• @GeneralHandGrenade:

    Yes you have to buy the infantry. If you don’t then Germany can take out London with lots of units to spare making it far more difficult to liberate. Those extra infantry will be killing tanks and possibly planes if the Germans don’t dice the UK. Also, if you don’t place infantry there, then Germany can take London with a half-hearted transport buy and a strategic bombing raid on G2 leaving them cash to take on Russia at the same time instead of an overwhelming assault on London.

    Maybe my math is bad, but that’s not how I see it.  I was presuming America would prepare for a sealion possibility with round 1 purchases that look something like 2 carriers, 2 transports, and maybe a sub, and by staging its SZ 10 carrier and transport (plus whatever ships it would need) over to the GoM (ready to turn back to Pacific if sealion isnt threatened.)

    Germany would still need a full commitment with 10 transports bought and even then probably wouldn’t hold it.  With UK losing in 106, doing taranto, only buying one 1 fig/no inf in London, and only able to afford let’s say 8 inf after sbr’s on turn 2, Germany should have all its tanks and a couple other ground troops survive.

    But America can still come in with 8 ground troops, 5 fig, 1 tac, and up to 7 bombers if it needs to (depending on if it can force the channel with its ships alone.  (6 of those bombers depend on UK still owning Scotland, but if Germany diverts a transport from the London landing into Scotland, your 7 planes should still be more than enough.)


  • @wittmann:

    If no fleet was bought, I would build an IC for Egypt and Ft amd 2 Inf for England.
    If a CV, Sub and DD were bought , I would buy Ft  and 6 Inf for England .
    If two or three TTs were bought and no DD , I  Would get a Sub, Ft and 4 Inf .
    Germany and Italy  can still make an American landing in Morocco impossible . I would not presume America was my rescuer, just yet.

    I think 2 inf, 1 fig sounds pretty reasonable because it defends a little without losing much mideast iniative.  But I would argue that if America projects enough force towards the atlantic, that UK buy would work even if Germany bought a cv, sub, and dd.

    Why does America need to land in Morocco?  Are you worried about Luftwaffe violating neutrals’ neutrality to strafe troops in gibraltar?  And why can’t they come from Quebec?

    I like the sub purchase as a way to force Germany to spend money on a ship if it wants to commit.


  • I agree that throughout the whole game, UK definitely needs to keep track at all times of Germany’s invasion potential.  But this question is about balancing costs/benefits.  Previous threads have discussed the value of sealion.  The consensus seems to be that it mires Germany in a gridlock with Russia, but that can be a useful sacrifice if it makes America spend too much time and money to liberate UK, thus giving Japan the game.  But if America can liberate UK in the same turn, then Germany sacrificed its eastern initiative with little to show for it.  So the question isnt how does UK prevent itself from getting conquered at all costs.  The question is what is the absolute minimum UK needs to spend to make sealion not worth it, thus allowing it to project its force out sooner.

    Let me phrase this another way.  6 inf, 1 ftr is usually enough to deter sealion on J3 dow.  So why would UK still need to spend the same amount after a J1 dow?


  • USA should always strive to take Morocco as their opening move into Europe.

    The main reason is because it sits on SZ91, the key SZ on the euro map. Air power can threaten Italy navy and is one turn from flying to London. It is the perfect staging area for USA to project power.

    USA can go east and take Algeria and from that spot can STRAT bomb Italy factories.

    Morocco/Gibraltur is the main staging area for all USA forces In Europe.

    It also opens up during late mid game the possibility of going into Spain and sitting on the front door of W. Europe.


  • In my experience a J1 does not provoke a KJF response from the USA.

    USA does not usually commit one side or the other until around USA4 after a J1.

    Not saying USA is sitting around doing nothing. Iam saying the focus of the USA can not be determined until around USA4 or so.


  • @PainState:

    In my experience a J1 does not provoke a KJF response from the USA.

