• What is the Alamo? Well in military terms it is the famous battle where the Texans stood their ground and fought to the death. Now, granted, the Texans won the war but the battle is considered a last stand scenario.

    So, Is Moscow really the Alamo for the Allies? Do you really need to throw everything the Allies have into that battle? If they should lose the battle is the war over?
    It seems to me a lot of players think, devise plans, come up with ways to throw everything the UK/USA have into the battle to tip the scales because the entire war depends on that one battle.

    Remember the Alamo I say. The Texan army could of thrown all in at the Alamo. But they decided to do another plan. Fall back with their entire army and fight another day on a field of their choice. Well, we know now how that worked out for Santa Anna and his army, dying in a swamp.

    I propose that the Russians should adopt the exact same battle plan.

    The common group think is that the battle on the European map after the fall of Moscow is Cairo or London. That will decide the game and war. The main issue with this group think is that you now put the UK/Euro in the position that they have to defend both Cairo and London with under 40 IPC. This is a position they cannot hold.

    So, you could have the USA help out with this situation but it is still under turn 10. They cannot help out the UK in enough force to tip the balance at this point in the game. So the Allies will just buy time, just like the Texan army did.

    Once Germany is at the gates of Moscow you move ALL your forces out of Moscow towards the Middle East or China. Germany cannot blitz through Moscow so that will give you a turn to retreat.

    The Idea is that Russia is buying time with their huge stack. They keep falling back to the Middle East. You will be tempted to make Persia your Alamo moment with them but do not bite on that. Keep falling back to Cairo. Germany has to kill off the large stack of Russians, they are the only ones standing in the way of victory.

    Force Germany to attack Cairo with the entire Russian stack plus the UK and USA forces defending.

    I hear some dude yelling about Germany buying a huge navy and going after London instead, valid point indeed.

    But we are talking about a Allied plan that moves the game into Turn 12+. I will not go on and on about what the allies should be doing. You should have a good idea about that already.

    If we are talking Turn 14+ and the Allies are still in the game obviously the Pacific map is taken care of at that point.

    There are so many random things that could happen. Moments where Russia could counter attack or exploit an over sight by the Germans.

    Bottom line: Do the Allies really need to make Moscow the be all/end all Alamo moment of the game?

    IMHO: NO

  • '19 '17 '16

    Running from Moscow makes sense if you can’t defend it and won’t kill many troops standing firm, but the probability is that you won’t get to the Middle East before the Germans will unless you go down via Kazakhstan and Eastern Persia. Going that way doesn’t really save Egypt in any likely scenario.

    So I’ve certainly seen it done. And there are times it makes sense to do so. It just isn’t as good as holding Moscow and closing in on the Germans and Italians from Norway, Greece and/or Normandy. And convoying off the Italians’ income.


  • Just finished up a game a couple days ago with some friends, and it always seems to come down to a valiant last stand at Moscow followed by either an admission of defeat or (as is the case with the game we played) Italy is contained and the Allies can still hold Egypt to some extent.

    That is an interesting idea that could be considered when the Germans look as though they are a couple turns away from taking Moscow. I’m not sure I’d do it just because of the amount of time to move those infantry would make it totally obvious to the Axis what you were doing. At that point you are completely giving up Russia’s IPC income to the Axis which is not very wise. The advantage to this Alamo battle is that the Axis also lose a lot of units and Germany remains licking it’s proverbial wounds for a turn of the game at least.

    So while it’s interesting and I have never considered it, I’m not sure it would be worth it.

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