ShawdoHAwk,
When I’ve played Italy (table top game), it’s hard for me to recover after the devastating Taranto raid and it probably best to let Germany kill the UK med fleet. I think I’ve only had 1 table top game where as Italy I was able to control the med with subs and bombers. In that game the Allies were doing a Kill Japan First plan so there was a better chance for Italy get somewhere.
When I play UK, I’m hoping to do what you suggest, put subs and a destroyer in the Red Sea, and then kill the remaining Italian warships. Which of course leads me back to the my suggestion of the Greece Operation objective.
Historically, I suspect a large part of why Churchill pushed to invade Greece was out of (1) a sense of honor and shame about having failed to defend Greece in 1941, (2) a longstanding Greco-philia in elite British culture, and (3) an interest in drawing the post-war border with the Soviets somewhere rather southeast of Vienna. I’m not sure there were any strictly tactical justifications for a Greek invasion. Greece is mountainous, full of islands, and didn’t have any strategic raw materials or industries.
In Global 40, I’m happy to land in Greece if I have a loaded transport to spare in the eastern Med…sometimes you can overestimate how much force you’ll need to wipe Italy off of the African continent, so if you have extra forces in the theater and you’re not in imminent danger of losing Stalingrad, then Greece is a natural place to stage a “diversion.” Germany can deal with a small landing in Greece without too much trouble, but if the British resources are there anyway, then you might tie up more Axis resources in Greece than you would in Persia. And if the Axis totally ignore your landing, then I suppose you may as well turn it into a beachhead.
But this whole idea of intentionally preparing for a Greek landing, and buying multiple additional units specifically to support the landing, seems off base to me. There’s nothing that exciting in or near Greece. It borders Albania and Bulgaria, both of which are only worth 1 IPC. It’s not a chokepoint on the way from anywhere to anywhere else, and nobody needs it as an airbase or naval base. You don’t flip any national objectives by playing in the Balkans. I guess in BM there is a small NO for Greece, but you also need Sardinia or Sicily, and if you’ve got enough naval dominance to start picking off islands in the central Med, you should be trying to build up to capture Rome, not messing around with a diversionary nuisance campaign.
But this whole idea of intentionally preparing for a Greek landing, and buying multiple additional units specifically to support the landing, seems off base to me.
you should be trying to build up to capture Rome, not messing around with a diversionary nuisance campaign.
I think I implied agreement with this type of sentiment in my initial post in the second and third paragraphs. Especially the one titled “Requirements.”
But also, your point about there being nothing there…limited threats as no victory city nearby, not much IPCs ect…is partially why in one game as the Axis player I ignored a landing in Greece too long. By ignoring it too long, I let the UK player turn it into a real landing that did begin to threaten money like Romania ect and cause me to divert troops down there, rather keeping my drive and hold of the Caucasus strong.
As pointed out UK landings in the Balkans won’t flip the income tracker very much, but could be a good diversion of axis resources. Sounds like the UK is probably doing this Greece mission on its own, so a couple things would need to happen for it to be effective (as short lived as it might be).
Italian navy sunk (probably UK1), so they can’t use it to quickly respond by hitting your fleet, or transport units over to crush your landing party. Being you probably lost your UK Med fleet in the early rounds, you might consider adding a new carrier to your make shift fleet so the Luftwaffe bleeds if they hit you a second time.
You should probably clear out N Africa so Italy can’t grow its income by pushing into the French territories (depends on what the US is doing, maybe you want that so USA retakes them and gets the otherwise lost French income). Also because you are transporting most of you Egyptian’s to Greece you don’t want the Italians to get any ideas. I know you can easily squash any Italian threat because they can’t get more ground units over w/o navy, but it could distract your reinforcements to Greece. On a side note often times I see the Italians use there remaining transport to get some of those N African units back to Europe where they would be more useful after a Taronto attack.
Catch the axis out of position (no mobile ground units in range of Greece), which is possible IMO. You don’t want them to push you back into the sea the same turn you land. Being this could be a solo mission you will need to hold Greece to bring in reinforcements on your next turn. It would be a good Idea to get an AA gun in there too. You can bring in reinforcements from Egypt each turn if you station your fleet in sz99 (tpts move back-in forth), but then you aren’t convoying Italy so you should also probably try to get some subs into sz97 as well. If you station your fleet in sz97 for convoy, then you would need to either split up your trts and only get 1/2 the units in every turn, bring in units every other turn, or have a flow of units moving to Toburk/Syria to shuttle them across in one turn (the later would require some advanced planning).
What is the goal once you take Greece?
Do you want to build an IC to mobilize more ground units or was it strictly a diversionary tactic? I guess this decision might rest on how the axis respond, and it’s unlikely that they just ignore it (although they may not be able to immediately respond). So they will either redirect units already built (which is good because they were meant for Moscow), or possibly build some mobile units which would take a couple turns to get to the Balkans.
So yes I think an allied landing in Greece can make things interesting in the right situation. Besides being a diversion of axis resources UK ftrs can fly directly from Greece to Moscow in one turn. So if it gets to hot you have a several options IMO. Stay there and force them to hit you chewing up valuable mobile axis units (and maybe some air) that even if they don’t die are now 3 turns from Moscow. Could attack axis units that are in range just to remove them from play. Could also do a defensive retreat having some units jump back on your tpts to cause havoc somewhere else (like wack a mole lol), while the others either attack killing axis ground units that are in range, or forcing them to come down to finish you off as your ftrs fly to Moscow.
