German Factory in Ukraine Turn 1

@Amon:

on Germanys first turn

unless you go to ˝all out attack upon USSR˝

buy an AC

and destroy the UK vessels plus USSR forces in the east

There is a wide variance of opinion on the value of a German Baltic fleet.

The safer play is all ground units.  Some German players like the Baltic fleet if the set-up in the east against Russia is favorable for German naval expenditures.

I would lke to answer the Question, about blocking the UK from an attack into Karilia on UK1.
I always sacrifice a sub from the Baltic fleet and place it off of Norway to prevent the UK from either softening up or taking back Karilia. i find that this allows my Infantry one turn to catch up, and I can usually hold Karilia for several turns, and deny the UK or USA as well from re-inforcing there or even trying to go heavily into Norway for 4 or 5 turns, which means I will get income from them for 4 or 5 turns as well.
The problem is, you have to abandon western europe. Of course it will turn into a trade zone with each sie taking its’ turn on capturing it, but you will usually get it back in the trading process for 5 or 6 turns at least. Meanwhile, get as much as you can out of Africa. Make them come after you with full effort. This means less pressure on your european territories for 4 or so turns. More time to build for the push against Russia. The Eastern front is a chess match. Position is everything! Get your big stack where it can threaten the most while still being out of reach from a combined, albeit staggered, Allied attack.
  Some players prefer it to be in Eastern Europe, after pulling back from Karilia, while others like the Balkans better. Belorussia is too close to the front for me unless I have at least 3 turns of full infantry builds in my stack.
As far as the fleets are concerned, they will die, at the Allies whim. All you should do is hope they get some hits when they go down.
  Well, good luck, and have fun!  :wink:

As far as the Russian front is concerned, Germany dosen’t have enough left after R1 to do much with out there. It will take a couple turns to build up and press forward. I usually leave 1 Inf per territory on the Eastern front just to make the Russians fight for them, and build my stack in EE. My first tun builds are: 1 panzer, 5 artillery, and 5 Infantry.
I put the panzer and 1 Inf in southern europe and the rest in Germany.
But that is my strat, to give my Infantry more attacking power.
one Infantry + one artillery= 4 attack points for a cost of 7 IPC.
one Infantry + one Armor  = 4 attack points for a cost of 8 IPC.
After a few rounds those few extra IPC will add up.
Of course, it is not as sexy as Panzers running around so I get a tank or two every round, as they do well in the defending department later on.
Good luck in your game.
  Crazy Ivan  :roll:

@Francis:

Crazy Ivan,

Thanks for the advice. My current plan is to go Africa heavy in order to get the IPCs and to either discourage the allies from attempting an African Campaign, or in your words, force them to go all out to get it back. My concern with this was taking my luftwaffe out of the eastern front, and therefore being exposed to a potential joint strike at my largest eastern army from Russia and the Caucus.

A compromise for this was to go heavy in Africa, and leave all my aircraft within striking distance for any landing in Algeria. My next part of the plan was to consolidate my eastern front into a large army located in the Balkans. While this forsakes the Ukraine for a turn, it also keeps your forces from being attacked from Russia and the Caucus jointly. If I have a small army at Karelia, then the Russian army will have to divert some attention north.

Turn 2 would either be me smoking any forces landed in Africa, or flying my planes to the E. Front to lay waste to Ukraine. My big problem is that any pressure left off of Russia really makes taking Moscow that much harder. If Russia is gaining IPCs then I believe Germany is in Trouble.

In G1, I usually use only one fighter on the Russian Front using the other to take out UK fleet and Egypt. Aircrafts used in Africa may land in Libya and from there they can support attack in Ukraine in G2.

I usually attack Karelia in G1 and Ukraine or Belorussia, stacking my army in EE. Following two turns I switch territories with Russia (Karelia, Belorussia and Ukraine) trading units with Russia. Buying a lot of infantries and panzers Germany will strengthen his position. If Russia is so gentle to come in range of my EE army I will strafe it down to a couple of units.
For the 4th turn Japan should be in position to attack Moscow and then in G4 I try to prepare for moving to Ukraine my main German Army. A large stack of infantry in Ukraine give to Russia a big problem. Both West Russia and Caucasus are threatened. Russia may:

• defend both, then Germany may attack one of them in the following turn;
• defend only one (for example) West Russia, then Germany, depending on the board relative position, may advance or send a picket force;
• pull back from both territories for stacking Moscow;

During this turns the main objective for the Kriegsmarine is to hinder the UK, USA fleet movements. I do not spend nothing for naval units, buying only infantries, panzers and stukas.
Usually, I do not buy any artillery, attacking structures based on infantry and artillery matched one to one, are more subject to skew than infantry/panzers attack structure. Few artillery together with the stack of infantry are useful, however, so after the buying of inf and panzers if some IPC are left convert some infantry to artillery is useful for increasing the attack punch.