    USA does not usually commit one side or the other until around USA4 after a J1.

    Not saying USA is sitting around doing nothing. Iam saying the focus of the USA can not be determined until around USA4 or so.

    So what you’re saying is if America doesnt go KJF, it’s free to respond to a sealion?  And if it can respond earlier than usual, does this affect your UK1 builds?

    I understand the value of SZ 91, but after a successful sealion, allied mission changes from establishing a continental beachhead to liberating the isles.  In response to wittman’s post about axis preventing America from liberating UK by stacking in Morocco, i offered gibraltar and quebec as alternatives.

  • '21 '20 '18 '17

    the problem with the liberation idea is that they already blew up one of your teams, took its money, and stopped it from buying for a turn.

    This can never be the Allies plan.  They have to stop Germany from attempting it, by deterring it, regardless of what the Axis gameplan overall is.  If UK buys the 6+1, leave 2 fighters back from Taranto (send 1), and ship in 1 man and 1 armor from Canada, Germany sours to the idea of SL, quick, no matter what its original idea was.

    Watch where Germany positions its land troops.  They have to be pre-staged for sealion.  They cant head east.

  • '18 '17 '16

    Place the 6 inf and 1 fighter on UK1, say your prayers, eat your vitamins. Those units will serve you well all game if they manage to live past G3. If you mess around you will get burned by a decent player. Your factory in the middle east or Egypt will do you no good without an economy. All you will be doing is buying the Axis a factory.

    Depending upon what Germany buys G2 is how you decide to allocate your units after that. If Germany goes after Russia then you get your factory UK2. If they build for Sealion then you place on London UK2.


  • lets look at it this way.

    Germany/Italy has to take Cairo OR London + take out Russia.

    lets just say UK decides the best plan is to not allow Germany to Sea Lion UK.

    They do not scramble any FTR on G1. They do not do the Taranto raid and leave all air power in the UK.

    Well, if it makes Germany balk on G2, decide to hell with that, goes all in on Russia, no real threat on London any more. Is that not a great plan for the Allies on the Europe map?

    UK/USA focus on Africa in the early game to secure Cairo as the Moscow crush is in effect.

    Iam not a fan of UK/USA sending everything they can to Moscow. I prefer sending everything to Cairo/middle east and deny Germany from winning on the Euro map.

    The upside of this plan is IF the USA/UK have not lost focus, they can take Rome which is a VC. So, now Germany has to take out Cairo and then retake Rome to win the game if they do accomplish their goal of taking out Russia.


  • Besides liberation, one of the other reasons J1 and SL don’t mix well is that the US can get a fighter and 1+ bombers over to London before G3 easily.  With the amount of fodder on London the fighter alone will probably take out 2-3 German aircraft.


  • @zergxies:

    Besides liberation, one of the other reasons J1 and SL don’t mix well is that the US can get a fighter and 1+ bombers over to London before G3 easily.� � With the amount of fodder on London the fighter alone will probably take out 2-3 German aircraft.

    Usually on a J1 Attack that is against UK/ANZAC and not USA.

    This is a key point.

    IF Japan J1’s against only UK/ANZAC then USA is still neutral until the start of their production phase, which they can then declare war. This is very important because the USA cannot non combat troops/air power forward into UK territory until they are officially at war…that happens on USA1 during production. Which mean USA units cannot enter UK territories unit USA2 non combat phase.

    IF that is the scenario, USA can not arrive in UK until USA3, which will be to late if there is a G3 Sea Lion in effect.

    Once again I will stress this point.

    Japan/Germany have this tug and pull on the first 2 turns. Japan is the key nation when it comes to Sea Lion and the USA response.

    Japan goes J1 and declares war on the USA…Sea Lion is off the table, that is the bottom line. If you are the Germany player you need to dust off that G2 against Russia plan of attack.

    *** Foot Note ***

    Let me clarify and be clear for new players on this point.

