German Sub Opener

A question for research, thanks for your participation.

I like the minor factory in Romania.  That helps gets units to the south which starts out sparesly defended.  One tricky thing to do is once you have a factory, buy 1 sub and place it in SZ100.  The UK will never get one of their bonuses (for no German subs on the board), and the only way they’ll be able to kill it is by taking Turkey and then moving through, or by having Russia build a factory and then a DD or two.  Both scenarios aren’t very likely.

I am in a Global game now.  We just finished Round 9 and decided on a break for a while.  I am playing Germany and the Russian player is also handling China. Germany captured Paris Round 1, forced a Sealion Round 2 and was successful but at somewhat high cost.  Round 3 took the 3 big neutrals - Spain, Sweeden and Turkey - which also took a fair amount of resources.  Therefore, I don’t think I was able to build up enough in the east for Barbarossa like I would have preferred.  I had a good force by end of Round 3, but it certainly could have been better. Italy really struggled with Britain in Africa and the Med. Japan took a gamble by bringing USA into the war Round 1 by attacking Brits and the Philippines. As for Russia, first three rounds she spent building a lot of infantry along the border with a few artillery and tanks.  Round 4 Russia actually attacked Germany, which I really was not expecting.  Sank all my transports and took an unoccupied Sweeden from me.  Round 5, she had destroyed all three army groups in Europe, took Warsaw and was only frustrated by Finland with a bloody repulse.  Round 6, she threw a massive army at Berlin.  Lucklily, the last couple of rounds of combat went my way and Berlin survived with just 1 fighter unit left.  Both sides were severely depleted but Germany still had her capital. Fast forward to Round 9.  Now Germany is getting strong again, starting to advance into Russia itself and threatening Leningrad.  German Navy has been sunk by the US Navy and they keep fighting back and forth over Spain, which US currently holds with a fairly strong force.  Italy finally finished off all British and French troops in Africa and has a tank running around blitzing territories.  Most of Italy’s resources have been spent trying to help Germany with Spain and threatening Russia with a small force from the south. Japan has all but destroyed China – 1 territory and 1 infantry unit left.  They have grabbed Calcutta and control Eastern Asia and the DEI.  However, both the Imperial Navy and the US Navy have been slugging it out and are almost non-existant.  Also, Japan has tanks creeping west toward Russia. So, while Russia is still a ways from being “out of it”, they are in pretty bad shape.  I have seen this in other games as well.  Russia is just too dang big and can’t seem to get a decent number of reiinforcements to the front.  When they start a big offensive, if it runs out of steam then it seems like Germany always grinds them back.  Unless the US can get over there with a large enough force to really threaten Germany in Western Europe, Russia will be taken out and then Germany will have plenty of money to deal with the US and push them back out of Europe with help from Italy.

Taking out SZ 97 is the most crucial move for UK 1.  Even if Germany is threatening Sealion all UK has to do is send the strategic bomber + the SZ 98 fleet (assuming a sub bid) and they have a 78% chance against a 3 fighter scramble.  The only other viable option is buying an air base and Non combating the SZ 98 fleet over to Gibraltar.  This is an inferior move in my opinion.  Smashing Italy’s Cruiser, transport and BB on turn 1 is just so good.

House rule:  Submarines fire at 2 on defense if there is no enemy destroyer present…?

So basically, the transport that starts in sz6, is off the coast of Caroline at the end of J1, right?

You could post it here: http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=34278.0

Even without the picture i think its problem solved! There is a set of Xeno - World at War also in the collection so it must be from that . We dont use those units i thought but it solves alot of questions sorting our colors out! Thanks!