@Romulus:

For the 4th turn Japan should be in position to attack Moscow and then in G4 I try to prepare for moving to Ukraine my main German Army. A large stack of infantry in Ukraine give to Russia a big problem. Both West Russia and Caucasus are threatened. Russia may:

• defend both, then Germany may attack one of them in the following turn;
• defend only one (for example) West Russia, then Germany, depending on the board relative position, may advance or send a picket force;
• pull back from both territories for stacking Moscow;

Wow, 4th turn assault on Moscow for Japan?  That’s very agressive and usually indicative of poor allied play out against Japan.  A compentant allied player can delay Japan with strong pull back moves as well as possible counter-attacks via tanks based in Moscow.

I think more that your point is that you would hope to be able to push on Russia from both the east and the west of Moscow at the same time.

Yes Axis_roll, I have not expressed correctly the concept! Sorry!
Thanks for your obervation.

I intend that for 4th turn Japan is able to start the assalt towards Moscow. I do not mean that Japan is near the Moscow territory. Usually Japan is still 2 (or 3) territories away from Moscow territory in the fourth turn.
But in the fourth turn the Japanese should be able to increase the pressure from the east and IMHO a good move for Germany is to increase also pressure from the west. At same time something should be tempted to slow the  UK/USA from giving support to Russia.

My overall idea is to not going head on against Russia in the first turns but wait for Japanese support. I think that is better to attack from both sides the Russia. Germany, in some cases, may conquer Moscow alone, but generally an help from Japanese make the operation more quick.

Even if Germany holds Ukraine early, better build 5 more inf instead in Germany/Italy and march them east. 2 turns later, they arrive (compared to 6 inf Ukraine could have built by then).
It’s more flexible so, because the 3 inf in Germany and 3 in EEU or Balkans are adding to the defense of their ‘pipeline’ and can reverse at any time if needed.

My preferred 1G build is 12inf 1arty = 40 IPC. Tanks are good to add later or replace the slow flow, creating a ‘cumulative charge’ in which 4 turns of production arrive over 2 turns to overwhelm Ukr/Caucasus/Moscow.

@U-505:

You do NOT want to let the sz13 BB live. Ever.

Orly?

Evar?

Nevar?

Sarah Michelle Gellar?

I would say that the UK battleship at Gibraltar and Anglo-Egypt are Germany’s two most crucial battles.  But that’s only if Germany doesn’t have a decent chance on securing London.  True, that’s almost never.  But that’s ALMOST never.  Not “never ever”.

@Francis:

Has anyone ever built a factory in the Ukraine on Germany Turn 1? The problem with the Eastern front has always been logistics. Why not a factory right next to the caucus? Please let me know what you think. I know this takes a lot of much needed troops away, but is it worth it?

You get all kindsa weird strats, and a lot of German strats get cooked up.  You oughta join the Caspian Sub Yahoo group.  Building a factory in the Ukraine is what I think they refer to as the Donut shop.  Or the Hot Dog Stand.  Or something like that.

I am of the opinion that you never want to build an industrial complex with Germany, barring extremely unusual circumstances.  If you build an industrial complex, that’s 15 IPC that you didn’t spend on infantry or tanks, and you probably want an AA gun there, which takes time to move up.  You then have an additional point that you need to defend.

If the Allies are landing in Western Europe or containing Germany in some other fashion, then you need units in the west anyways, in which case you’ll want tanks at Eastern Europe to defend Eastern Europe and threaten any Allied landing in Western Europe.  15 IPC is three less tanks you can use.

If the Allies aren’t landing at Western Europe or messing with Germany (i.e. killing Japan), then you have to crack Caucasus before Japan feels the pain, probably using S. Europe’s fleet starting G3-4 to support.  Once you crack the Caucasus, you have a 4 unit production center on Moscow’s doorstep.  So why not build an industrial complex then?  Because even then, you have a S. Europe battleship and transport; 16 IPC buys two more S. Europe transports that can drop right into any number of territories (Ukraine, Caucasus, Anglo-Egypt, Trans-Jordan), giving the Germans far more flexibility, and two fodder transports can help against light Allied air attacks on the Med fleet.