    IF japan declares war on the USA on Turn 1. What that means is two fold.

    #1 USA can now non combat move into any allied country on both the Euro/Pacific map. USA declares war on the Euro Axis powers at the start of the USA1 production phase.

    #2 USA Production ramps up to full war status on USA1.

    USA can get 1 FTR and 1 STR bomber into England on USA 2 for the FTR.

    USA builds 3 FTRS on USA1.

    USA2 3 FTRS fly to Gibraltur.

    USA3 3 FTRS are in London.

    You have now forced Germany to go into London on a G3 invasion or it is all over.

    *** Side note ***

    I hope your Japan partner is not a friend because some German players will come unglued on a J1 against USA.

    Just letting you know.

    :lol: 8-) :-D :evil:


  • I personally haven’t tried a Sea Lion against human players yet but if I were to do it, I would have to convince USA that Japan is gunning hard so I would have Japan go for Philli and Hawaii on turn 1 leaving San Diego Fleet the only remaining US fleet in Pacific and then proceed to go for the Dutch. That might convince USA to ignore UK. I would build no navy on G1 prior because a naval build ‘usually’ hints Sea Lion.

  • '17

    I got a Sea Lion game going on right now. Russia just moved their stack back from E. Poland (R4) and won’t be getting lots of NO money anymore. Germany will secure Leningrad on round 6, and should have no problem sustaining the push while keeping the fleet reinforced underneath the w. germany air base. I had 9 tanks left on London in the Sea Lion game.

    G1 purchase was: 2 bombers / 1 sub (I got diced in the G1 opener on the UK fleets and lost 4 planes in this game). UK got too aggressive with their purchases.
    G2 purchase: 8 transports / 1 destroyer
    G3 purchase: 1 carrier / 1 destroyer (sz 110 placement) and a mixture of ground for Berlin.

    In the game, Japan has virtually no US opposition other than a little bit that the US added to their starting fleet. All Chinese territories are gone on J4 and UK Pacific is turtling.

    The onus of the race is on the US in my opinion when Sea Lion is well executed. I am pushing Russia back now, but they were able to purchase a lot of tanks. This means that Moscow will still be safe for a long time regardless of no UK support. Therefore, I think in a Sea Lion game, the US should still continue to go after Japan to slow them down.

    I really don’t understand the difficulty behind not just defending London with a standard UK1 defense purchase.


  • @PainState:

    @zergxies:

    Besides liberation, one of the other reasons J1 and SL don’t mix well is that the US can get a fighter and 1+ bombers over to London before G3 easily.� � With the amount of fodder on London the fighter alone will probably take out 2-3 German aircraft.

    Usually on a J1 Attack that is against UK/ANZAC and not USA.

    This is a key point.

    IF Japan J1’s against only UK/ANZAC then USA is still neutral until the start of their production phase, which they can then declare war. This is very important because the USA cannot non combat troops/air power forward into UK territory until they are officially at war…that happens on USA1 during production. Which mean USA units cannot enter UK territories unit USA2 non combat phase.

    IF that is the scenario, USA can not arrive in UK until USA3, which will be to late if there is a G3 Sea Lion in effect.

    Once again I will stress this point.

    Japan/Germany have this tug and pull on the first 2 turns. Japan is the key nation when it comes to Sea Lion and the USA response.

    Japan goes J1 and declares war on the USA…Sea Lion is off the table, that is the bottom line. If you are the Germany player you need to dust off that G2 against Russia plan of attack.

    *** Foot Note ***

    Let me clarify and be clear for new players on this point.

    IF japan declares war on the USA on Turn 1. What that means is two fold.

    #1 USA can now non combat move into any allied country on both the Euro/Pacific map. USA declares war on the Euro Axis powers at the start of the USA1 production phase.

    #2 USA Production ramps up to full war status on USA1.

    USA can get 1 FTR and 1 STR bomber into England on USA 2 for the FTR.

