German Blueprint: G1 Attack on Russia

@Young:

@Omega1759:

The battle for France is a risky one, right out of the gate the game could be lost there. I would think the UK will be able to harass the Germans fairly easily if the Russian player is aggressive enough, forcing the Germans to bring air to the Eastern front.

France is fine, I will lose all my men and Mechs on a bad day, but the artillery and tanks are safe. I never send German planes to the Eastern front after G1 unless there is nothing for them to do, and even than its rare. German planes will be harassing the UK, if I know I will be trading planes for ships in an upcoming battle, I always buy more air units that same round.

It’s a 88% battle with 34 expected IPC lost (all the infantry + 3 out of 4 mech) is the expected outcome. All it takes is a bad first round of rolling and this battle can be very costly / lost

@Young:

@ Vance.

Don’t think that the Axis have to move fast to win, the economic long game is more viable than ever for the Axis powers. Don’t abandon Italy, they will be weak for the first 3 rounds, but by Germany giving them the Balkin territories including the neutrals in Bulgaria, and the right amount of Mediteranian support in navy and air force, they should start making a healthy $25 per turn.

I was thinking more along the lines of not sending good money after bad in Africa.  Let Italy have South France, Yugo, Bulgaria, then Greece.  Italy’s job is to stack a counterattack force of inf/arts in France.  The allies will be unstoppable once they get up to speed so I am hoping for the fast win.

Omega, in grasshoppers attack on Paris, 7 inf, 4 mech, 3 art, 3 armor versus the 6 inf, 2 art, 2 armor, 1 fighter and 1 AA the odds work out to 94% with 7 or 8 units surviving.  There is a typo above where it says 6 inf but he meant 7

@Vance:

@Young:

@ Vance.

Don’t think that the Axis have to move fast to win, the economic long game is more viable than ever for the Axis powers. Don’t abandon Italy, they will be weak for the first 3 rounds, but by Germany giving them the Balkin territories including the neutrals in Bulgaria, and the right amount of Mediteranian support in navy and air force, they should start making a healthy $25 per turn.

I was thinking more along the lines of not sending good money after bad in Africa.  Let Italy have South France, Yugo, Bulgaria, then Greece.  Italy’s job is to stack a counterattack force of inf/arts in France.  The allies will be unstoppable once they get up to speed so I am hoping for the fast win.

Omega, in grasshoppers attack on Paris, 7 inf, 4 mech, 3 art, 3 armor versus the 6 inf, 2 art, 2 armor, 1 fighter and 1 AA the odds work out to 94% with 7 or 8 units surviving.  There is a typo above where it says 6 inf but he meant 7

1 extra infantry helps quite a bit there.

The UK can merge the 91 cruiser + 96 units into 93, joining the French Cruiser / Destroyer there (after clearing a path in 96 with planes.) Removing this threat from the board will be extremely costly. The best I can see happening is the Italians making a strafe attack and letting the Germans finish the job on their round (more planes will be lost still)

That + a landing in Greece would be a hard one to crack for the Italians.

I might be missing something, but I don’t see how this puts the Axis in a strong position.

@Young:

You’re right, it’s 7 infantry in France (edited in post 1).

@Omega, I never said that this puts Germany in a strong position, I said it was a comfortable position while making Russia uncomfortable.

@Vance, Germany must take S.France in round 2 (not Italy) to make up for money lost in G1, and to build sea units in round 3.

Right, you said you wanted to drop a fleet into the med G3.  gotcha

Hey Grasshopper, I ran thru your G1 a couple times with TripleA and for what its worth this would be my response:

Build 3 art in Novgorod; 2 inf, 1 art in Ukraine; 1 inf, 3 mechs in Moscow
Strafe Baltic states with 7 inf, 1 art, 1 fighter, then retreat to Novgorod
Take Bessarabia with 4 inf, 1 fig, 1 tac

NCMs:
Land fighter in Novgorod and UK will send the Scotland fighter (UK will do Taranto)
6 inf from Vyborg/Karelia/Archangel to Novgorod