So what happens if the Allies didn’t land at Western Europe or land troops at Norway/Karelia, and built a big fat load of fighters, which can blow up the Med fleet?  Well, then, just build a hell of a lot of tanks with Germany, and bust Moscow in the face; Moscow can put up a spirited defense, but with Japs in the East and Germans from the west, you start seeing Axis tanks traded for Allied fighters, which just isn’t a good deal for the Allies.

@Francis:

My current strategy thanks to your input (everyone) is to build about 10 INF and 2 ARM first turn.

My attacks will Be Karelia from Norway and an amphibious assault from W. Europe.

Take out the Med BB with fighters and SZ 8 Sub

Take out the Med DD and storm Egypt.

This leaves me with kind of a wasp’s nest of fighters and bomber in the med that could destroy any UK or US landing in Algeria.

Usually you park 1 fighter 1 bomber at Libya (they can’t go anywhere else after hitting Anglo-Egypt and/or the UK destroyer), and park others at W. Europe.  If you park at W. Europe, you can trade some European territories and land back at W. Europe, or you can start the W. Europe/E. Europe (or whatever the second territory is) fighter split.  You do the fighter split so you can trade territories with Russia; if the Allied navy gets close, half the fighters can hit, if the Allied navy gets closer, all the fighters can hit.  You do not park air in Africa usually.

My fear remains that the USSR can mount a serious counter offensive on the Eastern Front.

Oh noes, they have people.  with guns!  imma get in my tank and drive away!  Well of course Russia’s gonna try to mess with you.  But there isn’t a whole lot you can do about that anyways.  What would you do to try to shut the USSR down on G1?  You can’t do it.  So just do what you CAN do.

On turn 1 is it wise to move your baltic fleet north to block the route to archangel?

Move the Baltic fleet out as a group, and it gets totaallly fried by Allied air/navy.  Doesn’t help that the UK can drop at least a transport in as fodder (they don’t HAVE to send the UK battleship, and if they don’t, you can’t blow the battleship next turn with German air).  Just leave the Baltic fleet where it’s at.  Let the UK blow it up.  If the UK uses air on it, fine, the UK loses fighters, so what if you traded 36 IPC of navy for 10-20 of fighters; you weren’t gonna do a lot with most of those ships anyways.  I mean yeah, some ppl go for a German Baltic carrier on G1, but I’m not really a supporter of that.

@Bunnies:

@Francis:

Has anyone ever built a factory in the Ukraine on Germany Turn 1? The problem with the Eastern front has always been logistics. Why not a factory right next to the caucus? Please let me know what you think. I know this takes a lot of much needed troops away, but is it worth it?

You get all kindsa weird strats, and a lot of German strats get cooked up.  You oughta join the Caspian Sub Yahoo group.  Building a factory in the Ukraine is what I think they refer to as the Donut shop.  Or the Hot Dog Stand.  Or something like that.

I am of the opinion that you never want to build an industrial complex with Germany, barring extremely unusual circumstances.  If you build an industrial complex, that’s 15 IPC that you didn’t spend on infantry or tanks, and you probably want an AA gun there, which takes time to move up.  You then have an additional point that you need to defend.

If the Allies are landing in Western Europe or containing Germany in some other fashion, then you need units in the west anyways, in which case you’ll want tanks at Eastern Europe to defend Eastern Europe and threaten any Allied landing in Western Europe.  15 IPC is three less tanks you can use.

If the Allies aren’t landing at Western Europe or messing with Germany (i.e. killing Japan), then you have to crack Caucasus before Japan feels the pain, probably using S. Europe’s fleet starting G3-4 to support.  Once you crack the Caucasus, you have a 4 unit production center on Moscow’s doorstep.  So why not build an industrial complex then?  Because even then, you have a S. Europe battleship and transport; 16 IPC buys two more S. Europe transports that can drop right into any number of territories (Ukraine, Caucasus, Anglo-Egypt, Trans-Jordan), giving the Germans far more flexibility, and two fodder transports can help against light Allied air attacks on the Med fleet.

So what happens if the Allies didn’t land at Western Europe or land troops at Norway/Karelia, and built a big fat load of fighters, which can blow up the Med fleet?  Well, then, just build a hell of a lot of tanks with Germany, and bust Moscow in the face; Moscow can put up a spirited defense, but with Japs in the East and Germans from the west, you start seeing Axis tanks traded for Allied fighters, which just isn’t a good deal for the Allies.

agreed if Germany wants control of the channel is the only circumstance i can think of them building an IC. but why they would do that is good question. or if they sneak into Brazil but that rarely happens. ( when i say rarely I mean almost never) even if you owned egypt for good you wouldn’t want it there. you could just use your med fleet and build one more trn if it is really necessary.