    USA builds 3 FTRS on USA1.

    USA2 3 FTRS fly to Gibraltur.

    USA3 3 FTRS are in London.

    You have now forced Germany to go into London on a G3 invasion or it is all over.

    *** Side note ***

    I hope your Japan partner is not a friend because some German players will come unglued on a J1 against USA.

    Just letting you know.

    :lol: 8-) :-D :evil:

    This isn’t a rule I was familiar with.  I tried it in TripleA and it’s totally fine with US declaring war US1 after a J1 against UK and Anzac, and in non-combat moving a fighter to iceland.  Is this rule not implemented in TripleA?

    Regardless most J1s I’ve seen involve taking the Philippines as you have the units, deny a bonus, and benefit from the mobility the naval base grants.  But to your point, it’s not required I suppose :)


  • US Just Cause against Japan is that Japan has declared war on UK/ANZAC and/or has taken full control of French Indo China. US doesn’t care if Japan invades USSR. The only other way to declare war on the US without actually declaring war is moving within two sea zones from US mainland.

    Triple A follows this as far as I know.


  • @Ichabod:

    I got a Sea Lion game going on right now. Russia just moved their stack back from E. Poland (R4) and won’t be getting lots of NO money anymore. Germany will secure Leningrad on round 6, and should have no problem sustaining the push while keeping the fleet reinforced underneath the w. germany air base. I had 9 tanks left on London in the Sea Lion game.

    G1 purchase was:  2 bombers / 1 sub  (I got diced in the G1 opener on the UK fleets and lost 4 planes in this game). UK got too aggressive with their purchases.
    G2 purchase:  8 transports / 1 destroyer
    G3 purchase:  1 carrier / 1 destroyer (sz 110 placement) and a mixture of ground for Berlin.

    In the game, Japan has virtually no US opposition other than a little bit that the US added to their starting fleet. All Chinese territories are gone on J4 and UK Pacific is turtling.

    The onus of the race is on the US in my opinion when Sea Lion is well executed.  I am pushing Russia back now, but they were able to purchase a lot of tanks. This means that Moscow will still be safe for a long time regardless of no UK support. Therefore, I think in a Sea Lion game, the US should still continue to go after Japan to slow them down.

    I really don’t understand the difficulty behind not just defending London.

    Didn’t you surrender in that game around turn 11?


  • UK can easily stop Sea Lion by stacking infantry on the island and reinforcing it from Canada however if Germany and Italy around the clock bomb London, it makes it hard to build due to spending in repair.

    However, it’s also hard for Germany to defend London from liberation because you can only build 3 per turn on the island so you’re forced to reinforce it as needed with your navy making the Kreigsmarine more of a critical target AND you’re going to weaken the incoming assault from USSR so you have to ask yourself, is it worth trying to fight USSR with a weakened force, possibly lose, but you sure showed those dirty Brits or do you just withdraw from London forcing US to liberate it and take those battle harden 6th Army and use them against USSR?

  • '19 '17 '16

    @PainState:

    IF Japan J1’s against only UK/ANZAC then USA is still neutral until the start of their production phase, which they can then declare war. This is very important because the USA cannot non combat troops/air power forward into UK territory until they are officially at war…that happens on USA1 during production. Which mean USA units cannot enter UK territories unit USA2 non combat phase.

    But USA can DOW on Japan at the start of their combat movement phase in this situation. So it’s pointless for Japan to keep peace with the USA except in the sense that they are then able to ignore USA units at sea on their turn.

  • '17

    @Chrisx:

    @Ichabod:

    I got a Sea Lion game going on right now. Russia just moved their stack back from E. Poland (R4) and won’t be getting lots of NO money anymore. Germany will secure Leningrad on round 6, and should have no problem sustaining the push while keeping the fleet reinforced underneath the w. germany air base. I had 9 tanks left on London in the Sea Lion game.

