Operation Sea Lion

I’ll be glad to demonstrate that Russia is not that much of a threat with or without sea lion. wink

That said, the whole discussion of how futile it is to say Russia’s earning too much with Sea Lion can be a new thread. This one should be limited to the merits of each option of making Sea Lion harder (current odds are 97%, 94% with complete destruction of the RAF, meaning if you can get the aircraft from the Med to England, you still lose 94% of the time.)

Very brief schematic of Sea Lion (because I don’t want to get into a huge debate, you may feel free to read the one we have at Larry game designs if you don’t choose to believe my synopsis.)

1)  Germany 1:

• Buy AC, 2 Trn
• Attack Yugoslavia, W. France, France, SZ 106, SZ 109, SZ 111, SZ 112

2)  Germany 2:

• Buy 10 Trn
• Get 13 Infantry, 4 Artillery, 9 Armor, 5 fighters, 5 Tactical Bombers, 2 Strategic Bombers prepped for the invasion
• SBR England (5 escorts, 2 tacticals for the airbase, 2 strategics for the complex - feel free to not bring the tacticals if you are paranoid about AA Gun fire, but it will require you to hold some airpower back from the attack to cover your ships against scrambles if you do.)
• Get your submarines out of CRD range (you want the max capture possible.)

3)  Germany 3:  Hit England, pull back everything off Russian front (1 inf in Pol, Hun and Rom - rest in Yugo)

4)  Move 7 armor from England back to Europe and build 3 infantry a round in England from now until you’ve secured it from being retaken.  With your transports in SZ 112 you are in prime position for landings in Novgorod, Arkhangelsk and Nenetsia with multiple waves of backups.

5)  Points of interest:

• SBR Gibraltar instead of taking it.  You don’t need it and if you don’t take it, America will NEVER be able to use that naval base.
• Screw southern Africa, no offense intended, but in game terms it’s a waste of time, resources and too much potential for the allies to feed the American Military Complex.  Instead focus on Russia.
• This works best with a Crush Calcutta strategy as one of the major downfalls for players is dealing with Brits in the Middle East.  If you can take Calcutta on round 3 (it’s possible barring a screw up by Japan) then there’s no aid coming to Russia.
• Pressure America, you want to threaten landings on W. USA if at all possible to keep them honest.

I am not going to say that Sea Lion is an unbeatable strategy, nor am I going to say that it’s broken.  Nothing is broken.  Broken means you win 100% of the games.  Sea Lion is currently 97% odds (92% or 93% I cant remember which, if you bring all aircraft from Africa to defend as well.)  I think those odds are too high, that’s just my opinion.

As for Russia, to be honest, there’s 2 or 3 rounds they make good money, after that, they’re pushed back into Red territories and once that happens, it’s the beginning of the end for Russia, unless America can do some serious work.  This is why I advocate not taking anything you dont either need or cannot hold.  America’s an ungodly behemoth already, you don’t need to feed them things like the DEI, N. Africa, S. Africa, etc.

@knp7765:

Fascinating blueprint Commander Jennifer.  A couple of questions:

1 = Why pull everything off of the Russian Border to Yugoslavia?

Because the Russians will see what you are doing and mass in E. Poland, Bessarabia and Baltic States.  It’s better to lose a few infantry in hopes of getting hits against his, than lose all your units.  At least in my experience - as flawed as my experience may have been.  :evil:

By massing my troops in Yugoslavia, I can strike at Romania and prevent the Russians from getting a complex there.  See below for more details.

@knp7765:

2 = What are you doing with Italy if not taking the N African territories?

Primarily I am making ground units to assist with Russia, alternately I am reserving some ground units for the eventual defense of France, we all know the Americans are coming, we just don’t know in what size or when.  Lastly, a few warships never hurt, with 24 IPC a round (scaling up to 30 IPC max, unless you surrender the Middle East in which case we’re at 40 IPC) we’re not very powerful, but we’re also not an easy target, we’re going to force America to put some real effort into killing us.

I should note:  4 Infantry, 2 Mech, 3 Arm is plenty big enough of an expeditionary force to propell the Russians backwards.  Take the land, let the Germans land there and push in.  With the mech you cannot just leave open territories (talking Italian units here.)  Once you get 15 infantry, 5 artillery, 2 or 3 armor for home defense, you can ignore putting more units on the ground and focus on submarines/destroyers for counter attacks should the allies come in (by now they should be coming in!  That’s a lot of units to put out with your income.)