One other thing that was kinda touched on is if Greece is a safe place to transport over some ground units for 1 turn, then it would be a great place to use as a staging point to attack Turkey as part of a neutral crush. Say you only have 3 UK transports in the eastern Med, you can drop 6 units on Greece from sz99 (if axis don’t have ground units in range to kill them). Then next turn those 6 units walk into Turkey (along w/any units in Syria or Iraq), and the 3 transports are used to ferry in 6 more units from Egypt/TJ for 12+ ground units and air power to quick take out Turkey. It’s similar to having the USA stage ground units on Gibraltar, and next turn walk them into Spain as the US transports head home to pick up units to return the next turn. Doing both of these at the same time would be pretty cool.
I’m currently playing as the Allies in an OOB G40 game and I’m coming up on UK6. Turn one I stacked heavy in London and cleared a lot of the Med. The axis did a J1 attack and it looked like Sealion was off the table so I did a buy that I have never done which was a CV in South Africa UK2. That badboy has been holding down the Med strong, especially when you consider the med was wiped after Taranto. That carrier along witha few allied destroyers and a cruiser is just enough to hold off part of the Luftwaffe in range. So I may just have to land a few loaded transports on Greece my coming turn, considering most of the German ground forces are at the gates of Russia or preventing US landings in the West and Italy is turtled. This is the perfect time to spring a landing in Greece. Mind you I only have 3 transports loaded but the Axis are a full turn away from dealing with it. I’m going for it. If I can land planes next turn and hold it a factory might be in play. Especially with 20 US ground units in Gibralter and a small stack of UK ground and air on my Iraq factory. This is quite juicy.
Anyone else ever buy a CV in South Africa early with UK?
Yep, I even suggested a carrier buy in my above post (#1). Would either be built in S Africa or Egypt (if you built an IC).
You sure did…good call…
Lots of good ideas here guys.
If the UK Tarantos, they are pretty likely to lose the first carrier they start with. They probably should bring it to the battle, as it can soak 2 casualties but this carrier (HMS Illustrious?) ends up being really valuable if it survives.
If you bid a sub, you can bring 1 tac 1 sub 2 figthers 1 strat 1 DD. This is not enough, but it doesn’t force you to bring the carrier in to die. I call this “Taranto lite” but its not going to work if they have 3 scramblers.
So, since you probably can’t save it all, you have 3 choices
If you don’t control the med after UK2, building either factory (Iraq or Egypt) on UK1 or UK2 is kind of dangerous (since Italy can invade Syria, or hit your surviving planes, or otherwise set up to grab the factory before you can protect it). As others have pointed out, you already have 2 other factories to use; you don’t abs. have to have that production its just right up in the Axis’ face.
In that spirit, I’d say that the greek invasion is something that shouldn’t happen early in the game, or in a way that you risk any TTs that you have. Even UK is doing awesome, it will need a grand fleet or more to defend against a massive airstrike, and you can’t risk losing it before then. All continental invasions are easy for the Axis to rebuke, so you need to make this crucial sacrifice of ground units at a time when Germany cant respond or it takes away crucial power from the eastern thrust.
As we’ve discussed at length, UK isn’t calling the dance and so they cant do any factories or expensive builds if Germany is going to invade. If they aren’t going to invade, its open season on your buys but you don’t have the $$ to power more than 1 focus at a time.
Some suggestions
buy TT for SA, along with an arty. Have the TT that is in the red sea shuttle back and forth every turn, naval base to naval base, this is almost as good as an Egypt factory and you do both, UK owns the levant. Forget sea power; just use land to take and hold the oil.
buy subs 1 per turn in SA. don’t do Taranto (or do Taranto lite). Get these guys together in the red sea, hold open the canal, and contest the med with planes, ward Italy off. If they don’t play or cant, use these to crush Italy’s income, after you eliminate all their DDs.
Especially in G42, build the Persia factory and use that to save India. With a combination of Allied planes, a delayed Japanese threat (J2 or later), and every guy and mech and tank you can bring, you can make india hard to take. During a G40 J1, probably this wont work as well as it takes longer to seize Persia and get that started. (UK3 first units built)
When I enter the Med with my UK fleet I prefer to go straight for Rome. I will wait until I have enough transports (4) and enough ground units (16) to hit Rome twice on back to back turns. The second wave of ground units will be waiting in Libya so I don’t have to move to get them and give the Italians a chance to recover. At the same time the Americans will also hit either Rome or Northern Italy in the same sea zone (95) thus giving me 2 fleets in the same sea zone to protect against the axis planes. The US fleet is a massive one with at least 2 loaded carriers and 2 battleships along with Cruisers and Destroyers plus at least 4 transports shucking troops turn after turn from Eastern US. It’s an indefensible move as long as the axis has given you enough time to set it all up.
After Italy has fallen then a third wave of UK ground units will hit Greece. At this point the only question is does Japan have the wherewithal to take 6 victory cities?
Yes I’m buying it. I like having 2 of them because the Germans have to think twice about attacking 4 capital ships with a number of other ships thrown into the mix. You can wipe out the whole Luftwaffe if they get greedy and try to take out both navies at once. My goal before I sail across the Atlantic is to buy a fleet big enough that it dissuades the Germans from even attempting to take it out. It seems to work just fine.