    G1 purchase was: 2 bombers / 1 sub (I got diced in the G1 opener on the UK fleets and lost 4 planes in this game). UK got too aggressive with their purchases.
    G2 purchase: 8 transports / 1 destroyer
    G3 purchase: 1 carrier / 1 destroyer (sz 110 placement) and a mixture of ground for Berlin.

    In the game, Japan has virtually no US opposition other than a little bit that the US added to their starting fleet. All Chinese territories are gone on J4 and UK Pacific is turtling.

    The onus of the race is on the US in my opinion when Sea Lion is well executed. I am pushing Russia back now, but they were able to purchase a lot of tanks. This means that Moscow will still be safe for a long time regardless of no UK support. Therefore, I think in a Sea Lion game, the US should still continue to go after Japan to slow them down.

    I really don’t understand the difficulty behind not just defending London.

    Didn’t you surrender in that game around turn 11?

    This game is at the start of turn 5 and is a saved game that started last night. I don’t remember which one you’re referring to. I’ve probably played a 100+ games now on triplea.

    What is your handle on triplea live? I don’t think I’ve seen you on before.

    Probably 70% of my Sea Lion games have resulted in an Axis Victory. Most of my successful Sea Lion games were against opponents that write it off having not yet seen how effective it is. In many cases, Sea Lion is like a “One Trick Pony.”

    The 30% losses were at that grey area where the UK placed just enough troops to make it very expensive for Germany like 2 fighters / 2 infantry instead of 1fighter / 6 inf. Germany may have captured London, but lost most of its air and all of the tanks which are needed to push Russia back.

    And or the AAA guns hit an unusual amount of times and I lost like 5 planes which then resulted in the loss of my tanks. People tend to forget that if the dice hit more than 1/6, it’s way above average. Some of my Sea Lion losses where it wasn’t due to a pyrrhic landing were when the Allied player IGNORED Germany and went full throttle at Japan knowing that Russia could take care of itself for a long time. Often Japan is way behind in a Sea Lion game having not done a J1 or J2 attack. They go for a late game liberation of London.

  • '17

    @Caesar:

    UK can easily stop Sea Lion by stacking infantry on the island and reinforcing it from Canada however if Germany and Italy around the clock bomb London, it makes it hard to build due to spending in repair.

    However, it’s also hard for Germany to defend London from liberation because you can only build 3 per turn on the island so you’re forced to reinforce it as needed with your navy making the Kreigsmarine more of a critical target AND you’re going to weaken the incoming assault from USSR so you have to ask yourself, is it worth trying to fight USSR with a weakened force, possibly lose, but you sure showed those dirty Brits or do you just withdraw from London forcing US to liberate it and take those battle harden 6th Army and use them against USSR?

    Caesar, if SL is done right, yes Germany might only place 3 infantry per turn on London, but the Germany Navy (and an intact air force; if not lost in Sea Lion), is often enough to destroy the US Navy in SZ 110 and simultaneously re-capture London. This results in forcing the US to take a much longer time than people realize for the US to really be able to liberate London if they come over too quick. For awhile, Germany can get away with just adding 1 sub to their Navy per turn because they have 5 fighters @4 to defend that (2 on carrier + 3 on air base) and a crap ton of planes to kill a light US fleet if it comes to SZ 110.

    Also, if done right, Russia can be dislodged from E. Poland on R4 (Russia’s optimal position for getting lots of NO money) and begin the drive to the 1st objective of Leningrad.

    What I’m describing is based from experience on several successful Sea Lion games. I fully contend that I’m not that good at this game. In this thread are players who’ve beaten me. Like I just mentioned, Sea Lion is kind of a One Trick Pony. It’s not something I ever intend to do. SL is a target of opportunity that I want to occur. Several things have to go right and the UK player has to get just a little too aggressive on UK1. Beware the G1 purchase of 2 bombers / 1 sub. It works for several directions.

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