You could adopt the basis for the LL game for doing a quick check during OTB play (Over the board, or Face-to-face). Add up the attackers dice points and divide by six and subtract that many units from the defender. Do the same for his side. For this exercise, I’d only ‘hit’ my opponent with a remainder of five, and I’d ‘take a hit’ with any remainder over two. Keep doing this until the outcome becomes obvious. I do this during my opponents turns during OTB play because when the Russians are fighting the Germans, the Jap infantry I want to attack as UK aren’t going anywhere. Of course, when you’re the Americans thinking about the Japs, you don’t have as much assurance where things will be on your turn. After you play a few games, you find out that a lot of early turns become very predictable.
I really use this method. I was looking at a R2 turn the other day and realized the opponent should lose one territroy to my attack in two rounds whether I added the two Russian fighters or not, but those same fighters could be added to a big gamble attack on the Germans facing the Caucasus and turn the odds in my favor, although it was still a big gamble. I think I had something like 3 inf, 1 tank, and 1 arty facing 3 infantry, 2 tanks and 1 arty, but when I added the two fighters things looked possible. I ran the attack just to see if I could eliminate the two German tanks knowing whatever was left the Germans would kill on their turn. I was basically taking a chance that I could trade one Russian tank for two German tanks.
The first round figured this way …
Rus: 3 inf, 1 arty, 1 tank, 2 fighters = 15 pts … 2+ hits
Ger: 3 inf, 1 arty, 2 tanks = 14 pts … 2+ hits
Round two …
Rus: 1 inf, 1 arty, 1 tank, 2 fighters = 13 pts … 2 hits
Ger: 1 inf, 1 arty, 2 tanks = 10 pts … 1+ hits
Round three …
Rus: 1 arty, a tank, 2 fighters = 12 pts … 2 hits
Ger: 2 tanks = 6 pts … 1 hit
Russian wins and leaves 1 arty and 1 tank for the Germans to clobber, but wins 5 extra IPCs from Germany for tank plus IPCs for territory and strategically precluded Germany from attacking the Caucasus on the next turn.
Believe it or not, I am working on a table in Microsoft Excel that will give the odds directly for a battle like this. Sea battles are harder, but I think I might get that figured out someday. Land battles are pretty straight forward if you stay organized. Artillery make things interesting, because if you lose enough infantry the odds change differently as you lose forces than a regular battle.
Good Luck.