK convoys seperately. My system of choice is an old idea of caspian sub using the UK, NOR, KAR, EE push which has the advantage of increasing the pressure gradually and both US and UK ships and units operating in synchronicity, the disadvantages might be that it does not allow for much flexibility, it is not esspecially quick and it is not that as easy to master as it is to write about.

The UK-NOR-KAR-EE push is still one of the best options but the Germans can counter/delay it by having a large stack on Karelia that the Allies can’t defeat or creating a dead zone on Karelia, if the 3 Allies don’t coordinate their moves together (i.e. Russian armor moving to Karelia to reinforce the UK/US stack landed there).

A mass landing on WE may also be a tactic if the Germans can’t counterattack it. But usually this will mean that G pull back all of its armor to deal with it so the UK/US need to keep landing enough units to secure the beachhead. The problem with this tactic is that on my Spring 1942 games the Germans are usually more focused in defending WE against any landings than Revised.

Africa are usually too slow and a waste of units - they usually will be stuck on Egypt and unable to advance anymore due to the Japanese fleet/army. Plus if you want to kill Germany then it would take forever for those units to ever reach it.

And usually S.Eur is a dead end. It is usually not possible for both the UK/US to sustain a combined landing of both on every turn (due to a lack of UK transports) and it can be targeted by German units on WE, Germany, Balkans, EE and Ukraine.

Finally, any land units used for both tactics won’t reinforce Russia, which is another factor to consider.

3. Secure Africa. Some people use the black sea sub RR1. While I have not decided what is the best way to counter that move yet, my intuition is against it because while Germany may really be pushed of africa it will be able to keep the western allies longer from europe due to sinking of the UK BB while being able to stack ukr G1 most of the times.

So i still rather would go R R1 after norway and start the UK push to Europe on UK1, and use combined efforts of us and UK to secure africa, than using russians for this. But I admit it might just be a matter of taste.

Secure Africa is always a secondary objective for both the Allies or the Axis. Use too many units and you’ll be diverting a lot of resources away from the 2 Allied objectives mentioned before. For instance a counter I use against a R1 sub buy is for a 5 inf, 5 arm buy for Germany and a push with all available units to Karelia on G1 (no SZ2 attack though), creating a stack that Russia will have a big problem attacking and forcing it to reinforce WRus or losing it.

@ragnarok628:

if UK (hits Borneo and New Guinea) aren’t they just going to lose it all?  i mean, they’ll gain income from borneo for a few turns but they are sacrificing a transport, cruiser, AC and 2(?) fighters.   is it worth it, if you could move into the med instead?  . . .  like, you mentioned setting up a 6 dice attack east of japan?  how does that work?  by which i mean, under what circumstance would japan actually allow that to happen?

so, if i’m US doing KGF and if japan does leave itself exposed and has lost 2-3 capital ships, does building/staying in the pacific mean i should transition into a strategy where i split my attentions between J and G, or do you just say that i should build once/keep forces there only in order to keep pressure on but still focus 99% on G?

1.  First, on UK1, UK must make sure there are no surviving German tanks on Anglo-Egypt at end of turn.  That given, why hit Borneo and New Guinea even with a KGF plan?  Because the India transport, cruiser, and AC won’t be able to reach the main UK fleet for at least 3 turns, more likely 4-5 turns minimum.  You don’t want to delay UK 3-5 turns while you wait for the wandering UK India fleet to join up.

If you take Borneo, Japan is not FORCED to reclaim it, but almost certainly should - it’s worth a lot.  Borneo’s off the main French Indochina/Japan drop route, and more significantly, off the India route.  Normally, Japan wants to drop as much at French Indochina ASAP, to secure India.

This doesn’t mean taking Borneo and New Guinea is “right”.  You could leave 3 infantry on Australia to make Japan think twice about diverting 2 transports to take it; you could use additional infantry in the Persia/India/Africa region to stall Japan and Germany out with air/infantry trades.  (I think stalling Germany in Africa with extra infantry is better; Japan’s power grows too fast in Asia for UK to stall them out).

2.  Yes, Japan can smash the 6 dice attack.  But doing so often costs UK little (the cruiser and UK won’t reach the Atlantic in time to help anyways).  Japan will often be left in poor position for J2, or will have to spend IPCs on a destroyer or two to help protect their fleet.  Even such a small thing as encouraging Japan to build a destroyer instead of a transport significantly slows their progress.

3.  If Japan lost a lot of capital ships, it’s probably because the Japan player isn’t very skilled.  The condition I use to determine what to do with US is looking at the German situation.  How’s Germany’s hold on Africa?  (Specifically, does it look like Germany can successfully be kept out of Africa?)  How’s Germany’s fleet/airforce compared to UK?  (Specifically, does it look like UK will be able to drop units to Karelia/Archangel?)  If the answer to both of these are yes, then I go vs Japan 100% (again, given that Japan dropped 2-3 capital ships).  If the answer to either is no, I go Atlantic 100%.