Land fighter, tac in Bryansk
1 inf, 1 art, 2 AA, 1 tank from Moscow to Bryansk

1 mech from Moscow to Ukraine
1 tank, 1 mech from Stalingrad to Ukraine
1 art from NorthWest Ukraine to Ukraine

Activate NorthWest Persia with 2 inf (R2 get Persia and land a plane in NW Persia)

all far east troops go to Buryatia

With my luck I would roll a bunch of 1s  :-)

I see something now that I would change too.  Bombers and tanks could hit Bryansk and Italian bomber could can opener any blockers so I guess I would have to leave inf/art/AA in Moscow and the tanks/mechs/fighter/tac go to Ukraine.

SZ#110 - 2 Submarines, 1 Battleship, 2 Fighters, 2 T.Bombers, 1 S.Bomber

Scramble=tempting.  13% chance of victory.  Tough call.

SZ#111 - 2 Submarines, 2 Fighters, 1 T.Bomber, 1 S.Bomber

Scramble alot less controversial here.  17% chance of victory.

France - 7 Infantry, 4 M.Infantry, 3 Artillery, 3 Tanks

93% chance of victory is alot.  But 100% (with the 6 tanks) is alot better.  On average, not having the 3 extra tanks will cost Germany an extra 2-3 art or mech to take it.  And then there’s the issue that 7% of the time you won’t win and it’s tough coming back from that.

I choose to leave Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, and Greece for Italy, to ensure their financial stability in future rounds.

What is the justification for giving the Bulgarian army to Italy?

This G1 does kill the 7 Russian inf.  But you lose an average of 3 inf in the process.  You lose the 2-3 art or mech in France.  You’re exposed to risk in 110/111 and in France.  Russia gets +5 and Germany doesn’t get +5.  There is no German fig on S. Italy.  Russia has an opportunity to make up to +7 per turn in the Middle East by R3.  And your G1 buy (which seems basically defensive) isn’t a great threat to the Soviets.

Great food for thought but I’m not seeing sufficient incentive to war with the Soviets early on.

We are going to test Vance’s strategy with a league game against me (first game online). We’ll see how it goes.

Hey guys, I just saw a third kind of G1 that has element of my G1 and grasshopper’s G1.  It is in the XDAP tournament in the game between wewin versus headless neds.  Pretty interesting combination of ideas in it and worth a look.

http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=28973.0

I started my first online game with Vance to test G1 and he unfortunately left the board / discontinued his account…

Anyone interested to take the Axis and trying on his strategy as described in this thread?

http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=29231.30

I would be up for another game with a G1 / J1 (or at least J1). It seems like the Axis must be getting some success because this strategy has become popular (Frankly I’m having trouble to see why, I think J1 increases Allies’s chances)

@Young:

Purchase New Units

1 Strategic Bomber
1 Fighter
1 Destroyer

Combat Movement

SZ#106 - 1 Submarine
SZ#110 - 2 Submarines, 1 Battleship, 2 Fighters, 2 T.Bombers, 1 S.Bomber
SZ#111 - 2 Submarines, 2 Fighters, 1 T.Bomber, 1 S.Bomber
France - 7 Infantry, 4 M.Infantry, 3 Artillery, 3 Tanks
Baltic States - 3 Infantry, 2 Tanks, 1 T.Bomber
Eastern Poland - 2 Infantry. 3 Tanks
Bessarabia - 2 Infantry, 1 Tank, 1 Fighter, 1 T.Bomber

The tank in Bessarabia is unnessessary to achieving the desired result, and is simply a juicy target for Russia. Better to leave it out.

Why buy the bomber and fighter? Why not tanks and guys?

@Zhukov44:

 You’re exposed to risk in 110/111 and in France. Â

this is a very important point. in fact, the odds that Germany will win all three battles should UK choose to scramble is only: 67%. (8.18.89.4/100)

Unacceptable risk imo. If the opening led to some obviously dead won position for Axis then maybe or if I was playing a vastly superior opponent and I needed a few breaks to win then perhaps as well.

As it stands, I wouldn’t dream of trying this approach against an equal opponent.